2022 Happy New year - back to some sense of life ?!.

Interesting NYTimes article  on why "

It’s high time for women to reclaim the real strength behind exercise" 

to consider, esp. as we roll into new year 2022 with resolutions! 

BTW talking about new year resolutions - something of my own here. Am back into my blogging site after a gap of several years as I kind of got some of my free time back from busy work and family routines, and will to try to do what I enjoy, i.e., sharing some wisdom from what I read to the world, especially on stuff that matter to growth and development. Hope to keep this going.

Back to the article, completely agree with the author's key message  "

Exercising to Slim Down? Try Getting Bigger" ... 

to encourage women to work out for strength with the fringe benefit of the pursuit of visible muscle, and that the strength training shouldn't be gender biased.  

Also love the point she makes on "

exercise not only for physical but also mental strength. I exercise to feel the endorphin high of accomplishment and to manage life’s lows...". 

 

Finally, "

I now know how fortunate .. to be living in an era when a growing number of fitness professionals sell exercise not as a punishment, but as a celebration of what our bodies can do".  

Enjoy 2022 and Celebrate life !

The connected world: are you doing it right?

Recently Reddit users had a good laugh over a post titled “Mom, you are doing it wrong.”  Somebody’s mom was making hard copies of recipes off her iPad by placing the iPad’s screen directly onto the photocopier.

I laughed, too, but a little ruefully.  After all, I spend a lot of time helping business enterprises deploy new technology effectively in pursuit of powerful benefits. No matter how exciting those benefits, when people face disruptive change, they tend to bend the new back to the familiar. Mom wants hard copies of her recipes, iPad or no iPad. Users want to keep their old familiar processes, new technology or not.

Not surprisingly, hobbling new technologies with old processes diminishes its benefits. When the benefits do not materialize, users are disillusioned (“We went through all that and this is all it does?) and buyers are flummoxed and unhappy (“Where is my competitive advantage?  Where is my savings?”)

Digital revolution

Because the near future will be dominated by disruptive change – in the form of the digital revolution – it’s a good time to focus on this vulnerability of new technology deployments. For example, in the business world,  SAP S/4HANA® is one the most powerful enterprise technology platforms supporting that revolution, and is now being embraced across all industry sectors as part of what is being coined 'Industry 4.0'. Its new suite of applications let companies of all sizes take economic advantage of exciting technology advances like Big Data, Internet of Things, Machine learning, AI, Predictive Analytics, Robotic Process Automation, Cloud and Mobile solutions.

Absorb, analyze, and react

Without such a platform which supports in-memory processing and cloud based architecture, companies would drown under the sheer weight of the endless real-time flood of big data coming from the new world of connected enterprise. With the platform, they can not only absorb and analyze the valuable data they receive from a variety of internal or external sources (smart IOT devices, social media feeds, click streams) but more importantly, they can react in real time. Not only can they be made instantly aware of, say, a maintenance issue with their equipment, but even as they are made aware of it, the technology can also be pursuing the appropriate fix using some of Machine learning, AI capabilities. Critical failures are prevented, equipment uptime is maximized, human errors are mitigated. 

Yesterday

BUT, that can happen only if, in this example, the maintenance team adapts and enhances their current business processes to permit the technology to exercise its full potential in real-time analytics – if they fully adopt “event stream processing,” a major departure from traditional analytics. Yesterday’s traditional ERP systems would receive and store the data, then prepare it for consumption through ETL (extract transform load) processes, and finally present results and share insights as needed. In an increasing number of situations, these insights are too late.

Today

New technologies like SAP S/4HANA® enables a vastly different, more rapid, and instantly valuable Smart Data streaming process.  It starts with stored queries /analysis, then it receives data (from thousands of sensors, electronic commerce sites - both internal and external, and internet-connected devices), then processes the data, and immediately, pushes the results to trigger an appropriate reaction. It is revolutionary, not evolutionary. No matter how fast the data moves, how much data there is, or how many data sources it is being pulled from, it is all under the user’s control via a single, intuitive interface. Users can define patterns and address scenarios from all aspects of the business, enabling them to stay agile and tackle issues as they arise. Properly deployed, it upends old processes.

