Abolishing Unjust Governments

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Continue reading “Abolishing Unjust Governments”

The Best Laid Schemes

Planning is uniquely human. Planning shapes not just human institutions and artifacts but indeed creates the future that is unknown and unknowable. Granted, the best laid schemes of mice and men, often go awry, as the poet lamented. When it comes to central planning, or planning by an all-powerful government bureaucracy, you can say that those schemes are guaranteed to go awry. Continue reading “The Best Laid Schemes”

Visiting Singapore

I am going to be in Singapore next week for a few days on work. Arrive Singapore Monday 9th early morning and leave on the evening of 12th.

I have given instructions to the monkeys with typewriters in the basement to carry on with their random typing as always. Sufficient bananas and peanuts has also been stocked. So I don’t think there will be any disruption in the output of this blog. You may have noticed that of late, the output of the monkeys has gone up. That is because better management techniques have been instituted in the basement. Think more frequent whipping.

Designer Cities

Creating a compelling vision which has the power to inspire is the first step to economic growth and therefore towards development. We have to imagine the future state first before we can make it a reality. Imagine that instead of 600,000 tiny villages, the same 700 million people were living and working in cities. Imagine that we had 600 cities with around a million people each on average. Let’s call these “Designer Cities” or DeCi (pronounced “desi.”)
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April Fools’ Observer

Keith Hudson’s Sapientia Daily quote yesterday was: “Tony Blair has agreed to resurrect his interest in acting when he leaves Number 10 after he was approached about a major stage role by his close friend, the artistic director of the Old Vic, Kevin Spacey, The Observer can reveal.” The date line was April 1st.

Keith, of course, was pointing out that the article was just a hoax in the finest tradition of an April Fools’ joke. But I was sure that he must have missed the amusing name of the “reporter” for the story–Pahli Tarikh. Heh heh. Keith followed up with this:
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Pragati

I am pleased to announce the arrival of a new publication titled “Indian National Interest Review — Pragati” (which in Hindi means “progress”). I reproduce here in full the superbly crafted editorial of the first issue.
Continue reading “Pragati”

Ancient Cities, Modern Slums

Isn’t it astonishing that around 2,600 BCE, when most of the world was living in tiny little human settlements, the Indus Valley civilization had well-planned cities of Harappa and Mohenjodaro?

“Some of these cities appear to have been built based on a well-developed plan. The streets of major cities such as Mohenjo-daro and Harappa were paved and were laid out at right angles (and aligned north, south, east or west) in a grid pattern with a hierarchy of streets (commercial boulevards to small residential alleyways), somewhat comparable to that of present day New York. The houses were protected from noise, odors, and thieves, and had their own wells, and sanitation. And the cities had drainage, large granaries, water tanks, and well-developed urban sanitation,” the Wikipedia article on urban planning says.
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Gmail on Paper!

Whatever are they going to think of next? Three years ago on April 1st, they announced 2 GB of free mail. Now this. Free paper mail. They will mail you a copy of any number of emails that you wish to save on hardcopy. Google is going to take over the earth 🙂

PS: It’s an April Fools’ joke.

PPS: Praveen C informs us that Google is also offering free broadband service called TiSP.

Happy April Fools

Happy April Fools’ Day!

For a fascinating account of April Fools’ day, see the Wikipedia article.

There are smart people with a sense of humor and as their targets there are billions of gullible people. The existence of organized religion is proof that there are billions of gullible people. But organized religion is not funny. It becomes funny though when ridiculed. Rowan Atkinson is the master of ridicule and humor. If you have not seen him as Bean, you have a treat waiting. (Don’t bother with the stupid Hollywood “Mr Bean” movie. It’s a pale imitation of the real Bean.) Even better, check out the Blackadder series. Wickedly funny.

Here’s a short clip of Rowan Atkinson on the Amazing Jesus of Nazareth.

Thank god that some humans have a sense of humor. The Anglosphere particularly appreciates a good joke. One cannot imagine anything comparable in the Islamosphere. If someone in some remote corner of the world were to poke a bit of fun at their idols, the Islamosphere would go an a worldwide rampage and before you know it a few dozen people would be dead. They do need to lighten up a bit.

Have fun!

Rambling on about Education

I think when it comes to education we need to go back to the basics. We have made the system needlessly complex and it has not surprisingly failed.

A few years ago, at the university, all of us in the student housing co-op were required to attend a presentation by a HIV+ man. At one point he took out a small polythene bag. It had about 70 pills and he said that he took them daily for avoiding getting sick. The pills would make a substantial snack. So why so many? Well, there was this one yellow pill which boosted his immune system. But that made him nauseous. So the red pill was to suppress that. The three green ones were to compensate for the side-effect of the red pill, though. But if you take the three green ones, you had to take the 8 white pills to give you back the vitamins that the green ones made you lose. Now the large blues pills were required for the upset stomach that the white ones gave you when you had them in combination with the yellow pill, the one that you actually needed. The story went on till about 70 pills had been accounted for.
Continue reading “Rambling on about Education”