Michael Jackson’s death and the subsequent revival of allegations of child abuse against him, has just brought up some uncomfortable thoughts. It seems like most geniuses we know were/are eccentric. The stereotype of a genius perpetuates that relation too - so much so that we go looking for chinks in the armor of anyone who is acclaimed as genius. But what about those who were truly evil? Like Eric Gill?
I had tweeted about wanting to analyse my feed reading activity — mainly to track what different topics I followed over the years. Neither Google Reader trends nor NetNewsWire stats charted that kind of data. Luckily, the list of blogs I was subscribed to, in 2006 and in 2007, are still online (list for 2006, list for 2007 [.xml file]).
Here is what number crunching turns up:
The well respected and loved Holli Conger is organizing a halloween special contest: Pumpkinjunkin. If you win, you will get an illustration none other than from the famous artist herself! Put on your halloween hats and get crackin’ on your pumpkins!
If anyone knows where to get a full pumpkin in Singapore, I will get going too!
I found myself book-less on an MRT ride and looked around for something to do. I chanced upon the 10% Power Savings Campaign one of which claims:
Standb power can add upto 10% of your bill. Switch off appliances at the power socket to save about $50* a year!
* based on electricity tariff of $0.2388 per unit KWh, assuming 35W of standby power in a given home.
Now, it stands to reason that 10% of my monthly bill equals about $4 of power savings ($50/12) per month. Does that mean my monthly bill is only $40?
I am reading the first three chapters (available online as PDFs) from We Think, a book that “explores how the web is changing our world, creating a culture in which more people than ever can participate, share and collaborate, ideas and information”.
I have been catching up on a lot of books lately, all thanks to Project Gutenberg. It was tedious at first but I am now loving it! I am mad about anything written in the 50s or earlier and many of them are available free.
If you love books too, go here for a great list of websites to search and download free books from (in case Project Gutenberg is not enough!).
There is an awesome arts festival afoot in Mumbai - Kala Ghoda Festival and Caferati is hosting an evening of it. The depressing part is I will leave Mumbai on the same day, just before the event starts :(
Here are the details:
Date: 12th February 2006
Venue: David Sasson Library Garden, Kalaghoda
Time: 5.30 p.m. onwards
Oops, almost forgot to mention this awesome new site. PublicGyan is your source for what the masses think about what is happening in the world and what is going to happen in the world - and how that is reflected in the future events that actually happen.
I know there are diseases that are gender dependent (rather harmone dependent), but I didnt know that Dengue was also gender dependent! Today, I saw somebody reading the ‘Home’ section of Straits Times on the MRT which carried a huge illustration of how Dengue infects men and women. The first half was about dengue mosquitoes infecting men and the second half was about how infected women inturn infect the mosquitoes!
We met yesterday at a little known comfortable cafe called The Mind’s Cafe. A few of them had already made themselves home at the venue while people kept trooping in.
It was refreshing to see new faces and new blogs! The Celebrity who I invited to join - Chetan Bhagat - came! and it was awesome to share with him about his first book and the upcoming one! He has a very beautiful wife Anusha (who should hopefully start blogging soon!).