Challenge

But old processes are comfortable. What if people mistrust the accuracy of the data, or simply find its speed unsettling and imprudent?  They do what seems prudent and slow it up. All that real-time data gets batched up and sent around to be reviewed the next day. All those alerts that were supposed to trigger a rapid reaction (“Notify service teams that a vendor shipment is significantly delayed.” or “Shut down pump #4312 and notify maintenance that its pressure has exceeded safety parameters.”) fall on deaf ears until it is too late. And worst of all, the company’s opportunity for competitive advantage goes by the wayside, with all parties wondering what happened.

Thrive

Making the most of new technologies whether at home or in business means adopting a strategic view and taking a radically different approach from the conventional. It requires open mindset to change the ways we have felt comfortable so far, be ready to vest time to learn and upgrade skill sets so we are equipped to use the new tools in right way, and be ready to reap the full benefits in a new, digitally connected world. 

It is one thing to use an iPad and a photocopier when all you want is paper recipes, but if we want to thrive in the digital age where disruption seems inevitable, let us cultivate a changed mindset. Time to go and read up on my manuals for our new Instapot, seems to be the rage now!

Seagulls and Purpose of life

I stumbled across an interesting article  in HBR Blogs and couldn't resist my self commenting on it as below

"It baffles me that out of trillions of species that live and perish in this universe, why is that we humans are the only ones that does this critical thinking in trying to understanding the metaphysical level - like the purpose of all existence ? and constantly keep evaluating our surroundings ? a Seagull that goes on about it's flight path to catch it's food does it ever wonder why it's flying ? or what its life's purpose in bigger schema of things ? how about a whale in ocean ? or that e-coli bacteria ? do they all wonder about why they do what they do ?.. they just seem to do whatever they need to do for their basic needs of surival (growth is implied) and reproduction? beyond that they seem to be in bliss ..never seeming to care about anything else around through their life cycle ? or poke their noses in other's affairs ! ...it seems that so-called elite thinking or overthinking is our bane and not a boon ! the ultimate purpose of life is already there right infront of our eyes as evidenced from all the life forms around us (ofcourse minus one) .. "to live in simplest form & means possible" -- Only we are too egoistic to accept it !"

Now, that seagull example in my comment above was actually a real one.. an extension of my wild thoughts that pondered when I was driving home in rush hour traffic across Fremont bridge and saw a seagull flying over it, and wondered about what the bird must be thinking of all the fools stuck in traffic below. 

Later at home during some interesting dinner table conversation, I raised this topic with my daughter about this idealogical question - why is it that we as humans have so many artificial needs like clothes, cars, homes,  etc..where as none of the other species like these birds don't  seem to need ?. One valid argument my daughter made was that the things we made eg clothes etc make us survive better in harsh conditions, which otherwise would have made us inhabitable to place like Portland in winter.. so her logic was al of this stuff that we need is part of our survival and increase our chances. My question was then - why is that no other species decided to do the same ? or in fact the more important question was what if all other species also start to do the same thing ? that is to increase their chance of survival by creating stuff that was not natural to them.  How about that visual of a seagull driving a porsche ? (could be cool idea for next Pixar movie !)

 
Here let me take slight detour into biology and genetics that I am getting recently fanatic about.. to talk about the theory of natural evolution , that the species would slowly genetically evolve with changed features to survive their habitats and thus become diverse. During this process, ofcourse several generations die as they couldn't adopt or survive. But that's all part of the law of nature ! small plants slowly evolving to become giant redwoods, or lizards evolving into mighty komodo dragons. So why is that when all other species try to follow this arduous and painful path of evolution, we humans try to throw-in a shortcut by going against the natural process and artificially comeup with our own process of self-evolution.  That takes back to my original question and whether by developing artificial means to increase our chances of survival in a short run through all the stuff we invent, are we really gaining anything in long run or infact are we jeopadizing our own chances of future survival ??  
 
Take a look from the caveman times to now - we lost our hair, which was almost thick fur-like back in those caveman days that protected from harsh winters (infact  my wife agrees too I was like a caveman with my head full of hair back in days when we got married) ; we lost our long nails (damn it! they would have been so useful as bottle openers) ; we lost our capability to eat or drink anything direct from nature without purifying it through thousand screens ; we can't survive in wilderness for more than a day (rescue squads have to be sent in !!).  So by not allowing human bodies to carrout the necessary genetic evolutionary processes just like other species do by exposing them to the harsh nature .. as the time passes we are infact are becoming weaker and vlulnerable in comparision to other species that are evolving to become stronger. 

