Random Thoughts

This blog is to share my thoughts on different topics. The topics range from the mundane to the exotic, from the serious to the humourous. Your comments are welcome !

     What did you have for lunch today? What about yesterday? And the day before? Probably the usual stuff with a bit of indulgence here and there, I guess.  That's normal, as most of us are conditioned to eat those foods which we are familiar and comfortable with. Even when we travel, many of us tend to stick to familiar foods and only a few are adventurous enough to venture into the realm of unknown and unfamiliar gastronomic stuff.  I am definitely not among those few.  But that doesn't stop me from admiring the bravery of Bear Grylls and his ilk who seem to eat almost anything that walks, runs, swims or crawls (Even though I go Yee-uck when I see them munching on sundry creepy crawlies). Yet I do sometimes wonder if our good old Mother Nature has enough in her bosom to feed the ever growing number of humans. If the numbers keep growing at this rate, the gap between the food produced and the needs of the population is likely to become unbridgeable. But this is true only if we continue to think about conventional food, vegetarian and meat.  What if we can find new food sources?  The brave souls who emulate Bear Grylls do exist.  

     Many years ago, before Grylls was even born, the intrepid adventurers led by Thor Heyerdahl on their epic journey from Peru across the Pacific on their reliable raft Kon-Tiki experimented on plankton.  Heyerdahl said that they were fascinated by the sight but repelled by the smell.  You can read his book on the voyage here.  Still, he opined that it was nourishing food and could potentially save ship wrecked people if only they had something to filter the plankton from the water.  His advice was to throw away the phytoplankton, which are tiny plants (described by him as inedible) and the tiny jelly fish (which according to him had a bitter taste) and consume the rest.  It is now known from documents that scientists in Britain tried to "farm" plankton so that the populace could be fed in case of food shortages during the Second World War.  In Spain, two species of phytoplanktons are cultured for consumption.  One danger of large scale harvesting of plankton would be a catastrophic disruption of the oceanic food chain.  Therefore, the Spanish model looks good.

     The other item on the list is insects. Entomophagy involves eating of eggs, larvae, pupa and adult insects.  This is fairly common in parts of Asia . And the 'fad' (if you can call it that) has spread to the West with many farms coming up in Canada and the US. These new-age entrepreneurs say that this is a way to avoid food shortages while eating healthy. And they try to reduce the 'yuck' factor by attractive packaging.  The girl in the picture is reaching out for an insect cheesecake and chances are that we would not be repelled as much as we would have been if we had been offered the insect without the cheesecake.  As some of us would be aware, there is a movement to popularize the eating of insects, which are a rich source of protein and have a low fat content.  An added advantage is the low carbon footprint. What is easier than rearing insects on the naturally available food sources? An ideal food you would think, but for the 'yuck' factor.  But then whoever thought that eating raw fish would be cool one day?  Yet, today sushi is popular in the West.  But the "eat-insects" movement seems to be catching on.  Here are a couple of articles, for the interested:


 However, all is not hunky-dory.  Even if people get over the 'yuck' factor, there are safety issues and Government regulations to contend with.  With the amount of insecticides that are being used, chances are high that the insects which are eaten have imbibed dangerous chemicals much above the limits which are safe for human consumption.  And there are regulations to be complied with, which makes the whole business difficult and cumbersome. But there has to be a trade-off somewhere. It is easy to visualize that at the current growth rate of population, it will become increasingly difficult to feed all the people on the existing sources: livestock and crops.  Alternate sources are needed and plankton and insects are the only ones left.  How durable a food resource  plankton would prove to be is difficult to imagine as this 'fad' does not seem to have caught on as much as the other one. I for one, would rather eat plankton however gooey it may look, rather than the creepy-crawlies.  What about you?

