Tag: News

Weather Warnings

I peered out into the window wishing and hoping, and skipping, and sighing for the past week for one of the scariest storms of California to materialize. Really! The media when bored can really get going. The storm may be wreaking havoc in the mountains up in the mountains of Northern California, but here in the Bay Area, there was no need to send people scuttling in with flash flood warnings, gale-like wind warnings, or any warnings at all for that matter. 

It turned out to be a beautiful set of days – a bit wind-blown, but not too cold. I set out on walks with gusto hoping to brave the gusts of winds. There were no gusts or gales. Just winds. All perfectly normal.

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Atmospheric rivers indeed – I watched the sad trickle of water in the stream that masqueraded as a river next to our home, and sighed a bit. 

Even as I write this piece, I understand the true luxury of walking-weather in late November. It was amazing to see how the birds took flight and staggered a little as they got used to the thrusts of the wind. I must say watching pelicans change flight in windy weather is a marvel. Geese – so perfectly blase and arrogant in their daily demeanors, looked a little comical as they squawked to each other and determined direction for their little flocks. 

One day, I took refuge in a copse of trees and listened to the winds howling just around them. Trees provide such marvelous wind barriers, and I felt a strange sense of being protected in the little clearing amidst them. 

I took my cup of coffee out at mid-day, and found the first few fat droplets of water descend. They sprinkled about a bit, and then decided that it wasn’t worth the effort. 

It was just another November Day – with a promise of rains, winds : heavy and gusty.

P.S: The rains have just started: I sat cradling my cup of tea: hesitant at first and then a little more insistent. Time to start dancing in the rain!

Exploring Deepavali Through The Firework Maker’s Daughter

I glanced around me – it was Deepavali, and all of us children, parents, and grandparents at the  party, looked delighted. Who wouldn’t be? Many of us were clutching sparklers, and watching the tiny stars produced by them in awe. The beautiful fountain pot spouted its joy towards the world a few feet away, and the oohs-and-aaahs were enough to melt hearts. Deepavali fireworks, especially in the US, are not exactly spectacular, but it is joyful all the same. 

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Watching fireworks has always been magical. The little sparks ignite something else altogether in our spirits.  Watching everyone around me, I could well imagine the children of ancient China watching in wonder as the first gunpowder produced magical effects. Or the hobbits as they all watched Gandalf’s spectacular fireworks in Hobbiton. Every time we go to DisneyLand, waiting for the fireworks in the cold, with thousands of people, it is magical. 

I was so glad to have an equally delightful book  to read that week-end, The Firework Maker’s Daughter – By Philip Pullman.

The Firework Maker’s Daughter – By Philip Pullman

A delightful tale of adventure, replete with a plucky heroine (Lila), a hero (Chulak) with gumption, and a talking elephant (Hamlet, who is in love with the elephant at the zoo, named Frangipani). 

In the Firework Maker’s Daughter, the firework maker, Lalchand’s daughter, Lila, wants more than anything to become a fireworks maker. At a young age, Lila invented Tumbling Demons & Shimmering Coins.

“My father won’t tell me the final secret of fireworks-making, “ said Lila. “I’ve learned all there is to know about flyaway powder and thunder grains, and scorpion oil and spark repellant, and glimmer juice and salts-of-shadow, but there’s something else I need to know, and he won’t tell me.” 

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But of course, the poor girl is not allowed to become a firework maker, for her father intends to get her married off. So, with the help of the white, talking elephant, Hamlet and his keeper, Chulak, she takes off to find the secrets of firework making all the same.

It is a whimsical book, and the descriptions of the fireworks in the end makes for a marvelous read.

If only the joys of learning to do these things (like making fireworks), were still available to us, instead of being locked behind factory doors, how wonderful it would be.  As I remembered all the different types of fireworks – the ones that burst into a thousand patterns in the sky, the ones that take their time like a rocket lift-off, the spinning chakras, the little pops of bursting noises, the ‘Lakshmi bombs’ ( the loud bombs), and the serial-wallahs,(the strings of explosive that went off for minutes at a time) – the imagination took off with the fireworks too.  How could it not? How inventive these firework makers must be.

