Writing & field notes
Essays on data investigations, tech and the questions it raises, plus slower notes on football, travel, and the things I point a camera at.
Dei, Just Give Me A Place For My Pictures
One like on a parotta picture took over my feed. Here's how social media algorithms trap you, why bad news always wins, and what a better platform could look like.
Two AIADMK defectors won their seats back on TVK's ticket. The AIADMK came third in both.
Both AIADMK MLAs who switched to TVK won their seats again in the October 2026 bypolls: K. Maragatham …
I benchmarked India's official statistics server, and got twelve things wrong
India's statistics ministry shipped a server that connects AI assistants directly to official data. I spent …
How many Lok Sabha seats will Tamil Nadu get?
Tamil Nadu has 39 seats. Under the options now being discussed it ends up with anywhere between 32 and 64. The …
The rule India wrote down in 1963
India divides Lok Sabha seats among its states using a method a Commission wrote down in 1963. It has a name, …
How I worked out India's seat rule: sources, code and corrections
The method note behind the delimitation piece. Every source with a full citation, every model choice, what …
The darkness-per-hour map: ranking SoCal's dark skies by drive time from Orange County
Southern California's best dark-sky sites for stargazing, ranked by drive time from Orange County: …
IBM Just Had Its Worst Day Ever. It Was Not About Mainframes Failing.
IBM shares crashed 25 percent in a single day after an earnings warning. The mainframe took the blame, but the …
Fly Well, Daisy and Dandi: The Day the Nest Went Empty
The final chapter of Honey's story: her two chicks, Daisy and Dandi, learn to fly, start sleeping in the …
Daisy and Dandi: Honey's Chicks Hatched on My Daughter's Birthday
Honey the hummingbird's two eggs hatched into chicks named Daisy and Dandi, on our daughter's birthday. A …