     Why is it that we are attracted to sad things?  The newspapers are full of negative news.This trend continues even in films - tragedy and violence dominate. As an inveterate online forum hopper, I have noticed that the assumed names and avatars of some members reflect the same trend.  We all remember the numerous occasions when we were in a group and how when someone brought up such a topic, everyone else was pitched in with their own stories, equally morbid. Tearjerker movies and stories have their own fan following. As someone said, bad news sells.  But why this fascination for the bad? 
     This is a question psychologists and sociologists try to answer. One possible answer is that bad news draws more attention due to the survival instinct inherited by evolution. Bad news attracts attention because we try to avoid such situation for ourselves. There are other theories, but none satisfactorily explains our fascination for the morbid.  
     Well, is that good or bad? Personally, I feel people who constantly feed themselves with bad news tend to have more negativity than others. This is my perception of course, and I cannot offer any proof of that.  But, I tried out a little experiment.  For a week, I completely skipped the negative news which usually takes up more than half the news (Consequently, I finished the morning newspaper much faster than usual) and refrained from watching the news on the television. The change was perceptible. I felt at peace and tended to get angry less often.  So I decided to follow the same routine on all days.  The changes have stayed and so has my new attitude towards news.  After all, why should I be interested in all the tragedies, scams and other news of the same genre?

Don't believe me?  Doesn't hurt to try it out, does it?

 

The Ordeal Called Math

Posted by  The Serene One comments (6)

Like all kids, I despised math.  It was never one of my strong points, but things became increasingly difficult as I progressed to higher classes.  In college, I attended extra classes to make up for my weakness in math.  I was fortunate to go through with an above average grade but most of my class had a poor score.  Many either failed or just managed to scrape through.  Trig was a pain, with its unending proofs.  But Trig was not half as bad as Geometry. My pet hate was something called Analytical Geometry with all the talk of finding the locus of something or the other.  It had its own proofs even more terrible than Trig. I never understood why we had to do learn all the proofs.  As somebody remarked, "Why should we prove it? It's already proved!"  We were never told why we had undergo all this, except that if we wanted to graduate, we had to complete the course.  As a matter of fact, I liked and still like science. I never had this sinking feeling when studying Physics or Chemistry or the Life Sciences.  It was math alone which gave me nightmares.  When I look back, I still shudder when I remember the ordeal I had to go through.  Like all students then, I too asked the question, why should I study all this hideous stuff?  Am I going to find the locus of some geometrical shape as part of life or job?  Why did we have to solve the myriad Trig proofs, which we were never going to use in real life?  There were no answers - neither from the teachers nor from fellow students who genuinely (shudder) liked math. 


Now, years later, I try to find the answers.  Though they will never make me like math, I do find the answers satisfying to a degree:


Math is an essential skill.  At the very basic level, you have to know the concepts to survive in everyday life.  And at that age, it is easily absorbed and never forgotten since we keep using it everyday.  Beyond that, it is a skill aimed at improving our logical ability and analytical skills.  A growing brain requires such activity to sustain its growth. Higher sciences use maths to a large extent.  Imagine that everyone hated math and so there were no takers for it.  Would we have had all the engineering and scientific wonders that we witness today?  So somebody has to learn math and we should be glad that there are people who find it enjoyable because it is these people who lay the foundation for future engineers and scientists (I agree wholeheartedly with this line of reasoning as long as I am not asked to do math again).


Probably, most of the pain of learning math is because it is so abstract.  "These are the rules and formulas - memorize them.  There are the Sine and Cosine and Tangent and Cotangent - remember, they are not the same.  Then there is a shape called parabola and another called hyperbola - don't ask questions - just remember them and use the formulae appropriately."  And more on the same lines. No wonder that most people hate math with a passion.  I know a person who chose his field of specialization to completely cut out math. He is a medical professional now (Honestly, I find it difficult to accept the argument that even medical professionals need to know math. They never need to know more than the basic stuff). For such people the above logical arguments on the necessity of learning math will never appeal. He will probably carry his hatred for math all through his life and probably pass on the same to his kids.  If only earning math can be made more interesting.  I came across an interesting article here: 

http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf


It requires real talent to explain a dry and abstract subject like math in a way the students will relate to.  So we will continue to see hordes of kids emerge from school who despise math and carry their dislike throughout their lives which is a pity. I myself wish I had been taught math in a practical way, instead of the maddeningly abstract way which I had to endure.  Maybe I wouldn't have acquired the intense dislike for the subject.  Not that I would have fallen in love with math and gone for a career in math, but at least I would have understood it better and applied myself to getting better grades.  Well, at least I don't feel the same way about math now.

You can if you wish, find out your computer's gender.  Surprised?

It's easy.  Just open up notepad and type or copy and paste the following code:

CreateObject("SAPI.SpVoice").Speak"Hello there"


Save the file with the extension .vbs, for example, somename.vbs.  Now you are all set.  Just double-click on the file and you will know if your PC or laptop is a "he" or a "she".

You didn't know this one, did you?




Tea?

Posted by  The Serene One comments (0)

   
     We all know that tea contains caffeine, like coffee.  But, is drinking tea beneficial? There are divergent shades of opinion and every now and then we hear about some study conducted somewhere which either supports the view that drinking tea is harmful or debunks it.  If you are a tea drinker, no doubt you are confused about all this flip-flops. So am I, though I am not a habitual tea drinker.

      According to the Wikipedia, "Tea is the agricultural product of the leaves, leaf buds, and internodes of the Camellia sinensis plant, prepared and cured by various methods. "Tea" also refers to the aromatic beverage prepared from the cured leaves by combination with hot or boiling water, and is the common name for the Camellia sinensis plant itself." 

     Apparently, there are some benefits from drinking tea regularly.  But the benefits are  not the same for all types of tea.  That's right, types of tea.  Did you know that there are different types of tea and the level of benefit differs for each type?  Well, different types of tea arise from the use of leaves of different maturity and different methods of curing.  The most common variety which we usually refer to as "tea" is the black tea.  These are the fully oxidized leaves.  In contrast, green and white tea are not oxidized and retain many of their beneficial properties.  Both wilted (for black, white and oolong tea) and fresh leaves (for green tea) are used. White tea is rarer and consequently, more expensive, though it has been proven to be the most beneficial of all tea types.  Finally, there is this winter tea or "kukicha" which is made from stems, stalks, twigs and old leaves pruned from the tea plant during its dormant season and dry-roasted over a fire. It is a popular health food in Japan.  At times, the mere act of boiling different herbs in water has been termed as "making tea", for example herbal tea, hibiscus tea etc. 

     In case you are interested, here's a site which details the benefits of different kinds of tea http://www.teabenefits.com/.  Didn't know that there were so many varieties did you?


Procrastination

Posted by  The Serene One comments (1)


I wanted to write this article right from the time I started this blog, but I kept putting it off, but I  finally got around to doing it.

We all love to put off things and I am no exception.  If something could be postponed, it usually got postponed, unless it involved a life and death situation or something close to it. I made New Year resolutions year after year vowing to overcome this habit and after repeated attempts, I got over it, the habit of making New Year resolutions, I mean.  But that's a different story. 

Why do we procrastinate in the first place?  Psychologists say that it is a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision.  Sometimes, it is also a mechanism to protect us from over-stress. In general, the most common reasons for procrastination are

# A perception that a task is unpleasant or overwhelming ( I just can't do it/ it's plain boring)

# Fear of Change (Things are better as they are, why go about changing them?)

# Perfectionism (Got to do this perfectly and I don't feel I can make a perfect job of it as of now. I'll try this some other time)

# Fear of Failure (I am afraid I'd fail. It's better to leave things as they are)

# Disorganization (It's so messy.  It would take ages to do this task)

So we love to procrastinate and at the same time, wish we could overcome this  habit.  So how do we go about doing it?  Some common solutions offered by experts are

1. Get Someone Else Involved: If possible, involve someone else, say, a friend.  It becomes easier to get things done and in addition, it is difficult to procrastinate with someone else involved in the work.

2. Do Things in Pieces: Break up tasks into smaller tasks so that you don't feel overwhelmed.

3. Prioritize:  Is the job you are trying to do really that important?  If not, just forget it and move on to something else.

4. Reflect On The End Result:  Think of what finishing the task would mean to you. What aspect of your life will be better because we have finished our tasks?  If you are unable to visualize that or if that doesn't get you motivated, just jump in and start the job anyway, i.e. focus on starting and not the finish.

5. Have a "To Do" List:  Have a list of things to do and keep this list within your sight.  As you cross off each item in the list after finishing, you will have that sense of accomplishment and believe me, it feels so good.  Write down this list the previous night and review it every night.  This helps to mentally prepare for the day to come and the jobs to be done.

6. Keep Things Neat:  A messy environment makes you procrastinate.  Keep your environment neat and tidy so that it doesn't create a sense of being overwhelmed, making you put off the task.

There are other tips and ideas, but I will stop here.  If you are interested, here's a good article that I came across:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/overcoming-procrastination.htm

I would love to finish this piece by proudly proclaiming that I have been cured of procrastination, but that is not the honest truth.  On the brighter side, I have had modest success in overcoming this habit and in managing to loosen its grip.  Looking at all those "go-getters", sometimes I wonder if they ever had bouts of procrastination. If they did have, how did they get over it?  I would love to know the answers.

Mind Control

Posted by  The Serene One comments (0)

We don’t know about the Neanderthals and other homo sapiens – our ancestors - but we, their modern descendants have this real problem: How to control our wandering minds.

Indeed, ever since man acquired the power of thinking, he has been struggling to control his thoughts.  Even in the early days, calmness of mind was a virtue which was sought after by many, including kings.  In an attempt to attain peace of mind and learn the secrets of mind control, they sat at the feet of venerated sages who had conquered the mind. We do not know how successful these attempts were, as we do not have much information on people who actually succeeded. The ancient methods of mind control were yoga and meditation. 

Today, apart from yoga and meditation, we have a myriad of tools and practices for controlling our brain patterns, thinking etc.  All these are based on the concept of brainwaves.  You can get a good idea of brainwaves here: http://www.web-us.com/brainwavesfunction.htm . Suffice to say that by artificially inducing different brainwave patterns using sound frequencies, a person is brought to an aroused state or to a state of meditation or deep sleep. 

There are many companies on the Net claiming to have patented the technology for inducing brainwave patterns. There is the Brainwave Mind Voyages, which claims that its CDs perform near miracles.  The CDs range from simple brainwave music to lucid dreaming, OOBE and remote viewing.  The last three are interesting topics in themselves, but more of that later.  Then there is the BrainSync of Kelly Howell which has different CDs for meditation, sleep, for increasing creativity, to stop smoking etc. It offers some freebies too.  Dr.Jeffrey Thompson  is another person who produces music which is claimed to have healing effects.  His USP is "Healing the Body * Heart * Mind and Spirit with Sound".  He even claims to have recorded the sounds produced in space through NASA's Voyager probes. The Hemi-Sync is another site claiming to have patented the technology to safely alter brainwaves to produce the desired results.  The site has lists of common human problems like Anger, Frustration, ADD etc. and claims to have CDs for each of them.  Others in this line are HoloSync and iMusic. 

All these claims are intriguing and sound fantastic and there are critics, but binaural beats do have a beneficial effect. More of it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Binaural_beats.  Such technologies are even claimed to have induced certain glands to produce desired hormones, though this is yet to be documented properly.   

The list goes on, but what I wanted to say was that with all these technologies available now, it is worth trying out some of these techniques specially since there are no known adverse side effects while the benefits of a calm mind are too well known to be repeated here.  Of course all these will set you back by a tidy sum, but the Net being what it is, just search around and you will come across free copies for download.  So just grab your digital music player and get going.  Good luck !

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Nothing much, just an ordinary person, with ordinary desires and limitations.

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