Technology predictions

Remember how visionaries like H. G. Wells and Da Vinci liked to make predictions based on then-fantastic flights of fancy? Well, this chain is about some of my own.

Nowadays it is pretty common to find digital cameras in cell phones. I was thinking about what could be the ultimate technological innovation in digital cameras. How about the camera is built in using ultra super duper nanotechnology into the frames of your glasses? When you look at a sight or subject - whatever you wish - and want to snap a picture, you simply click on either the rim or the sides of your glasses, an optical square is formed around the picture into the integrated lens - so you know what you are going to capture and click, the picture is taken. Better yet, it can understand simple voice commands so you can take a picture hands-free. When you come home at night, you simply plug your glasses in; your pictures are downloaded and your batteries charged!

In a few years, the technology can be extended to contact lenses as well. Of course, it remains to be seen what normal sighted people would use. For once, we 4 eyed people seem to have a distinct advantage .... :-)

I'm accented. But are you?

Does anyone find it annoying when someone tells you that you have an accent? Isn't that implying that he or she considers himself or herself to be devoid of any accent? That doesn't make any sense, does it now? My claim is that everybody has an accent - there is no such thing as unaccented language. Only the people of regional majority "think" they have "no accent".

I have an accent - sure. I speak English the way I was taught. The Indian/British way with pronunciations more Indian and diction more British. Over the last decade, of course, both aspects are meandering towards American - or the so-called "unaccented" English. But that is besides the point. When I spent a few months in England, of course, their notion of "unaccented" English was far different. In fact, I remember in India the notion of unaccented English is also vastly different.

The next time someone comments on you or you comment on someone about their accent, do know that in the end, like Einstein said, it's all relative .....

Word from the Existentialist

The other day I took an interesting quiz (Microsoft IE died on me since then so I've lost track of what links I followed). The conclusion of that quiz was that I have an Existentialist bent of mind. I wouldn't have thought so. But with this new understanding of myself, I shall now spend some more time thinking about the meaning of life ..... :-) :-)

Ok here's one thought; I've always wondered what happiness is. I remember my life being a near-constant struggle to reach some level of "happiness" but I also remember that after getting there, it hardly mattered and the mind switches to a new goal of "happiness". Do people ever relax, stop and think, "Hey I'm really having a good time right now. This is happiness"? Maybe some people do. I should learn to take things a bit easy as well. Maybe that is the meaning (and purpose) of life. To learn to really enjoy a moment and be happy.

Entropy and evolution

I have recently been thinking about the apparent contradiction between entropy and evolution principles. For the uninitiated, the second law of thermodynamics states that entropy always increases in a closed system. In other words, things always go from order to disorder. That is the reason things are easier to break than to fix or build. However, evolution hypotheses are based on the proposition of bigger (and higher order) beings evolving from smaller (less ordered) beings. Of course, as you can imagine, this contradiction is often pushed by the semi-scientific Creationist mindset as an evidence of God and marginalization of evolution theory. Other scientific theories and interpretations delve into the separation of living and non-living things etc. All in all, a very unsatisfactory and delicate balance of opinion, if you ask me.

With this background, I started looking up some things on the web. (Not?) Surprisingly enough, there is a lot of material on this. For example, check out this link:

http://www.entropylaw.com

This is the article I particularly liked:

http://www.entropylaw.com/thermoevolution10.html

The crux of the article which is like a corollary of the second law, is that:

... the system will select the path or assembly of paths out of otherwise available paths that minimizes the potential or maximizes the entropy at the fastest rate given the constraints ...

Then the article goes on the give an example of heat transfer between a room and its environment. It's a good read when you have some time.

Based on this, here's my own hypothesis to solve the apparent paradox of entropy and evolution.

Let's begin with the assumption that the maximum entropy on earth is when there is no life. The validity of this assumption can be assessed based on our knowledge of the:
a. earth's age and how long it existed without life.
b. universe and the fact that we haven't encountered life anywhere else yet.

Of course, this point is widely debatable but assume for the time being that this is true. Then following the corollary of the second law of thermodynamics, we have the most convincing reason of why human beings evolved from lower life forms. It represents the fastest way to maximum entropy. Insects have lived on this earth for millions of years, plants and animals several hundreds of thousands but fully functional sentient human beings only several thousand years and we're already equipped to destroy all life on earth. Which other life form would have been that efficient? So we did evolve (for a very sinister reason :)) and it is consistent with entropy law. Paradox resolved.

Comments?