What would the world be like without laziness

During a conversation with a friend, something about laziness came up, and I started to think what the world would be without laziness. I asked my housemates about it and got responses like "it would be the same", "it would be more advanced", "it would be more efficient", "it would be hyper-active" & "it would be very mechanical".

My own feeling is that it would be one heck of a boring world. (I guess mechanical comes quite close to this). Can you imagine living a life where you would always have to do what you have to as soon as you know about it? It means absolutely no free time, 'cos lets face it - we all have 'something' to do all the time. And if weren't 'allowed' to be lazy, we would have to do that work at that time. You would have to study for exams longer than the oft-used 'last 1 month'. You would need to clean up your room/house at a frequency which is atleast 10 times higher. (For those whom it wasn't obvious, I don't like cleaning :p) Oh hell, you wouldn't ever be able to just sit (or lie) and do nothing. And this being my all-time favourite past-time, it's simply damn too difficult to imagine life without it.

What are your thoughts? I'll like to hear about how you see a world without laziness.

Rising Popularity! Increased Attacks?

Anyone who spends anytime surfing is bound to know abt the surge in popularity of open source applications. The Linux vs Windows war has been on for years now and plenty has been written about it. More recently, however, it has been the gaining popularity of Mozilla Firefox that is the talking point. But this rising popularity has one big fallback - it will most certainly be accompanied by a rising number of hackers attacking Firefox.

Windows & IE have the number of hack-attacks they do simply because of its popularity. Any hacker/virus-developer (who knows why they do what they do) would prefer to target their 'work' at Microsoft products since that would have the biggest reach and can cause maximum havoc.

Yes, there will be those who argue that most virus are developed simply because the programmer dislikes Microsoft or is for Open-Source etc. But in all walks of life, when there is one single person dominating the field, there will be a huge number of those who simply dislike them. Take for example, Michael Jordan at the peak of his career with the Chicago Bulls - anti-Jordan sites were all over the place. The same holds good of Michael Schumacher. I'm not saying that they are faultless, or that there shouldn't people who dislike them - espescially in Schumacher's case there is plenty to argue about. My point here is that popularity seems to breed contempt.

Coming back to browsers. Currently IE still holds majority of the market. But it is steadily dropping. The statistics I linked above may be a bit extreme, but it does show the trend. As Firefox gains popularity, I expect the number of attacks on it will go up as well and most likely after a certain time, this rate will rise much faster than that of popularity. Lets just hope that this trend of rising Firefox vulnerability alerts doesn't indicate the same. I just hope I'm wrong cos I find Firefox simply great and would hate to have to move due to increased attacks on it.

Dan Brown

I just recently read both 'Angels & Demons' and 'DaVinci Code' by Dan Brown (yeah I know - quite late, but hey, better late than never) and they are really fantastic reads. Its definitely worth getting hold of them. Both have plots so different from all that I've read before and the style of writing keeps you interested all the time. In fact, Angels & Demons is so fast moving and intriguing, I couldn't put the book down and I spent every free minute for 2 whole days (2 working days at that) just reading. That is by far the fastest I've read any book since I'm not a very avid reader.

Anyways, cmoing to the point, if you haven't read either of those, please do. It's fun and you will definitely not regret picking them up.

Indian Pride

Sania Mirza has helped tennis come back into the spotlight in India. In the early 1990s the Indian duo of Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes rocked the nation by reaching many Grand Slam finals. Infact, in 1999, they made to all the 4 Grand Slams. Unfortunately for India, the 'dynamic duo' split up soon after and that ended tennis' prominence in the Indian sporting arena.

While India have had a few sparks in the men's game over the years - from Ramesh Krishnan & Vijay Amritraj to Paes & Mahesh, the women's game has hardly ever made news of any kind. There has been only one Grand Slam match victory ever (until Sania's Aussie Open performance this year) and that was ages ago in the 1998 edition of the Aussies Open (Nirupama Vaidyanathan). Sania has now played herself into Indian tennis record books by becoming the 1st ever Indian lady to reach the 3rd round in any Grand Slam.

I write this blog as I watch the Sania vs Serena match and Sania is down 1 set and has just been broken in the 2nd set. The game is not going unexpectedly. I do not believe even Sania expected to trouble Serena. But nevertheless, I'm sure plenty of Indians around the world would be watching this match especially considering that today is a public holiday in many parts of the world (for Eid). While there is also no surety that Sania will repeat this performance in future Grand Slams and it seems even more unlikley that any other Indian girl would either. India most certainly doesn't have a 'pride' as yet, but hopefully we have one lioness in the making.

PS: I save this entry exactly when Serena serves her final ace to put a dampner on Indian hopes.

A World Above

Casinos, Bars & Spas.
Vegas perhaps?

Gyms, bedrooms & shops.
A hotel then?

These are some of the 'priviledges' that would be available, not on land, but way above. No, not the moon (not that high up as yet). I'm talking about the new Airbus A380. Stats of this, the largest ever commercial aircraft, are simply mind-blowing. At 7-storeys high, this is the first plane with a full 2nd level of seating. To fly it would be an experience. One that, I guess, I would not get anytime in the near (or reasonably distant) future.

Though fascinating, this article in the Syndey Morning Herald (SMH) highlights exactly how advertising sways consumers. Quite frankly, the 'priviledges' I spoke about earlier would rarely (if at all) be available to us those who travel on 'lowly' economy class. And in most likelihood, most airlines would actually use up as much of the available space for seating. In such a scenario there could be upto 800 people in the confines of a single aircraft. The A380 is starting to suddenly sound similar to cattle-herding.

Well, arguments apart, I still stand in awe of this gigantic plane and look forward to seeing many of these white elephants flying across the globe.

Nature's way

Following up on an earlier post about the unusually cold Middle East, now I came across unusually warm weather in the usually-freezing Russia. So warm that apparently some animals forgot to hibernate.

Nature sure is out to remind us all that however intelligent and innovative man becomes, he is still at the mercy of Mother Nature. Be it winter or summer, rain or snow; its Nature's way or the highway.

Khamsin

I came across this rather strange weather phenomenon called 'Khamsin'. This hot weather & sandstorms was followed by cold weather with SNOW... and this in the Middle East. Strange ways nature has.

Water, Water everywhere....

Boxing Day 2004. A day that will forever be etched into memories of millions & millions of people around the world. 1,25,000 lives have already been taken by the might of the ocean and thousands more are still unacounted for. With every passing day this number keeps swelling and there are already reports talking about the possibility of more than 1,75,000 lives being lost in this disaster.

Being from Madras (a.k.a Chennai), one of the first thoughts that came to mind upon hearing the news was one of irony. For years now, Madras has been in a virtual drought situation and everyone is always talking about the need for water in Madras. Well, on December 26 2004 Madras certainly had water. The irony continues. In the aftermath of the destruction caused by this huge body of water, the commodity that was required with most urgency was, ironically, water.

At this time we can only hope that those who survived the Tsunami recover from this shocking encounter. My thoughts & prayers go out to all affected.