Now extrapolate this for thousand years and what do you think is going to happen to be human race ?.. a small portion of us who remain will be living in airtight germ-free regulated dark underground colonies that are fully equipped with artificial rivers, trees, mountains (as we can't risk exposure to direct sun, open air, trees), wearing hazmat suits round the clock, that have built in screens that can stream live feeds of millions gigabites per sec of the wild, beautiful nature outside where the flocks of Seagulls still fly freely on the Fremont bridge, only this time with hoards of Komodo dragons roaming free below !  whew..wait a minute, we can't let that happen !! we need to do something.
 
So here's my suggestion for human race... if you care about your survival start to think about how to live free  like that of the Seagull in Sky.. may be then you might become the first generation of  "futurites" (my copyrighted trademark name for future human species ;-) who might evolve slowly to gain some really cool super abilities to survive the future.. such as ability to directly drink water from rivers, live in wilderness for a week on their own without any idevice, communicate through vocal cards rather than using fingers to type on to a screen, or able to walk a mile without collapsing. 

[Of course all of this is possible only if we pass the immediate danger to the human race this year.  Yes,  I am referring to the fuss about 2012 Mayan calendar and Apocalypse ! I frankly think we are all not yet so highly evolved or lucky to die such sudden, painless death !!! such forutne only favours fully evolved species like Dinosaurs.   But we never know, the recent solar storms , the signs of missing snow on mountains, does make this year look out of the ordinary ! may be time to Party like the end of the world !!]

Pedal to the Metal

Quote : "For there is something in man that seeks out challenge, especially the challenge of a single man taking on a task in which all the forces of nature, and often the opinions of the world around him, are arrayed against him; a task in which his own solitude may become his greatest enemy; a task that his own drive, his own desire, and his own ego must make him accomplish. There is something in man that seeks out the challenge of the unknown within himself and seeks to challenge the limits of his very being. There is something in man that makes him run marathons" : End quote. (source)

It's my countdown time.. few more days for my first Full Marathon..


I will be running the 26.1 miles and 385 yards (42.195 Km) on Oct 9th, 2011 at the Portland Marathon.

Don't ask me why I do it ? or how does one do it ?.or whether I enjoy doing it ?.. honestly I myself don't even know all the answers.

But one thing I do know is I like the fact that I am doing something I  thought would never be able to do in my life time !

Of course, am I scared of it ? hell.. yes, especially when you read all the horror stories and you-tube videos of runners collapsing of exhaustion 200 yards from finish line etc, but I guess that's where the excitement also comes from. That 'caveman instinct' that we are all born with, but never deploy or reach out to see how far we can take it ? and simply put, a new found appreciation for this amazing forgotten piece of equipment that I owned for a long time called "my body". 

Our body is the only thing that stays with us every moment.. from birth to death.. yet what do we do with it ? ignore it, abuse it, throwing all junk in it, never really check what it's full potential. God gives everyone at birth pretty much similar framework (ok..ok, am exaggerating a bit here, ofcourse we know we all don't have same sizes of pieces, but what I mean is ..hopefully no one out there with four lungs or 3 hearts..we all have similar pieces which perform pretty much same functions) of this beautiful body that you can grow into anything you want.

Metaphorically, it's like this. You daily walk into your garage, get into this familiar car of yours you owned for years, fill with  all the junk in to the trunk and drive routinely at 60 mph happily for most of your life. Ofcourse you rarely think how would it be or whether can you make this baby purr at 120 or 140 mph ? because even if you wanted, you have been warned repeatedly and given specs to make you believe that- what you have is a  'family sedan' and not some 'formula race car', so racing something like that is just plain crazy, stupid and impossible. 

But, but..here is the catch ! unlike the car we bought, when we were born were we ever given that spec sheet of what our body can do? how fast it can go ? or how far it can go ? no ! zilch ! nada !! nothing !!!  then why the hell do we assume our body is like a family sedan ? what if, in reality the almighty god actually gave was euqivalent of a Porsche (or a Ferrari or a Maserrati ? huh..) covered under the disguise of a mini-van or family sedan?.

How freaking sad would it be to find out only at the gates of heaven (or hell if you are Dick Cheney !) when you finally reach there.  [Of course on the contrary, the nay-sayers and pessimists amongs us would argue that one may find those gates of heaven sooner if you assume you have a ferrari and keep pushing while in reality what you actually have is a civic or chevy vega. ]  

Still a valid point is,  shouldn't we try to know what the heck it is we have ?  that's where the kicking off tires and purring comes into play..where you have to try it, test it, stretch it, break it, fix it, train it, to see where it can take you.. how far and how fast... as they say put "the Pedal to Metal"...

So there's the long drawn reason why I do this thing called the "26.1 mile madness", and I am not alone, there are millions rediscovering this same inner model.. look at this video the spirit of Marathon

So Friends !  "you have to believe in yourself !..take a closer look at what you own".  Don't just follow what you have been told all your life.. check out yourself.. find what's under the hood (or belt) and rewrite your own specifications! it's never too late, and you'll be surprised  (or shocked as in my case!)...even if it's not a Ferrari..it might be a Corvette or a Mustang GT..any day better than whatever you think you already own !!.

You too will be amazed and will say "god.. you're absolute genius",  and the next time you approach those gates of heaven, you wouldn't just walk, but will proudly run through them with head and hands held high with a smile on your face.  Enjoy the race of your life ! 

Last but not the least, I proudly support my favorite non-profit charity, AID (Association for India's Development) through their Run for India program, to raise funds to support NGOs working at grassroot level in India and initiates efforts in various interconnected spheres such as agriculture, energy, education, health , livelihoods, natural resources including land and water, women's empowerment and social justice.  If you would like to donate for the cause please click on this link, or even better join AID's local chapter to start your own journey of 'miles for smiles' !

PS: if you like what you see, and want more of one-on-one chat, drop me a note..(will assure it'll cost far less than Bill Clinton's motivational spiel). BTW join the fun on Oct 9th, we are always looking for cheerleaders.

Immigration from Mexico to US fallen to its lowest level since 1950s

Seems like the the fiction work of "A day without Mexican" is turning into Reality ? Watch out America !!

Douglas S. Massey, co-director of the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton, an extensive, long-term survey in Mexican emigration hubs, said his research showed that interest in heading to the United States for the first time had fallen to its lowest level since at least the 1950s. “No one wants to hear it, but the flow has already stopped,” Mr. Massey said, referring to illegal traffic. “For the first time in 60 years, the net traffic has gone to zero and is probably a little bit negative.”

Another bubble in making - only this time in Emerging economy like China

This video shows an eerie look at a ghost city in China, which reminds me of the post-apocalyptic science fiction films like Will smith's Iam Legend.  Kangbashi, a city in China's Inner Mongolia originally designed to accommodate around 1 million people that currently has about 30,000 residents. This desert city is part of the Chinese government's plan to add 36 million units of affordable or social housing in the next five years. Critics warn that "ghost cities" like Kangbashi are adding to the nation's real estate bubble. (Source: Bloomberg)



 
So someone still believes that "If you build it, they will come", as Ordos city, Kangbashi still awaits residents to bring the district, meant for a population the size of San Diego, California, to life.
 

Below is the picture of brand-new Ordos Museum, which is still under construction.

Here are some photos of this ghost city , Kangabashi in Ordos, China from picture gallery at Time , published in Apr 2010.

Related links on this item :
BBC News
Time
Video on Al-Jazeera

Terry Fox

Just thought will share an inpspirational story found on one of my client's intranet site.  



Terry Fox, a Canadian who was diagnosed with bone cancer, had his leg amputated above the knee and decided, in 1980, to pursue a singular, motivating vision: to run across Canada to raise funds for Cancer Research.   Incredible act and an inspirational story worth sharing with kids.    This week a documentary "Into the Wind" will premier as part of ESPN's 30for30 series, to highlight annual Terry Fox Run, the single largest one-day fundraiser for cancer research, which celebrated its 30th run recently on Sept. 19, 2010.

Helvetia Half Marathon

Completed my second half-marathon on June 12, Saturday. 13.1 miles of scenic oregon countryside in 2 hrs 15 min 35 sec ( a pace of 10 min 21 sec per mile).

The race course was beautiful country roads of Portland's Hillsboro suburb. Some what challenging course with multiple steep hills for first seven miles, and even a small stretch of half mile on un-paved roads.  Race day morning weather was perfect with 70-80 degrees and clear blue skys. My target was to finish in 2 hrs and was going really strong untill 11th mile (1hr 48 min), but that's when I started cramping on my leg's calf muscles and was forced to a very slow jogging pace for the last 2 miles. 

