This is an extended piece on the manner in which the web, small pieces loosely joined, can lead to “serendipitous connectabilty” (something I had written about earlier here). All this is situated in a story that connects cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstader, Oriya...
Posts related to: Art
EduPunk: The logo
I had written about the EduPunk program and my natural affinity to it here. What I forgot to add in that posting was an EduPunk logo I had created. This logo was made using photos of letterforms from Flickr. There is a handy-dandy tool created by Erik Kastner called...
The Allegory of the Cave
Plato's Allegory of the Cave (see Wikipedia entry) illustrates "our nature in its education and want of education." It is maybe one of the most famous allegories in literature and philosophy, a precursor to the kinds of mind-games (think brain in a vat) that...
A different language
I have always been interested in how we use words to capture intangibles. For instance wine connoisseurs have developed a specialized language (which sadly is quite opaque to me) to explain to each other characteristics of wine. So the words "fruity" and "dry" have...
Responding to my reading…
I had written a response to Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist a while ago (read it here). Yesterday, I received a note from Irfan critiquing my take on the novel. This is what he wrote: Punya, I read the novel and it does not seem to me, as you interpret,...
Presentation/Workshop at Twente
I just completed a presentation at the symposium organized by the Department of Curriculum Design & Educational Innovation, University of Twente. Later this afternoon I will be conducting a workshop on creativity and the TPACK framework. The slides for both the...
Cool clock design
Just thought I would share an example of interesting clock I saw during my stay here at Twente, made almost entirely of cardboard! front view back view Enjoy
Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries
... Or Why I love the web. I stumbled upon a piece (Lotus Blossom) by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries the other day... and it was like nothing else I had ever seen. At some superficial level it looked like kinetic typography, but both simpler and more complex at the...
Photos from Twente
I have uploaded a set of photos from my walk around the Twente University campus onto Flickr. You can see the entire set by clicking on the image below. Enjoy.
Playing with light and shadows
Stumbled upon the creative work of Kumiya Mashita. It is amazing just how much can be created with just light and shadows. Just brilliant. Here are some examples:
On making computation visible
Here is a cool video about a "a mechanical, binary adding machine that uses marbles to flip the bits" - in other words a computer made of wood, that works at a pace that we can grasp! Marvelous. (HT: Collision Detection). Check out the video: [youtube width="425"...
Sitar Hero!
Why I love the Internets 🙂
On beauty in banality
Does beauty transcend banality and inconvenience? If this story about a violin virtuoso, Joshua Bell, playing on the subway station is any indication, we do not have "a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever...
Is your head in the McClouds!
Scott McCloud is a pioneer in his field - the field of comics. (I had previously posted about him here). I just discovered (via Presentation Zen & Matt Koehler) a TED talk he had given back in 2005. It is a wonderful introduction to McCloud the man and his ideas....
Technology, creativity & illusion
Marco Tempest is magician who loves technology, or a techno-geek who happens to be a good magician. He brings an unique amalgam of high-tech and magic to his shows (see this article for details), but that is not what is most impressive about his work. What is...
Ambi-poetry: A mathematician reinterprets ambigrams
My friend Gaurav Bhatnagar (I had blogged about his new book, Get Smart: Math Concepts here), for some reason, known only to him, has decided to create a poetry-blog based around my ambigrams. Each posting consists of one ambigram (taken from my large collection of...
Another New Year’s card
We just created another New Year's Card / Video. Check it out: Shreya's Magic Touch [youtube width="425" height="355"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOrRsXaFE3o[/youtube]
Binary Sudoku
Courtsey, XKCD!
Yet another stop-motion movie
One Nikon D70, two bored kids, one snowy day... and 49 seconds of fun. Check out the latest stop-motion goofiness! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drc6Oo4b9C0 You could also see the 12 Days of Christmas, desi style (the original can be found here) as rendered by Shreya...
Harold Pinter, RIP
One way of looking at speech is to say it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness — Harold Pinter (1930 - 2008).
Happy 2009, a stop motion movie
Soham, Shreya and I spent this afternoon making a stop-motion animation new year's card. Check it out... http://www.youtube.com/embed/7kw_icNKI44 Have a great 2009!
The Ethics of Dallas Clayton
I just stumbled upon Dallas Clayton's website. Lots of stuff there to enjoy... here's a short poem (as a sampler). ETHIC A father stands at the lip of the wharf with his daughter who is only three. They watch sea lions lounging about in the sun full with fish dazed...
12 Days of Christmas, the desi version
I love mongrel culture the mashing and creative remixing elements from different cultures and traditions to construct something new and, hopefully, wonderful. A great example is something my daughter, Shreya, showed me the other day. It is the 12 Days of Christmas...
Brevity is the soul
I had posted earlier (see Twittering a tale) about short, short fiction that is suddenly the rage. Matt Koehler just introduced me to another example of this new emerging genre: Six Word Memoirs. Check it out.
Visual wit
I just stumbled upon this website of witty and original t-shirt designs. Two of my favorites are "Experimental music" (included below) and "Puzzled Putter." You can see all the designs here.
Daily routines of creative people
A while ago I had blogged about a webpage that chronicles how "artists work" (see my posting here). Now I discovered a whole website devoted to it. Check out Daily Routines. They are all interesting to read and the common theme that jumps out, for the most part, is...
The role of Vitamin D in beta-cell function
Who says scientists can't have fun. I just discovered a series of videos on (where else) YouTube about scientists expressing their doctoral research through dance!!! What can be cooler than that? Check out one of the winners: The role of Vitamin D in beta-cell...
The reluctant fundamentalist
I just finished reading "The reluctant fundamentalist" a novel by Mohsin Hamid over the break. (I had mentioned this novel in another context here). It is a tight, powerful novel, structured as a monologue, (reminiscent of Camus' The Fall, a fact that few reviewers...
The “O” in Obama
Steven Heller continues his series on political typography and branding with an interview with the design team that developed the now iconic symbol for the Obama campaign. Check out The "O" in Obama. Previous postings on this theme can be found here and here.
We feel fine about ambient findability (really?)
Most of us live our lives with the assumption of practical obscurity - i.e. the idea that what we do, even in public places, is essentially private. There are just too many people and just too few ways of tracking us individually. So we were for the most part,...