thescian | February 1, 2008The Bet: In a Google search of five keywords or phrases representing the top five news stories of 2007, weblogs will rank higher than the New York Times' Web site.
The Result:Blogs win.
Dave Winer is right. Informed people will look to amateurs they trust for the information they want.
thescian | February 1, 2008A hilarious podcast by John Oliver (of Daily Show) and Andy Zaltzman at Times Online.
thescian | January 31, 2008Sunil reminds us of the pleasures of haircuts.
When I first shaved my head hair off (2001 or thereabouts, when my hair retreated rapidly from the forehead and met the nape), I had recurring dreams in which I would get astonishingly hep haircuts by world's best hair artists. Slowly my brain descended into hairless reality and regained its composure. I also stopped looking ravenous at heads full of hair (photos of Sathya Sai Baba, a godman and miracle worker with an enviable afro, really messed me up, his miracles had only ill effects on my atheist head). These days, my brain has given up and…
thescian | January 30, 2008You an atheist? Well, we at MySpace are all retards and don't want around us no smarties who use their own brain to think for themselves. Tuck-in your atheist tail and tow the line or MySpace Monster will eat your balls (follow the link to read points 7 and 8, that's how we feast on you, and make YOU enjoy the experience). If you protest we will make you friendless and throw you out into the big bad world where you may go on to become smarter and feel sorry for having balls. [via richarddawkins.net]
thescian | January 30, 2008Dilip D'Souza at Washington Post. [via sqattercity]
Because housing is so expensive, about two-thirds of Mumbai's population live in slums or on the streets. This has been true for decades and remains true in ready-for-boom-time India. Indian politicians have concocted countless schemes over the years to "redevelop" slums, which they consider eyesores. For a variety of reasons, they've never managed to deliver on their promises. But one idea that took off decades ago still fuels the construction boom in Dharavi and throughout the dizzying, maddening city of Mumbai.
The concept, called "cross-…
thescian | January 29, 2008A poignant, sensitive performance by Antony Sher as Primo Levi. On BBC 4. You can watch it in iPlayer if you live in the UK.
thescian | January 26, 2008The bane of immigrants. Reader's comments at Spiegel following an opinion piece that was critical of germans. Quite rightly, a lot of readers point out that Germany is not special in its Xenophobia. Every country is so to varying degrees. Integration, as always, is hardsell, especially when we are biologically wired to be suspicious of strangers. The color of a single organ - the skin - is enough to prejudice us. Add accent, attire and cultural differences to it, and we will readily puke at someone for them being different. We humans are a fickle fucking bunch. Europe may have had its moment…
thescian | January 25, 2008Nicholas Carr has an insightful post that points to a fascinating study of online user behavior while they are looking for information and researching some subject, done by British Library (the research study, 35 pages PDF, well organized and well worth your time).
...In one sense, the process of information retrieval seems to have become more important than the information retrieved. We store lots of information, but like distracted squirrels we rarely go back to examine it in depth. We want more acorns.
The authors note that this kind of behavior is not restricted to the young. It…
thescian | January 24, 2008Clive Thompson in a WIRED essay:
... If you want to read books that tackle profound philosophical questions, then the best -- and perhaps only -- place to turn these days is sci-fi. Science fiction is the last great literature of ideas.
From where I sit, traditional "literary fiction" has dropped the ball. I studied literature in college, and throughout my twenties I voraciously read contemporary fiction. Then, eight or nine years ago, I found myself getting -- well -- bored.
Why? I think it's because I was reading novel after novel about the real world. And there are, at the risk of sounding…
thescian | January 24, 2008One of the greatest living science fiction authors. His Childhood's end and The City and the Stars were a great influence on me many years ago.
thescian | January 24, 2008I often show pictures of animals, birds and insects to my three year old niece. Today's picture: Japanese tree frog. One of it has been to Mir Space station.
thescian | January 23, 2008
One of the many ills of poverty is that it denies men and women of their aspirations and their basic right to be heard and to be acknowledged. Lakshmi and Me is a film on the unacknowledged divide between haves and have-nots, between a young domestic worker and her employer - something that all Indians would have experienced on this side of it or the other. A review by Kalpana Sharma (author of Rediscovering Dharavi, a book on my reading list):
...important aspect of domestic work that the film brings out is the crisis that befalls these women when they fall ill. Most of them continue to…
thescian | January 23, 2008I have been reading Emily Dickinson from Everyman's Poetry series. Apart from a few poems published during her initial years (the poems were mangled badly by her editors because they went ballistic on seeing her punctuation, limited men as they were), she never published her poetry. In the poem below she speaks of it. (She never titled her poems, the numbers are the reference if you want to locate it in some other book)
Fascicle 17
709
Publication -- is the Auction
Of the Mind of Man --
Poverty -- be justifying
For so foul a thing
Possibly -- but We -- would rather
From Our Garret go
White…
thescian | January 22, 2008JoVE: Journal of Visualized Experiments, an online video-publication for biological research.
schlolarZ.blog, a new blog by a group of young scientists at the University of Wuerzburg, Germany.
thescian | January 22, 2008I was at the hospital the other day for our daughter's vaccination. On a TV mounted on the wall, a lady in white lab coat was explaining how massaging the baby increases skin tone (it doesn't). Being a new parent, I was paying careful attention to gather useful information and there seemed to be some of it forthcoming from the TV.
Immediately after lady peddling the baby oil went away, this appeared on the screen: Did you know that Sharks do not get any disease because they have a perfect immune system? What? I was taken aback by this enthusiastic display of stupidity for wider public…
thescian | January 22, 2008Good laugh to be had at this New Yorker video where Steve Brodner sketches the tempestuous relationship between Hillary and Obama. Hilarious.
thescian | January 18, 2008The Green Children is a young band of musicians inspired by Prof Muhammad Yunus. Support them, support children and families in need.
What's Microcredit.