But the best part of race was ofcourse seeing my personal cheer leading team (wife and kids), plus the cheering crowds inside the Hillsboro stadium as you run the last few yards to cross the finish line, which helped me forget my pains. I am still not sure what caused the cramps, but within couple of hours after race my legs were pretty normal. May be the yummy post-race meal "Helvetia burger"  or the icy bath did the trick. 

All in all a Superb race ! thanks to my AID portland team who helped me with practice runs over last 4 months. Ofcourse would have been even great to finish up faster and beat my PR (9 min/mile from 2009 Hood to coast), but hey.. finishing is important, and ofcourse there's always the next race to set a new record. 

Here are some photos from race, enjoy !

PS : Later through online research I learnt there's no clear single cause for cramps but can happen because of sodium deficiency or rapid dehydration especially if you are running faster pace than your practice runs, and is the probably case for me as I didn't probably take enough sports drinks w/electrolytes to compensate fluid loss during my run.

Multi-tasking and Toll of Technolgy

My family loves the recent TV comedy series "Modern Family". There is an episode recently aired in which the family tries to get an 'iPad' for the birthday of Phil, the Dad character who's also an obsessive early adopter geek.   Check it out here if you have time.. quite hilarious (PG-13 ofcourse!) 

So while thinking about that, I do wonder it's amazing how the new tech gadgets are changing our day to day lives, and can not but wonder about where is all this headed to and it's impact on our lifestyles.  Does your loved ones think important stuff is not getting done by you while you spend more and more time on these smart gadgets i-whatevers besides your laptop, desktops at work? are you frequently checking one of those .. texting, twittering, e-mailing, and are proud to be multitasking ?  log in late at night filing in or reading these blogs ?.

Some experts (including my wife !) believe "excessive use of the Internet, cellphones and other technologies can cause us to become more impatient, impulsive, forgetful and even more narcissistic " .. well, who am I to disagree ! there are too many tamper-proof evidences !!

"When you have 500 pictures from your vacation in your Flickr account (and Picasso or Shutterfly or Facebook or god knows how many online accounts)., as opposed to five pictures that are really meaningful, does that change your ability to recall the moments that you really want to recall?” .. hmmm, may be ! 

There are some interesting articles on NYtimes recently published about this use vs mis-use.  There is a vibrant debate among scientists over whether technology’s influence on behavior and the brain is good or bad, and how significant it is.

“More and more, life is resembling the chat room,” says Dr. Elias Aboujaoude, director of the Impulse Control Disorders Clinic at Stanford. “We’re paying a price in terms of our cognitive life because of this virtual lifestyle.”  Tests at Stanford.. showed multitaskers tended to search for new information rather than accept a reward for putting older, more valuable information to work.

Also the research results seem to illustrate an age-old conflict in the brain, one that technology may be intensifying. A portion of the brain acts as a control tower, helping a person focus and set priorities. Where as more primitive parts of the brain, like those that process sight and sound, demand that it pay attention to new information, bombarding the control tower when they are stimulated. So the lower-brain functions alert humans to danger, like a nearby lion, thus overriding goals like building a hut. But in the modern world, the chime of incoming e-mail can override the goal of writing a business plan or playing catch with the children.

On the otherhand, other research shows computer use has neurological advantages. In imaging studies, Dr. Small, a psychiatrist at the University of California, Los Angeles, observed that Internet users showed greater brain activity than nonusers, suggesting they were growing their neural circuitry.  At the University of Rochester, researchers found that players of some fast-paced video games can track the movement of a third more objects on a screen than nonplayers. They say the games can improve reaction and the ability to pick out details amid clutter.

“The bottom line is, the brain is wired to adapt,” said Steven Yantis, a professor of brain sciences at Johns Hopkins University. “There’s no question that rewiring goes on all the time,” he added. But he said it was too early to say whether the changes caused by technology were materially different from others in the past.

Now here's the fun portion of this. Take these quick online tests based on this Stanford study to see how  your brain is getting adapted.

Test Your Focus   Measure your ability to filter out distractions-  wasn't that bad .. aced it !  

