thescian | November 13, 2009I loathe tech support so I switched my parents to Ubuntu a while ago. But, you may not be so lucky. Your parents may not like Ubuntu. I can't imagine why they wouldn't, but, if they don't and they must absolutely have Windows, then use Windows SteadyState. It's free. [via this /. thread]
thescian | November 8, 2009Read an interesting interview with Roger Penrose at Discover Magazine. Found this part fascinating:So Schrödinger himself never believed that the cat analogy reflected the nature of reality?
Oh yes, I think he was pointing this out. I mean, look at three of the biggest figures in quantum mechanics, Schrödinger, Einstein, and Paul Dirac. They were all quantum skeptics in a sense. Dirac is the one whom people find most surprising, because he set up the whole foundation, the general framework of quantum mechanics. People think of him as this hard-liner, but he was very cautious in what he said…
thescian | November 6, 2009As I was stuffing my face today, I wondered if the Universe cared. The short answer is no. The slightly longer and more depressing answer is: my existence is more marginal than a speck of stray DNA on a grain of sand staring at vast oceans (that's literally true, oh the irony...). Clearly, there's no point to existence except amusement. So, here's some:
On average, each of us human beings from birth till death consume about (2000 per day x 365 days x 70 years) calories. That is a pretty big number (51,100,000 calories).Big, of course, is a relative term. The big calories translates to about…
thescian | November 2, 2009So, I am in India for a short trip and was in Coimbatore yesterday. A truck almost collided with the autorickshaw (three-person tincan with an engine strapped on) I was riding in, then a bus gently nudged me as I was walking on --what I thought was clearly marked--a pedestrian path.
Things fall apart: this is a generally known in scientific circles as the second law of thermodynamics. In India, even the laws are subject to this law. Everything --including rules and laws--slowly reduce to a state of lawless equilibrium. After a while, someone or something explodes, and then things start to…
thescian | October 29, 2009Read On Writing by Carver if you harbor ambitions, then print the good lines and stick it on your wall. I came by this piece via an article in Guardian by Stuart Evers.
I am going to skip what Stuart said and point you to what interested me most in Carver's essay.Ambition and a little luck are good things for a writer to have going for him. Too much ambition and bad luck, or no luck at all, can be killing. There has to be talent.
Without clear-headed self-appraisal and awareness of one's own level of skill and talent, we ain't going nowhere. Reminds me of a quote that's an old favorite of…
thescian | October 23, 2009This is and will be a burden on the World's conscience, the dark continent of our time. The images are devastating.
Xuanwei (宣å¨) in Yunnan province is a cancer village. Every year there are more than 20 people die of cancer. 11-year-old student Xu Li (å¾ä¸½) is suffering from bone cancer. May 8, 2007
"Pollution in China" - a documentary project of Lu Guang, a photographer from People's Republic of China.
thescian | October 15, 2009Something to read while having it. Why do people still drink it although there are no malarial mosquitoes where it is now had (such as, by me right now in Amersham)? Well, what can we say except that history is arbitrary and it has the advantage of being in the past and hence unquestionable.
thescian | October 12, 2009They are already here, they are amidst us, they zip through our heads affecting LHC funding, they come from future and cunningly prevent their production at LHC by affecting the present. Meet Bosons from the future.
So, this in short, is the paper by two physicists discussed in this NY Times article.Dr. Nielson said of the theory, "Well, one could even almost say that we have a model for God." It is their guess, he went on, "that He rather hates Higgs particles, and attempts to avoid them."
This malign influence from the future, they argue, could explain why the United States…
thescian | October 9, 2009Let's see if we can figure this out from first principles. Limiting ourselves to biological evolution, evolution needs a few things to work in practice:-
-a mechanism of inheritance. Genes in our case. Consider stones. Stones don't have genes. Stones don't evolve (biologically, that is. I know a pebble back in my village river that somehow manages to accumulate little pebbles around it that are more smooth. I think it's cheating.)
-one or more heritable characteristics. For instance, Lactose tolerance. Our ancestors couldn't stomach milk--until about 30,000 years ago. Lactose tolerance…
thescian | October 8, 2009Inspired and inspiring young man from Africa William Kamkwamba. Watched him on The Daily Show just now.
thescian | October 5, 2009Congrats to all the participants who took the critical first step by courageously sending your baby into the wild. The number of submissions this year is eleven which is not too many. I hope to provide good feedback to authors as I can spend more time with fewer stories.
The book preparation is coming along fine. An illustrator living in NY is doing the illustrations for the stories. The site logo has been re-designed and it'll go on the book cover as well. Here's a draft (there are a few other variants of this theme):
I'll share the illustrations when they are ready.
thescian | October 4, 2009There's a reading at Kings place tomorrow. See here for details. You'll have to buy tickets. If you read Neruda, I don't have to tell you it will be worth the money. I hear there will be a screening of a reading by Neruda himself.
thescian | October 2, 2009Loads of them reports the Beebs. Quite a remarkable find and it seems already some information has been gleaned of their past."The leader of the team, MU Ramkumar, told the BBC the finding is significant and could help to unravel the mystery about the extinction of dinosaurs.
The important finding is that these eggs have been found in different layers that means the dinosaurs came to the place over and over year after year," he said.
"The second important thing is that we have got volcanic ash deposits on the eggs which suggests that volcanic activity could have caused their extinction.
"The…
thescian | October 1, 2009Saw a post on the crazy-dangerous-pathetic-dude on Pharyngula. One comment(#8) stood out as an answer to the question "When you get rid of God, what do you fill the void with?" :Earth..:If you have a void that was filled with an imaginary friend, its still a void.
thescian | September 30, 2009Dropbox works very well. To keep notes and to keep them synchronized, I use Tomboy + Dropbox. LifeHacker has pointers on this.
thescian | September 28, 2009Alright. Now, you have no excuses. Send it in before I come and snatch it. Here is the link to go to, if you have not heard about the contest.
thescian | September 22, 2009Since I am not posting much on the blog, the wife suggests I leave a few links she supplies. So here they are:-
http://beta.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article22217.ece
Since Indian rural workers under National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme do not get their wages in time, they are powerless, starving and helpless.
http://beta.thehindu.com/sport/article23212.ece
Can Women concentrate on a career post childbirth? Of Course, yes.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/20/japan-relatives-professional-stand-ins
You can rent a friend, a spouse or a parent if you are in Japan
Just the act of…
thescian | September 13, 2009
via BBC. Norman Borlaug is the Father of Green Revolution whose research has saved many many millions from starvation. To me, he defines effective compassion like no other. It is a shame his work is not as well known among the general population as it should be. We would do well to be inspired by him. Read more about him at Wikipedia.
thescian | September 7, 2009Paul Krugman on How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? in today's NY Times.
India's Moon Mission is over, somewhat prematurely--on 28 August, after nearly 10 months in moon orbit, Chandrayan-I stopped talking and ISRO had to declare the mission over. Nevertheless, this is an immense achievement for ISRO and no one can suggest otherwise.