No rest for tall people
Yesterday, I travelled first class in the Shatabdi Express, from Chennai to Bengaluru. I'd been looking forward to the journey because of the extra legspace in the offing, and the ability to sit i…
Uncategorized
767 posts
oglaf!
xkcd does the best nerdy comic but oglaf is the comic I never knew I needed – and it's probably the best ever. It's wry humour + sex, often featuring erotic fungi and The Blind Gibberer, and e…
Liberation from the clock
Laura Vanderkam writes in Fast Company about a three-minute habit that changed her life: keeping track of how she spends her time during her waking hours, with a spreadsheet. Much of her piece is dire…
The sadness of Johnny Depp
Rolling Stones has published a fabulous profile of Johnny Depp, written by Stephen Rodrick. It's about 15 minutes' worth of reading long and I highly recommend you read it right now. The profi…
Apologies
I'm sorry, my dear followers, to have to disappoint you (or, quite possibly, induce a sigh of relief) but today's blog post will have to be just these lines. My laptop died yesterday, I got a…
Building with mobile devices
My laptop, a 2015 MacBook Pro that survived being drowned during the Chennai floods that year, went into the ICU today. A service person said the RAM was fried, along with some other adjacent componen…
Remembering S. Pancharatnam
Scientists have combined one atom of sodium (Na) and one of caesium (Cs) to form one molecule of NaCs, achieving the most precisely controlled chemical reaction in history. They were able to achieve t…
Sewer gas
Today's post is just a very interesting tidbit I found when conducting research for a piece for #GRIT – about how, in the 19th century, the White House had a sewer gas problem so severe that Chest…
Yo-yo fitness
Nagraj Gollapudi on the yo-yo fitness test, ESPN Cricinfo: A player starts at speed level 5, which consists of one shuttle. The next speed level, which is 9, also consists of one shuttle. Speed level…
Religious tolerance among children
Here's another instance of an unsound university press release exaggerating the conclusions of a study. The headline goes "Children in India demonstrate religious tolerance, study finds"…
The cost of global warming, from thermo 101
There's a formula in thermodynamics 101 called Carnot's theorem that goes like this: This is a famous equation because it defines the absolute upper limit of efficiency achievable by a heat e…
Migraines
I've had migraines since 2006, when I started college. The pain is excruciating, disabling, ruinous, usually on both sides of my head. I can sense a migraine coming 12-24 hours beforehand, in the…