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 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 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”
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”
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”
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 (1932 – 1998). American economist.
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”
Artificial intelligence is perhaps the most transformative technological advancement of our time, poised to revolutionize industries, reshape societies, and redefine the very fabric of human existence.
It is fundamentally changing the way we work, communicate, and interact with the world around us, pushing the boundaries of what we thought possible and opening up new frontiers in fields ranging from healthcare and finance to transportation and entertainment. With its ability to analyze vast amounts of data, learn from experience, and make autonomous decisions, artificial intelligence is poised to drive profound societal shifts and shape the future in ways we are only beginning to imagine. Continue reading “ChatGPT AI”
War is hell, as many people who have been in wars and witnessed its horrors have concluded. That includes General William Tecumseh Sherman (1820 – 1891) of the US civil war Union army who wrote “War is cruelty and you cannot refine it.”
But people don’t seem to get it. Those who start wars are never the victims of wars. The leaders start wars and ordinary people pay with blood and treasure. However there are people who stand up to the war mongers; they are specially targeted by the war mongers for their opposition to war and the futility of war.
What puzzles me is this: why is it that people don’t get the bloody scam that is perpetrated against them by the war mongers? It isn’t as if there have been no senseless wars and as if there haven’t been people warning against them since antiquity. Continue reading “War is hell”
Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw 