thescian | September 12, 2006What drives readers away from a blog? Joyless and monomaniacal writing says James Lileks who blogs at The Daily Bleat. Mark Savage of the BBC is meeting bloggers.James Lileks, a journalist from the American Mid West, has made an art of writing very funny and entertaining pieces on everyday subjects from bin bags to bagels.
His site is a brilliant example of what you can do on the internet, including his blog The Daily Bleat, a regular podcast from The Diner, home movies which you can download and a glorious collection of 1950s ephemera.
His advice is simple: "You can be joyless, you can be…
thescian | September 11, 2006Recently Anand posted at the Kitchen about our superstitious brain. There's more proof for that now. A recent study reported in the New Scientist has the scoop. Our perception of moral standing improves after a shower.Those who were given an opportunity to wash their hands after recalling incidents of immoral behaviour showed signs of a clearer conscious than those who had not washed.
"After we feel morally threatened, we have this deep psychological urge to cleanse ourselves," says Chen-Bo Zhong at the University of Toronto, Canada, who led the study.
During my student days in Vivekananda…
thescian | September 10, 2006Ramya and I went to the STOMP show yesterday in London Westend. The STOMP folks create rhythms out of everyday objects like brooms, sticks, sinks and such. I dig such performances where ordinary objects are transformed into artistic expressions. STOMP is in the same vein as the Blue Man Group (which is another great show to watch).
STOMP is a very high energy show with loads of ear splitting noise, gut spilling stomps, and palm numbing claps - all great fun, of course. I had my ears throbbing all night. I also had my neck permanently bent from yesterday after watching the whole show with…
thescian | September 8, 2006Like most people who don't own Bermuda shorts, I'm bored by ordinary travel. See the Beautiful Grand Canyon. OK, I see it. OK, it's beautiful. Now what? And I have no use for vacation paradises. Take the little true love along to kick back and work on the relationship. She gets her tits sun-burned. I wreck the rental car. We've got our teeth in each other's throat before you can say 'lost luggage'. Nor do attractions attract me. If I had a chance to visit another planet, I wouldn't want to go to Six Flags Over Mars or ride through the artificial ammonia like in a silicone-bottomed boat at…
thescian | September 6, 2006You would think it is easy to explain.Some evolutionary psychologists suggest that music originated as a way for males to impress and attract females. Others see its roots in the relationship between mother and child. In a third hypothesis, music was a social adhesive, helping to forge common identity in early human communities.
That's nice. Can the evlutionary psychologists prove it?``They're completely bogus explanations, because they assume what they set out to prove: that hearing plinking sounds brings the group together, or that music relieves tension," he [Steven Pinker] says. ``But…
thescian | September 5, 2006
The vortices created by the wings of an aircraft. Stunning! Even more stunning is this image. [via APOD] You can recreate a bit of this using a bag of flour and a table fan. (Don't tell you spouse/parent/child that I suggested it. And clean up after.)
thescian | September 4, 2006How would you feel after crashing a beautiful spacecraft on the moon? Excited and very happy, if it is in the name of science."We're very happy and very excited, the team is rejoicing," said SMART-1 project scientist Bernard Foing, speaking from the mission control centre in Darmstadt, Germany.
SMART-1 had been orbiting and studying the Moon since late 2005 and would have crashed onto the Moon anyway. So near the end of the mission controllers tweaked its orbit so it would crash on the nearside of the Moon where the impact would be visible to ground-based telescopes.
Early indications are…
thescian | September 4, 2006More here. It was a freak accident. He was a passionate man who did much to bring public focus onto wildlife issues. I enjoyed many of his shows greatly. Sad day.
thescian | September 3, 2006Read the science fiction novel Heavy Weather by Bruce Sterling over the weekend. The story follows the lives of a bunch of unreasonable people who hack the weather - where hacking means getting in the middle of storms and capturing a lot of scientific data. The year is 2031 and the world is a dismal place with earth warmed-up and chaos abound. The story has enough pace to keep you going but does not provide much adrenaline rush. The main characters are all over the story but they are not sticky. Much of their background seems to be an afterthought. The scientific ideas are neat and that's…
thescian | August 31, 2006The Science Fiction Contest was announced a few months ago to give an opportunity for those who want to make their mama proud. Time, you may not have realized, passes. We now have thirty more days before the contest closes its door to work out the winners. That's four more weeks. 2592000 seconds (thanks google) and counting down fast. What are you waiting for? Ideas? May I interest you in some tasty bits?
All the stories entered into the contest will be featured online at thescian.com/scifi for your reading pleasure after the winning announcements are made.
thescian | August 31, 2006Fun stuff. Search and download. See the announcement. A fable I liked from Aesop's Fables book below. We call this desensitization in the modern lingo.
thescian | August 31, 2006The Oscars of Indian Science have been awarded. Read about it at nanopolitan.
For those interested in looking this up in wikipedia, the pages on Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award lacks details and could use some updates. The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar page is yet to be created.
thescian | August 30, 2006
Very cool page at the AAAS Kids section.You can also upload a picture and create an instant genius out of your favorite person.
thescian | August 30, 2006Heard on the BBC today morning, spoken by someone high up at the AAAS (President?) . I am paraphrasing. "The global energy systems investments (oil rigs, coal mines, distribution, refineries, etc) are about 12 trillion dollars and it takes about 30 to 40 years to change their character (from coal and oil to, say, renewables)." I couldn't get a confirmation on the numbers I heard but the numbers are quite startling nevertheless. Even more surprising is that the change could happen within our generation - has to happen within our generation.
I was rummaging at the BBC and landed at The Green…
thescian | August 29, 2006On the occasion of Pluto being booted out of its planetary status, guess who is using it as a promotional event? Astrologers in India, thats who. "Indian astrology is mathematically concerned with the nine planets, two of which are Raghu and Ketu that are nothing but derivatives from the diameter of earth, which is a circle having a value pi (22/7) imbedded in the equator of earth," he said.
The 'he' is Mangal Prasad, an astrologer. If you decipher his statement, enlighten me please.
Raghu and Ketu are the much celebrated shadow planets used by Indians all over the world to slack off a few…
thescian | August 29, 2006The next target group for penis enlargement ads has been identified. It's the polar bears whose member has been retreating because of all the harmful chemicals they ingest. Suspend your disbelief and go read Maggie Wittlin's recent posting of I Can't Believe It's Science at Seed Magazine.
thescian | August 29, 2006A comprehensive article at The New Yorker on Perelman, Poincaré conjecture and the politics of math. Perelman, as you might have read, refused the Fields medal - the nobel prize like award for math. From the article,Mikhail Gromov, the Russian geometer, said that he understood Perelman's logic: "To do great work, you have to have a pure mind. You can think only about the mathematics. Everything else is human weakness. Accepting prizes is showing weakness." Others might view Perelman's refusal to accept a Fields as arrogant, Gromov said, but his principles are admirable. "The ideal scientist…
thescian | August 28, 2006Chris Mooney, author and science blogger who blogs here at The Intersection, has his landmark book Republican War on Science out on paperback. The accompanying War on Science website has much for your scientific eyes that is rebelling against the administration's war on science. Chris has generously offered a complimentary copy to fellow bloggers at scienceblogs and would even ship one to this humble blogger overseas. May the science be with him.