Multitasking : Test How Fast You Juggle Tasks  Measure your cost of switching between different tasks ..  ouch, that hurt, no need to say my score here !! (can't afford another tamper-proof evidence for my loved ones)

Now's time to put that laptop down.. time to go play ! On that note, my Second half-marathon is coming up this weekend... i-run !! 

• Sources  : New York Times article1, article2 ;  www.imdb.com ; www.glasbergen.com

China's Bullet trains

Second part of my series on the rapid growth in China's transportation and it's facts and impacts.

TRAINS :

This Chinese bullet train, which has the world’s fastest average speed, connects Guangzhou, the southern coastal manufacturing center, to Wuhan, deep in the interior. In a little more than three hours, it travels 664 miles, comparable to the distance from Boston to southern Virginia. That is less time than Amtrak’s fastest train, the Acela, takes to go from Boston just to New York.

China’s lavish new rail system is a response to a failure of central planning six years ago.

After China joined the World Trade Organization in November 2001, exports and manufacturing soared. Electricity generation failed to keep up because the railway ministry had not built enough rail lines or purchased enough locomotives to haul the coal needed to run new power plants.

By 2004, the government was turning off the power to some factories up to three days a week to prevent blackouts in residential areas. 

Officials drafted a plan to move much of the nation’s passenger traffic onto high-speed routes by 2020, freeing existing tracks for more freight. Then the global financial crisis hit in late 2008. Faced with mass layoffs at export factories, China ordered that the new rail system be completed by 2012 instead of 2020, throwing more than $100 billion in stimulus at the projects.

The economic case for expanding the rail network is clear-cut. During a country's development phase, total demand for transport tends to grow faster than per capita income. 

But some critics say China is putting too much emphasis on high-speed rail lines capable of accommodating speeds of up to 350 km an hour... Zhao Jian, a professor at Jiaotong University in Beijing who specialised in rail economics, is scathing of the "blind pursuit of speed". He says China could have built an extra 30,000 km of conventional track with the money saved from "extravagant" high-speed lines. 

China, he argues, does not have the technological experience to be sure of operating such lines safely. Moreover, high-speed trains gobble energy and subsidies.

China ofcourse, is rightly proud of the giant strides it is making. It is offering to build a high-speed rail line in California and is bidding for a contract to link Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

Sources :
NY Times, China Sees Growth Engine in a Web of Fast Trains
Reuters, ANALYSIS - China banks on rail boom to fire inland growth
China Daily, China building world's largest high-speed rail network

China's Car rush ..

On the opening day of the Detroit Motor Show 2010 — a century after the Model T Ford made America forever inseparable from its cars — China has roared past the United States to become the world’s biggest car market.

In 2009, Chinese sales of cars, trucks and other vehicles soared to 13.6 million, a 46 per cent rise from the previous year’s levels and comfortably higher than the 10.4 million equivalent vehicles sold in the United States last year. Only 33 years ago, there were only one million privately owned cars in the whole of China. There are now over 40 million vehicles in China. According to the China Economic Review, over 2,000 cars roll onto the road every day in Beijing alone.

China, with 1.3 billion people and a growing urban elite, was long expected to become the top auto market but not until as late as 2020. That date moved up as the U.S. crisis dragged down sales.

The Chinese government ofcourse understands, in the words of the Economist, that "the car industry more or less invented modern industrial capitalism." Which is why, according to the Financial Times; "China's car-centred model of development has been a mainstay of economic growth in recent years...the spin-off benefits from burgeoning car sales have been enormous. Each car requires several thousand parts, hundreds - if not thousands - of suppliers, roads, car parks, driving schools, petrol stations and other service industries."


The Communist Party has worked vigorously for China to join this capitalist heaven. In 1994, the auto industry was named one of five "pillar industries" by the government. “The Chinese government wants to emulate America’s rise to industrial glory by making the car industry a pillar of economic growth,” noted the Economist.


On the other hand there is of course significant concern about the longterm implications of this rapid growth of cars in urban areas like Beijing.
In a country that has two hundred million bicycles, cities such as Shanghai have banned them from many streets. The Washington Post explained in December: “Major streets boasted wide bike lanes, sidewalks carried ample parking space for bikes and bikes usually had the right of way at intersections [in China]. But lately, public space for bicycles has been shrinking under the tyranny of the car.”

