I know that the plural of anecdote is not data but I`ve heard one too many border crossing anecdotes as of this one. This shit just became data. My chances of getting beaten and arrested while crossing the border are now unacceptably high for me to even consider entering the United States in the foreseeable future.

Yeah, it's become a real enough possibility. I'm Indian, living in Mexico, and will probably make my first ever visit to the States next... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 11:50 AM on December 12, 2009

> What's that like? I've been told it's extremely rigorous, but is there consistency?

Well its extremely rigorous. I was consistently grilled for up to 45mins by two different people, the second one repeated questions that the first one had asked to cross check. They go to minute detail. For example I told them I was a science student, and they wanted to know if had any publications, and then wanted me to show the journal with my paper in it, and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 6:13 PM on December 13, 2009

I would totally keep subscribing if I could choose what sections of the newspaper I wanted to read. In Sydney, I used to get this huge edition delivered home, and half of it went straight to the recycling bin.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 8:46 AM on December 10, 2009

This one of the water repellent surface is fantastic.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 8:08 PM on December 4, 2009

Oh no! The man was one of my favourite writers! I carry Mythago Wood around like a talisman.
.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 6:38 AM on November 30, 2009

Wow this is great news. The conditions in indian circuses and zoos are usually horrific. The only snag I see is when they introduce african elephants to national parks. Major shitstorm coming, I think.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 4:58 PM on November 17, 2009

That was a great read. Thanks for the post.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 8:12 PM on November 16, 2009

wow, it sounds great! Thanks for this post.
I'm having trouble playing the radio though. Does anyone have any hints on why this might be? Im on a Mac, 10.4.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 6:08 PM on November 10, 2009

Ah never mind, the stream apparently only works with Windows Media Player 9.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 6:16 PM on November 10, 2009

Thou shalt always FILTER!
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 8:05 AM on November 6, 2009

Here's another Blue sun, taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 8:51 AM on November 4, 2009

GanDHi, not GHandi, FFS.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 6:06 PM on November 3, 2009

The mexican aerophones site was the best thing I ever found on Geocities.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 2:31 PM on October 25, 2009

Here's a video of the spider dodging ants.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 5:55 PM on October 13, 2009

I thought it ironic that it's named Bagheera! Since they found it in southern Mexico, I'll keep an eye out for it. And feed it flies, just to see what happens.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 6:13 PM on October 13, 2009

> the person who named all the jumping spiders

Some of them. They were named by George and Elizabeth Peckham. There's even a jumping spider society named in their honour.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 7:35 PM on October 13, 2009

Here's an interview with Wrangham at EDGE.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 8:02 AM on October 13, 2009

5 mins to impact.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 4:28 AM on October 9, 2009

hmmm...no kaboom as far as I can tell. Like the NASA TV commentator said, not sure what I saw on the feed.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 4:39 AM on October 9, 2009

I study spiders, and have a small project with a species of the genus Nephila, and I can only marvel at the immense work that has gone into this. Even letting aside the weaving part, the collecting of spiders, the manpower, the instense dedication to put in all that work to produce something undeniably beautiful, it's simply amazing. I do not think that there will be another such piece made ever.

Did I miss something?
MeFi is generally quite arachnophobic.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 6:45 AM on October 6, 2009

Yes indeed, thanks for the link to the video!
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 7:58 PM on September 14, 2009

> And editors don't even have to critique the thing -- they just stuff an rejection form in an envelope and that's the end of it.

Yeah I agree. When I get a paper back from a scientific journal, it's usually filled with comments on how to make it better, or it points out flaws that I can then correct. Even a rejection (after the sting has faded away) is an opportunity to learn to write/do science better. But when I got back a short story from a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 4:56 PM on September 11, 2009

aaargh homunculus, now you've gone and made me homesick.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 3:28 PM on September 9, 2009

Palamedes: "it's safe to say that some religious creeds, norms, and practices are dumber than others"

Well if your whole livelihood depends on cows, it makes more sense to worship them than turn them into burgers.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 5:58 PM on September 9, 2009

whoops. Mods plz delete. censorship, I tell ya
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 6:33 PM on September 8, 2009

>ಠ_ಠ

I keep seeing this, and the funny thing is that the letters are from my native tongue, Kannada, and I keep reading it as Ta. Ta.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 3:51 PM on August 5, 2009

> Biology needs people who are more holistic. Molecular guys with behaviour backgrounds or computer scientists who grok biol.

Yeah I think one can get much further that way. My problem is that while I am extremely sympathetic to new approaches, and new techniques, often using these techniques requires a level of understanding of math/programming/chemistry etc that's just way over my head. I study spider behaviour and while I'm keen on doing... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 10:48 AM on July 23, 2009

Insert 'Large ship slow turn' phrase here.
I would insert it myself, if I could just remember how it went
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 6:44 AM on July 22, 2009

> Why aren't there lists like

Heh. Reminded me of a passage from Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler:

"In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the thick barricade of Books You Haven't Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you know... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 8:35 AM on July 21, 2009

Related: Jumping spiders of Oklahoma.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 5:59 AM on July 17, 2009

nimsey lou: heh. I linked to the same guy's flickr page
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 7:00 AM on July 17, 2009

Bees appreciating Van Gogh close enough?
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 12:44 PM on July 17, 2009

Yay!
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 9:58 AM on July 14, 2009

Metafilter: Face the rath
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 7:23 PM on July 12, 2009

I'm usually a non-fundamentalist vegetarian, but eating Octopuses is where I draw the line. Everytime someone orders octopus/squid, I give them a mini lecture on how they're too smart to be treated as food.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 8:58 PM on July 6, 2009

The conclusion is rather obvious. Fear mongering.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 7:50 PM on June 28, 2009

Ever since I moved to Mexico 8 months ago, the crazy kid who lives upstairs seemed to have recently discovered MJ and has been playing MJ incessantly at real loud volumes. At first it was annoying, and then distracting, and now I'm just resigned to it. The funny thing is I hadn't heard or thought about MJ for years till now.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 4:06 PM on June 25, 2009

> Something people may not know is that he is absolutely *huge* in India, probably because his dancing aligns so well with the whole Bollywood thing.

Yep and here's that crazy thriller style telugu video that was making the rounds a few months ago.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 4:34 PM on June 25, 2009

> And last weekend, I recall clueless CNN desk jockeys...

I was just thinking that Iran coverage is going to drop off dramatically from CNN.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 5:36 PM on June 25, 2009

That was a fascinating article, thanks. I especially liked the fact that this guy picked up computer programming so quickly.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 4:02 PM on June 25, 2009

I'm excited by this, because I hope that there will be renewed interest in trains in Mexico. Far fetched, I know. But here the buses compete with the planes, so I'm not too hopeful.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 7:23 PM on June 14, 2009

I have many train stories. This is one of them.

Many years ago, I went on a crazy solo cycling trip from Mangalore to Kanyakumari, along one of the busiest highways in India complete with maniacal truck drivers. The trip was through Kerala, and since I don't speak Malayalam, I did most of the trip in silence, tot he extent that I ended up having to talk to myself to keep myself sane. So at the end of the trip, I decided to head back to Bangalore by train, since I didn't... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 11:23 AM on June 13, 2009

trip. trip. dammit.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 11:24 AM on June 13, 2009

The holy man's middle name is And?
It's a pun: 've' in hebrew is 'and'. The guy's name is David VeMoshe
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 4:37 PM on June 12, 2009

There was a paper in Animal Behaviour recently which was a survey of the definitions that biologists used to define behaviour, and there seems to be a lot of confusion. Everybody knows what behaviour is, but there's a surprising lack of uniformity. We will probably see more and more plant behaviour research done with traditionally animal behaviour techniques as time goes by.

on an unrelated note: Plants terraformed the planet first. They get humans to go around... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 9:16 AM on June 11, 2009

I went through this whole list making process (because it turns out people really do want to see a list), and the end of it, I was so drained it was unbelievable. It took me several weeks to get over it.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 7:11 AM on June 10, 2009

From the NYT "Hans Weber, head of the Tecop aviation consulting firm in San Diego, offered a hypothesis about the episode, based on his knowledge of severe losses of altitude by two Qantas jets last year.

The new Airbus 330 was a “fly-by-wire” plane, in which signals to move the flaps are sent through electric wires to small motors in the wings rather than through cables or hydraulic tubing. Fly-by-wire systems can automatically conduct maneuvers to prevent an... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 8:19 AM on June 2, 2009

> Bing gave me a link to some spam-trap site. The Mexican embassy website is nowhere on the page.

Heh. that's weird. I tried that same search (from Mexico) and it gave me the right link as the top result. See there's your problem, Vacapinta, you should have done that search from Mexico.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 9:02 AM on June 1, 2009

I always picked up the book in the shop, turned it around and always put it back because I thought it seemed too American for me to 'get'. Is this the case?
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 7:05 PM on May 21, 2009

yeah but the problem is that on MeFi, any spider thread turns into an arachnophobe's free-for-all.
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 8:59 PM on April 30, 2009