noise pollution
The frustrating wait for quiet in Chennai
Deepavali is less than a month away — then again it will only be a storm amid a steady drizzle of noises
Latest
Paris Marx
Why having diverse interests is a virtue
As illustrated by the Marx-Ling-Brown dispute over that Canadaland podcast and Israel's violence in West Asia
Automattic
Matt Mullenweg v. WP Engine escalates
Update, September 26, 2024: WordPress.org has banned websites hosted on WP Engine from accessing its resources. As someone put it on X, this is Matt Mullenweg dropping a giant turd into the laps of millions of WordPress users. I can't recommend this software any more in good
WordPress.com
Matt Mullenweg v. WP Engine
Automattic CEO and WordPress co-developer Matt Mullenweg published a post on September 21 calling WP Engine a “cancer to WordPress”. For the uninitiated: WP Engine is an independent company that provides managed hosting for WordPress sites; WordPress.com is owned by Automattic and it leads the development of WordPress.org.
Analysis
What can science education do, and what can it not?
On September 29, 2021, The Third Eye published an interview with Milind Sohoni, a teacher at the Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas and at IIT Bombay. (Thanks to @labhopping for bringing it into my feed.) I found it very thought-provoking. I’m pasting below some excerpts from the
Analysis
PSA about Business Today
If you get your space news from the website businesstoday.in, this post is for you. Business Today has published several articles over the last few weeks about the Starliner saga with misleading headlines and claims blown far out of proportion. I’d been putting off writing about them but
Analysis
A spaceflight narrative unstuck
“First, a clarification: Unlike in Gravity, the 2013 film about two astronauts left adrift after space debris damages their shuttle, Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are not stuck in space.” This is the first line of an Indian Express editorial today, and frankly, it’s enough said. The idea that
Analysis
Phogat and Khelif, and others
This tweet is spot-on… Maybe wring time to say this: India does not celebrate sports and sportspersons, it celebrates only winners — Pradeep Magazine (@pradeepmagazine) August 5, 2024 … and we’re seeing it play out somewhat in the aftermath of Vinesh Phogat being disqualified from the Paris Olympics for not staying
climate change
Did we see the conspiracies coming?
Tweets like this seem on point… pic.twitter.com/rLcTFtSvCU — Alex Hale 🌒 (@NBPTROCKS) July 30, 2024 … but I’ve started to wonder if we’re missing something in the course of expressing opinions about what we thought climate deniers would say and what they’re actually saying. That is, we
1010
Games and life
Yesterday, July 25, was a big day. Ironhide Games released the long-awaited fifth edition of their tower-defence game ‘Kingdom Rush’. I bought it as soon as it launched and completed its primary campaign in one sitting of several hours. Called ‘Alliance’, the game combines the gameplay of ‘Kingdom Rush: Vengeance’
agalloch
Agalloch
Agalloch is a synonym of agarwood. In parallel, Aquilaria agallocha and Agalochum malaccense are synonyms of Aquilaria malaccensis, the accepted scientific name of a tree that produces much of the world’s stock of this wood. When the heartwood (or duramen) of an Aquilaria tree is in the grip of
Archaeological Survey of India
A cynical archaeology
From ‘ASI submits Bhojshala survey report to Madhya Pradesh High Court’, The Hindu, July 15, 2024: The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) on July 15 submitted its scientific survey report of the disputed Bhojshala-Kamal-Maula mosque complex to the Indore Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court. … On July 4, the