I sat down willing to write about the marvelous joys of fireworks, but came up wanting. How can you capture the soaring of the heart in words? How can show  feel a definite lifting of the spirits when only you can feel it?

Halloween’s Influence: Understanding Fear in Stories

“Arrgh!” 

“Gosh! Dude! You scared me!”, I said, leaping neatly into the path of a bewildered looking biker on the trail. His eyes grew wide, and he wobbled spectacularly before regaining his poise and balance, and then smirked. 

I suppose it was funny. A scrawny fellow like the son is hardly the sort of fellow to make their mothers leap out of trail paths with their scary stories. But it is nearing Halloween and we were discussing the themes of horror in their English Literature class. 

“What are the elements of a horror story?” I asked.

His answer made me jump, leap into biker’s path, earn b.look from biker as he regained balance and then a smirk for additional points etc. 

I must admit that when it came to quakey finds, horrors take the biscuit. Stephen King is all very well in the daytime, with soothing cups of tea, warm music etc. But otherwise, no thank you! I still prefer the glow of humor, the comforts of friendships and love, good old fashioned topics like (science, nature, history, psychology, travel), and mild adventure in my reading fare.

Horror in Literature

What made the class interesting was their discussion on not just horror, but how it affected the different parts of our brains. The amygdala (the small pea sized piece of our brain) is known for the fear response – that is the piece we share with reptiles, he went on to say and I listened in awe. Our prefrontal cortex is where we process what the amygdala sends us, to appropriate a response. 

“I think you should research it up a bit more before quoting me though!” he said, giving me a stern look.

“What if I wrote that you asked me to research it, so folks know it isn’t the Gospel of NeuroScience instead?” I said, rolling my eyes, and he laughed at that and agreed. So here goes, folks: please research this piece on your own. 

How interesting to sit in a class, watching a 90’s cartoon show about Courage, The Cowardly Dog in the Chicken From Outer Space. 

Then to analyze how the different parts of the brain were affected by the fear response? I can’t think of a better way to spend a Wednesday afternoon. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in that class (risking a horrified teenage set of kids screeching and swatting at flies notwithstanding), and I was full of admiration for their teacher who had taken the trouble to come up with a lesson like that close to Halloween.

Boggarts & Dementors

The whole conversation on fears and the horrors of our psyche reminded me of another conversation from a few days ago on boggarts and what shape each of ours would take. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban has always been one of my favorite books – it addresses so many themes – how not to judge someone based on first impressions, how the truth can be life-altering, the importance of friendships, conscience, etc etc. But this book specifically addresses fear and our worst experiences in the form of boggarts and dementors.

This YouTube video on the SuperCarlinBrothers Channel on Why It Is Wise to Fear Fear is an amazing one in this context:

Harry’s WORST FEAR Explained | Harry Potter Film Theory

Halloween is the one time we acknowledge fear as a society. It also comes with a good antidote to fear: the ability to allow for whimsy and creatively live our lives.

We turned around after our walk, and the biker, much fortified after his own little fright, gave us a wan smile as he made off in the opposite direction too.

Exploring Happiness: Is It in Our Genes?

In what was an intriguing chat with the son last evening, we poked around the ethics of genetic modification. Apparently, that had been an area of discussion in their classroom, and the son was keen – the novelty of a discussion with multiple viewpoints at that age is amazing. I smiled and listened to him talk offering a question here, a hum there, an insight elsewhere.

“What do you want to do with human-beings if we are smarter?” I asked him.

“We could fly.”

“Cool! But then what?”

I took a deep breath and said as casually as I could. “Everyone wants to be smarter, for things to come more easily to them. So we wouldn’t have to spend so much time figuring things out. But – the thing is, if everything came easily, we would not know what to do with all the time we have on our hands. What do they say? An empty mind is a devil’s workshop? I don’t know – I think it could lead to more mental health issues – what do you think?”

He pondered this for a while, and said it was an intriguing thought. 

Who Survives?

