Simplicity

The Muslim Question: Stories of False Terror

2013-10-10T07:00:00.001+05:30

It is no one's position that those who plant bombs should go unpunished. Those, like us, who were raising flags had only two simple arguments to make. One, take the long route, catch the real culprits, remain constitutional: that is the only way to real security. Two: do not make false arrests and breed fresh despair, triggering new cycles of hate and revenge. In the clever calculations men make about security and State, they underestimate the power of human despair. When you lose faith that a system will play fair by you, it can breed fatal recklessness. It can make you abdicate from the rules that cement human relations. Despair can turn you from citizen to perpetrator. From the hunted to the hunter. Despair can be a deadly weapon.
– Shoma Chaudhury in Tehelka.

Couple of years back when a pastor in America wanted to burn copies of the Quran, Obama had made a statement that it will only serve as a 'recruitment tool' for terrorists. While there have been a couple of incidents in India which have served as 'recruitment tools', these false arrests are also adding to the count.

What Love Looks Like

2013-10-10T07:00:00.000+05:30

Six micro-movies on the physics of love. Nice

Why do mosquitoes bite some people more than others?

2013-10-09T07:00:00.000+05:30

An estimated 20 percent of people, it turns out, are especially delicious for mosquitoes, and get bit more often on a consistent basis. And while scientists don't yet have a cure for the ailment, they do have a number of ideas regarding why some of us are more prone to bites than others.

Only the lonely

2013-06-28T07:00:00.000+05:30

...perhaps I am writing this for any of you out there who are lonely too. There's not much we can do about it. I am luckier than many of you because I am lonely in a crowd of people who are mostly very nice to me and appear to be pleased to meet me. But I want you to know that you are not alone in your being alone.

Stephan Fry on his suicide attempt and being lonely.

No Parkinson's with the flip of a switch

2013-06-26T07:00:00.000+05:30

Andrew Johnson was diagnosed with Early Onset Parkinson's Disease and underwent Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) surgery. This surgery involves the implantation of a brain pacemaker which sends electrical impulses to specific parts of the brain to help control his motor symptoms. In this video, he turns the pacemaker off to show the impact DBS has had on his life.
Quite incredible. Via

How long can you wait to have a baby?

2013-06-24T07:00:00.000+05:30

...millions of women are being told when to get pregnant based on statistics from a time before electricity, antibiotics, or fertility treatment. Most people assume these numbers are based on large, well-conducted studies of modern women, but they are not.

Why most of what you know about women's fertility rates is wrong.

The gut-wrenching science behind the world’s hottest peppers

2013-06-23T07:00:00.000+05:30

His "legs buckle as he tries to keep walking. He goes down onto one knee and collapses sideways onto the floor. He rolls onto his back, arms splayed and palms up. He's making sounds that are hard to transcribe."
Author Mary Roach at a chili-eating competition in Nagaland.

Movie Trailer - Jobs

2013-06-22T07:00:00.001+05:30

Based on the career of Steve Jobs and starring Ashton Kutcher.

An illustrated guide to force-feeding

2013-06-22T07:00:00.000+05:30

At Guantanamo Bay, 44 hunger strikers are kept alive with an incredibly painful, ethically questionable, and politically sensitive procedure. Here, in excruciating detail, is how it works.

Inside the United States

2013-06-17T07:00:00.000+05:30

Inside the United States: an ongoing series that examines the language journalists use to cover foreign countries. What if journalists wrote that way about the United States?

At all national airports, passengers are now forced to undergo full-body scans before boarding any flights. Small cameras are perched on many street corners, recording the movements and actions of the public. And incessant warnings on public transportation systems encourage citizens to report any "suspicious activity" to authorities.
Several American villagers interviewed for this story said the ubiquitous government marketing campaign called, "If you see something, say something," does little to make them feel safer and, in fact, only contributes to a growing mistrust among the general population.
"I've deleted my Facebook account, stopped using email, or visiting websites that might be considered anti-regime," a resident of the northern city of Boston, a tough-as-nails town synonymous with rebellion, told GlobalPost. It was in Boston that an American militia first rose up against the British empire. “But my phone? How can I stop using my phone? This has gone too far."

We need to put our cameras away

2013-06-16T07:00:00.000+05:30

Our society is moving towards what I call a tourist-centric mindset, where we are always photographing, capturing and recording our lives, to the detriment of living in the moment.

Richie Siegel on Seersucker echos my lament.

Rotimatic (with video)

2013-06-08T07:00:00.000+05:30

Rotimatic is getting quite a bit of attention. And rightly so, as it is calling itself the 'world's first fully automatic roti making appliance'. Put in flour and water and get rotis!
It'll sell by the millions if they can get it made.

How pink and blue became gender-specific

2013-06-07T07:00:00.001+05:30

Pink. Baby pink. That's what I say when asked about my favourite colour. Mostly to see the surprised look it elicits. (Being a web designer, I can't really be biased to a particular colour.) It's amazing though, how conditioned we have become to the 'pink-is-for-girls' and 'blue-is-for-boys' designation.
But Jo B. Paoletti, historian and author of Pink and Blue: Telling the Girls From the Boys, has found that pink and blue designations are an extremely recent phenomena. In fact, up until the 40's, pink was considered more suitable for boys and blue for girls.

