Category Archives: Culture
A why of how we wear what we wear
There are many major industries operating around the world commonly perceived to be big drivers of climate change. Plastic, steel and concrete manufacturing come immediately to mind – but fashion doesn’t, even though, materially speaking, its many inefficiencies represent something … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Scicomm
Tagged climate change, climate crisis, clothing, cotton, design trends, dress codes, dresses, enclothed cognition, fashion industry, garments, human behaviour, Kabali, Princeton University, proxy, psychology, water
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New management at Nautilus
When an email landed in my inbox declaring that the beleaguered science communication magazine Nautilus would be “acquired by ownership group of super-fans”, I thought it was going to become a cooperative. It was only when I read the extended … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Op-eds, Science
Tagged Daily Dot, Deadspin, Elisa New, John Steele, Larry Summers, Nautilus, Nautilus magazine, Nicholas White, scientism
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The private festival
I used to think I lived in a wonderful part of Bangalore: in Malleshwaram, and not just in Malleshwaram but in a gated apartment complex with great access to greenery and lots of eateries, safe walking areas, recreational spaces, and … Continue reading
Posted in Culture
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The virtues of local travel
Here’s something I wish I’d read before overtourism and flygskam removed the pristine gloss of desirability from the selfies, 360º panoramas and videos the second-generation elites posted every summer on the social media: It’s ok to prioritize friendships, community, and … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Life notes, Op-eds
Tagged Bengaluru, climate change, Delhi, extractive capitalism, flygskam, grifter, Max Weber, mental health, overtourism, Protestant ethic, remote working, Silicon Valley, work from home
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The calculus of creative discipline
Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over world-building. World-building is dull. World-building literalises the urge to invent. World-building gives an unnecessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). World-building numbs … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Op-eds
Tagged classical mechanics, creative discipline, critical points, Dan Shechtman, differential calculus, EPR paradox, fantasy fiction, Imre Lakatos, JK Rowling, Karl Popper, literary criticism, M John Harrison, Malazan Book of the Fallen, mathematical analysis, nerdism, Niels Bohr, Paul Feyerabend, Philosophy of Science, quasicrystals, replication crisis, smooth functions, Steven Erikson, Thomas Kuhn, Viriconium, world-building
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IBT’s ice-nine effect on Newsweek
In his 1963 novel Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut describes a fictitious substance called ice-nine: a crystalline form of water that converts all the liquid water it comes into contact with into more ice-nine. This is the sort of effect the International Business … Continue reading
Posted in Culture
Tagged BuzzFeed, BuzzFeed model, Cat's Cradle, Columbia Journalism Review, CPM model, Daniel Tovrov, Facebook, Google, Google Pagerank, ice-nine, International Business Times, Kurt Vonnegut, late capitalism, Newsweek, search engine
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Why are the Nobel Prizes still relevant?
Note: A condensed version of this post has been published in The Wire. Around this time last week, the world had nine new Nobel Prize winners in the sciences (physics, chemistry and medicine), all but one of whom were white … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Op-eds, Science
Tagged Abhijit Banerjee, Albert Einstein, Appa Rao Podile, Booker Prize, Brian Keating, Caltech, Chien-Shiung Wu, CV Raman, Esther Duflo, Fermilab, gender-based discrimination, Göran Hansson, Hindutva, Hugo Award, impact factor, Isaac Asimov, John B Goodenough, late capitalism, Lise Meitner, Margaret Atwood, nationalism, Nature journal, Nobel laureates, Nobel Prize, prestige bias, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sexism, The Big Bang Theory, Vera Rubin
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Review: ‘Salam – The First ****** Nobel Laureate’ (2018)
Awards are elevated by their winners. For all of the Nobel Prizes’ flaws and shortcomings, they are redeemed by what its laureates choose to do with them. To this end, the Pakistani physicist and activist Abdus Salam (1926-1996) elevates the … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Science
Tagged Abdul Kalam, Abdus Salam, Abdus Salam ICTP, Ahmadiya sect, Benito Mussolini, Enrico Fermi, Nishan-e-Imtiaz, Nobel Prize for physics, Nobel Prizes, Pakistan, religious presecution, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Steven Weinberg, theoretical physics, Zia-ul-Haq, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto
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Two sides of the road and the gutter next to it
I have a mid-October deadline for an essay so obviously when I started reading up on the topic this morning, I ended up on a different part of the web – where I found this: a piece by a journalist … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Op-eds
Tagged bias, Bob Woodward, Donald Trump, ignorance, Jay Rosen, Kary Mullis, Nobel Prizes, objectivity, Omar Kelly, Poynter, Richard Feynman, Surjit Bhalla, Swarajya Mag, The New York Times, victim-blaming, victimisation, view from nowhere, women in STEM
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Hard sci-fi
Come November, I will be at the Bangalore Literary Festival in conversation with Sri Lankan sci-fi author Navin Weeraratne. I am told Navin – “like you,” according to one of the organisers – is a proponent of hard sci-fi, the … Continue reading
Posted in Culture
Tagged fantasy fiction, first principles, Gautam Shenoy, hard sci-fi, Navin Weeraratne, science fiction, soft sci-fi
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