It reminded me of another chat the husband and I had a few months ago – on the larger theme of the future of humanity. With smarter, faster, stronger, what would happen to humans? The husband took a moment to gather his thoughts, and said, “Well – it will come back to good old basics then, wouldn’t it? Survival of the fittest. Those humans who can learn to be peaceful with themselves will ultimately win out – that is the strain that will survive.”

I was impressed – yes, no matter what we had, it ultimately came down to temperament, attitude, and the ability to be happy, didn’t it?

Generosity by Richard Powers: The Happiness Gene

Incidentally the book I am currently reading: Generosity by Richard Powers, talks about a variation of this: The Happiness Gene.

The story tries to figure out the reason for Thassa’s happiness. Thassadit Amswar is a refugee who has fled the Algiers region. Her brother is still under house arrest in a totalitarian regime, her parents are dead after years in which they were stuck in the midst of a civil war that raged around them, and any which way you look at it, she should be morose, sad – not chirpy, cheerful, and full of light.

The whole set up reminded me of one of Rumi’s sayings that have been making its way around the instagram world: something to the effect of:

When the world around you is dark, you could very well be the light.

Rumi

In any case, somehow Thassa’s ability to be happy attracts attention – first from local friends, then a policeman, a local news report diagnoses her as having ‘Hyperthymia’ – a condition of overwhelming happiness, and goes on to attract those who want to auction and buy her eggs, decode her DNA, figure out the happiness gene. She finds herself unmoored by how people feel bad because she is happy, and having to navigate the horrors of fame.

In Essence

  • Is there a genetic component to being happy?
  • If so, can that be picked and chosen for our offspring in the not-so-distant future?
  • What issues would that create for mankind? For just as sure as we are of creating solutions, so too can we be sure for creating problems for ourselves, isn’t it?

🌍🌠 The Happiest Planet 🌍 in the Universe 🌠🌍

Disney Land

Talking of bold visions, I think Walt Disney nailed it with his: The Happiest Place on Earth.

How do you take up a vision like that, and work relentlessly towards making it a marvelous destination for all involved? After all, humanity comprises of pesky pixies, grateful gnomes, angry birds, peaceful piranhas, dutiful doxies, irritated iguanas, snappy turtles, hungry caterpillars, buzzing bees, flighty feathered friends, and the list really goes on. No two humans are exactly alike in temperament or ability after all.

Standing around in queue surrounded by children, I was in awe of Disney again. There we all were, waiting to enter the happiest place on earth, some still sleepy, others smiling and bright. 

Throughout the day, whenever I could, I stopped to pay attention to the people around me. The eager children, cranky children, enthusiastic children, meek children, energetic children, dull children, frail children, hesitant children, entitled children, rich children, not-so-rich children, able children, disabled children, they all had a place at Disneyland. I noticed the adults accompanying the younger children too – parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, guardians, teachers, and tried picking up a tip or two from their interactions. For instance, one obviously famished grandfather sat himself down and created a tower of French fries for his 5 year old grand-daughter, and caught himself a break.

Weeks, days prior to our week-end visit, I prepared the children for it. Remember, we need to sleep on time the previous night and remember, we need to get up before the lark thinks of singing in the morning, and on and on. 

I must admit, Disney Land as chaperones for tween boys who consider it a ride’s worth only if they have had their intestines taken out, shaken vigorously inside out, and then stuffed back inside, is a bit much. As I looked at the grandfather with his tower of fries, I sighed, and the son caught my eye, “What is it?”, he said. His adrenaline was still pumping from the last roller-coaster in the dark, speeding through the cosmos, while I yearned for a nicer ride. Something calm, and soothing: give my innards a chance to settle.

“Well – as much fun as it was to knot my large intestine with the small intestine, using the gall bladder to bind it together and all, I want a lovely ride down a tame stream – I want to get that smile that lingers with a ride like ‘Its a Small World’!” I said.

Disney’s It’s a Small World After All ride.

Magic is a beautiful thing even when you are prepared for it. DisneyLand’s It’s A Small World worked its magic as it usually does – I couldn’t help smiling as we stood in line. The son caught my face, and said, “Hmm…now that you know the show was designed by a woman, it makes it that much more special huh?!”

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Pocket full of colors : the magical world of Mary Blair, by Amy Guglielmo & Jacqueline Tourville, Illustrated by Brigette Barrager

I laughed, and said, “Well – reading the book makes you think of so many things: things other than the lovely ride. I mean : The color schemes, the preferred movements of the characters, and the theme, the conception, the unity.” 

I could feel myself grow happier, cheerier, and a tad smug as our line snaked towards the empty boats up ahead, Really, catching any of these rides well before they all getting to hour long waits is a form of magic. 

I whipped out my phone, but the son caught my hand, and said, “Remember, you want to enjoy the actual ride, and that means … ? ….” He gave me that look that I give him when his homework isn’t quite done yet. I meekly put it away though I could not resist taking a photo or two along the way.

The special ride around the world felt just as special as always – the music, the lights, the cultures, the joy. How can one not enjoy it when for those 5 minutes, adulting is forgotten and childrening is embraced?

Mary Blair & Walt Disney

This time, we also knew who exactly to thank for the ride: the chief artist and designer, Mary Blair, whose vision translated into one of the most beautiful rides of all time, and Walt Disney who believed in her, and supported her through it. Obviously, it has since been improved upon by the teams, and continues to charm magic-seekers through the ages.

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Mary Blair’s travel through the world, and the distinct ways in which we perceived the colors of the Earth is so evident in the artwork. Not all of us are lucky enough to catch the ethereal colors of sunset in a desert, or the tropical colors of an island, or see the cultures of different countries. This little ride shows it all in a vibrant display of artwork bursting at its seams with colors, themes and music. Subtle variations in music as the boat moves from American Wild West to Asia, and from there to Russia. Continue reading “🌍🌠 The Happiest Planet 🌍 in the Universe 🌠🌍”

🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘 The Tusks of Extinction 🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘

The Mammoth Tale

Few passages capture the bane of consumerism like this one does. It is from the novella, The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler.

The premise of the book is an intriguing one. 

  • It is set in a future when mankind has figured out how to upload one’s consciousness into the cloud. A manner of immortality. This is very much in the realm of possibility.
  • It is also set in a time where the Siberian mammoths have been resurrected. This has already transcended realms of possibility into reality. 

The wooly mammoth is being resurrected – being cross bred from the genetic remains frozen in the Siberian Tundra with  the Asian elephants (because they are gentler than African elephants). 

Thus, begins the tale of a doctor whose life was hacked from him moments after he uploaded his thoughts and knowledge to the web. This man, Dr Damira, was a passionate naturalist, a man who studied the African elephants and their ways. He fought for their conservation but failed. This is set in a future where the last of the elephants no longer roam the Earth. 

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The resurrected mammoths in Siberia are facing difficulty thriving in the wild. They have all been bred in captivity, and do not understand how to survive the demands of living by themselves, caring for each other, and forging paths so they can forage and live through the cruel winters. They are thus being killed by poachers in a cry that reminds scientists of how the elephants were all killed off one by one. 

In an attempt to give them a chance at life, the doctor’s consciousness is uploaded to a mammoth – a matriarch by the name of Damira. 

Bane of Consumerism

There are several aspects of this novella that can appeal to us, but one in particular stood out to me, and that was how our consumerist culture alienates us from the natural world. For we buy things, we want things, we accumulate, we hoard – who is it hurting? I am earning and I am buying. It is all helping the economy is it not?

Extract:

In offices-a tusk in a case, beautifully carved, transformed into a world of its own, worked by human hands into a chain of elephants walking trunk to tail. Beautiful, lifeless elephants carved from the destruction of an elephant, hacked into what had once been a part of a body, a tooth, a tool. A part of a life.

“Among the skyscrapers, there were also older places-little streets of cramped shops, survivors from another Hong Kong. Marginalia that had been missed by the eraser of progress. And there, in the shop windows, so crammed with clever things, there it was. My eyes found it over and over again. Ivory. Ivory jewelry, ivory stamps used to sign decrees that were meaningless now, ivory game pieces of every kind. Ivory turned into useless gewgaws, dripping with the blood in my home. It could be carved into any lovely shape they wished, but all of it began in killing. No-more than that all of it began in killing that took place far away. That took place somewhere the people who thought of ivory as a material could not see. Killing that took place in an extraction zone.

I remember the horror I felt when I first learnt that certain types of leather were obtained from the skin of crocodiles and were thus priced higher. 

Cities like Hong Kong and New York and London at the center, vortexes into which the currents of trade accelerated, into which goods from all over the world were pulled. Places where things became materials. Where things became commodities.

Many of us rarely stop to think of the source of all the things we use as part of our daily lives. In all honesty it is overwhelming to do so. How does the kidney bean come to be in its packet in the grocery store? Once we start down that road though, what about the almond flour, the diamond ring, the leather handbag, the silk scarf, the perfume, the spice, the watch, the gold ring, the ceramic jug? Everything has its tale, its journey, its place in the human chain of wants and needs. 

What Can We Do?

In reality, we cannot give in to an almost paralyzing analysis of source-to-table for everything we consume. Is there economic exploitation along the way, unscrupulous practices, inhumane treatments? Would we be happy to know it all and make informed decisions – yes, (I am hoping that humans have enough humanity to make the right choices if we do), but can we do so? Not always. 

I spent a pleasurable few hours at the mall the other day, and found my fellow human beings doing the same. Glancing around at the happy faces of those of my fellow humans that morning, I did not see malice or greed – I simply saw folks at a mall on a rainy week-end. 

I like that mass production has made life easier, the jobs it has created, alleviating entire nations from poverty. I like that poor children can have new clothes, and that horizons have expanded thanks to the general prosperity of nations. I do not, however, like the ever-increasing pressure to produce and consume more. 

Is the economy to be weighed against the Earth’s resources at every step in the mall? Or just more more meaningful consumption? I do not know.

War & Peace, Love & Power

“You need to have either love or war; those are the only ones that can sustain a long running saga!” the daughter said as an off-hand comment one day when we were discussing the art and craft of world building, and she was convincing me to read another series – one with a female protagonist. I was hesitant to start reading a series that not only had 7 books but all seemed to be progressively bigger in size too. She guffawed at this and said,  “You’ll enjoy it, so what’s the problem?”

The problem with wars is that nothing makes sense as time goes on. Even if there is justification in the original act of going to war, the long-running losses and frustrations often eclipse the original intent. It becomes a cascading pile of losses that fuel more losses.

I was reading Haruki Murakami’s book, Novelist as a Vocation. There was one particular section when with the book still open in my hand, the mind started to meander, trying to make sense of what was said, and trying to piece things together as they might have been.

He writes about the time he witnessed civil unrest as a student in college long before he decided to become a writer. Coming from a stable family, and not having endured any significant challenges or wars in his lifetime, he writes about the period in his life when he witnessed strife. He confesses that he felt drawn to the cause originally, but gradually could see cracks beginning to appear. Slowly, he saw how words lost their integrity, and he felt he could not identify with any of it anymore.

“As time passed,.., and internecine warfare between the student factions grew more and more violent and senseless – an apolitical student was murdered in the classroom we often used, for example-many of us became disenchanted. Something criminally wrong had wormed its way into the movement. The positive power of imagination had been lost. I felt this strongly. ….Uplifting slogans and beautiful messages might stir the soul, but if they were not accompanied by moral power they amounted to no more than a litany of empty words…..Words have power. Yet that power must be rooted in truth and justice.”

I felt a heavy sadness settle over me as I finished reading that section of the passage again. Thus it has always been. With war, with power, with long-running angst. It sometimes seems to me that human beings are remarkable for still allowing light to seep through – to be hopeful, happy, joyous, friendly, loyal, trusting, loving and giving. But I am glad of this tug-of-war too, for without one, we may never learn to fully appreciate the other. 

News of war and conflict have always plagued humanity, and exactly a century ago, the whole world reeled from wars back to back that sent the world careening into madness. The insanity of it, the dreariness of it, we hoped would be deterrent enough for at least a few centuries – but I doubt it. For just as ubiquitous as love seems to be conflict. 

In centuries of warfare, there have been gains and losses. All things fragile to begin with (egos, lives, trust, careers), they all seem to shatter in the eternal quest for what? Seldom in war do people win. Maybe countries do, armies do, but never the individual. And yet without collective action, where would we be?

In our very contradictions lies our greatness. 

I eyed the book series on war & love the daughter had given me, and wondered whether to start another saga.

It seems so simple to say: All we need to do is figure out a way to value Peace over War, and Love over Power. Oh well! That is the saga of the human life, isn’t it?

The Past, Present and Future of Jobs

“So, you work at a job that essentially takes away your own job?”, said the son.This is the kind of meta stuff that he finds exciting.

The Thanksgiving week-end was rife with conversations about the corporate drama that in yester years could be equated to the coups of thrones. Would the CEO go? Would the Board of Governors go? Would they both go? Who would be their replacement?

Last year the world popped their popcorns and watched the unfolding drama of an unraveling Twitter with Elon Musk and his hostile takeover of the company, now rechristened X, though the URL still points to twitter.com because the TFE team was probably let go.

This year, it seems much of the dramatic action came from OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman. In modern day Wall Street wars, CEOs, (or C-Staff) and the Boards of companies provide for much of the action. Will the market hold? Will the Sensex drop?

What happens to the interest rates?

One of our friends was explaining to the children about their own roles – technical roles in which they enable AI to be utilized intelligently. One was working on images, another on code frameworks itself. A niece who was majoring in biology told me how they were already being encouraged to use ChatGPT to generate code for them. They only needed to see the results of the datasets fed into the model.

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Fascinating as it all was, I was left musing on the future of work. It seems a rather recurring theme of late. There are image generators to replace artists, code generators for software engineers, of course plenty of writing that can be replaced with intelligent prompting. So, why not the design and maintenance of these systems too?

I picked up the book from my recent library pile:

The Worst Children’s Job in History – Sir Tony Robinson

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The book was truly horrific and true. If anyone was wondering about the future of jobs and feeling glum, they could actually be grateful that the past nature of our jobs are well behind us.

Every job not only held misery, but a generous helping of walloping, not enough food, abysmal conditions, no thought for safety etc. Compared to those jobs, the present day conditions of occupying ourselves and our children seems fantastic. I only hope this trend continues for, our current nature of jobs is about to upended again.

It seems with the speed of technological challenges, the cycles with which our jobs are upended seems to be quicker and quicker.

A couple of generations ago, seamstresses, tailors, knitters, bat makers, ball makers, farmers, equipment handlers all saw their jobs upended by mechanization.

Then the next generation saw people’s fortunes needing more specialized skillsets such as coding, scientific knowledge etc.

Recently, call center jobs, desk phones, phones that were in the family room all went away, to be replaced by cell phones. Those of us who remember having to take a friend’s call in the living room with three uncles, five aunts, three cousins of varying age and maturity levels, two grandparents and a maid, will forever envy the children of today who quietly buzz out of vicinity taking their phone calls mysteriously with them. 

The next wave of AI seems to be disrupting industries that I’d hoped would not be. Creative industries that are already hard to make a living in: storytelling, image generation, writing, etc

Will our grandchildren read books about us in this era and feel sorry for us that we had to slave in front of our computers all day long to accomplish certain things, spend days getting tests done in medical labs to determine what was the matter with us?

What would the future of our jobs look like?

More importantly, in this quest for bettering the use of our time, do we hope to become at peace with who we are without being defined by what occupies our time? If so, maybe we should start equipping ourselves towards that, shouldn’t we?

Let me know your thoughts.

Books:

  • The Worst Children’s Jobs in History – Sir Tony Robinson
  • The Age of AI – Henry Kissinger

☀️ Energy Sources 🗺️

The son and I were discussing this and that when we hit upon one of our favorite topics of discussion: energy sources. The fellow has been very happy that we now have a solar roof.

“And now – we generate more solar power than we use. Isn’t that awesome?!” he piped up as we were out on a walk one evening after a particularly hot October day. (I wondered if the solar energy could be bounced off our heads too, and that earned a weak chuckle and an eye-roll.) Of course, this led to an interesting discussion on energy sources and we got talking on the recent articles or books we’d read.

