A Tale of Two Road Accidents

Road accidents are an unfortunate fact of life. The best we as a society can do is to minimize the chances of an accident. And when the “accident” is due to gross negligence, then the criminal should be so severely punished that it deters others from being negligent.

I read about an accident in Pune in which two people on a bike were mowed down by a speeding car a couple of days ago. The car was a Porsche (pictured above), driven by an apparently drunk 17-year old. The victims were both 24 year old, Ashwini Koshta and Aneesh Awadhiya, from Jabalpur. They had studied engineering in Pune and were working at Johnson Controls as data analysts. Continue reading “A Tale of Two Road Accidents”

The Problem of Economic Growth – Part 2

I ended the previous part of this essay with:

The one factor that motivates the vast majority of people is self-interest. Self-interest is not a pathology because it’s a normal and unalterable aspect of human nature. It’s not a bug in human nature but is actually a feature. Indeed, self-interest broadly construed — enlightened self-interest — is what accounts for the advancement of civilization itself. People work hard to better the circumstances of themselves and those they care about, and in doing so advance the greater good even without intending to. This had been recognized two and a half centuries ago by Adam Smith and others.

Moving on —
Continue reading “The Problem of Economic Growth – Part 2”

John Muir

Yosemite Valley, CA (Source: Wikimedia Commons.)

I guess that most people, including the majority of Americans, don’t know who John Muir was. I consider him to be an American hero — a man who embodies those characteristics that make the United States the greatest nation on earth.

Born in Scotland in 1838, his family migrated to the the US when he was 11 years old. He grew up on a Wisconsin farm. Continue reading “John Muir”

The Problem of Economic Growth – Part 1

The economic growth of India since 1947 has been disappointingly low. Many countries—such as Hong Kong, South Korea, China—starting with comparable low levels of per capita GDP as India in the 1950s have over the last 75 years or so made phenomenal economic progress. Broadly speaking, those countries escaped poverty primarily because their political leaders were able to formulate and implement policies that promoted growth. In contrast to them, India stagnated. Continue reading “The Problem of Economic Growth – Part 1”

Bengalis Speaking Hindi

Bengalis have a wicked sense of humor — especially when it involves poking fun at themselves. I speak as if I wasn’t a Bengali myself. Truth is that I was born and brought up outside Bengal; so I can’t claim to be a true blue Bengali.

My siblings and I speak Hindi quite well. Our relatives in Bengal did make fun of our broken Bengali infected with Hindi words. Well, in turn we found their attempted Hindi to be hilarious. Continue reading “Bengalis Speaking Hindi”

Mason-Dixon Line

What’s wrong with the notice?

I admit that quite a bit of my philosophy and convictions come from songs. Or perhaps it’s the other way around: I like songs that fit in with my philosophy and convictions. For instance, my pacifism leads me to songs like “Soldiers who wanna be heroes” and “Gun Shy.” I like “Dust in the Wind” because it accords with my view that the phenomenal world is impermanent.

Songs that tell a story speak to me.  Here’s one titled “Sailing to Philadelphia” by Mark Knopfler, who was previously with the band Dire Straits. Continue reading “Mason-Dixon Line”

2024 Total Solar Eclipse

21st August, 2017. NASA image.

Of all the amazing phenomena of the natural world, total solar eclipses are my favorite. They are as rare — around one every 100 years at any particular location — as they are spectacular and awe inspiring. The continental US saw a total solar eclipse on August 21st, 2017. (Click on the image above to see the path of totality.)

On August 21st, 2017, I drove to Carbondale, IL, from Chicago, IL to catch that one. Carbondale is called the “Solar Eclipse capital of the US” because amazingly the path of the next total solar eclipse of April 8th, 2024 will also pass through that town in southern Illinois. Continue reading “2024 Total Solar Eclipse”

UFO

. = = = = = = Click to embiggen

Have you ever seen an UFO? I have. I have experienced several “anomalous” phenomena that I cannot explain in terms of what I understand to be the basic principles of physics. A relatively recent example of an UFO is this.

That is a genuine UFO because it is, by definition, an unidentified flying object. UFO doesn’t imply extraterrestrial or alien origin things. It merely means that the observer is unable to identify what the flying object in an image or video is. I have not been able, to the best of my abilities, to figure out what that is. Nor has anyone else identified that. So therefore it’s an UFO.

Recently there’s been much discussion of UFOs not just on social media but also in US government agencies such as the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). Why and why now are interesting questions. I think that Mick West has some answers. As a researcher and debunker of claims of alien origin of UFO/UAP, I think he’s credible. Link to a video of his at the end of this post. Continue reading “UFO”

Julian Simon

Julian Simon (1932 – 1998). American economist.

      • This increase in the world’s population represents humanity’s victory against death.
      • We now have in our hands — really, in our libraries — the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next seven billion years.
      • Progress toward a more abundant material life does not come like manna from heaven, however. My message certainly is not one of complacency. The ultimate resource is people — especially skilled, spirited, and hopeful young people endowed with liberty — who will exert their wills and imaginations for their own benefit and inevitably benefit the rest of us as well.

LED Blues

We are nearly almost totally unaware of the technological marvels that surround us. But we should be in awe of them. They don’t magically fall unbidden from the skies like manna from heaven. Real people have to work really hard, often in obscurity, to bring those amazing things to life. Today I learned the details about the making of one such innovation: that of the blue LED.

I knew that the blue LED was a big deal and that the inventors got the 2019 Physics Nobel Prize. But I didn’t know of the struggles that one of them — Shuji Nakamura — went through to make it happen. Thanks to a Veritasium video, I have a new hero: Dr Nakamura. His innovation had transformed the world. Continue reading “LED Blues”