Birth control is usually seen as the woman’s responsibility, presumably because they get stuck with the birth. In a better world, however, there would be more responsibility on the male, and options would go beyond condoms. A male pill, however, is elusive. Now, however, Indian scientists have found something simple and revolutionary that may work. It’s called RISUG (Reversible Inhibition Of Sperm Under Guidance), and no it doesn’t involve bureaucracy in your tubes.

Remember when everybody in Sri Lanka was rocking the oversized Titanic T-Shirt? I wish I had one right about now. Actually, I wish I had one all the time, but nevermind. James Cameron, the director of that film, Terminator and Avatar (among others) has successfully descended to the bottom of the sea in a custom-built submarine. The man is truly a genius. For reals.

In terms of politeness, apparently loud is the most rude. I dunno though. I think loud is usually funny (which the dug-up study) also shows. I’ve been on planes and buses where dudes are ripping silent deadlies and it’s really noxious and infuriating. One’s own farts are always somehow interesting, but others are plain noxious. I read this story via Andrew Sullivan. His comments were pretty hil:

The Soviet Union was a better villain than ‘terror’. It’s not an generic noun for one thing. There was actual competition at that time, in this case for space and the moon. In this War On Terror, they just went to Afghanistan. This video is Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about NASA and how America lost its capacity to dream therein, as he has before. He actually gets really worked up in this video, which is a mashup of some old school footage and him talking.

I recently read/saw two pieces on space, and America’s role in it. One – testimony by Neil deGrasse Tyson – calls for the US to fund NASA and push for more exploration and innovation. The other – by John Yoo and John Bolton – says, essentially, that space belongs to the US and they can blow it up if they want to. deGrasse, as usual, is extremely forward thinking whereas You and Bolton are just cannibalizing the innovation of the past.

Been reading Confessions Of A Buddhist Atheist. Interesting quote here, about how the Buddha reoriented the position of the soul in the cosmology. Before and still, the soul, or self, was thought of as something constant, even beyond that. The Buddha challenged and practiced something called stream entry, becoming aware that we are ever changing, and finding freedom there. Here’s the quote:

Today is February 29th, which only happens once ever four years, except for every century, unless the century is divisible by 400. Phew. That’s all the permutations to make our orbit around the sun (the year) match the earth’s rate of spin (the day), despite the fact that these two phenomena have nothing to do with each other. So it actually doesn’t work, and our year is always a little bit off.

I went to Crows Island two years ago and found it had a swimmable if slightly dirty beach. Went back yesterday and my God, it’s polluted beyond recognition. Plastic and garbage has entirely covered the beach and pier in parts. It’s disgusting, and a damn shame.

Nas said, ‘born alone, die alone’. That never quite made sense to me. You’re born with family, at least your mother, and you hopefully go out the same way. Even if family misses the death, that’s why we have funerals. Humans are a deeply altruistic species. Hence the word, altricial.

I read something interesting: “What people haven’t seemed to notice is that on earth, of all the billions of species that have evolved, only one has developed intelligence to the level of producing technology. Which means that kind of intelligence is really not very useful. It’s not actually, in the general case, of much evolutionary value” (Tim Maudlin).