Category: About

A Very Short Essay on Problems — Part 1

A Tentative Taxonomy of Problems

Compared to all other life forms in the known universe, our species can be characterized as the one that consciously solves problems. There appears to be – at least in some specimens of our kind – an inherent drive to not only solve problems but in fact to seek out new problems to be solved. Of course, some would argue that many of our attempts to solve problems in turn create new problems. That in itself is probably not such a bad thing because otherwise we would have little to occupy ourselves with. Confronting challenges – natural as well as artificially created – exercises our faculties and makes us feel alive and lends purpose and meaning to our existence. Continue reading “A Very Short Essay on Problems — Part 1”

Blogpost Contest

Crazyfinger writes to inform us all of a blogpost contest. The prize is a copy of Stephen Miller’s new book “Conversation: A History of a Declining Art”. Check it out.

[My apologies to Crazyfinger for the delay in carrying this announcement. Due to time constraints, I was unable to get to updating the blog.]

In Praise of Blogging

Brad DeLong over at UC Berkeley writes a mean blog, Brad DeLong’s Semi-Daily Journal, from his office at Evans Hall with a view of the campus and the Golden Gate Bridge off to the west. He considers the academic enviroment he lives in to be a paradise. Continue reading “In Praise of Blogging”

How to beat the blog censorship

Try this:

1. Copy this url to your address bar: http://techbytes.co.in/experimental/bypass.php?url=http://

2. Append the url of the blocked blog. So if you, for instance, want to reach mysite.blogspot.com, you will construct the url http://techbytes.co.in/experimental/bypass.php?url=http://mysite.blogspot.com/

3. Hit Go.

On Being an Armchair Intellectual

A comment on this blog is worth highlighting because it is too important to be buried among the comments. It is from Gulab Singh who wrote:

What have you done to amend the situation, oh armchair intellectual ? Cribbing about the status quo is pointless, if you don’t follow it up with action. If you don’t have a way to put into practice the ideas you espouse, then your ideas are not practical. You seem to have spent a lot of time thinking and writing about “what should be done”, but what have you really done?

I cannot respond to the accusation of being an “armchair intellectual” because I am not sufficiently vain to call myself an intellectual, armchair or not. However, I would like to speak in defense of armchair intellectuals first, then admit that I am basically an armchair critic, then argue why critics are important in the overall scheme of things, and finally explain what I am doing to move beyond just being a mere critic. Continue reading “On Being an Armchair Intellectual”

This Blog is Down

Well, most of the time it is simply not available and even when it is, most of the posts are not readable. Take the last bit to mean what you will. What I mean is, that if you click “More,” you get an error message. I have pointed this out to the powers that be, and they have predictably responded that they will look into the matter. But then I have heard it in the past and I am sure that I will hear it in the future as well.

In the meanwhile, my apologies to the visitors for the inconvenience. If this continues for too long, I will shift my blog platform. Pity, all the stuff that I have already written will be inaccessible. C’est la vie.

Back to Blogging

Why the long hiatus in blogging, you may ask. Don’t really know. I guess that I was ready for a break. For the last couple of weeks, I have been on the road. After leaving Pune, I spent a few days in Mumbai. On the 24th of May, I was briefly interviewed on BBC World TV for their live program “China and India: Emerging Giants.” The interview was at the Taj Palace Hotel with the Gateway of India in the background.
Continue reading “Back to Blogging”

Fragments – 7

I miss the days when I used to work at HP in the Silicon Valley. Those were the days. One of the high points of my time there (7 years ending in 1991) was my association with the Usenet group hp.mic. The quality of discussion and debate was a joy. A few months ago I joined a google group of ex-HP folks. Sure enough, some of the old hands were there. I am delighted to point you to Tom von Alten and his blog Ft Boise. The range of topics is matched only by the generosity of spirit that motivates it.

The Bloggers’ New Clothes

This is a blog. Schizophrenic though it may be, but I am fundamentally against blogging. I believe that there is a humongous mountain of absolutely wonderfully written totally worthwhile news, views, and analysis out there, and most of it is available to you via the wonder that is the Internet and the WWW, and so there is absolutely no need for anyone to waste time reading blogs. Go read a book, instead.
Continue reading “The Bloggers’ New Clothes”

Thoughts on Freedom of Expression

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” — George Bernard Shaw

Here is a thought experiment. Imagine yourself in a commercial jetliner cruising at 500 knots 37,000 feet above the earth’s surface. Who on earth created the contraption which gives you the ability to do something so awesome? Humans. And out of what? Stuff that came out of the earth. You can trace every bit of that plane to its origin, the earth. The metals, the glass, the plastics—you name it—every bit of that aircraft was once in the earth. The raw material has been around for billions of years but only in the last few centuries have humans developed the ability to work the raw materials into sophisticated shapes and forms that extend the reach of humans in unimaginable ways.
Continue reading “Thoughts on Freedom of Expression”