It's so stupid! Every one of us has half a dozen small consumer electronics gadgets, and each has its own charger. Not only is it a hassle to keep so many of them around (and search for them every time your device runs out of charge), it's a stupid waste. The charger is the dumbest piece of electronics in the whole system, and it should be a no-brainer to design an universal charger with a standard connector that works with all devices.
I really don't know why the manufacturers haven't done this yet. It will save them money (making, packing, shipping these pieces); it'll save consumers money and hassle; and it'll be good for the environment.
Duh!
PS: If you were the designer/contract-manufacturer of these chargers, it's understandable that you want to maintain status quo. If good sense prevails, you are probably going to be out of business (unless you are the best in the business)
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
moon
According to Douglas Adams, it's pretty easy to fly: throw yourself at the ground and miss it.
If I had been just a little more drunk when I read this first, I'd have probably tried.
Now, imagine yourself at some height above the ground - say a dozen kilometres. Now throw yourself at the ground, not directly, but at such an angle that you do miss it. No no, serious. It's possible to do this because the Earth is not flat or infinite. Once you miss the ground, you'll fling back around the Earth - thanks to Sir Isaac - and possibly come back to your starting point. This may not exactly be "flying" - but I'll take being a satellite! Because this is exactly what happens with satellites. Take an object sufficiently high above the ground (to be clear of obstacles like the Empire State Building or Mt. Everest, as well as to minimize atmospheric drag), and give it a sufficient sideways push - viola! You have a satellite.
Speaking of satellites, recently, the first HDTV video of the moon was captured by the Japanese Space agency JAXA's Selene mission. One of them shows Earth rising over moonscape. It's really eye catching - the strikingly beautiful blue Earth over the monochrome, barren lunar surface. Here is a still from that video.
Also recently, we had a lunar eclipse. It was pretty overcast in my area - so I couldn't see the Moon around totality. It's quite pretty usually - the Moon doesn't go totally dark - it becomes a rather dim red disc, which looks a bit eerie when the sky is clear.
While admiring the Earthrise picture, I realized a cool factoid. When it's an eclipse on Earth, it's an eclipse on the Moon as well! Say it's a Lunar eclipse down here. That means that the Earth's shadow is falling on the Moon. And that means, the Earth is blocking the Sun, as seen from the Moon - which is basically a Solar eclipse on the Moon. Similarly, if it's a Solar eclipse here, we have the Moon blocking the Sun. At that time, if you were on the Moon, you'd see Moon's shadow on the Earth. You'd probably call it a Terran Eclipse!
If I had been just a little more drunk when I read this first, I'd have probably tried.
Now, imagine yourself at some height above the ground - say a dozen kilometres. Now throw yourself at the ground, not directly, but at such an angle that you do miss it. No no, serious. It's possible to do this because the Earth is not flat or infinite. Once you miss the ground, you'll fling back around the Earth - thanks to Sir Isaac - and possibly come back to your starting point. This may not exactly be "flying" - but I'll take being a satellite! Because this is exactly what happens with satellites. Take an object sufficiently high above the ground (to be clear of obstacles like the Empire State Building or Mt. Everest, as well as to minimize atmospheric drag), and give it a sufficient sideways push - viola! You have a satellite.
Speaking of satellites, recently, the first HDTV video of the moon was captured by the Japanese Space agency JAXA's Selene mission. One of them shows Earth rising over moonscape. It's really eye catching - the strikingly beautiful blue Earth over the monochrome, barren lunar surface. Here is a still from that video.
Also recently, we had a lunar eclipse. It was pretty overcast in my area - so I couldn't see the Moon around totality. It's quite pretty usually - the Moon doesn't go totally dark - it becomes a rather dim red disc, which looks a bit eerie when the sky is clear.
While admiring the Earthrise picture, I realized a cool factoid. When it's an eclipse on Earth, it's an eclipse on the Moon as well! Say it's a Lunar eclipse down here. That means that the Earth's shadow is falling on the Moon. And that means, the Earth is blocking the Sun, as seen from the Moon - which is basically a Solar eclipse on the Moon. Similarly, if it's a Solar eclipse here, we have the Moon blocking the Sun. At that time, if you were on the Moon, you'd see Moon's shadow on the Earth. You'd probably call it a Terran Eclipse!
