A Golden Decade Signs Off

The first decade of the 21st century is signing off today. Signing off with grace. With pride. With dignity. As it leaves the world a better place.

For technology, especially computing technology, this millennium had begun with a threat - the Y2K threat. The world spent humongous amount of wealth to be well prepared to tackle the millennium bug - cost estimates ranging from a few hundreds of billions of dollars to a trillion dollars and more - surely a big number even if we make the most skeptical estimates - of the order of India's GDP at that time. The famous Y2K debate "money well spent versus problem over estimated", has never been put to rest; nevertheless, what is of relevance for our world is that the threat was well mitigated - and that qualifies as a victory to celebrate.

Positive Thinking in Practice

Of late, I have been catching up with some reading. I read Deepak Chopra's "Ageless Body, Timeless Mind", and Stephen Hawking's "The Theory of Everything". Both the books reinforced my strong conviction in oneness of the universe (energy continuum) and the ability of the human consciousness (an integral part of the universe) to leverage the infinite power of the universe towards the achievement of human ambitions.

Economic liberalization & Social attitude transformations

I had lived my childhood in pre-liberalization India in an educated upper middle class nuclear family in Guwahati city. Memories of weekend pastimes include enjoying Doordarshan programs like Rangoli, Chitrahaar, Ramayan, Mahabharat with family, Star Trek, Vikram Betal, Ek-Do-Teen-Chaar and the Famous Five with my brother & our neighbourhood friends; attending art classes at the Artist Guild & taking badminton classes at the Nehru Stadium;

The Incomplete Truth

What you see is what you believe. But unfortunately what you see is not a complete picture of what actually is. Or for that matter, what you hear, what you smell, what you feel with your skin or what you taste with your tongue is not a complete representation of what actually is. The reason being, your five senses operate within the boundaries of their own limitations. You can detect acoustic disturbances or sounds as long as the frequencies lie within the range of 20Hz to 22KHz. But that does not mean that there are no other frequencies floating around. Similarly, the human eye can detect electromagnetic radiations (visible light) as long as the wavelengths of these fall within the range of 380nm (violet) to 750nm (red) - the optical spectrum. But that does not mean there are no other wavelengths floating around. This logic applies also to the other three sensory capabilities namely taste, smell & touch. The way we humans smell, taste or touch is not all about what exists; because we can smell, taste or touch only the way our human anatomy allows us to.