Mesmerizing

i saw a little ant struggling to get out of a pothole of water. it is mesmerizing to see that because we as humans are trying to do the same. The world and its struggles for us are like the potholes of water and we are always trying to stay out of it. Nobody wants to suffer intentionally (except for masochists I guess). But we never think of these struggles as mesmerizing. We get too embroiled in life to take it too seriously. It is only temporary. All this fighting and struggle will come to an end, you like it or not. But the biggest advantage of not giving up the struggle is trying to live richly. Enjoying all the luxuries the life has to offer. And why shouldn't one, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity

Do whatever you want

Is it that tough to think to do something and then do it? I think yes. I am bound by these invisible unknown chains that stop me from doing whatever I want, whenever I want. Some of these chains are there because the society has created them where as some have been created as part of my growing up. I want to play all the time but I have to work. I want to not worry about money but I have to.
I wonder if I am given say a year to do whatever I want, what will I do? I guess will I come out all saturated with all the fun I had or my human need to stay within the bounds make me give up too soon. It would be an interesting exercise but an expensive one. I think some Universities might be interested in pursuing this topic to better understand the human mind. And if they need volunteers, they know where to find me :-)

always competing.......

where do we get the desire to be competitive? is it in school to do better than the others or is it with siblings? can we run an experiment where we do not encourage someone to be competitive and see where it goes. will that make the person lazy or will that make the person love everyone, not worry about winning (or losing for that matter)? i wonder....

Where is Google going?

Google, the word came out of the word 'googol' which is a very very very large number, that is, digit 1 followed by 100 zeroes. The founders originally wanted to name it 'googol' it seems but apparently there was a spelling error and they ended up creating a new word and now, a widely used new verb.

Given Google's ambitions it is trying to do something very very very big. It wants to organize the world's information. It is well on its way to do. You can now search the scholarly papers, search university web sites, search books and even search blogs. I think the big thing will be to organize all the information in the world. Say by the year 2025, it will know every details of the lives of registered users on their site (or it could use geo-location services to find where these unregistered users are and show them their sponsored links). It will know where they live, what they eat everyday, where they go to work, how frequently they go out, etc.

Google has already made strides in that direction by starting the Gmail service a few years back. It knows who we are, who our friends and contacts are, how frequently we email them and so on. It can also know what we search for since most of us now have the Google Desktop software on your PCs and MACs. It can know what we shop for by tracking the purchases from the Froogle site. It can also tie in their newly launched Google Base classifieds service to the individual profiles from Gmail to determine what everyone is trying to sell and buy. So given all that I think by 2025 we will be leading lives based on how Google wants us to.

Google is also making forays in the Biotech space and soon they will have products that will be able to maintain the genetic makeup of every registered user. This could start off as a free service where an individual provides their DNA sample for a free analysis to determine if they have a genetic disorder or are prone to one. Once Google has that information, they can sell it to pharmacy vendors or just do what they do best - show relevant ads related to your genetic makeup.

Google has bought a lot of dark fibre optics network over the last few years. It is also offering free Wi-Fi internet access in some places. It can setup web cams worldwide to track where their registered users are and show them ads based on their current location/destination. So I travel to the US and Google knows I am going to do before the immigration officials do and they have the welcome mat ready for me. Oh I can't wait for 2025!

With all this the big question is, can we trust Google? I would like to say yes since Google's mission is not to be evil :-)

Wandering on the web

It is interesting what you can find while wandering on the web...

Here I was innocently trying to pass some time by edit my 'My Yahoo' settings when I noticed this interesting article on toys that give birth to other toys. The toy takes 9 weeks to do so. It can be 'induced' to give birth much sooner but it is not considered good for the toy. Now, the young girls who will play with these toys will probably not need to ask that question - 'Where do babies come from?'

Why didn't Mattel and Hasbro think about this earlier? I think this is the next festival gift hit.