Here's an excerpt from an article published online from the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau , a govt.agency (bit surprised to see some self-critique here !)..

(begin quote).. "the euphoria for the wheels runs so feverish that the country's newspaper advertisings, television commercials and online homepage pop-ups are all sedans, vans and SUVs, of both domestic brands and overseas logos. At the just-opened Beijing Auto Show, all the global car-manufacturing giants have brought with them stylishly new line-ups, and, are elbowing each other for a bigger slice of the country's new-found wealth. It is crucial to consider the direction of the recent surge in automobility. Currently, China has some 40 vehicles per thousand residents, while Western Europe has about 590, and the US 950. With a population of roughly a billion more people than that of the U.S., China clearly has the potential to absorb many more cars.


Shrouded by the car-owning frenzy, few could see the perils. Seldom anyone counts the longer hours we are stuck in the traffic, and who cares the filthier air, fouled by the tailpipe gas emissions, which is consumed by our elderly retired parents and our toddlers and school children?



Take Beijing for an example. Before hosting the 2008 Olympic Games, the city had gone all out to increase the number of blue sky days. The torch put out, the financial crisis erupted. To rack up consumption and responding to the Central Government's appeal to go to car dealerships, Beijingers bought more than 2,000 new cars each day. Official statistics showed that it took six years for the city's car ownership to rise from 1 million to 2 million by 2003, another four years to reach 3 million by 2007, and just two years to hit 4 million by the end of 2009.



Although the city administration has resorted to temporary traffic restriction that bans one-fifth of the car population from driving every work-day, the traffic often snarls and congestion remains unbearable. Worse, the 4 million cars are emitting 1 million tons of pollutants each year, accounting for half of the city's total emissions.



The city used to advocate green modes of transportation, and tried to educate residents about environmental concerns. But, quite ironically, many low-rate bike parking sites are being closed, and lanes once exclusive for cycling are cut out and fenced for motors. In a bid to boost local GDP, officials now say there is actually room for more cars in the city.



Some experts have asked for a timely readjustment of Central Government policy to discourage oil consumption by reinstituting a higher duty on car ownership, encourage electric and new-energy vehicle manufacturing, and vigorously grow public transit system, typically the underground metro network and inter-city transit. Because, a country run on steel wheels is much firmer and healthier than on rubber wheels.



By cooling off the public craze for private wheels, China could lead the world in conserving fossil fuel, deliver smoother street movement, and protect the precious air which all of us breathe." (end quote)


Chinese environmentalist Liang Congjie does the math and describes the threat to human survival that the car now poses; "If each Chinese family has two cars like U.S. families, then the cars needed by China, something like 600 million vehicles, will exceed all the cars in the world combined. That would be the greatest disaster for mankind." Simply put, the day their future looks like our present, we're done for.


On that note, here's a portion quoted from poem I came across online,
 

Once

effortless movement rippled

through the flow of people...

a wave powered by human spirit

and mixed emotion,

turning these wheels of numbered souls

Another cycle of life was ending.. 

Sources :

• Picture courtesy chinadaily.com.cn, dimsum.co.uk
• Beijing Traffic Management Bureau, Car rush is driven by GDP obsession,
• Financial Times, China's car sale growth slows - from frenzied to frantic
• People's Daily, China Rich Chinese fueling luxury car market growth
• MSNBC, China tops U.S. as largest auto market in ’09
• China and Cars : http://www.counterpunch.org/engler04232010.html
• Timesonline : China passes US as world's biggest car market

An American sweet problem: High Fructose Corn Syrup ?

If you watched the 2009 Soderbergh film "The Informant", and expected a "Ocean's eleven" kind of subtle comedy.. probably you were disappointed. But you may remember the film brings a subtle introduction to  how Corn and its by-products have become an integral part of everything that people eat and drink on daily basis in America.

It also brings a whole new awareness to something called "high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)" an omnipresent (like god ?) food ingredient used as a direct cheap substitute for natural sugar in almost every processed food & drink item sold in America (e.g., soda, juices, yogurt, mayonaisse, pasta sauce, even bread and ketchup). Never heard of it? check the label on the soda can next time.  HFCS is some 20 percent cheaper than sugar, thanks to US government policies on heavy corn subsidies and trade barriers to import natural sugar from other countries. 

