Are we being GM?

I don't know if I am on a 'GM' diet these days. But by GM I don't mean the General Motors diet. I mean Genetically Modified food. I used to believe that India is still far away from GM food.

Gene modification is insertion or deletion of genes. Crops are generally modified to give a higher yield. That is how the GM first started. It is regarded as second green revolution. To meet the demands of an ever increasing population, several scientists feel that GM food with higher production is the answer. While others feel that there is already enough food and that the problem is not of quantity but that of distribution and politics.

My take on the GM food: We are what we eat. From a little baby to a young adult, our body grows manifold. The only input we take from outside world is food and drinks. Whatever body growth occurs is due to this intake. So we really are whatever we eat. Should we not eat right to get it all right?

We also know that mind and body are very closely connected. Does it not then make sense that what we eat also affects our mind and thinking? So, if we are eating all genetically modified food, are we not getting ourselves modified genetically? There are only a few people who hold the key to genetic modification of the crops. These few can now determine how the human race as a whole would be modified! What a power to hold.

Though the results of genetic modification will not be visible in near future, they will be felt in the long run. Start growing your own food........!

A thought from Gautam Buddha

I came across a Gautam Buddha story and liked it a lot! Here it goes:

Once Buddha was walking from one town to another town with a few of his followers. This was in the initial days. While they were traveling, they happened to pass a lake. They stopped there and Buddha told one of his disciples, "I am thirsty. Do get me some water from that lake there."

The disciple walked up to the lake. When he reached it, he noticed that right at that moment, a bullock cart started crossing through the lake. As a result, the water became very muddy, very turbid. The disciple thought, "How can I give this muddy water to Buddha to drink!"

So he came back and told Buddha, "The water in there is very muddy. I don't think it is fit to drink." After about half an hour, again Buddha asked the same disciple to go back to the lake and get him some water to drink. The disciple obediently went back to the lake.

This time too he found that the lake was muddy. He returned and informed Buddha about the same.
After sometime, again Buddha asked the same disciple to go back.

The disciple reached the lake to find the lake absolutely clean and clear with pure water in it. The mud had settled down and the water above it looked fit to be had. So he collected some water in a pot and brought it to Buddha.

Buddha looked at the water, and then he looked up at the disciple and said," See what you did to make the water clean. You let it be.... and the mud settled down on its own - and you got clear water.

Your mind is also like that! When it is disturbed, just let it be. Give it a little time. It will settle down on its own. You don't have to put in any effort to calm it down. It will happen. It is effortless.."

Another Quick Firefox Tip

In Ubuntu, if you are using firefox, clicking on address bar (urlbar) does not select the entire text. For those who come to linux from windows environment this is irritating. In windows, not in just IE but even in firefox, click on address bar behaves the same way i.e. it selects the entire text.

There is a very small tweak required to achieve this in linux / Ubuntu. In address bar type 'about:config' and press enter. Click on 'I'll be careful, I promise!' button. Type 'urlbar' in the filter bar. Find entry 'browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll' and set it to true by double clicking on it.

You are all set now! Click and enjoy!

Tips & Tricks with Firefox

I love firefox! Who doesn't!? But here are certain tweaks that will make your firefox even better! Read through and implement them...

How to make firefox faster?
On a broadband connection, you can make your firefox load pages must faster by changing some of it's default settings. Here is how to:

1.Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining,

network.http.proxy.pipelining, and

network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”

Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”

Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0″. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

If you’re using a broadband connection you’ll load pages MUCH faster now!

Courtesy: Forevergeek.com

How to have 'inline autocomplete' feature in firefox?
In Internet Explorer, you can set the feature of 'inline autocomplete' on to enable auto complete the URL as you type it in the address bar. Firefox has the autocomplete feature but lacks the 'autofill' element that IE has. This was one feature I missed the most in firefox. However, you can change this!
1. Go to 'about:config' as in point 1 above.
2. Search for browser.urlbar.autoFill. This feature is disabled by default. To enable it, doubleclick on the entry.

Voila! The address bar now auto-completes exactly as it does in Internet Explorer!

Want to make a copy of all the settings that you just changed?
You have now made a lot of changes to the firefox's default settings. Are these settings portable? Can you take them with you wherever you go? Can you easily replace them in your other machines so that everytime you don't have to go to about:config? Here is how to do that:
1. Open windows explorer and go to the folder where you installed your firefox. (In most cases, it should be 'C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox [ver]'.
2. Once in that folder, go inside to folder '\Data\profile'. In this folder there is a file named 'prefs.js'. This file is all you need. Make a backup of this file. When you want your settings to be replicated, just replace this file with the one you just backed up.
3. To see what is inside the file, make a copy of it, rename it to 'prefs.txt'. Windows will come up with a warning that you should not do it. Ignore it by clicking on 'OK' button. You can now open the file and see what's inside!

The day the Earth stood still (Part 9)

My fellow Humans of 2020 A.D., my message till now has given you a background to our conditions today. We don’t know when you will receive this message or if you will receive it at all. We don’t know what will happen in the 15 days that will be left to us after we send this message.

Our request to you the man of 2020 A.D is that please grant the space exploration the due importance that it deserves. Today, if only we had moved to exoplanets that we could have survived this crisis. There would be different worlds to relocate to and the Earth could be abandoned. We realize this today when our existence, the existence of humans as a species is endangered due to a decision that was taken back then. It could be the existence of life itself that is in danger since humans is the only species that exists today. We have heard fables that there used to be other species and if that is true then we would like to let you know that for us it is just a fable.

We would also like to request you not to use the energy resources extravagantly. Energy is the life force of the Universe. Please use it judiciously. Today I can say that though total energy in the Universe remains the same, the one that is available to us is limited.

Please determine your priorities as, representative of entire Earth, and if tomorrow you happen to meet other species then as life itself. A lot of energy is wasted in meeting unnecessary demands of the species. Political will is necessary to divert this wasteful expenditure to a productive one. You can discriminate between a productive and unproductive expenditure only when you think for Earth as a whole and not restrict yourselves to the borders of countries as they exist in your times.

Apart from Energy crisis, there can be a possibility of Earth being destroyed by a passing asteroid or a collision with any other celestial object. It did not happen till my time but if I am able to change the past and get you to be space faring species, it might change the dynamics considerably and make such a collision a possibility.

So, here I am begging you to remember and act on the things I have already said. If you receive the message, you would know that I have spent the last blast of energy on this message. Your and our future depends on you. Wish you and us all the best!”

And the message ended.

The day the Earth stood still (Part 8)

Josey was disappointed when I reminded him that no solution to the current crisis was possible in the 15 days of life that would be left after the transmission of the message. That the Emergency Code would not allow such use of the energy at the cost of wiping off existence as human race from the universe. Survival was more important.

He was disappointed that I failed to see the light. He reminded me of the discussions that were carried out for so many days and how logically every seemingly feasible solution was ruled out. He went over each and every alternative in detail and more importantly how it failed miserably. There was no light at the end of any tunnel.

He seemed pretty calm and rather unaffected by the crisis. He kept on insisting that the only solution to the crisis was to avoid it. And suddenly, those words started making sense. Yes, the only solution really was to avoid the crisis.

However, both of us knew that the Central Committee would never reach a decision as difficult as this. Decision between 6-8 more months of endless and fruitless discussions or a solution the effect of which would never be know to us with only a 15 days life reserve left was indeed a difficult one. The only way was the illegal way of doing it on our own. As Josey said, it was not difficult. Still the project was not in the system as a ‘C’ project. C project meant that the project was completed and handed over by EnerTech R&D for implementation. EnerTech R&D does not have any access or rights to the projects that it has handed over as completed. Since this was not a ‘C’ project, Josey retained all his rights.

Josey had already determined the time to which the message should be delivered. He had chosen year 2020 A.D. That was the year when the President of a country known back then as the United States of America had presented his budget. The budget remarkably cut the spending on unproductive expenditure on research in the space exploration and had granted unusually high portion to EnergyTech initiative which later on became the EnerTech. That was the year that benchmarked the expenditure on space exploration and EnerTech. The spending on EnerTech continued to grow indiscriminately and space research was not given the due attention it should have received. It was always considered unproductive…

The day the Earth stood still (Part 7)

During dinner that evening, I decided to approach Josey and ask him if he had any solution. Josey obliged willingly. He told me that he had created a machine few years back which was a sort of time machine. He said that the research on the machine was going on for thousands of years and he was not the one who invented it. It was only his luck that it was completed in his tenure as an ETzen.

He explained to me that the machine could pass a message to the past. The message would not go in any physical form, but could be fed into the minds of the entire Earth at any specified point in the past. Fortunately, there was no limit on the length of the message. Only constraint was that it required huge amount of energy to transmit the message. So much that we would be left with only 15 days of energy supply after transmission of the message. This was unthinkable.

