Saturday, September 27, 2008
Demolition Accomplished
Here's a very interesting article I came across by Paul Krugman, okay it was shoved down my throat by the RSS reader, about Republican politics/policies and why the Democrats(Nancy Pelosi et al) are now exacting revenge on the Paulson $700 billion bailout plan. Read and enjoy!
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Sub Prime crisis
I was in a very interesting discussion with a bunch of rather interesting people this evening. I actually got to know what the Sub Prime mortgage crisis was that destroyed the American banking sector. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have been bought off by the government, Nobody wants to touch Lehman Brothers right now, Bear Stearns has been totally annihilated, and now there are talks of Goldman Sachs going down too. Where does this end? These companies are the cornerstones of the American economy. With an absolute idiot for a President and another one closely competing for the next Presidency, I really fail to see where the world's so-called leading economy is headed. Well, I do see it going somewhere, but I really don't want to believe it. For years, generations have looked up at the US, emulating and well, just sucking up to them!
I really don't know if that's been such a great idea now. Their spending patterns are plain stupid. They waste the planet's resources like there's no tomorrow, and they think that everyone else in the world except for them is to be blamed. The global food crisis is blamed on increasing consumption by countries like India and China, whereas the real culprit happens to be the excessive wastage of food by developed countries like the US. They blame developing nations for increasing oil consumption whereas the US happens to consume about 25% of the total oil consumed in the world, even though the population fraction turns out to be much lesser than that; I'd say, 4%? Are the Americans really blind? Or is such the tragedy of their lives that they just cannot imagine life without consuming so much of the planet? So whether this is a moral question or not is up to you: Would you rather emulate the people of a country who are hell bent on destroying the planet, or would you stand up and be heard?
Buck the trend, make a difference. Don't be blind. The real tragedy is not when one is blind, but when there is no vision.
I really don't know if that's been such a great idea now. Their spending patterns are plain stupid. They waste the planet's resources like there's no tomorrow, and they think that everyone else in the world except for them is to be blamed. The global food crisis is blamed on increasing consumption by countries like India and China, whereas the real culprit happens to be the excessive wastage of food by developed countries like the US. They blame developing nations for increasing oil consumption whereas the US happens to consume about 25% of the total oil consumed in the world, even though the population fraction turns out to be much lesser than that; I'd say, 4%? Are the Americans really blind? Or is such the tragedy of their lives that they just cannot imagine life without consuming so much of the planet? So whether this is a moral question or not is up to you: Would you rather emulate the people of a country who are hell bent on destroying the planet, or would you stand up and be heard?
Buck the trend, make a difference. Don't be blind. The real tragedy is not when one is blind, but when there is no vision.
Sure has been a while...
Folks, It's quite a while since I've posted something my blog. First things first, there has been a bit of an upheaval at my end and just in case someone doesn't know about this, I quit my job at Aditi, Bangalore in July after completing a year and two days there, and moved back home to Jamshedpur. Not that I wasn't really satisfied with my job or anything, but I thought that it was time to move on to something new. People who know me since I was little will vouch for the fact that I was never really a computer geek/nerd. I had always preferred to be on the user end of the computer end, rather than a producer end, so that's that. No regrets, I'm happy I took the leap. There's this law that I heard of in the Last Lecture by Randy Pausch named the Law of Diminishing Intent that I had decided to beat.
This law says that if we put off something to later, we lose the passion and intensity to do it and we keep on postponing these life changing decisions until we put them on hold indefinitely and we finally give up on them because there are just 30 million reasons for not doing something, but not ONE excuse. So enough circumlocuting, let me take control of my blog and start putting something on it for a start!
This law says that if we put off something to later, we lose the passion and intensity to do it and we keep on postponing these life changing decisions until we put them on hold indefinitely and we finally give up on them because there are just 30 million reasons for not doing something, but not ONE excuse. So enough circumlocuting, let me take control of my blog and start putting something on it for a start!
Sunday, June 15, 2008
The human being will become extinct one day
There's something wrong with the world today,
I dont know what it is,
Somethings wrong with our eyes,
We're seeing things in a different way,
God knows it ain't His,
Its surely no surprise,
Yeah, we're livin on the edge.
Steve Tyler wrote these words sometime when he saw the world crumbling to bits. It sure is crumbling to bits, isn't it? We humans are eating it all up. And we want more. More of the world to plunder and pillage. We don't want to stop. I had a passionate discussion with a friend of mine sometime back about this. She wanted data on Global Warming and climate change. Words tossed around too oft these days. What I don't understand is why do people actually lie to themselves in seeming interested in saving the Earth, per se, to look fashionable, perhaps?
The same people who "want" to do something are the same people who do not take a bus instead of an auto-rickshaw, the same people who go to the market and bring home polythene bags instead of carrying their own cloth bags with them, the same people who do not turn off their monitors before going home, the same people who waste half a dozen tissue papers each time they wash their hands. Those are the same people who buy a car with their hiked salaries and commute alone, leaving behind a gargantuan carbon footprint. And these people claim to be interested in saving Mother Earth?
We humans are the only species that I'm aware of that's capable of slaughtering it's own brethren. And finding better ways to do away with more and more of them. We clear out rainforests everyday, and yet we cringe when someone brings up the topic of Climate Change in a conversation. I have actually been in situations where people have turned around and walked off claiming to have "work" to do when this topic came up. So this friend of mine, she asks me, why don't people do anything about things they only talk about? I had just one answer for it. It's not like we can't change. It's more like we don't WANT to change. We dont want to make changes to the choices we make everyday. We don't want to change ourselves. We would rather make fun of someone making an honest effort rather than look within ourselves and think about whether what we're doing is right or not.
And at the end of it all, when we all would have died, and death and disease has claimed every one of us the very last human being will think, "Did we do this to ourselves?" but he would already know the answer.
It's true that the human being will become extinct one day. God knows, we deserve it.
I dont know what it is,
Somethings wrong with our eyes,
We're seeing things in a different way,
God knows it ain't His,
Its surely no surprise,
Yeah, we're livin on the edge.
Steve Tyler wrote these words sometime when he saw the world crumbling to bits. It sure is crumbling to bits, isn't it? We humans are eating it all up. And we want more. More of the world to plunder and pillage. We don't want to stop. I had a passionate discussion with a friend of mine sometime back about this. She wanted data on Global Warming and climate change. Words tossed around too oft these days. What I don't understand is why do people actually lie to themselves in seeming interested in saving the Earth, per se, to look fashionable, perhaps?
The same people who "want" to do something are the same people who do not take a bus instead of an auto-rickshaw, the same people who go to the market and bring home polythene bags instead of carrying their own cloth bags with them, the same people who do not turn off their monitors before going home, the same people who waste half a dozen tissue papers each time they wash their hands. Those are the same people who buy a car with their hiked salaries and commute alone, leaving behind a gargantuan carbon footprint. And these people claim to be interested in saving Mother Earth?
We humans are the only species that I'm aware of that's capable of slaughtering it's own brethren. And finding better ways to do away with more and more of them. We clear out rainforests everyday, and yet we cringe when someone brings up the topic of Climate Change in a conversation. I have actually been in situations where people have turned around and walked off claiming to have "work" to do when this topic came up. So this friend of mine, she asks me, why don't people do anything about things they only talk about? I had just one answer for it. It's not like we can't change. It's more like we don't WANT to change. We dont want to make changes to the choices we make everyday. We don't want to change ourselves. We would rather make fun of someone making an honest effort rather than look within ourselves and think about whether what we're doing is right or not.
And at the end of it all, when we all would have died, and death and disease has claimed every one of us the very last human being will think, "Did we do this to ourselves?" but he would already know the answer.
It's true that the human being will become extinct one day. God knows, we deserve it.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Yeah, right!
Ummm, I realized that I've been posting more and more links in my blog, rather than writing something concrete, no excuses, I've just been busy reading up a lot and I feel I must share it with you folks. Here's a link to the Baccalaureate Speech delivered by Guy Kawasaki. For people who already know about Guy, I needn't say much, but for the uninitiated, it's really awesome, and I bet it'll make a lot of difference in all your lives.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Green IT
Just sitting and worrying about the demise of the Earth as we know it will get us nowhere. Feels good to know that there are actually some companies that are actually taking steps towards doing something about it.
Here's a link to an article about Dell's greenest computer yet.
http://gizmodo.com/382766/dell-introduces-their-smallest-greenest-pc-yet
Here's a link to an article about Dell's greenest computer yet.
http://gizmodo.com/382766/dell-introduces-their-smallest-greenest-pc-yet
Obsolete Technology
I often wonder what people do with all the really ancient technology that they used once upon a time. Upon reading the following article on Gizmodo, I was surprised to know that they don't throw it all away, they do,in fact, USE it!
http://gizmodo.com/382621/the-massive-expensive-problem-of-obsolete-tech
http://gizmodo.com/382621/the-massive-expensive-problem-of-obsolete-tech
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