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April 2018

Cognitive flexibility and nationalism 2.0

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Remember that paper about cognitive flexibility and nationalism? The one that said people who are more nationalistic in their politics tend to have lower cognitive flexibility? I’d blogged about it here. I hadn’t read the study’s paper,… 

Performing with and without an audience

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My feeling is that as far as creativity is concerned, isolation is required. … The presence of others can only inhibit this process, since creation is embarrassing. – Isaac Asimov (source) Be it far from… 

View from the beanstalk

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In early 2015, I developed an unlikely hobby: tinkering around with hosting solutions on the web, specifically providers of infrastructure as a service (IaaS). It’s unlikely because it’s not something I consciously inculcated; it just happened.… 

Who we will always be

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I found this evocative image on Twitter today. It’s by a Russian artist named Yuri Shwedoff and the image is part of his ‘Space Series’, available to view and appreciate on Behance. I don’t know the provenance of the overlaid text… 

The March for Science, ed. 2018

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K. VijayRaghavan, India’s new principal scientific advisor to the Government of India, has brought a lot of hope with him into the role as a result of his illustrious career as a biologist and former… 

Cognitive flexibility and nationalism

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There’s something off about a new study that attempts to map the cognitive flexibility of people to their ideological preferences. To quote from the study’s ‘Significance’ section: We found that individuals with strongly nationalistic attitudes tend to… 

From comfortable summer wear to advanced geometry

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A friend of mine got harem pants and was talking about how much more comfortable they were than a lungi in Chennai’s current weather. A lungi is a long cylinder made of cloth (open at both ends of course)… 

Remembrance: ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’

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Since news of the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke last month, many of us have expressed apprehension – often on Facebook itself – that the social networking platform has transformed since its juvenile beginnings into an ugly monster.… 

Things to keep in mind before picking a webhost

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In descending order of priority 1. Support This isn’t just about receiving help when you need but also about when you don’t. The hosting providers’ support staff should be easily accessible at all times and… 

Finding trash in the dumpster

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Just as there’s no merit in writing a piece that is confused and incomplete, there’s no merit in digging through a dumpster and complaining that there’s trash. However, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt…