What a costly habit?

Driving through the desert, wind in your hair, with a powerful pick up will creates a strange and addictive spirit of individualism and independence - essential to the idea of America. The novels,plays and movies have reflected a childlike fascination that Americans and curious foreigners like me have for the vast, mostly empty yet productive land. Great distances were not seen as an hindrance, but as a challenge for man to master- it became something of a romance intuiting the experience of a lone ranger travelling on horse through the empty prairie.

Add to this romanticism, pragmatism and the ability to think big - you get the interstate. In 1956 the Eisenhower's administration started the grandest of all roadways . It is still amazing that you can travel a whole continent potentially stopping at only a few lights( With food,gas and some adult diapers properly stocked!!). Cheap land led to big roads. Big roads led to big cars, big cars led to big people. These big people needed to feel safe and this led to even bigger trucks. Well, it is the land of plenty, why shouldn't we have big cars,heck make everything big. With this came parking lots the size of Belgium,coffee cups so large you could put out a major fire.

Offcourse sustaining all this was an idea of plenty that is so ingrained in the minds of Americans- in this case of cheap gas. Nothing is free, somebody eventually will have to pay the price.Today, there is no bigger threat to the American civilization than this enslavement to gas.Communists,terrorists,anarchists,racists,secessionists,bigots of all kind together do not have the power to destroy this way of life than a costly gallon of gas.

Worlds richest country today, tomorrow?
The average gas mileage of a motor vehicle on American roads is about 24 miles per gallon. In Europe it is about 40 miles per gallon and probably more in Japan( For four years now the top selling car in Japan has been the small Suzuki Wagon R.In the US, it is the F150 truck series or atleast till recently. )

What happened to efficiency and thriftiness that were so ingrained in early builders/pioneers of the American dream.They are supposed to be on an individual basis one of the most productive workforces in the world. But to get this workforce to office everyday costs a lot!!.On average an American works more days of the year than the Frenchman or a German resulting in lesser paid sick and vacation days.Where is all this productivity gain going into? May be it is just spent on gas while idling in traffic on a Monday morning rush hour instead of paying for a trip to the Bahamas.

But even bigger danger than cost of gas is the government which has subsidized its price . By not allowing the invisible hand of the free market to regulate consumer trends and behavior, the men and women in power have set up an economy forced to take on a tough and sudden change. Jolts are bad for the economy. Allow the free market to perform in its entirety and watch human ingenuity come up with solutions to end this most modern slavery. Hopefully the new research being done by GM and other car makers with plug in hybrid(or rather electric) vehicles will still allow the car culture to continue but sustainably.

Dumb guy Ideas of solving global warming!!

Experts have now been warning about the dangers of global warming for sometime now.Major floods, droughts, tornadoes,volcanoes ..ok may be not volcanoes. But you know the whole story that the sea levels will rise by 50 metres thus submerging great coastal cities like new york.

Off course human ingenuity will again rescue us of these dire consequences.One such suggestion is by Jeremy Clarkson. To reduce the level of sea water, the suggestion is to build a pipe with one end submerged in the ocean and the other end left open in space. Did I mention a long pipe? This he says will not require any energy at all because space will create the necessary pressure difference and suck and spew water into empty space forever.
Brilliant!!
Who knows these earth escaped water particles may go on to distant planets and one day and create life,liberty and pursuit of happiness in far aways lands!!!

Experts have said that over the next 50 years the temperature will increase by about 1.3 degree Celsius around the world. A conference of meteorologists and temperature experts have suggested that a new scale be created in which 1.3 degrees is set to 0 degrees, thus negating the temperature rise.
Or that at the exact same moment we get the communist party of china to get 1.3 billion Chinese jumping up and down, thus throwing the earth off course and taking it just a little further away from the sun.
In a related news item, arjun singh has suggested that we reserve upto 50 degrees celsius for underprivileged. This he says will somehow fix the warming issue.Experts have said that this makes no sense and are going to go to supreme court.

Holy Lands!!

For thousands of years men have been killing each other in the name of religion. And the topic of holy land is of prime importance.The holier the land more bloody is the fight. To induce some sanity in this holy mess, Scott Adams some years ago introduced "point in space "theory with utmost logic and spacial relevance. According to him, no place can be defined as holy because for a place to be holy first you must have had a holy deed done at that place. Assuming that the deed has indeed been done, given that we are all travelling(the earth) constantly in space ,that particular point in space has already been left behind.
Now not everyone is going to buy this theory and adamant holy land fighters will still believe in holiness of land.If indeed we have holy land, an important aspect is how deep does the holiness extend too. This is important because according to Adams, if the holiness extends all the way then the land on the other side will also exhibit holiness.
To solve such complexities it must be agreed by Holinesses all around the world that any holiness must extend only till the core of earth.
A simple solution then to Ayodhya problem will be to dig and lift the Babri Masjid from its foundation up and place it outside the holy land area. This surely will lead to the top layer of holiness being lost but if the holiness does extend to the core of the earth, surely it represents only a small part of overall holiness.

Manmohan's austerity drive

Some days ago Manmohan Singh appeared on doordarshan and wept inconsolably for having raised the prices of petrol and diesel. Those were not crocodile tears. If the oil prices don’t come down by end of year manmohan singh is certainly ex-prime minister. But next day was when the fun started; first he comes out and announces his austerity drive. No more foreign trips, 7 star hotels for his ministers and officials.What I did not know how strongly this request has taken root in the aam janta of India.
So last week I am traveling on a train to chennai in a comfortable first class AC of Shatabdi Express. The man sitting next to me had just got an upgrade and had moved to the royal first class. I am not the person to start small talk but I had forgotten my book and I muttered something about forgetting my book. Mr X appeared interested and from what I could make out was a very well read and traveled man. So I asked him why was he was running around between compartments. It turns out his staff had taken it upon themselves to book him in a coach instead of the usual first class!! So I guess people everywhere around India have started to wholeheartedly demote, trim, reduce and cut costs. And where else to start than to make the boss pay first!!! But I tell you this austerity cut is taking its toll on common folks like you and me. Today I am using the restroom in my office and guess what has disappeared ....paper towels!!! I look around to see if anything else is missing….2 bulbs!!!gone vanished!! I couldn't believe what I was seeing...It could not be .A few words from the honest prime minister and all this. Where is it going to end...toilet papers, water, how about charging to use the loo!! For gods sake we have to get a control on our austerity drives things have gotten out of hand!!

On a side note I am surprised Arjun Singh has not yet come up with a quota based reservation for oil price. I mean after 1000's of years of discrimination it is just unfair that everyone is made to pay the same price for a litre of petrol. Totally unfair.

Indecisive!!

My uncle is a funny man. He and I have been trying to take a decision on something important for a very long time. According to him we are so indecisive that the common idiom of "we will cross the bridge when we get to it" is combined with another till it becomes "We will beat around the bush when we get to the bridge"

The size of a brick!!

Today was a beautiful monsoon day in Bangalore. We are about 2 weeks away from the summer solstice .In most places in the northern hemisphere , it should be hotter than what it was in April and May with the sun beaming longer and at a more direct angle.But thanks to the monsoon clouds here in Bangaloreit is actually cooler, breezy and nice compared to April. All in all a perfect monsoon-summer day. Good day to go out. And that is what I did.

My idea of out was a construction site!!. My uncle is building a new house in north Bangalore so I decided to tag along to get a look at the construction. One of the things that struck me was how every brick has to be laid by hand and cemented one on top of the other and sideways and then it had to be individually checked for alignment. All this takes 4 persons about 3-4 minutes to lay one brick. One person to prepares the cement mix. One person is getting material for the cement mix. One person is passing a brick by hand to the last guy who lays the brick,cements and constantly adjusts the alignment. It is a painful process to perform.

So my mind working on increasing the efficiency of this process things like this. Why cant you get pre-cemented bricks. How many? Say about 5. This should not adversely affect the strength provided and will certainly cut the time to lay the bricks by atleast 5 times.Especially the laborious task of checking alignment. Plus machine cemented bricks give better alignment and consistency.

So I ask the contractor if this can be done. He tells me that the brick size is dependant not only on ease of laying it and strength to weight ratio but also how easily it can be transported. So when you get the bricks from the factory to the construction site it has to be individually lifted from the lorry and placed down on the ground. For this you need human strength, which means that only a brick with weight which can be lifted by a woman(because they are the ones who stand in line one by one and in a chain till some one places it on the ground) can be transported.
So even though it would save time in laying multiple pre-cemented bricks how are you going to transport such heavy bricks. I guess it comes down to cost of labour vs time spent. With labour being cheap you off course have enough manpower to lift and place each brick. But when labour becomes costly you make use of bigger bricks which can be transported using construction machines. Best is off course pre fabricated wood with which you can construct a house from start to finish in 15 days!!

Free Market In Action!!!

Just as oil prices have been rising , new May US car sales data show a preference for more fuel efficient auto's http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/01/news/companies/auto_sales/. It will indeed be a sad day when one cant drive a ford 150 or dodge ram in suburban jersey dropping heavy cargo like your kids to their schools and softball games. Life as we know it will cease to exist once all the worlds fossil fuels run out or are too costly to extract. What took mother nature 200 million years to create, we took all of 200 years to spend. How blessed are we to have been at a time in human history when we could see the awesome work of 200 million years go up in smoke. Almost literally!!

Now the question, since at least the modern civilization , every generation of humans have expected to live better than the previous generation. Have we finally come to a point where the cycle of progress turns back and we look back in awe and wonder about the previous generations. May be this is the cycle of creation, preservation and destruction. Or may be I am being too pessimistic , for all you knowwe will find alternate ways of energy and use energy more efficiently and life will be better than ever.

What I don't mind is in case we run out of petrol, I for one look forward to the era of the horses again. I cant wait to go to my office on a horse. Nothing more cooler!!

I like smooth jazz . I like horses. Combine both and you get http://youtube.com/watch?v=NCihQPnma64.