John Merritt can carve almost anything out of a single piece of wood

2013-06-07T07:00:00.000+05:30

Incredible skills. (via)

Amanda Palmer on the connect-the-dots of creativity and the terrifying joy of sharing your art online

2013-06-03T15:47:00.000+05:30

Amanda Palmer considers why creativity is the product of connecting dots and addresses the quintessential question of how to put yourself and your work out there, in the Wild West of the internet, fully knowing how messy it can get and yet how wonderful, how open to cold criticism it can leave you and yet how capable of warming others.

A first aid kit for a broken heart

2013-06-01T16:53:00.001+05:30

Love Hurts: A Kit to Survive any Heartbreak by Melanie Chernock, made me look. Included are: dark chocolate, vodka, a candle with matches, bubble bath, candy hearts with choice words, a mix CD, and if all else fails, a pack of tissues. More here

Some of my best friends are germs

2013-05-27T22:40:00.000+05:30

Author Michael Pollan in the New York Times talks about the 100 trillion microbes that live within us. And how medicine, which has until now, been obsessed with eradicating them, is beginning to understand their importance. These microbes might have a role to play in general immunity, cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes and even cancer and can possibly lead to treatments.
He adds a word of caution though -

...many microbiome researchers are careful not to make the mistake that scientists working on the human genome did a decade or so ago, when they promised they were on the trail of cures to many diseases. We're still waiting.

The article makes the case for nurturing and protecting these microbes by 'dirtying up our diet', going easy on our sanitary regimes, playing in the dirt and with animals and eating fermented foods.
I myself have been trying to incorporate probiotics in my diet but not a lot of scientists seem to put their faith in them.

The audacious plan to end hunger with 3-D printed food

2013-05-23T07:00:00.000+05:30

I keep saying that 3-D printing will be the THE technology of the future.
Quartz.com reports that NASA has awarded a $125,000 grant to Anjan Contractor, head of Systems & Materials Research Corporation, to develop a 3-D food printer. NASA is interested in the project because one use of 3-D food printing could be to feed astronauts on lengthy space missions or colonisers on Mars. But as Earth's population grows and feeding it with current agricultural practices and produce becomes increasingly difficult, the technology could be the key to feeding future generations.
Contractor sees a day when every kitchen has a 3-D printer, and the Earth's 12 billion people feed themselves customized, nutritionally appropriate meals synthesized one layer at a time, from cartridges of powder and oils they buy at the corner grocery store. But the first device he plans to build will be designed to print a pizza!

How Varun Gandhi silenced the system

2013-05-20T07:00:00.001+05:30

How Varun Gandhi silenced the system: This is a story about a terrible travesty. Varun Gandhi, 33, has recently been in the news for two reasons. First, he has been exonerated of all charges in the hate speeches he allegedly made in the run-up to the 2009 Lok Sabha election. Second, he has been made the national general secretary of the BJP, the youngest politician ever to be elevated to this post.

Now, an explosive Tehelka sting investigation shows he is not entitled to either. Tehelka's investigation proves that not only did Varun make the venomous speeches he is accused of, he has compounded the original wrong by brazenly subverting the entire judicial process to get his name cleared. He has also indulged in anti-party activities, deliberately making his own party candidate lose an Assembly election in Uttar Pradesh in 2012 so that a Samajwadi Party (SP) leader sympathetic to him could win and help him fix the cases against him.

This is as brazen as it gets. Shows the deep rot in our system and institutions.

Government can now snoop on your SMSs, online chats

2013-05-20T07:00:00.000+05:30

From a Times of India report.

The government last month quietly began rolling out a project that gives it access to everything that happens over India's telecommunications network-online activities, phone calls, text messages and even social media conversations. Called the Central Monitoring System, it will be the single window from where government arms such as the National Investigation Agency or the tax authorities will be able to monitor every byte of communication.

More details on, NextBigWhat - Indian government's paranoia & the scary Central cyber monitoring system and The Center For Internet and Society - India's 'Big Brother': The Central Monitoring System (CMS)
How come this isn't big news?

A Final Embrace

2013-05-19T18:41:00.000+05:30

The most haunting photograph from the collapse of a garment factory on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Via.

Archive of Indian Music

2013-05-19T18:35:00.002+05:30

A repository of gramophone recordings of India.
Good work.

Roti Reminder

2013-05-19T18:30:00.002+05:30

Hindustan Unilever along with creative agency Ogilvy, partnered with more than 100 dhabas and hotels at the Kumbh Mela site to serve rotis that were stamped with "Lifebuoy se haath dhoye kya?" (Have you washed your hand with Lifebuoy?), as part of their 'Roti Reminder' campaign.
More in this video.

Toy Stories

2013-03-16T15:30:00.001+05:30

Gabriele Galimberti's pictures of kids around the world with their favourite toys.
(Via Kottke)

How the world has changed

2013-03-16T15:24:00.001+05:30

St. Peter's Square in 2005 and 2013 As I keep saying, our generation is more interested in documenting moments rather than living them.