We could have found a solution to our problem in the 6-8 months that we had. With Emergency Code under operation, the available time could have extended by a month or two as medical care was stopped and the dying were allowed to die irrespective of the Human Rights Memorandum (HRM) as Emergency Code superseded the HRM. This could raise the hope for the living. Sometimes, brutal measures had to be taken. And this was that time. Emergency Code had been envisaged to come into operation when the survival of human beings as a species was considered threatened.

The day the Earth stood still (Part 6)

Josey the ETzen heading the R&D division was least paid attention to. His theory that only solution to the crisis was avoiding it was laughed at. How could one avoid a crisis which had already happened? The ETzens considered that Josey had lost his wits or it was just a too extended use of the MindBelt (which was discouraged for the ETzens) and left it to that.

The others had discussed all the alternative ways of survival for many days and all had drawn a big zero. To the end of every road was a roadblock which could not be cleared, either because we did not have energy or because we did not have resources.

Searching for another habitable planet was considered. But the technology for space travel was never paid attention to. Man was so busy in internal country level (in pre-historic times) and international level politics that a blind eye was turned to the needs of searching a new home. The quest was stalled by the opposition parties as being a cowardly alternative supported by those who did not want to take the responsibility for the judicious use of Earth’s resources. They contended that Earth was man’s home and leaving one’s home was unthinkable. While it was considered as unproductive expenditure, the funds required for space research were diverted to the more ‘dire’ needs of grants to the financial institutions, which had lost zillions of dollars with their screwed up strategies or to create sophisticated defense equipments which were not required. The rest went to the numbered accounts of the corrupt politicians. I know many such ETzens.

Other alternative considered was to relocate to Mars and moon. But the human presence there were very small only served the purpose of mining bases. It would not be possible to accommodate such a huge population there.

During entire discussion, Josey always wanted to say something, but never got an opportunity...

The day the Earth stood still (Part 5)

Only the few of us ETzens and MasterMinds were specially trained to think beyond the MindBelts and could work without them. We still used a few things which could be termed as pre-historic but for the first time considered by all ETzens as life-saving. How true it is that man realizes importance of small things which he otherwise considers junk when his life entirely depends on them.

The ETzens had special computers which worked on batteries as well as on atmospheric heat. Thus, with ETzeNet still working, an emergency meeting was called in the ET Tower, the Headquarters of the EnerTech. EnerTech, though the name suggests that it deals with the Energy technology had long since expanded to cover all important aspects of life. It had a representation of all streams of scientists, economists, psychologists, politicians and law enforcement and pretty much came close to what pre-historians called the government.

I started my ground car, a pre-historic Maruti model manufactured 3 years ago. I headed to the ET Tower for the Central Committee meet. I will not bore you with the heated discussions and blame passing that happened at that meeting. But only thing important I found out (not in a meeting but at a dinner several days later when I was talking to Josey) that he had something which was very interesting. It showed me some hope…

The day the Earth stood still (Part 4)

The realization came very late when man could, only in hindsight, see his biggest two flaws; that he invented only when the need arose and that he utilized all that he had indiscriminately without any responsibility.

That day brought complete chaos to Earth. Nobody can imagine the condition of the planet when all the life force of the planet stopped. The AtmosCon had stopped working and the weather had started to turn unpleasant. However, with some backup energy left, it could be operated at sub-optimal levels for another 6-8 months. It would take a heavy toll on other energy requirements, but this was the Emergency Code live in operation for the first time since it was envisaged. All other activities were priority 2 under the Code. However, after 6-8 months, AtmosCon would stop working. Soon the weather would become unbearable and then the Earth would become uninhabitable. Our race is in danger…

The advances in the technology are at their peak and man cannot not move a finger on his own. Even thought is left to the machines, MindBelts. Man today is only a decision maker based on the information fed to their brain-minds by these MindBelts. He prides himself as the ultimate decision maker when in reality, the decision is already taken by the MindBelt and is just suggested to man.