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Happiness is U shaped
And if you are at the bottom of the U, you should be on MySpace.
A recent study (led by Andrew Oswald from Warwick University in Britain, and David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College) found that happiness follows a U-shaped curve in which people are happy in their 20s and get miserable in their 40s, and start looking up again beginning in their 50s, and if they live to be 70+, and happen to be physically well, they tend to be as happy as they were in their 20s. Remarkably, this is universal: the study surveyed 2 million people in 80 countries - and the U shape was observed in 72 of those countries.
The explanation of this is, at the moment, purely speculative. It goes like this: in the 40s people hit the traditional "mid-life crisis" - mortality sinks in, health fades, reality hits home in careers, finally they realize their lofty dreams aren't going to be realized, etc. And then, they get used to it. And if they live to be older and are healthy, they see how they fare better than their peers who are either sick or dead. Survivor bias may also be at play - the miserable die early, leaving the happy-go-lucky to hog all the senior discounts.
Another recent study found that size does matter, when it comes to one's social network. Recovery after a surgery - in terms of the severity of the pain experienced, the duration of recovery and the amount of pain meds needed - was found to be considerably better in cases where the patient had more people to call close friends.
You may not think of MySpace as the place where your "true" friends are. But (I heard Dr. Deal Edell say this), if one's body and brain think that's real, it'll work for them.
A recent study (led by Andrew Oswald from Warwick University in Britain, and David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College) found that happiness follows a U-shaped curve in which people are happy in their 20s and get miserable in their 40s, and start looking up again beginning in their 50s, and if they live to be 70+, and happen to be physically well, they tend to be as happy as they were in their 20s. Remarkably, this is universal: the study surveyed 2 million people in 80 countries - and the U shape was observed in 72 of those countries.
The explanation of this is, at the moment, purely speculative. It goes like this: in the 40s people hit the traditional "mid-life crisis" - mortality sinks in, health fades, reality hits home in careers, finally they realize their lofty dreams aren't going to be realized, etc. And then, they get used to it. And if they live to be older and are healthy, they see how they fare better than their peers who are either sick or dead. Survivor bias may also be at play - the miserable die early, leaving the happy-go-lucky to hog all the senior discounts.
Another recent study found that size does matter, when it comes to one's social network. Recovery after a surgery - in terms of the severity of the pain experienced, the duration of recovery and the amount of pain meds needed - was found to be considerably better in cases where the patient had more people to call close friends.
You may not think of MySpace as the place where your "true" friends are. But (I heard Dr. Deal Edell say this), if one's body and brain think that's real, it'll work for them.
Monday, February 25, 2008
decision stress
I hate decisions. Especially about the small stuff. And about the important stuff. Especially, if I have to make them.
For example, take, eating out. the euphoria about not having to do the dishes vanishes in a few milliseconds - when you start trying to decide where you wanna go. Very soon you start thinking, let's just eat the left-overs (and throw away the dishes)
When i was single, a few of us used to go out for dinner every night. We used to go the same place and eat the same stuff, every single night. It made perfect sense then, it makes perfect sense now!I have been reading the rather old and out-of-fashion book "Future Shock". Some of the stuff in there is still relevant. The section about decision stress in particular.
From “Future Shock” by Alvin Toffler
…life is a blend of programmed and non-programmed decisions. Rational behavior always includes an intricate combination of routinization and creativity. Routine is essential… because it frees creative energies for dealing with the more baffling array of new problems for which routinization is an irrational approach.
When we are unable to programme much of our lives, we suffer.“There is no more miserable person than one for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the beginning of every bit of work are subjects of deliberation.” For unless we can extensively programme our behavior, we waste tremendous amounts of information processing capacity on trivia.
