Category Archives: Culture
In search of sandastros
About a week ago, I wrote to ICANN asking for a list of all the .com domains that were still available. After I received the file a few days later, I used two pieces of code to extract all the … Continue reading
Posted in Culture
Tagged aventurine, Derek Sivers, Natural History, Pliny the Elder, sandastros
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On referring to female officers as ‘madam sir’
ET Lifestyle published a Twitter thread this morning about police officers referring to female superior officers as “sir” or as “madam sir”. I do find the practice offensive, because it signals an inability to imagine anyone but a (cis)man in … Continue reading
Posted in Culture
Tagged English language, ESL, female police officers, gender bias, linguistic relativity, madam sir, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, sexism, Whorfianism
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Unless the West copies us, we’re irrelevant
We have become quite good at dismissing the more asinine utterances of our ministers and other learned people in terms of either a susceptibility to pseudoscience or, less commonly, a wilful deference to what we might call pseudoscientific ideas in … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture
Tagged ancient India, Baudhayana Sulbasutra, cultural heritage, Kerala school of mathematics, kettle logic, Madhava, Sushruta Samhita, Vedas
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Hail the Royal Society
The Royal Society’s appointment of its first Brazilian member since 1871 brings an underappreciated form of our colonial hangover to the fore. Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Science
Tagged Amazon rainforest, Carlos Nobre, Colonialism, Nobel Prizes, Royal Society
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Why there’s no guarantee that Musk’s Twitter will resemble Dorsey’s
Many folks are saying they’re not going to leave Twitter in the wake of Elon Musk’s acquisition because Musk and Jack Dorsey aren’t different. Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Op-eds, Tech
Tagged Elon Musk, free speech, Jack Dorsey, Parag Agarwal, social media, Twitter
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TV ads are becoming creepy
Have you watched the new ads of Magicpin, Instamart, Rapido and PharmEasy? Continue reading
Posted in Culture
Tagged Aamir Khan, Allu Arjun, Instamart, Magicpin, PharmEasy, Ranveer Singh, Rapido, Swiggy
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Lord of the Rings Day
War is on our minds, and in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth saga, there were many of them. Continue reading
Posted in Culture
Tagged Battle of Sudden Flame, Battle of Unnembered Tears, Beleriand, Defence of Osgiliath, JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings day, Middle-Earth, Russia invasion, Ukraine, War of Wrath
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A Brahmin wedding
I was at a wedding this weekend. It had a distinct Omelas-like quality throughout. For most of the elders present, it was an oru naal koothu — a single-day celebration that has been many weeks in the making. But the … Continue reading