A MindBelt is an electronic brain (which comes close to the human brain but still after so many hundreds of thousands of years spent perfecting it, is still not THE thing) attached to the brain of every human being born after the year ALN:20,000 (in pre-historic times, years were measured in B.C. and A.D. That system was changed to the new system many hundreds of thousand years ago). MindBelts do all the thinking for man and are connected to the central brain of the Earth, the MasterMind. Now all this is a history. Nobody had considered making MindBelts a priority 1 along with the AtmosCon…

That day, with all external help ‘dead’, nobody knew what had happened and what to do next. The communication systems collapsed as the only channel available was through the MindBelts which were not working. The aircars had stopped working and there were already huge pileups on the roads. Panicked, people started to come out on the road walking for the first time and did not know what to do. There were confused crowds protesting against no one to nobody. Police were also useless as they themselves had lost their PoliceMinds. Soon riots started…

The day the Earth stood still (Part 3)

That day the EnerTech stopped working. The New Sun was dying… again.

I remember there was a mission a hundreds of thousands of years ago to revive the Sun (Reference: Movie Sunshine). The Sun was dying back then too. But that time, the situation was different. A team of 6 scientists was sent to launch a nuclear missile at the heart of the Sun to revive it. The team was successful to revive the Sun against all the odds that they faced during their mission. It was estimated that the New Sun will last for a few more million years at least. However, it had lasted us only for about 238,480 years. Back then only one thing had made such revival possible. We, the humans, had not exhausted their natural resources yet.

It was not that we forgot about the moon or the Mars. But we exhausted all the resources on moon and Mars too. When all the natural resources on the Earth became extinct, man turned to the moon and Mars for materials and to the Sun for energy. In our greed, we consumed all the materials available on the moon and Mars as well. Now man depends upon recycling for all his material needs.

We had by now realized that we had made a mistake of taking the New Sun for granted. With the New Sun dying, we did not have the capability to revive it. We could not build a ship before dismantling one of our Residence Towers for there was nothing left to create it from. We were stuck…

The day the Earth stood still (Part 2)

The letter said:
“I still remember that day. The day the Earth stood still.

It was a hot morning. Unusually hot. I don’t remember the weather being so hot. In prehistoric times they used to refer to it as ‘Global Warming’, I suppose. But it was a long forgotten term. What with the advances in EnerTech (the technology that produced electricity from sunlight and heat), weather on entire Earth was artificially controlled. It required a lot of energy, but with the Sun as an everlasting source of energy, there was no need to think twice. In any case, all the energy used by the AtmosCon, the weather control system, was a fraction of the total energy requirements of the human race. Everything worked on the everlasting electricity.

We, the humans of today, had long exhausted the conventional energy sources available on the Earth. Back then, the prehistoric man used something called oil or petrol as fuel. The electricity was generated with the help of coal, water (hydro) or radioactive materials. All this is history (or rather pre-history). The extinction of these sources forced man to advance the solar electricity generation to meet his everyday needs. That resulted in EnerTech which has been serving man since then.

Everything was going smoothly without any hiccups…till that day. Generations of ETzens took good care of the EnerTech. There was nothing to complain against the ETzens.

ETzen was a special branch of study and there were numerous sub-streams which one could choose to become an ETzen. ETzens worked whole their life on maintaining, operating or innovating newer versions of the EnerTech. They were the brains behind keeping the Earth moving.

That day the EnerTech stopped working.

The day the Earth stood still (Part 1)

It was a usual evening and Vinay had just come home from his office. He switched on the TV and tuned in to the match between Rajasthan Royals and Deccan Chargers. It was year 2020 and the match was the final of IPL-13. The Rajasthan Royals had put up a score of 205. Deccan Chargers were playing good. They needed 43 more runs from 35 balls with 4 wickets still in hand.

Neela brought the pizza that she had prepared and gave Vinay’s dish to him. Vinay was about to eat his pizza when ‘that’ appeared on his TV screen. He froze, he could not eat…

At about same time, Daniel Reeves, President of the United States of America had just risen. Though it was quite late in the day, he was on a vacation, so he had all the rights to be in bed at that hour. In a few days, though, he thought, he would submit budget to the congress. He cleared all thoughts of work from his mind, went to the coffee maker and poured himself a huge cup of coffee. He went to his laptop and started the machine. It was a HP TPU345C, the latest config available at that time. Reeves was a techie.

As his machine started, he logged on to Facebook. He liked to keep in touch with the world, a personal touch to the otherwise mundane job which he hated anyways. And just then that happened. At first he thought it was a virus. But no. This was something different. He stared at the message on his screen in disbelief…

Both Vinay and President Daniel Reeves saw something on their screens (or rather felt in their mind) that made them start. It was not just the two of them, but entire earth stopped.

It was as if somebody had taken control of their minds and was reading out a story or a letter to them. It did not seem to belong to their time but appeared to have come from the future. And it indeed was a message from the future.