Category: Links

I really liked this explanation of death and life force by a Zen Master. On the topic of death, this news is old, but I really liked Jimmy Kemmel talking about Cecil the Lion.

Quite saddening to read about lion farms in South Africa on which lions are raised with the sole purpose of being hunted later on in their lives.

A lot of meat eating people (like me) are unable to make sense of the sadness they feel at news of whales or lions or dogs being killed but not giving it a second thought when we eat meat ourselves. A good read for us: Why eating chicken is morally worse than killing a lion?

Last link which is semi – related — every animal that became extinct in the last hundred years.

If Foxconn does indeed setup manufacturing operations in India, it would be great news for Indian manufacturing.

The Republican debates started yesterday, and the Economist presents a good summary. 

The Greek crisis has subdued a little, and I think I’ve not seen anything more ludicrous recently. The Greek government seemed to have ruined their case terribly, and this article does a good job in providing a brief summary of how this played out.

Germany played a leading role in working through the Greece situation, and this article shows the powerful personality of the German finance minister and his role in the proceedings.

A very unusual and cutting edge piece of research where scientists were able to connect monkey’s brains, and boost their thinking power.

A $100 million dollar grant boosts the search for aliens. 

Donald Trump has been in the news lately, and I think he is easily one of the most despicable people that I’ve seen run for a major office. An article on him, and if he has a real chance.

This is a little hard to believe but perhaps the day isn’t very far away when a drone could fly by you and hack your system through your WiFi.

Finally, it makes me very sad to read about people hunting lions in Africa. It is legal of course, you can get a permit, and most of the cases that get publicity are all legal. There is no question on the legality of it, just on the morality of it.

Images of Pluto’s surface were all the rage this week, and I must have gone through several links, and still wanted to see more.

Perhaps, what was more surprising about this was the cost of the expedition, at less than the cost of an American football stadium, this project costs much less than what I would have guessed.

In world news, the nuclear deal with Iran was quite significant and this NYT article does a great job of explaining it in less than 200 words.

Saudi Arabia has had to to hit the bond markets because of lowering oil prices, which I also found rather unexpected.

I’m regularly surprised at how good Facebook is at recognizing faces, and it is heart warming to see that facial recognition software is being used in lion conservation. 

Northern Ireland makes millions of dollars in tourism due to Game of Thrones.

Finally, it is amazing to see that Sweden is so good at recycling that they need to import garbage from their neighbors in order to feed their special ovens that are used to heat homes.

One of the most interesting things I came across this week was Google’s Deep Dream program. Basically, this is Google’s Image recognition program which they have flipped on its head to now create images.

The results are a little freaky right now, but people have already found incredible uses with it and none more incredible than what Turkish artist C.M. Kosemen has already achieved.

There are still some people who deny climate change, but Exxon actually seemed to know about this as far back as 1981.

We are all worried by the fear of rejection, and it keeps us from doing many things that we want to; 2 research backed ways to beat the fear of rejection.

I was surprised to learn that there about 7,000 Hindus and Sikhs living in Afghanistan right now, but I was not surprised to see that their condition is bad.

India’s solar push could be a gold rush for investors.

Finally, Professor Sanjay Bakshi’s great talk about seven great businessmen and companies in India.

First up, a very very interesting quiz in the NY Times that you should all try out. Don’t worry about hating numbers or anything else like that. Spend some time on it, very well worth it.

Next up, an article on what Greece may be able to do next. Semi related, how 16th century Spain dealt with a bankruptcy.

Euthanasia is a difficult and hard topic to discuss, here is a good article on how some countries are dealing with it .

Indian companies bypassing banks, and going directly to the public for funds.

Pakistani mall charges an entry fee with a certain exceptions, and people are not happy about it. I think they missed a trick here, could have simply exempted people who buy something inside, but made it elitist instead.

Finally, a great article on what makes the expat lifestyle attractive.

I’ve read a lot of interesting articles and opinions about Modi’s one year, and I am sure a lot of you have also done that so instead of posting links to more – I’ll post an article by my favorite economist on what needs to be done to get to 8.5% growth. 

Very interesting article on how US is publicly challenging China’s moves in disputed waters. 

Fascinating piece about the life and movement of a bronze age woman.

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram – all of these are tools in your hands, and whether you waste time on them or make something out of it is entirely up to you. Read about 22 year old Ms. Bernstein who charges up to $15,000 for an Instagram post. 

I had no ideas how giraffes sleep, or indeed how little they slept.

I have sadly thrown away a lot of stuff from my freezer without realizing how long it can last there. This little infographic from Real Simple is very helpful.

Finally, a great article on the evolution of snakes. Enjoy your weekend!

Let’s start this week with an excellent article from the Economist on the dawn of artificial intelligence. AI is advancing in leaps and bounds, and there are some prominent people who worry that it might lead to the end of us.

A sad state of affairs – CAG assesses that the Indian army will run out of ammo in just twenty days if there were intense fighting.

British TV shows are usually a great watch, here is a short list.

China has built a prototype of a train that is three times faster than an airplane.

Something we all inherently know but don’t do anything about – email is a bigger distraction than we admit to ourselves.

I really liked this article about recent tax demands from Indian authorities.

Finally, Scientists discover the first warm blooded fish. 

Enjoy your weekend!

 

Let’s start this week with a very interesting article about Chinese scientists editing the genomes of human embryos. There has been a lot of debate about whether this should be tried out or not, and it was inevitable that someone did try it out. The current experiment has failed, but it is only a matter of time that they succeed.

In somewhat related news, scientists have completed sequencing the whole genome of the woolly mammoth. Actually bringing back an extinct species is still some time away, but it seems like the expert opinion on the issue is that it can be done.

It seems like the government is working on making the idle gold lying in temples and with public to work, will be a good thing if it actually works. 

Amazon is always trying new delivery methods, this one is quite novel as well – delivery in the trunk of your car. 

Buy your kid a domain name – does actually sound like a great idea.

British Indian votes crucial in UK election.

Finally, there are many good lessons to learn from our bigger neighbor but perhaps the lesson to hire strippers at funerals is best avoided. 

Have a good weekend!

I read a lot of different interesting things this week so even though I’m traveling tonight, I thought a weekend links post is in order.

First up, a very interesting article and 12 minute video about a certain invasive python species in Florida. Invasive species are a species of animals not native to a particular place, and this article focuses on the Burmese Python which is not native to Florida but is a big menace there now.

I was not surprised to see that the Chinese have invented a hydrogen powered tram and it is apparently doing quite well.

This was a totally new subject for me in the sense that I thought that gene edited babies were still many many decades away, and is mostly the work of fiction, but apparently not.

This can give you a laugh, or annoy and scare you to hell if you have kids who love Mountain Dew, but a man sued Pepsico saying he found a rat inside his Mountain Dew, and Pepsico won the case saying the rat would have disintegrated into a jelly like thing inside the can between the date of manufacture and the date of sale.

Police in Lucknow have procured drones to pepper spray people to control crowds. They are obviously thrilled.

Nice article on the utility of reading philosophy. Why I teach Plato to plumbers?

Finally, something for Game of Thrones fans.

Enjoy your weekend!