Skip to main content

News Roundup

It's time to perform one of my irregular news roundups as I seem to be coming across a variety of interesting stories.

Here's a sad story about the continuing tragedy of unmarked graves in Kashmir from the BBC. Hopefully, a full investigation will happen and the truth come out.

It's clearly not difficult to imagine the police or the military being involved in certain amount of torture upto and including custodial killings of civilians. Very sad reality in a democracy.

Ok. Have some fun watching this stand up act by an Indian in the UK.

And here's a good, inspirational speech by a young man who was raised by a gay couple.

And here's an old article about the shocking tale of AIDS in Africa.

Life is very strange. Agreed. An obituary.


Ha! Can you imagine the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory and the rover Curiosity was so perfect that it won't require a planned course correction. Its trajectory is initially designed so that it will MISS Mars by thousands of kilometers! This is so as not to contaminate the Martian environment with microbes that may possibly have been carried by the Centaur stage attached to Curiosity. Talks about precautions!! This is the zenith of what NASA is all about. I'm happy to be around to witness all this.

One sure wishes to see great intergalactic ships starting on their great intergalactic missions with thousands (if not millions) of humans on board in one's lifetime. But probably that won't come to pass. What a tragedy.

A lecture at the MIT Sloan School by the smart Eric Schmidt.

The Barney Frank eulogizing continues as he decides to retire from Congress.

Here's a TED talk about learning in fetuses.

And another TED talk about living to be 100 + years old. Clearly, I'm not interested. If only because I'm neither healthy enough nor wanted enough. Some fascinating tales about real people in pockets of the world such as Sardinia, Italy and Okinawa, Japan where many people live to be centenarians.

Ok. That's it in this collection or it will go on and on and I'll keep adding stuff endlessly.

Popular posts from this blog

Longforms and 'Best of 2017' Lists and Favorite Books by Ashutosh Joglekar and Scott Aaronson

Ashutosh Joglekar's books list. http://wavefunction.fieldofscience.com/2018/03/30-favorite-books.html Scott Aaronson' list https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3679 https://www.wired.com/story/most-read-wired-magazine-stories-2017/ https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/12/the-best-books-we-read-in-2017/548912/ https://longreads.com/2017/12/21/longreads-best-of-2017-essays/ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/21/world/asia/how-the-rohingya-escaped.html https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-journalists-covered-rise-mussolini-hitler-180961407/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/artificial-intelligence-future-scenarios-180968403/ https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/01/20/citizen-kay https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/where-we-are-hunt-cancer-vaccine-180968391/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/dna-based-attack-against-cancer-may-work-180968407/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/22/dona...

Articles Collection August

Hope to get around to reading or finishing these articles. Some day. When David Remnick writes about Russia, you gotta read. All of David Remnick's articles in the New Yorker. All of Ken Auletta's articles in the New Yorker. Profile of cricket boss N. Srinivasan in The Caravan. Excerpt from Lena Dunham's book. Yes, I for one think it's wrong to teach children to believe in God. It's child abuse. Plain and simple. Philip Seymour Hoffman's last days . Where do children's earliest memories go? Does humanity's future lie among the stars or is our fate extinction ? Chapter 1 of Sam Harris' Waking Up . Finding the words , an elegy. Eight days, the battle to save the American financial system . Love stories from the New Yorker. Profiles from the New Yorker. 25 articles from the New Yorker chosen by Longreads . The Biden agenda from the New Yorker. Kim Philby by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker. Miles O'Brien's PBS story about the ...

Ayn Rand Was Right

Do we exalt the John Galts and Howard Roarks among us or despise them? Do we admire the ultimate, self-centered and selfish capitalists or the selfless, self-sacrificing altruists? Oh sure there are the Martin Luther King, Jr.s and Mahatma Gandhis and Nelson Mandelas and Aung Sun Suu Kyis we like to point to as icons and worthy role models for our children. But look deeply and we find that we are obsessed with the wealthy. And who are the wealthy? Why do we let the Robert Rubins, Sandy Weills, Jakc Welchs, Jamie Dimons and their Wall St. brethren keep their millions? Because we consider that right and their right. Let alone the hedge fund people whose entire purpose is to become billionaires. How many people explicitly make life choices that will lead to a life of service -> not be a charlatan like Mother Teresa but just helping the underprivileged without trying to 'achieve' greatness by so doing. So Lance Armstrong and Greg Mortensen and the Evangelical Christ...