Skip to main content

A Snapshot in Time

This is for myself when I will be looking back five years from now.

Here are a few of the to-read links open now on my browser.

This was the week in which Rajesh Khanna died.
Our lives are measured more in deaths than in births.
Endings are more poignant than beginnings. Why is that?
http://virsanghvi.com/CounterPoint-ArticleDetail.aspx?ID=815

A Paris Review Art of Fiction Interview with Aldous Huxley.
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4698/the-art-of-fiction-no-24-aldous-huxley

A review of Pankaj Mishra's From The Ruins of Empire in The Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jul/19/from-ruins-empire-pankaj-mishra-review


The always-gripping personal memoir of living with cancer.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-07-20/brian-mansfield-semicolon-life-cancer-2/56346980/1?sf5190113=1

A Paris Review Art of Humour Interview with Woody Allen.
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1550/the-art-of-humor-no-1-woody-allen

A strange tale of a billionaire and drugs and death from London.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/13/eva-rausing-story-white-noise-age?newsfeed=true

This was also the week when the Higgs boson was discovered.
http://www.granta.com/New-Writing/The-Goddamn-Particle

Steven Weinberg on the Higgs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/14/opinion/weinberg-why-the-higgs-boson-matters.html?pagewanted=all

A profile of Rachel Maddow from Rolling Stone.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/rachel-maddows-quiet-war-20120627?page=2

And a gripping Matt Taibibi tale from Rolling Stone.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-scam-wall-street-learned-from-the-mafia-20120620

Couple more interviews from The Paris Review.
Gore Vidal.
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3917/the-art-of-fiction-no-50-gore-vidal#.T7uz9R56Uyk.twitter

Ezra Pound.
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4598/the-art-of-poetry-no-5-ezra-pound#.T9YKZPtuoNk.twitter 

It goes without saying -- I always fall behind in reading and these items keep piling.

Comments

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...

Edward Snowden

This seems to me to be the defining journalism-whistle-blower story of this generation. It's rare in today's world when privileged people voluntarily choose to take steps whereby they give up comfortable lives to do something that is in the 'public good.' Mr. Snowden was clearly a computer whiz which explains why he got jobs at the CIA (including postings in Geneva under diplomatic cover). Booz Allen obviously did not hire him or pay him the $1,20,000 salary without Mr. Snowden showcasing some considerable technical expertise. I believe Mr. Snowden's expertise probably lies in having deep expertise in various flavors of Linux. That is what I am inclined to infer from his various job roles as a 'Systems Engineer' or 'System Administrator.' Being the self-driven sort of person that he was, I am sure he must be having good knowledge about networking and encryption stuff including but not limited to Cisco routers and related technologies. ...

Sarah Kay's poem from TED

If I should have a daughter, instead of mom, she's going to call me Point B, because that way she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way  to me. And I am going to paint the Solar Systems on the backs of her hands, so she has to learn the entire universe before she can say 'Oh, I know that like the back of my hand' And she's going to learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back  up , just so we can kick you in the stomach but getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.