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  • Temper worsening? Could be the climate.

    Climate_Change

    A study of studies by economists from Princeton and UCal, Berkeley, has found that as the climate worsens due to global warming, human violence is likely to get more frequent and intensified. The economists don’t know the precise terms of this intriguing relationship, but think a broad range of factors including neurophysiology and economic duress could be driving it. One significant finding is that one standard-deviation’s increase in some key climate variable’s value, like temperature, is likely to cause a whopping 14% rise in violence.

    The study is also important, claimed Edward Miguel, one of the authors from UCal, because it provides a lot of quantitative evidence to their claims that was missing earlier. It tracked the climate and human conflicts since 8,000 BC, and studied them in a regression framework that threw up the positive correlation conclusion. I corresponded with Prof. Miguel on this for my story in The Hindu. Also, here’s the abstract of their paper.

  • Shannon & Seema | Indian Lesbian Wedding | Los Angeles, CA.

    Two cultures. Two families. Brought together by two lovers.

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  • Free market capitalism is relatively new in human history. Prior to the rise of capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving one’s fellow man.

    – Walter E. Williams (via donttreadonvirginia)

    To survive, capitalism must be accompanied by accountability.

  • Amar, Bose of sound, is dead at 83

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    Unlike the last name of Satyendra, Amar’s never prompted the frenzy of nationalist appropriation that gripped many when talking about their work. That’s perhaps because, even though Amar Bose’s connection to India was meagre at best, he made a global name for himself and his iconic brand, Bose Corp., through such enviable traits as an uncontrollable curiosity, originality and and a Feynmanesque independence. Right from Bose’s radio-repairing enterprise at 13 to his demise at 83 (on July 12), he’d been audacious and also carefully preserved the resources that allowed him to be audacious. I wrote an obituary to this great man for The Hindu, with Narayan Lakshman and Anuj Srivas.

  • MIT I ask, where’s my metadata?

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    MIT’s new app, Immersion, uses your Gmail metadata to draw a digital footprint of your email-centric life. It also shows how small apps are well poised to commercialize metadata, especially by its backers posing as research institutions instead of as commercial organizations. In the post-Snowden era, such apps comprise a vast jurisdiction where the use of metadata is still unregulated, and is especially well-poised to stall consumer-level technology. Here’s my OpEd on this for The Hindu.

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    Most of the principles of the MIT Media Lab I think can be adopted by young professionals looking to make it big. It’s not safe, it’s not sure either, but it definitely re-establishes the connection with intuitive thought (“compasses”) instead of the process-entombed one (“maps”) that’s driving many good ideas and initiatives – like the newspaper – into the ground.

  • Dance there upon the shore;
    What need have you to care
    For wind or waters road?
    And tumble out your hair
    That the salt drops have wet;
    Being young you have not known
    The fools’ triumph, nor yet
    Love lost as soon as won
    Nor the best labourer dead
    And all the sheaves to bind.
    What need have you to dread
    The monstrous crying of wind?

     

    W.B. Yeats, To a Child Dancing in the Wind

    Today feels like such a day…

  • Star Wars posters

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    “Lucasfilm and Mondo commissioned me to create a new set of screen-printed posters
    for the original Star Wars trilogy.    ” – Olly Moss

  • Insects inspire simpler prosthetics

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    Evolution’s got everything going for it. Without a doubt, it’s the most powerful and efficient computing algorithm ever conceived – rather to have computed itself into existence. I don’t forget that it’s an axiomatic phenomenon, but humankind has struggled to recreate the same degree of complexity and energy efficiency with the same resources. However, humankind doesn’t fail to be inspired, either – like with a strange type of joint neurobiologists have found in grasshoppers and locusts. Looking like a hinge joint, it automatically applies passive forces succeeding active ones. These help weaker muscles in the insects’ hind legs counteract the stronger ones, facilitating a longer jump without being as metabolically costly as a bigger muscle – something only evolution has accomplished. The inspiration? Simpler prosthetics for humans. My piece for The Hindu on this.