Sunday, February 17, 2008

Ten Tech Advances

This blog is getting updated more frequently than i ever imagined. Please stop inferring anything about my workload as a graduate student. STOP. Now, read.

Ten technology advances I want, now, soon.

  1. To check my email: All I need to say is ‘email’, all my email accounts, should come up one after the other. Better if it can appear on the living room wall avoiding the necessity of monitors.
  2. General browsing of internet through a remote control, coupled with the above mentioned set up.
  3. Cell phones: huh, what boring gadgets. It has remained the same for ages now. One innovation on top of my mind: cell phone with a battery charged for life. Good bye, chargers!
  4. And internet: It’s too slow. I mean, download speeds in the order of Mbps is what we deserve.
  5. No more dealing with all these huge chunky projectors in classrooms. Need something like a laser pointer. It should have a USB port. You load the presentation in it and just press a button, PPT on wall!
  6. When are robots coming? Just program them to cook and release the beta version.
  7. Flying cars. Period
  8. Space tourism: For this, i am willing to wait for 20 years, not more than that.
Did you ever stop writing a blog for the simple reason that you can’t think of 2 more things to finish the list of 10 you promised your readers and then go out for grocery shopping and find out in the intermittent conversations with a friend that he holds a similar opinion on today’s technology and gives you those exact two points to finish up your blog. Well, it sounds exciting and has happened to me just now. So, the last two advances I would love to have, although not in my own words.
  1. Computer: it’s such a dumb machine. It started off as being dumber when it was invented 2 decades ago and now it has now grown to be dumb. It cannot recognize things or people or simply put, it does not even have the intelligence of a small kid. Change it.
  2. Although not a pure technical advance, this is a fitting closing remark. We know every single molecule, chemical formulae and complex structure of starch, we have developed the technology to simulate temperature and pressure of considerable range, yet we cannot produce a single grain of rice. Of course, unlike the above 9, this does not affect my living room design but it sure would change the way of living!

Don’t even get me started on the ‘heroes’ kind of fiction: Time travel, eternity, flying men, regenerating women and memory muscles for I don’t want such wacky stuff. Don’t argue that some of above mentioned already exist. It doesn’t matter much if Ambani has them in his house, aam aadmi like me need them. Don’t know what these mechanical, electrical and computer science students are doing. Stop talking and start doing. Shame on you guys. :P

Sunday, February 10, 2008

You have snow, You sure will glow!

People say, they are up for summer,
I sure agree, just wait for this to be over,
But do they realize what we would lose,
My little Snow-Queen and her cute pose!

Fairy tales occur only in places of snow,
For, you have snow, you sure will glow,
Like the Snow White and in her countenance,
look for the beauty and find the penance!

It Smells like nothing, feels like the boring sand,
When the fall starts, it needs the whole land,
And soon, people scream and lament,
I just enjoy the snow on my pavement!

Ploughing the snow is fun, i never did it,
Driving in the snow is fun, i never tried it,
Playing in the snow is fun, a little bit,
Watching it from my window: Mastered it!

I just love to see the heaps of snow,
clean, fresh, natural but before they blow,
Of course, Who likes the salt that is rubbed in,
Remember, making it melt is close to a sin.

Light is made up of all colors in sight,
Ultimately it is still called white,
For white is the color of unity,
Camouflaging the hues of diversity.

Far, far away, In the Snow-land of my dreams,
It would be the Purity of thought, plainly fragrant,
Neatly disguised and honestly packaged,
I call it, curse for the sane, bliss for the insane.

P.S: Hope they clean the snow before tomorrow morning, need to come out of my house.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Too Optimistic, You think!?

Two posts in two days, I rock man! Basically, I am jobless, rather I should say, running away from job. So, I better make use of it and engage myself in the holy blogging world…lol.

[How can High Definition Television Advertisements, help the makers achieve what they want to. People watching ordinary TV (me included) cannot feel what HDTV has to offer, even though they show it to us on a big screen in the Ad and people who have HDTV anyway would not want to buy another one.]

Anyway, I was blessed with one more brilliant idea(!) today to which my roommate has paid attention for half a minute. Hence, to make myself heard, I preferred to turn to the blogging world. Now, here’s my idea:

How about we have a Carpool/bike share day, say in the city of Hyderabad for one day.

