Rule o flaw — part II
Make sure you've read part I. On November 15, I lodged a complaint of excessive noise with the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB), whereupon I received an update saying the complaint was…
Life notes
108 posts
Rule o flaw — part I
This building right opposite my apartment was locked in a legal dispute for years. That must have ended a month ago (in October) because since then a bunch of workers have been toiling nine hours a da…
The frustrating wait for quiet in Chennai
Deepavali is less than a month away — then again it will only be a storm amid a steady drizzle of noises…
Games and life
Running through the games on my phone and what I like about them…
The meaning of 294-227
As of 4.25 pm on June 4, the NDA alliance stood to win 294 seats in the Lok Sabha while the INDIA bloc was set for 225 seats. This is more than a pleasant surprise. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) c…
12 years and counting
I’ve been a journalist for 12 years. For the first few years these anniversaries helped to remember that I was able to survive in the industry but now, after 12, I’m well and truly part of the industr…
End of the line
The folks at The Wire have laid The Wire Science to rest, I've learnt. The site hasn't published any (original) articles since February 2 and its last tweet was on February 16, 2024. At the t…
Happy Lord of the Rings Day
War is on all our minds these days. There is a war happening in Ukraine and something barely resembling a war (because it’s a genocide) in Gaza. Governments have been fond of casting our collective re…
A difficulty celebrating Chandrayaan 3
I'm grateful to Avijit Pathak for his article in Indian Express on August 29. After the Chandrayaan 3 mission achieved its primary objective, to soft-land a robotic lander on the moon's south…
Irritating Google Docs is irritating
The backdrop of the shenanigans of ChatGPT, Bard and other artificial intelligence (AI) systems these days has only served to accentuate how increasingly frustrating working with Google Docs is. I use…
Refusing battles
"Pick your battles" is probably the most important thing I've learnt as a journalist. A lot of it is probably due to my firm belief that science has always been political, and getting pe…
Rob McKenna
Anyone who reads Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and doesn't come away thinking it belongs on the list of the best books they've read has to get themselves checked. I don't think this…