The urge is natural. Surrender to it.

A well-written article on why infants shd not be abandoned to their cribs and why they shd sleep with their parents.

clever steps forward and new spins on old features that somehow made it through committee, past the bean counters and under the radar of mktg depts

It is top 10 time again and it is a tech top 10 again - this time it is a list of innovations that have made some technologies user-friendly. This article is meant for laymen like me and so is very easy to understand. You would definitely enjoy reading this if you are a TV, DVD, camera person!

This holiday season, policy makers in Beijing and New Delhi should fret a little

Interesting article on the challenges facing China and India in the coming years. China invests and produces in anticipation of domestic demand. India consumes in anticipation of foreign investment. Neither is sustainable.

Top ten tech trends for 2006

This is an interesting list, esp if you are a non-techie like me. I am little sceptical abt the cellphone doing everything part, because those who use cellphones for email (the blackberry owners) do not use it for photography or web access. In any case, battery power is still limited.

I am similarly sceptical abt docs being on the web. MS Office applications on the PC are simply the easiest office tools to use, whatever the techies might say abt the technology and in spite of all those crashes.

Finally, clean technologies is a cute idea, but not really profitable. It is very altruistic to buy a clean technology car for example, but not very easy to use it everyday.

The other ones on the list are already happening and in 2006, we should witness an explosion in some of them - internet phones for example.

Religion = delinking belief from evidence?

I happened to watch Sam Harris' speech on BOOKTV and recommend more than a cursory reading of the contents here to anyone interested in learning more abt man's recourse to religion. Beware, some parts are really inflammatory and I do not know enough to agree or disagree with him. But a visit to the homepage of his site samharris.org provides a long list of accolades that simply cannot be ignored. It might be a good idea to read the Economist's review
of his book The End of Faith before visiting Sam's site.

As a person trying to understand this whole topic better, I found these discussions very useful. Here is a provocative quote:

"When people have reasons for what they believe, we consider those reasons, and when they are good, we find ourselves believing likewise. When they have no reasons, or bad ones, we dismiss their beliefs as a symptom of ignorance, delusion, or stupidity. Except on matters of religion."

games people play

A very interesting article on the two bets taken by investment houses on the gambling industry - the first on the profitability of casinos and online gaming (this is a no-brainer, really) and the second on whether there is scope for prosecution under US law which does not recognise gambling as legal. The second bet is obviously the tougher one to "game" (sorry for the pun), but it looks like the payoffs are high enough to attract bets.

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the link between the scientific and the fantastic

"Suppose we combine the idea that children are devoted intuitive scientists and the idea that play allows children to learn freely without the practical constraints of adulthood." Read on to find out why children are interested in fantasy for basically scientific reasons:

Suppose I wish for an idiot to stop being too idiotic to see his own idiocy?

IDIOTS: Five Fairy Tales and Other Stories is an excellent collection of short stories by Jakob Arjouni. If you have read Woody Allen and want a slightly less crazy version, here it is. Very funny, very lively and very easy to read. Highly recommended.

When does healthy scepticism curdle into delusional paranoia?

We all love conspiracy theories about events and people we are familiar with - assassination of famous politicians, wars, UFOs, NASA's lunar mission, etc. Why? What feeds our 'need' for such theories? How do we retain our sanity in spite of doubting almost everything we read, hear and watch (on TV)? This rather long piece contains some interesting points. Skim through it.

Keep this quote from the article in mind:

The astronomer Carl Sagan once famously said about UFO conspiracy, that it was fine to have an open mind, but if your mind was too open, then your brains fell out.

Civilisation protects us from Nature!

This statement is made by the main character in Michael Crichton's recent book State of Fear. If you have the slightest interest in environmental issues and have an open mind about what needs to be done, this is a novel to read. I am obviously not qualified to comment on the science behind the debate, but I would still vote for Crichton's arguments because of the one main thought he has emphasised - poverty is the greatest source of environmental pollution (incidentally, if I remember right, Indira Gandhi made this same statement many, many years back, but did nothing abt it thereafter!). The novel also takes a well-deserved swipe at the many NGOs involved in the "business" of environmental activism. In the postscript to the novel itself, Crichton talks abt theories become accepted facts by repeated assertion.

The book Sceptical Environmentalist, which uses statistics to attack many popular beliefs abt the Greenhouse effect and such other environmental issues. Confession - I only read the book reviews and the associated debates, but not the book itself.