Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. That adage is known as Hanlon’s Razor.
I wondered about the mentality of the people who decided that disallowing photos at nature preserves is a great idea. Were they merely stupid or was something else motivating them? They have those signs at the Tiger Reserves at Bandipur and Mudumalai. Continue reading “A Mudumalai Bear”
Learn something. I don’t know if that’s the answer for everyone but that’s what works for me. You mileage may vary, as they say in the ads for cars. But for the vast majority of the cases, it works. Learn something. The best thing you learn is that you are just fine just as you are. Continue reading “The Best Thing for Being Sad”
Time for a musical interlude. A few fun songs. The first is from a one-hit wonder Jamaican band Musical Youth.
When I first heard the song long years ago, I mistakenly thought that “pass the dutchie” meant pass the bong. Only recently I learned that dutchie refers to a “dutch pot” and the stew-like dish made in it. It’s food that is being passed. Hence the words, “How does it feel when you have no food.” Continue reading “Pass the Dutchie”
I’ve been at my friend KM’s home for the last three weeks in Bangalore. Yesterday, KM and I drove 300 kms south to the Mudumalai National Park to visit a beautiful resort for a couple of days. The resort is located in a tiger reserve that spans three southern India states — Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu — in the Nilgiris. The image above is from the Mudumalai part of the reserve. Continue reading “Mudumalai Park”
The good news is that Elon Musk bought twitter. The better news is that Musk fired the CEO Parag Agrawal, and the CFO Ned Segal. Best of all, he fired Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy. She had made the decision to permanently suspend Donald Trump.
Musk sent a message to twitter advertisers. In it, he lays out his reason for taking total control of twitter. Here it is: Continue reading “Twitter”
I am partial to Spanish guitar compositions. Here are a couple I especially like.
The wiki has details of the composition Asturias by Isaac Albéniz (1860 – 1909.) He was a child prodigy who first performed at the age of four. Continue reading “Two Guitar Pieces”
It’s important for us to realize the great progress humanity has made in the last 200 or so years. Life expectancy at birth is a summary measure of human wellbeing.
For nearly all of human history, life expectancy at birth was around 30 years in all regions of the world. Then around 200 years ago, global health inequality became a reality. The website, Our World in Data, presents data extraordinarily well. Continue reading “Progress in Life Expectancy”
Before the advent of television in India, people who could afford a radio were definitely familiar with the signature tune of “All India Radio”, the government run public radio channel.
We had a radio at home when I was growing up. I remember with great fondness the AIR signature tune. I post it below. First a bit about AIR, also known as Akashvani (literally “voice from the sky.”) The wiki says: Continue reading “All India Radio Signature Tune”
Ronald Reagan was arguably one of the best presidents that the US has had in the modern age. He understood the value of freedom and liberalism. Here’s his last speech as the president of the US.
I found this on twitter. I use twdown.net to download twitter videos. Right click on a video on twitter, copy the video link, and paste it to twdown. Then “save link as” and you are done.
Greetings from India.
David Deutsch tweeted the following:
David is right. The exchange of money for a painting is just a trade that does not alter the total amount of goods and services (resources) available in an economy. Person buying the painting acquires property rights over the painting, and the seller has the money–which represents claims on resources. The seller of the painting can do whatever he wants, including giving it to charity. The buyer could have given the money to charity instead of acquiring the rights to the painting. Continue reading “Money”
Life is a Random Draw 