Amen.Now, I cant decide if this post should end here, or I should say something clever to close. Boss walks by: decision made simple ;)
Saturday, February 23, 2008
YouTube will bring real democracy, bring down tyrants, clean up politics, defeat evil corporations..
Consider these two examples:
VP Cheney in 1994: says that invading Iraq would create a quagmire in this video on YouTube.
Transcript:
> Do you think US or UN forces should have moved into Baghdad?
No.
> Why not?
Because, if we had been to Baghdad we'd have been all alone... it would have been a US occupation of Iraq... Once you got to Iraq, took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government, you can easily see pieces of Iraq fly off - a part of eastern Iraq, the Iranians would like to claim... in the north you've got the Kurds; if the Kurds break loose and join the Kurds of Turkey, then you've threatened the territorial integrity of Turkey; it's a quagmire if you go that far... how many dead Americans was Saddam worth? the answer was not very many, and I think we got it right.
Al Gore criticizes President Bush Sr. for being soft on Saddam, and claims Saddam had WMDs in this 1992 video.
Summary: There is ample evidence (from CIA, defense dpt., commerce dept. etc.) that Iraq has been deeply involved in developing/procuring WMDs (nuclear, chemical and biological), that Iraq has been supporting terrorism. Bush ignored all this, mis-led the American people, and was hell-bent on pursuing a policy of helping Saddam's regime financially... The "theory" that Iraq's behavior could be modified by just economic sanctions is highly flawed. That wouldn't work anyway because Bush has consistently looked the other way when Saddam has been engaging in all this atrocious behavior.
Now, depending on your level of cynicism or naivete, you might be shocked or say "yeah, politicians are hypocrites. what's the news in that?".
What got me a bit excited, however, is the very fact that we can see these clips now, with very little effort or cost. Thanks to the internet, it's now possible for a motivated individual to dig up such then-vs-now pieces and share with thousands for almost no cost. Sure this medium can be exploited and manipulated by the powerful, can be used for propaganda, etc. The net effect will still be that it'll be possible for the small guy to poke his finger in the big bad guy's face. Is that great for democracy or what?!
I was half kidding about bringing down tyrants and defeating evil corporations, but only half kidding!
VP Cheney in 1994: says that invading Iraq would create a quagmire in this video on YouTube.
Transcript:
> Do you think US or UN forces should have moved into Baghdad?
No.
> Why not?
Because, if we had been to Baghdad we'd have been all alone... it would have been a US occupation of Iraq... Once you got to Iraq, took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government, you can easily see pieces of Iraq fly off - a part of eastern Iraq, the Iranians would like to claim... in the north you've got the Kurds; if the Kurds break loose and join the Kurds of Turkey, then you've threatened the territorial integrity of Turkey; it's a quagmire if you go that far... how many dead Americans was Saddam worth? the answer was not very many, and I think we got it right.
Al Gore criticizes President Bush Sr. for being soft on Saddam, and claims Saddam had WMDs in this 1992 video.
Summary: There is ample evidence (from CIA, defense dpt., commerce dept. etc.) that Iraq has been deeply involved in developing/procuring WMDs (nuclear, chemical and biological), that Iraq has been supporting terrorism. Bush ignored all this, mis-led the American people, and was hell-bent on pursuing a policy of helping Saddam's regime financially... The "theory" that Iraq's behavior could be modified by just economic sanctions is highly flawed. That wouldn't work anyway because Bush has consistently looked the other way when Saddam has been engaging in all this atrocious behavior.
Now, depending on your level of cynicism or naivete, you might be shocked or say "yeah, politicians are hypocrites. what's the news in that?".
What got me a bit excited, however, is the very fact that we can see these clips now, with very little effort or cost. Thanks to the internet, it's now possible for a motivated individual to dig up such then-vs-now pieces and share with thousands for almost no cost. Sure this medium can be exploited and manipulated by the powerful, can be used for propaganda, etc. The net effect will still be that it'll be possible for the small guy to poke his finger in the big bad guy's face. Is that great for democracy or what?!
I was half kidding about bringing down tyrants and defeating evil corporations, but only half kidding!
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