“There is one place where they take your steps and convert that into energy. Like you step on the floor and that becomes stored energy. Cool right?”

“Cool!” I agreed, and screwed up my face at the nearby freeway noise. “I am sure if we can just figure out a way to take all that wasted energy from all the fast and noisy cars on the freeway, and use it to power the cars behind them, that would be even better – you know get off gasoline altogether? ”

“They are already working on it somewhere. Life is so exciting in these energy fields!”. he said.

Later that night, he bellowed that he’d left me an interesting article to read on my bedside table on Energy Sources. 

August 2023 Issue of OYLA – Energy All Around Us- Generating Electricity from Dance Floors, JellyFish and more

#33 AUGUST 2023

If I haven’t raved about OYLA before, allow me to. The magazine is a gem of science and mathematical tidbits . I was enthralled by the article and read it all agog, exclaiming at the right intervals. It pleased the son.

  • A thoroughly fascinating article in which the different types of energy sources are briefly touched upon. Piezoelectricity – the technique of using our movements to power energy. 
  • The many ways in which sound vibrations can be turned into electricity (apparently a new generation of architects are working on powering skyscrapers powered with noise energy – so the hustle and bustle of the city, the blaring sirens, freeway noise everything is actually used to power the building – isn’t that brilliant?)
  • In another section, it says nanoantennas are more efficient than conventional solar cells and they have a ‘good chance of displacing conventional solar panels’.

All highly exciting possibilities. I was especially thrilled to read this bit about jellyfish and their green fluorescent proteins. 

Quote: (from the Bioelectricity section) 

“Some jellyfish glow in the dark. This is due to the green fluorescent proteins (GFP) that are present in their cells. Such an element may not need sunlight at all and could instead “feed” on bioluminescent radiation (like in fireflies) and ultimately they might be used in nanodevices.”

It must be wonderful being a jellyfish or a firefly. Were there some jellyfishes who glowed more than others, the same way some human beings are more energetic than others? 

Individual energy levels is a common topic of discussion in our household as we are surrounded by friends and family who seem to be made up of inexhaustible sources of energy and positivity. ‘How do they manage it?’ we say as we admire these folks, but it is something I’d love to gain an understanding about.

Would it make the difference between glowing, glowing less, or glowing more?

Also Read : Life’s Determinants

Source: August 2023 Issue of the OYLA Magazine. Article: Every Volt Counts 

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Our Invisible World Made Visible

I pulled Atlas of the Invisible from the library shelves looking pleased. Here was another book straight from the dream shelf. As I thumbed through the pages, I felt a familiar flutter of anticipation. I could already visualize the happy hours spent looking into the different maps and visualizations to help understand the world around us better. 

Many of us have heard of the map Dr John Snow drew up of the cholera epidemic in London as he went about his duties as a doctor. With the aid of his map, he was able to isolate and identify the contaminated water pump from which the water-borne disease was spreading. 127 people died in 3 days and over 600 people died within a month. Here was a groundbreaking example of multiple skill sets coming together to identify and problem solve. 

Of course, data and its importance has only increased in the intervening century and a half since. In Dr Hans Rosling, Anna Rosling & Ola Rosling’s book, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World–and Why Things Are Better Than You Think , examples of data collection, sampling, analysis and visualizations help us think of the world in eye-opening ways. The progression of populations from under-developed to developing to developing is fascinating and gives hope for a future that has solved many of mankind’s problems. 

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<Infographic from Factfulness book mentioned above.>

Now, several leading newspapers such as the New York Times commission data analysts to present their findings and even have visualization teams to help with the most succinct presentation of data. 

Atlas of the Invisible – By James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti is a treat for those who enjoy analytics. 

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Example charts – to see if you like the book:

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We are all data points in this world. I chuckled as I read about the folks who revealed a high security defense location in the middle of the desert simply by turning on Strava to keep track of their daily activities. A good reminder that like many of our inventions, this penchant for data tracking and analysis too will bite us in unexpected ways.

I hope you enjoy the books as much as I did.

Recommended Reading on this subject: