Behind Curtains
thescian | January 28, 2011This is the last blip before Scienceblogs.com/thescian fades into the background. I am no more a blogger. The past few years has been a memorable journey and your company was wonderful. A big thank you to you, the readers, and to Scienceblogs who made this a great experience for me.
Please visit TheScian.com to relive those old times. I am publishing, as text and audio, the best posts of this blog since 2006 along with reader comments. The articles and audio will go online every friday starting today. You can subscribe to it via iTunes and other apps.
I am in the process of revamping…
thescian | June 18, 2010Bhopal.
The recent court verdict is a horrid reflection on the fundamental indecency of humanity. 7000 dead and 25 years later a verdict that is all but a fucking whitewash, thanks to Union Carbide, a US company. American tragedies sink the hearts of everyone everywhere. Their president knows which ass to kick (btw, half of BP directors are american so half the ass to be kicked is made of sons of the soil). That's good. Meanwhile let us not forget the people of Bhopal who are still waiting for justice.
thescian | June 1, 2010Watched the match between Soderling and Federer. Soderling is a brute, and he played a brilliant game. Distastefully aggressive play that never let Federer in the game.
A quick tech note that may be of some interest to geeks. I am at a place where there is no TV and no broadband internet. I carry a vodaphone mobile internet dongle to use in such places. Unfortunately, the dongle does not have linux support (I run Ubuntu on my laptop). Still, it is possible to read the dongle in Ubuntu and work out the username, password and other details to make use of the dongle (it's just a mobile phone…
thescian | May 17, 2010I feel obliged to inform you of the reason for the paucity of posts on this blog. I have been busy for the past six months on a startup (software) which has swallowed all my spare time like a blackhole eating light. The gravitational well I have fallen seems to be too deep to send any signals except the occasional random tunnelling like this post. I expect another half a year to go before I can get any down time. But, being a incurable optimist, I hope to manage the juggling in the coming weeks.
Some book news. Work on TheScian SF book is due to finish this week for US and European…
thescian | May 17, 2010When we are young, we have it easy. Unfounded confidence and untested convictions informed much of my muddling through as I tried growing up. Whether I have grown up or have just aged is open to interpretation. In any case, I am not young anymore. As I near middle-age, inevitably, I keep looking out for the middle-ground--especially social and political middle-ground (typical of a liberal and a moderate, you say). Where does it lie, the middle-ground? Where is that space that exists between Light and Dark, Charity and Humanity, Left and Right, Rational and Emotional?
thescian | May 15, 2010The name Facebook comes from college yearbooks where photos of classmates are stuck and things are scribbled on. The scribblings are some(many?)times deeply regretted later in life. As most of you who read this may already know, Zuckerberg who started Facebook is young and reckless (not unusual in itself, but his success with Facebook is). His stand on privacy is that of someone who is out of his depth and not that of someone who is a revolutionary. You can read an interesting and critical analysis here. I quote:Zuckerberg and gang may think that they know what's best for society, for…
thescian | March 25, 2010As you may know, we are publishing a Science fiction anthology with the stories from the yearly SF contest. In latest news on that, Proof copy has arrived from both CreateSpace and Lulu. I like the CreateSpace copy better because the dimensions look right. Lulu has done good job as well.
thescian | March 4, 20104 March 2010: BBC News. At least 60 people have died in a stampede after the gate of a Hindu temple collapsed in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
Previous Stampedes
14 Jan 2010. Seven die in India temple festival stampede
Sep 30, 2008. Atleast 100 dead at Chamunda Devi temple in the city of Jodhpur.
August 3. 140 dead. 40 children. Stampede at the Nainadevi temple, Himachal Pradesh.
July. 6 dead. Stampede at Jagannath temple, Orissa.
March. 10 dead. Stampede at temple, Madhya Pradesh.
January. 5 dead. Stampede at Durga Malleswara temple, Andra Pradesh.
thescian | March 2, 2010An important ruling on data retention by German Federal court that sets the politicians and beaurocrats straight.Germany's highest court on Tuesday overturned a law allowing authorities to retain data on telephone calls and e-mail traffic to help fight terrorism and crime. The Federal Constitution Court ruled that major changes needed to be made to a 2008 law ordering data on calls made from mobile or fixed-line telephones and e-mail traffic to be kept for six months for possible access by law enforcement agencies.
The judges said the data storage was not secure enough and that it was not…
thescian | December 18, 2009See here for more.
In other news: I've gone quiet over the past weeks due to complete absorption in a few personal projects (TheScian SF Book is one of them). Regular blogging should resume next year.
Seeing Avatar movie tomorrow (3D). There would probably be a weekend post if the movie is very good (or very bad).
Happy holidays! The weather is cheery today here in England. Here's the view outside my window.
thescian | November 14, 2009Folks, the SF contest results will be delayed by a week. Unforeseen travel has intervened. I'll get the results out next Sunday, 22 Nov.
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 | 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 | July 27, 2009Even with all it's shortcomings, democracy matters because there is hope of representation for everyone, however poor one is. Unlike this disgusting corruption reported at NY Times that ruins poor young lives in China with no way for them to get back their future.
thescian | January 25, 2009I'll be back in the UK tomorrow. There is quite a lot of material that I have accumulated in the many weeks here: interviews with scientists, social entrepreneurs, ideas for articles, stories and more. I'll start publishing them in the coming weeks and months.
I've had discussions with a few publishers for TheScian Stories book so far. A few days back I had the opportunity to listen to Bob Young, founder of Lulu.com and co-founder of Redhat (at this event). Bob is a delightful speaker. Opensource Software is like Heinz Ketchup. It's not about the ingredients, it is about Brand and Service.…
thescian | November 4, 2008
Wife and I looked at this slideshow a few minutes ago and tears started rolling down our eyes. Through the hopeful and tearful eyes of these men and women, we glimpsed history. Our own spontaneous tears seems to be how our lives - a couple from India - has been deeply touched by the people of United States, by this extraordinary political groundswell.
thescian | October 29, 2008I'll holler when it's up. (The site message is courtesy of Shakespeare, Henry the Eighth.)
Update: It's up!
thescian | October 16, 2008Instead, we'll have a regularly updated set of 'Today's Recommendations' (on the left, heading may change) that'll display the intertube bits I have read or heard that I'd love to share. This includes blog posts (not blogs themselves, which I have lately realized is meaningless if I did't tell you what I read in them), news, music .. anything that Google Reader can parse and show me. The direct google reader link where you can find all the bits I consume is here.
Blogging has been slow lately. I have been spending all my spare time reading the scifi contest stories. We'll resume regular…