The "fat" tax

New York governor David Patterson wants to introduce an obesity tax. No, he does not want to tax people who are fat or overweight. He proposes to levy a higher tax on sugared beverages like soda. More accurately, on non-diet sugared drinks that have 70% or less fruit juice content. Revenue earned from these taxes will fund more obesity and health research. While the article expresses the governor's points of view solely, he does make a few interesting points. First, when taxes were increased on cigarettes, it did drop in sales and there has been a considerable decrease in lung cancer occurrences. Secondly, if we take into account a study that showed additional 12-ounce soft drink daily consumption increases the risk of a child becoming obese by 60 percent (and the same for adults as well).
States such as New Jersey and California have already implemented steps on sodas and sweet foods. If I am not wrong, then NJ bans the use of sodas and sweets in schools for kids to eat. Increasing the taxes on such items, I feel, can indeed curb people from buying them as much. While this proposal is primarily driven towards childhood obesity, it will, to a certain extent have a positive effect in reducing adult obesity as well!
The world is vastly adopting a sedentary lifestyle. Though the life expectancy has increased tremendously over the decades, that is misleading as a sign of healthiness - because advances in medicine have caused the increase. People in olden days used to die of sickness and that was medicine has eradicated. Today, the story is different. While people have started living longer, they have stopped living healthily long back. Unfortunately it's a lifestyle choice that leads to this, and all the government can really do is make people realize what they are doing wrong.

Number crunching

This is the current cost of the Iraq war:
###
Iraq War Cost

I knew it was big, but I did not know it was this big. As of when I saw this ticker, the number was $612 billion. These are the other numbers I calculated:
Considering it started in 2003 and now it is the end of 2008, that is 6 years.
Yearly expenditure: $102 billion
Monthly expenditure: $8.5 billion
Daily expenditure: $280 million

Now let us look at the daily expenditure. We have (had?) a bailout plan costing $700 billion. The auto giants require a $14 billion bailout. Considering daily cost of the Iraq war, it turns out that it would take US just 50 days to equal the cost of the auto bailout.

Also, did you notice that the cost of the Iraq war is almost equal to the cost of the economic bailout of $700 billion?

Nice going, George.

It's an epidemic

There used to be a time when doctors were the only ones who were made fun of when it came to bad handwriting. As of today, there are a lot more people who give them company. Like I said, it's an epidemic. The average "beauty" of handwriting has gone down a few notches. Correction, several notches.
My brother often compares my handwriting to bird droppings. And why won't he? It does look like that now. And it used to be so good! Way, way long back when I used to win awards for handwriting (during kindergarten, not middle school) even an illiterate could point out it was beautiful handwriting.
Then I grew up. No wait, that is yet to happen. This, I think, is the real culprit. :)
This is another in my series of "Thoughts in 2D".

Disclaimer: The first image is borrowed from a website. The second image does not have my handwriting... it's a font style. :)

Bush has good reflexes

So this happened earlier today... when US President Bush made an unannounced visit to Iraq, and a reporter threw shoes at him calling him a dog. While Bush ducked well in both shots, I feel a little bad for him.

Video Courtesy: CNN

Meh.

Q: How's my life been? Mind-blowing?
A: Meh.

My dad and his friends lived in a time when India was not the way it is now. When transportation was not all that developed and communication was primarily through postcards and inland letters, because telephones were gadgets of affluence and luxury. At a time when kids could not attend school because the family made less than Rs 5 a month. If you had traveled to a distant land, the only assurance the family got that you have reached safely is not a missed call, but is when they received a postcard from you a couple of weeks later.

Life is a lot simpler now. And for some reason I have a complaint to make. LIFE'S NOT CHALLENGING ENOUGH! What stories would I tell my children as they grow up? His stories (and my late grandfathers' as well) are so exciting! They talk of their struggles which were about getting through the ride of life... it has not been nearly as challenging for me. Even now, I am 25, and I love to listen to my dad tell stories of Naxal attacks, droughts, floods - all in the absence of today's comforts... My late maternal grandfather was a doctor and he owned a horse. He used to ride his horse from village to village to treat ailing people. He was a respected man. The story sounds so inspiring...

I am currently going to graduate school and my life stories are neither interesting nor groundbreaking. Neither is my research life-changing. I HAVE NO STORIES TO TELL. The only stories I can tell my children are of how much I try to save money to buy a good camera accessory for myself. Not nearly as exciting. The story has no repeat value. My children or grandchildren are not going to demand of me to tell the story again.

Thanks to D for having this
thought provoking discussion with me.

Photography contest

I had submitted this photo for a Penn State international Programs organized photography contest - Picture Your World.
Yay, it won the first place! :) The category was "The human element"

"Of good times to come"

It is of Boudi, taken during the wedding in Feb 2005.

On life

From the movie Garden State, there is this line Natalie Portman says to Zach Braff -
"If you don’t laugh at yourself, life is going to seem a lot longer than you want it to."

Inspired.

Smile please!

Guess who this is. Lindsey Evans, Miss Louisana Teen USA 2008.

Guess what this is. Her mugshot when she was arrested recently.

Is she smiling? Yes.
Is she posing for Miss Congeniality? Probably yes.

Who smiles like that when their mugshot is being taken? :-O

What happened? She decided to dine-and-dash at a restaurant with her friends, i.e. leaving the restaurant without paying, over a $46 bill. For one thing, if you are stupid enough to commit a crime, don't leave your purse behind. Yes, she left without paying, and left her purse behind. DUH.

That's not even the best part. When the cops were called, they obviously found the purse. Within the purse was some weed! Wow. She got arrested, and thereby came that photo up there. Why on earth did she decide to smile when she was being arrested?

Obviously, the pageant "dethroned" her on 20th October 2008; she lost her crown 11 days before her reign ended. Girl, you could have waited 11 days more.

It COULD NOT have been done in any other way

I was following election day in the US on CNN. All day. Little did I know that CNN will pull of a Star Wars. Remember the way they used to communicate in that movie?

Yeah, so I was thinking, CNN "beamed in" their correspondents and interviewees, for the first time ever on TV (see video). While it is a brilliant technological marvel, what was the point in spending so much infrastructure in doing something that could have been done by:
a. Cutting the scene reporting in the far-away location
b. Showing the reporting on a large screen TV
c. Telephone!
May be it was all about the ratings. But then, hands down, you've got to admit it is pretty cool - to see how far technology has reached from the time cell phones used to half the size of briefcases. It's also a good idea to see this being used in other aspects probably unimaginable right now. Hologram-conferencing is going to be a terrific idea when it comes to education in less privileged areas.
I am interested to see what The Daily Show has to say about this!

Aaah, Google Ads!

Google's Ad server thinks I am up to something. And that's why it provided this "non-intrusive text ad" based on the content of my email. What was that email about? I was sending a video link to a friend. Non-intrusive... really? :)
Yeah... what about these links, eh... WHAT ABOUT THESE LINKS?

I did not visit the website for these reasons:
1. May be it's a move by the government to expand their existing list. People who are into such activities would want to see if they are being watched. They type in their name into the website, and bingo, the CTU has a new name. Heh heh... I don't want to be on that list. As it is, I look like one!
2. It's a sponsored link? :-O Rac1st bum, that sponsoring dude.

Life. :-)

The latest gossip

Left brain, right brain and optical illusions

I have a question for you. What do you think, is this girl spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise?

If you think it is spinning only one way and not the other, look away and then look at it again. Has it changed since you had first laid eyes on it? Can you change the way you see it at will? :) That's the beauty of this illusion.

The Spinning Dancer, also known as the silhouette illusion, is a kinetic, bistable optical illusion resembling a pirouetting female dancer. The illusion, created by web designer Nobuyuki Kayahara, (his website) involves the apparent direction of motion of the figure.

There are studies that report that how you see the girl spinning determines which part of your brain you think from. If you see this moving clockwise, you use your right brain. If you see in counterclockwise, you are using your left brain. Why is it important? According to this report in The Sunday Times, the left brain and the right brain control different aspects of the way you think.

Left brain function:
uses logic
detail oriented
facts rule
words and language
present and past
math and science
can comprehend
knowing
acknowledges
order/pattern perception
knows object name
reality based
forms strategies
practical
safe

Right brain functions:
uses feeling
"big picture" oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can "get it" (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking

When I read this, I was confused as to how to categorize myself. Because I see it happening both ways, and can control it as well! Don't I think from any side at all? (That would surely explain several things!)
I wonder if all this brain hemisphere analysis is true. In my opinion, it is merely an optical illusion. How can an optical illusion determine how your brain thinks? May be it does... may be it doesn't. Frankly, I do not find any significant differences in the above report of the left brain and right brain. I thought the hemispheres of the brain decide is handedness and language function. May be a neurological explanation can back up all this.
That's when I came across this post in a blog dedicated to Neuroscience. According to Steven Novella, the author of the post, it's just an illusion! And it has nothing to do with hemispherical dominance of either side of the brain.

[...] This news article, like many others, ignores the true source of this optical illusion and instead claims it is a quick test to see if you use more of your right brain or left brain. This is utter nonsense, but the “right-brain/left brain” thing is in the public consciousness and won’t be going away anytime soon. Sure, we have two hemispheres that operate fine independently and have different abilities, but they are massively interconnected and work together as a seamless whole (providing you have never had surgery to cut your corpus callosum).
We also do have hemispheric dominance, but that determines mostly your handedness and the probability of language being on the right or the left. There is also often asymmetry for memory, with some being right or left hemisphere dominant. But none of this means that your personality or abilities are more right brain or left brain. That much is nonsense.
Further, how your visual cortex constructs this optical illusion says nothing about your hemispheric dominance, and is absolutely not a quick personality profile. [...]

Aside, I found this piece astounding. It replaces my all time favorite illusion: the Lilac Chaser.

Ann Louise Nixon Cooper and Barack Obama

Ann Louise Nixon Cooper, 106

It's a pity that Barack Obama's grandmother did not live to see him become the first black president of the United States. But someone else did. Ann Louise Nixon Cooper. Does it ring a bell? President-elect Obama mentioned her several times during his speech yesterday in Chicago - "Yes we can."

Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old, and is from Atlanta. On November 4th, she left her home early, just so she could vote for Barack Obama. She has seen the history of US from 1902 - World War I, World War II, the cold war, Vietnam... and now she also saw America have its first ever black president.
"I ain't got time to die", she said to CNN.
She comes from a time when she was barred from voting on two counts - being a woman, and being black. She has seen America, and the world too, through thick and thin - and as Obama puts it, "she knows how America can change".
Here is where Obama talks about her in his speech:

[...] This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing -- Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.
She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons -- because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.
And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.
At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.
When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.
When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.
She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "We Shall Overcome." Yes we can.
A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.
America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves -- if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?[...]

Colin Powell wept at Obama's victory. So did Rev. Jesse Jackson. I watched the elections for most of the evening yesterday - and more than experiencing the sheer joy of seeing Obama win the election, I was in awe because his persona inspires me to do something worthwhile... and to be a better person.
Update: Thanks to Nina for this video link! The 106 year old voter reacts to how she was an integral part of Obama's victory speech.

Sober enough to email?

Introducing Gmail Goggles.

Have you ever sent an email late one night when you were sloshed... and you woke up the next morning and wished you hadn't sent it? Let's say you are drunk-soaked-to-the-bone. And you decide to email your ex/crush/boss/coworker/ENTIRE-OFFICE and tell something you wouldn't want to tell when sober. Google kind of prevents that. By asking you a series of simple timed arithmetic questions. Just to make sure you are not drunk. Or stoned.

By default it is enabled on late Friday nights. But you can schedule it according to your drinking needs. For example, daily. :P

Guess what? A professor in my department told me about this!

I feel they should have this in cell phones and GPS devices as well. Just to save your life. :-)

Bungee rope

And now they passed the $700B bailout. Only two days after they rejected it.

In a country where I am yet to figure out what is the best way to drink from a water fountain. But then that is only me. :-)

Economic Plunge

DOW plunged 778 points today, the worst drop ever, after the $700 billion bailout was rejected by the United States House of Representatives.

Wow. I am not sure what the repercussions of this depression is going to be like.

DOW had dropped 685 points on September 17th 2001, the first trading day after 9-11.

Developing story