It’s just a simple idea. Just ask people to consciously make attempts to Carpool or share bike ride to work for one day. It could be a kind of government promoted activity. Spend some amount in advertising it and denote one day every year for this day. Probably, pick the day after the New Year (could be Ugadi, Telugu New Year). Just tell the people the advantage of having one less car on the roads and make them spend that extra minute waiting for their colleague or spend that extra mile to pick their child up rather than having a denoted car/auto for him/her. I definitely know it’s a cool idea much would depend on how it is publicized. Of course, no special reason to pick Hyderabad, I would be more happy to see it happen across all the cities in India.

One day of encouragement could go a long way. Realizing its benefits, people might want to take it up more frequently, Companies could insist more on the issue and probably it could also play a role in influencing the housing decisions of new joiners in the companies. Too optimistic, you think!?

See this also


Sunday, January 20, 2008

Comeback Article: From the Northern Hemisphere

Hello Friends, folks and fans!


It took a while for me to get to reality after the overwhelming response to my previous blog. I was busy reading the fan mail. Please don’t look at the ‘dull’ comments section: there were many people who buzzed me on Gtalk to share the views on blog, Of course, I would like them to comment it on the blog so that I find the comments section a bit more exciting! (It is kind of weird to blame my readers for, I strongly know the consequences) Anyway, a lot of good things have happened since the last post and It would be a blatant lie for me to say that I did not have time to blog. (While on this point-of-excuse-for-not-blogging, It seems to be a common phenomenon with most of the bloggers who have started blogging 2-3 years ago when it became really popular.) But definitely, there was a certain time for 2-3 months in the past one year, when blogging seemed to be the last activity I would pursue. And later, I got used to it.


Now, I am in the United States of America. It’s been quite a while, in fact, exactly five months. It’s just been five months and hence it is too early for me to become nostalgic about everything back home although I sometimes imagine what it would have been if I stayed back in India….reading the Hindu paper and drinking the filter Coffee!

Discursive, Adj :

1.passing aimlessly from one subject to another; digressive; rambling.
2.proceeding by reasoning or argument rather than intuition.

(Yeah, while on this issue of the Hindu, off late I am reading a lot of criticism about the way the newspaper is showing uncharacteristic favoritism towards communists. Well, I hope that it is not true. All I have access to is, it’s lousy website where news is dumped in a corner with a vague flashing pattern going now and then. Although, With some effort I could get to the editorial section and read about the Russian IT revolution, Praveen swami’s concern for Glaciers melting in J&K, and a typical Nirmal-Sekhar article – More knowledgeable and enjoyable than the junky Google news. Felt reassured and don’t know what the fuss is all about! Clearly evident was the Chinese Obsession, though!)


Pick a sheet of paper, imagine that to be the map of USA and sprinkle some water on it with your finger tips. Carefully, mark all the wet points on the paper, which is where I have at least one cousin. Consequently, all through my childhood, I heard many stories about this country, in fact, so many that I felt that I already knew much of it before actually seeing it.

Fundamentally, Americans are very proud of their society. (This might also be true with few other countries, including France and England.) Before I go any further, it is very crucial to note that in US, social behavior of individuals is not affected by the kind of work that each individual is associated with. Many of us may feel that courtesy would follow currency, but it need not be! Well, anyway, more about US society later.


The hottest topic in US television right now (apart from weather and sports, of course) is the race to President. My views:

Reason number 12 why Clinton should not be the next US president: If she gets elected, and gets re-elected after five years, only two families would have ruled US for 3 decades. Well, who cares what I have to say. I cannot vote even if I wanted to, but still the presidential debates deeply interest me. After all, their tax structures, health care plans and foreign policies are relevant to me.


Well, she almost cried and consequently won the New Hampshire caucus, and probably that’s the comeback which might fetch her the democratic nomination. From the face of it, it appears to me that there is little difference among the policies of all the democratic candidates and that is why the debates have lacked the punch one would have wanted. But, Obama’s take on the policy structure that provides healthcare to all the people looks genuine to me. But again, as I said before, not much difference among all the other candidates. I became a big fan of Obama, he somehow makes me feel that he is the most genuine guy among the lot. I am ill-informed about the GOP candidates but with the little I read about them, Mitt Romney seemed fresh, energetic and sensible.


The whole point is this: How did Bush come through all this? Wasn’t he involved in all these debates before his race or is it just like the same drama back home where the words spoken don’t mean much. Well, I remember reading a spurious article which said that he managed these debates through a secret microphone. Anyway, the economy is staring at a possible Recession, Half of the world hates America, Oil prices are soaring, a grand welcome to the new Mr. President.

“It is easy to be the American President. Just find the army and point an area to shoot.” Homer Simpson

This is one of my best articles... Pointlessly touching all topics and wasting your not-so-valuable time. Yay!