Monday Cup Of Links #31 - Antique Camp Cookware, IRL Good Will Hunting, That Husband From That Article, and DINOSAUR MUMMIES
This post is rich like a New York cheesecake.
Happy Memorial Day!
I hope you’re getting some much-needed sun, wherever you are. I’m really glad for this weekend; it’s a much needed break. It’s been hard to take my mind off work given there’s no work/home boundaries as much anymore. This weekend, I’ve managed to take some time to focus on housekeeping and self-care and other things I’ve ignored for too long.
It’s surprising how much I like an uncluttered workspace, be it kitchen counters or desks or the living room. As I’m incredibly unique and different, I assumed I was immune to the effects of clutter on the human psyche. Maybe it’s age, or the fear of the virus messing my brain, but it turns out I’m not.
Today also happens to be the birth anniversary of Rashbehari Bose, the founder of the Indian National Army and hero of the Gadar revolution. I’ve mentioned him before on here - his famous chicken curry he used to rescue his wife’s family restaurant in Japan when he was hiding from the British, and this comprehensive piece about him on CNN.
Onto our links!
THEY FOUND A MUMMIFIED DINOSAUR!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A whole giant dinosaur with skin and guts intact! Thank Canadian winters for preserving it for so long and so well. It would have weighed 3000 pounds alive, and it’s still 2500 pounds, that’s how well it’s been preserved. Go through that link, and then go on the internet and read all the articles that come up for “nodasaur mummy”. It’s the most exciting thing I’ve seen in a long time!
For good measure, here’s some more !!!s - !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Here’s this zoomable image showing the trade routes of the world in the 11th-12th century. I spent hours just looking at this and imagining all the cool trips people could have taken. The world was incredibly globalized even back in the day. I know at least in India, a lot of the trade routes are still in heavy use, with the Uttarapath being a six-lane highway. I’m just a little surprised to see Aihole and Dharwad there but not any of the cities in the Mysore region; they seem to have only come into prominence after the decline of Vijayanagara, in the 16th century and later. I wonder why North Karnataka isn’t as prominent now as it used to be.
ICYMI: My Thursday piece on the Death Of the Female Comedian Memoir. I really enjoyed writing this after reading Ali Wong’s. I also crossposted this on Medium, where it’s been well-received. Do follow me on Medium as well; I occasionally post versions of my Thursday pieces on there. Your claps there will mean I can make a few more cents and reach new audiences.
I’m not familiar with knot problems in math, but this story of this grad student solving the Conway Knot problem is something legends are made of. Lisa Piccirillo, who was a PhD student at UT Austin, heard of the Conway Knot problem at a conference, and decided to try some techniques on it which she was working on. She considered it a homework problem, and only worked on it in her spare time. Apparently this problem had baffled mathematicians for decades, but she used some old techniques which had been considered not useful in this context. Within a week, she had a solution to this problem! This work has secured her a tenure-track position at MIT, scheduled to start only 14 months after her PhD graduation, which is incredibly impressive. It usually takes longer, and involves years of post-doctoral research. This is basically living the dream as a math grad student - solving a famous and long-standing problem, in a way that reveals new insights about the field, and landing a tenure track job not long after graduation. Great going, Dr. Piccirillo!
The Internet is seething at the husband in this article. On the surface, it looks like there’s plenty of reason to. He was ‘taking a break from his career’ and his wife was working her ass off building her startup. He barely managed to be the sole caregiver for their child for three days before he couldn’t do it anymore, and she decided to shut down her startup because “she’s a mom, at the end of the day”. The lady tries really hard to clarify on her Twitter that there were extenuating circumstances, like they lost big contracts, and it wasn’t making financial sense, and she’d rather shut down early because then she as well as her employees could find other jobs before other companies froze hiring. But the Internet is having none of it and wants her to “dump the whole man”.
As someone who was raised in a household with ten permanent residents and several transients, I see it as a sad commentary on how in several parts of America, you don’t have a support network anymore to watch your kids and raise them in a state of benign neglect while still meeting all their needs. I know several people are sole caregivers of their multiple children, but that should really not be the norm.GIF of the week: Well, this time it’s a video, one which I’ve received as a forward from every single Whatsapp group I’m on. Old Indian Camp Cookware. This is an old vessel (thooku in Tamil) which travelers and pilgrims used to take with them. It contains in it enough utensils to cook for a small wedding. You’d travel in a group of about 25 usually, and this would be more than sufficient to make food for everyone, which would then be eaten off of banana leaf plates. Why didn’t they have this when I was moving from India to the US?