Fast forward

You know you are not happy when you wish you could make time go faster.

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A free-speech clarification

(Updated 13/6)
In response to an emailed comment by a certain reader, I feel it is appropriate to clarify my stand on free speech.
I frequently say I believe in complete freedom of speech, no hate-speech exceptions, etc. However when I say complete freedom of speech, I use the term only to refer to expressed opinions. My stand [...]

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An interview

My interview with the Pakistani Spectator.

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Ten years ago

Apropos of nothing…I remembered myself from ten years back.
When I hated all mongerers of superstition; when I simply could not fathom why the government did not declare the practice of astrology, quackery, faith-healing and all related unscientific mumbo-jumbo illegal; when I would have liked all religious extremists and preachers of hate put behind bars; when the ultimate [...]

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Grad life, blogging, mathematics and Mozart

I haven’t had much time to blog this weekend. Ideas for posts came and went. News broke, and got stale. I gave them all a haughty ignore and, with single minded devotion, concentrated on my L-functions.
One of the drawbacks of being a fourth year grad student is that you need to do a lot of research quickly enough [...]

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I am now a Reason subscriber

Online reading has its merits, but there’s nothing like sitting in a comfortable couch and flipping the pages of a favourite magazine. So, four weeks ago, I signed up for a year’s subscription of Reason, and my first copy arrived today. Delicious.

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A hint to go grocery shopping

My housemate sent me an email yesterday which I thought was rather funny and am reproducing in full below.
No pathbreaking results in research; no car to take me places; not particularly proficient at arts or sports; and now the house has run out of eggs, milk and veggies too. But there’s a part of me [...]

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Outside Corner Bakery on a winter morning

It’s a brilliant morning. The air is cool and fresh, the sunshine abundant and there’s not a cloud in the sky. I sit on a metal chair outside Corner Bakery sipping my coffee. 
The road is full of colourful kids. It’s the annual parade day. They walk, they smile, some wobble along on their tiny bikes wearing their impossibly cute red [...]

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The libertarian’s libertarian

Clive Crook is an excellent essayist and this passage -from his sterling tribute to Milton Friedman- is particularly close to my heart.
There is no great mystery about the reason for this double standard. Freedoms that express themselves through market relations—the freedom to buy and sell—are widely regarded as ethically compromised. This is the freedom to [...]

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