Creative commons
thescian | June 17, 2007Abi quotes from Indian Express It's official: a vast majority of our colleges are mediocre.
Lakshmi at nonoscience talks about the problems underlying Science Writing
My brother-in-law sends a link to Great Global Warming Swindle. I am yet to watch it. If you have watched it, chime in please.
Bengali translation of The God Delusion, first chapter by Mukto-mona, a humanists organization. Wonderful.
thescian | June 7, 2007Would you please stop looking at me so accusingly! I fess up. I've been wasting time with Paris Hilton diary and the rotten olympics logo. But please, I implore, Lords of the Intertubes, have mercy on my bleeding eyes...
thescian | June 5, 2007
The official one is a piece of turd. Here's my nomination, a nifty logo by a Mr Richard Bamsey hosted at the Beebs. [the 4th]
Naturally, the creators of the official logo are defending the eye sore below.
thescian | May 29, 2007A name is a mark of existence: past, present or future, real or imagined. People, places, things, non-things, every conceivable entity in this universe has a name. You may even say something is conceivable because it has a name. No wonder then that we try various things with such an important aspect of our lives.
We name a child - atleast in India - to somehow cause nominative determinism (Nominative determinism is where your name apparently determines what you become in your life). My own name, for instance, is Selvakumar. I was given this name by my parents in the hope that I would have…
thescian | May 25, 2007I am having lunch with a couple of Italian colleagues in Milan. They speak of politics and religion - mostly in Italian. I look from face to face gathering clues about the subject matter, all the while killing pasta with a fork. The pasta tastes like shoes. I cover it up with large quantities of tomato sauce.
"Berlusconi .. Italy ...screwed..", a long pause, then laughter. I join in with the sauce sloshing in my mouth, carefully tilting my head upwards so as not to spray sauce on the gentlewoman in front who looks at my mouth nervously.
A few moments pass and I hear "...hindus ... pacifists…
thescian | May 21, 2007The past two days I've been dipping into Other People's Trades, a collection of essays by Primo Levi. Translated by Raymond Rosenthal and published in 1989, Anita Brookner called it 'The noblest book of the year'. Sadly, amazon informs us that the book is out of print and you'll have to look for a used copy. I came across mine at a local used book shop. Primo Levi was born in Italy, was deported to Auschwitz, after his release, he was a chemist, a writer, and a man who knew Life intimately. He sought his end in the house that he lived in all his life.
The essays let us glimpse into the mind…
thescian | May 12, 2007 I visited the medieval monstrosity a few days back. Some pictures here. D H Lawrence called it "an imitation hedgehog of a cathedral". Mark Twain went all wobbly on knees, "What a wonder it is! So grand, so solemn, so vast! And yet so delicate, so airy, so graceful!"
Whatever the Duomo is or is not, it is surely monstrous and as captivating as a giant porcupine with sculpted spines. I went up the lift on a clear wednesday. From the top I could see the Italian Alps far away.
What strikes you the most is a sudden awareness of the inhuman effort that the Duomo represents. It is 157 metres…
thescian | May 11, 2007Shit or get off the potty. In Shakespeare's words, "sink or swim". Henry IV.
Kiss my arse. Comes from Goethe's play Götz von Berlichingen. The original words: "Er kann mich im Arsche lecken". He can lick my arse.
English accents. Listen in.
thescian | May 7, 2007I was reading New Scientist and flipped through to the Last Word column to find this question: How long would it take an average cow to fill the Grand Canyon with milk?
Bob from New York city answers thus: It all depends upon the size of the tanker truck the cow chooses to drive, the time it would take to drive from the milk distribution point, the inflow and outflow of the tanker truck, the ability to change the absorption and evaporation rates of the milk, and the ability of said cow to effectively block the exit route of the Colorado river.
Other considerations, of course, would be does…
thescian | May 3, 2007A two year old kid runs about, trips and crashes to the floor. She is in pain and starts crying. The adults console her saying, "Uh..oh, now, now, don't cry.. you hurt yourself.. come on..". As an adult, when you hurt yourself, the unwritten rule is: you should not compain. (In other words, you were an ass and you deserved it. So shut up.) As adults we unconsciously assume kids too know this rule when we say "you hurt yourself". Please give up this self-serving phrase. It ain't working.
I am home. The two year old niece fell down and is crying. Her grandmother's "You hurt yourself" is adding…
thescian | April 24, 2007
A contest [via]. I like the interface that streams the photos depending on your mouse movements. A browser barely manages to contain such interfaces. We need VR, 3D interfaces, holographic projections, cranial data accessories...
thescian | April 24, 2007Jonathan Gottschall writes in The Age:
At exactly the same time I was reading The Naked Ape I was re-reading Homer's Iliad for a graduate seminar on the great epics. As always, Homer made my bones flex and ache with the terror and beauty of the human condition. But this time around I also experienced the Iliad as a drama of naked apes - strutting, preening, fighting and bellowing their power in fierce competition for social dominance, beautiful women and material resources. Darwin's powerful lens brought sudden coherence to my experience of the story, inspiring me to abandon my half-drafted…
thescian | April 21, 2007I was reading The Telegraph Magazine today [paper copy]. Salmon Rushdie introduces Taryn Simon's An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamilar - a collection of portraits that capture the hidden reality: bushmeat, fruits and other items confiscated by US Customs; playboy Braille Edition; Transatlantic sub-marine cables reaching ashore and much more. Enthralling images, slingshots capable of sending us in a tangent, magical carpets of color which could transport us into a richer reality.
The image shown is from a NY Times article published last year. It's the nuclear waste storage facility…
thescian | April 19, 2007They are on the left column and come out of Picasa servers. Yet another part of my life inexorably eaten by the Google Monster.
For those who are wondering where were the photos in the first place: it was in Flickr. I used to login with my gmail login name into Flickr. Not anymore. Yahoo guys messed it all up. Sod it. Spend a few minutes uploading the photos and hey, we've got a new home.
thescian | April 19, 2007A english language style quiz. Give it a go. I failed miserably. I should've RTFM. [via a reddit story]
Before the style guide, Orwell's essay on english writing would be a good refresher.
Since you've come this far, you might as well let Strunk give you a good beating.
thescian | April 18, 2007Found via RichardDawkins.net. A commenter there had linked to the video below.
thescian | April 17, 2007I Am John by Emil Svanängen.
What did the pope say? Ask gawker.
Darfur.
Keeping cool and waiting for strange things to leap out of a seething sea.
The real deal. A Romantic or more appropriately Anarcho-Environmentalist in India. A review of his Manifesto. I read some chapters. The prose is not eloquent but the points are.
thescian | April 15, 2007One of the most emailed stories in the Beebs today is about a man in Sudan who has started a family with a goat, involuntarily, it seems. If the Swan (undercover Zeus, one of the numerous horny greek gods) can, the Sudan man can too. Is there an equivalent Indian mythology? I am not aware of any, yet. Surely, there must be.