Monthly Archives: June 2015
Playing villains, he made a giant of himself
The Wire June 15, 2015 When the first installment of The Lord of the Rings trilogy was released in 2001, it introduced a whole new generation to the ageless charms of Christopher Lee. Far removed from the often campy Dracula that an … Continue reading
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Tagged Christopher Lee, fantasy films, Francisco Scaramanga, Hammer Horror, Jinnah, Saruman, The Lord of the Rings
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Israeli firm strong-arms Indian techie for exposing suspicious code
The Wire June 9, 2015 In an intriguing case of abuse, a Bengaluru-based programmer was on Monday threatened with a criminal lawsuit for attempting to expose an avaricious program that violated net neutrality. On June 3, Thejesh GN, an activist … Continue reading
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Tagged Airtel, Airtel Zero, cease and desist, Copyright Act, DMCA, JavaScript injection, net neutrality, Vodafone
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Curious Bends – Pichai’s Google, oceanic river, mostly harmless MSG and more
1. Inside the mind of the man behind Google’s most important products “So when Pichai talks about the next billion people about to come online with smartphones, I get the impression that, for him, Google’s monetization strategy really is secondary to … Continue reading
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Tagged drug repurposing, East Indian Coastal Current, invasive fish, monosodium glutamate, social cohesion, Sundar Pichai, US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases
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How we’ve let ourselves become anxious about MSG
The Wire June 7, 2015 In 1968, the New England Journal of Medicine published a letter from Robert Ho Man Kwok, a doctor in Maryland. Kwok wrote that he experienced symptoms like an allergic reaction every time he ate at … Continue reading
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Tagged food packaging, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, glutamic acid, John Olney, Maggi Noodles, monosodium glutamate, Nestle, US FDA
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IMD revises monsoon forecast down by 5% but let’s not say ‘drought’ yet
The Wire June 4, 2015 From behind the thick curtains of the Indian Meteorological Department’s offices, it was announced on June 2 that the monsoon forecast for 2015 was being revised from 93% to 88% of the long-period average (LPA), … Continue reading
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Tagged agriculture, El Nino southern oscillation, groundwater resources, Indian Meteorological Department, southwest monsoon
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Curious Bends – the misery index, twin births, ethnic inequality and more
1. India’s heat wave has been made worse by its humidity “But at least these places had a “dry heat,” and overnight temperatures have been falling into the 80s. Along the coast, temperatures were slightly lower, but much higher humidity … Continue reading
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Tagged ethnic divides, heat index, heat wave, Madeira dengue fever outbreak, Millennium Development Goals, plant load factor, Poverty, twin births, world hunger
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A call for a new human right, the right to encryption
The Wire June 2, 2015 DUAL_EC_DRBG is the name of a program that played an important role in the National Security Agency’s infiltration of communication protocols, which was revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The program, at the time, drew the … Continue reading
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Tagged anonymity, backdoors, cryptographic encryption, Edward Snowden, Freedom Act, Patriot Act, Secure Data Act, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
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