Month: May 2013

Trying to understand bitcoins

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In a 2008 paper, a Japanese programmer, Satoshi Nakamoto, introduced an alternate form of currency that he called bitcoins. His justifications were the problems plaguing contemporary digital commerce. In Nakamoto’s words: “Completely non-reversible transactions are not really possible, since financial institutions cannot avoid mediating disputes. The cost of mediation increases transaction costs, limiting the minimum practical transaction … Read more

Bohr and the breakaway from classical mechanics

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One hundred years ago, Niels Bohr developed the Bohr model of the atom, where electrons go around a nucleus at the center like planets in the Solar System. The model and its implications brought a lot of clarity to the field of physics at a time when physicists didn’t know what was inside an atom, … Read more

Bohr and the breakaway from classical mechanics

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One hundred years ago, Niels Bohr developed the Bohr model of the atom, where electrons go around a nucleus at the centre like planets in the Solar System. The model and its implications brought a lot of clarity to the field of physics at a time when physicists didn’t know what was inside an atom, … Read more

The Last Temptation

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Today, I bought The Last Temptation by Nikos Kazantzakis. When I handed the Rs. 450 it cost over at the counter, it was a significant moment for me because for the last three years, after my reading habit had fallen off but before I had realized that it had, I was rejecting books that “wouldn’t appeal to the man I wanted to become”.

I wouldn’t read books that had strong religious elements (because I wanted to be an atheist), that hadn’t good reviews (because I wanted to spend time “well”), that attended to morals and values I considered irrelevant, that hosted plots drawing upon cultural memories that were simply American or simply European but surely not global, etc. I would find the smallest of excuses to avoid masterpieces.

At the same time, I would read other books – especially non-fiction and works of fantasy fiction. To this day, I don’t know whence that part of me arose that judged literary agency before it was agent, but I do know it turned me into this pontificator who thought he’d read enough books to start judging others without having to read them. A part of me has liked to think nobody can do that. And by buying a copy of The Last Temptation (and intending to read it), I think I am out of mine.

Of course, I’m also assuming the solution is something so simple…

Choices.

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The Verge paid Paul Miller to stay away from the internet for a year.

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We have this urge to think of the internet as something that wasn’t produced by human agency, like an alien sewerage network whose filth has infected us and our lives to the point of disease. If someone has problems and they tell you about it, don’t tell me you haven’t thought about blaming the internet. I have, too. We think it is a constantly refilled dump that spills over onto our computer screens (while also hypocritically engaging in the rhetoric of how many opportunities “the social media” hold). And then, we realize that the internet is one massive improbably impressionable relay of emotions, propped up on infrastructure that simplifies access a hundredfold. There’s nothing leaving it behind will do to you because it’s always been your choice whether or not to access it.

In fact, that’s what you rediscover.

(Hat-tip to Dhiya Kuriakose)