Now wonder what's the implication of this thing to our daily lives?  there's an significant on-going debate and extensive research going on trying to determine if there is any correlation of  the introduction of this new substance since 70's in to american diet and to the obesity crisis in America. 

Over the past thirty years US consumption of HFCS has increased by over 1000 percent. In fact, the average American eats an astounding 58 lbs of high fructose corn syrup per year per 2009 study of US Dept of Agriculture.

There are arguments on both sides... on one end corn producers, and food products industry arguing that there's no conclusive evidence that corn syrup does any more damage than natural sugar, where as the opponents and activists claiming the corn syrup as one of the primary causes for obesity, diabetes, and increased tri-glyceriods because it does not exactly behave as equivalent to natural sugar in our body. 

That does make one wonder why would it take long to prove one way or the other...all it needs an experiment (in a grossly simplified scheme) to feed the exactly same kind of diet for two groups of people, one diet prepared with sugar, versus another prepared with this corn syrup stuff and observe if there was any difference in obesity levels over a period?  right ??

Finally, that's what exactly was done by a Priceton University research team, and they published in Mar 2010 that they have found conclusive evidence on their tests in lab rats that the high fructose corn syrup based diet did lead to obesity than the regular sugar based diet.

Ofcourse, still the jury is out trying to determine the impact on humans whether HFCS is bad or not.. (check links in bottom, you will see it's a battlefield out there). 

But there's no smoke without fire !.. big manufacturers are now starting to sell no corn syrup based foods (see photo), which tells a message that there's finally a switch being considered to avoid this stuff.

Ofcourse it might start initially as part of a phony green marketing strategy, where a company provides healthier option at a premium as alternative while still continuing to sell the unhealthy alternative at low-price, but atleast should open doors for others in the right direction..

Bottomline :  next time you are stuffing your grocery cart in processed foods section, think twice and pay attention to that ingredients list .. it's worth the time,  and remember you always have a choice ! 

There do exist food products that do not come with ingredients list, but still arguably the best for you and the planet...yup, i am referrring to those green and colorful things in "natural produce" section of your super market.. called vegetables and fruits.  

Side note : Ofcourse, this corn syrup usage is a primarily american phenomena and if you are living outside US there's a chance you might be lucky in not getting exposed to this.. but with globalization, the processed foods intake portion as percent of daily diet is significantly increasing in the developing countries as well, so it's only a matter of time when it becomes relevant..

Links and sources :
Is This Disguised Sugar Affecting Your Diabetes? The Dangers of High Fructose Corn Syrup, DiabetesHealth.com
High Fructose Corn Syrup: How Sweet It Is?  HuggingtonPost.com, Apr 2,2010
4 Reasons to Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup, Discovery.com
High Fructose Corn Syrup Linked to Liver Scarring, Duke University Medical Center research, Mar 18, 2010
Americans Must Find Better Options for Sweet Cravings, Healthnews.com, Aug 2009
High-Fructose Corn Syrup: Not So Sweet for the Planet, Washington Post, March 2008
Sweet Surprise, Corn-Refiner's Association
Misconceptions about High-Fructose Corn Syrup: Is It Uniquely Responsible for Obesity, Journal of Nutrition, 2009
High-fructose corn syrup: everything you wanted to know, but were afraid to ask, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Dec 2008
The Type of Caloric Sweetener Added to Water Influences Weight Gain, Fat Mass, and Reproduction..., Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine Vol.234, No.6, 2009
Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity, American Society for Clinical Nutrition, 2004

You've got to find what you love

This is the text of the Commencement address at Stanford University delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple , on June 12, 2005 addressing the graduates on some intimate details of what's it that makes Steve Jobs keep going..

"I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?" .........read on here for the full transcript, or if you don't have time you could watch video here

Wonderful and inspirational !

BTW it was interesting to note that Steve Jobs was an alumni (or a drop out !) of Reed College, Portland closer to where I live.

Guilt-free video games

As we progress into digital age at sonic speeds, it's so challenging to raise a child without the influence of mind numbing stuff on some of the popular video games. Zombies, monsters, guns, gory violence...you know what I am talking about ! A recent report says that 57% of 2- to 12-year-olds play video games, and this trend is only going up.. 

Now that holidays are approaching, many parents are on their eternal quest to find those cool toys or games that kids could play and yet never have to feel guilt ?  Thanks to some incredible sites, there are some cool games (some even free) that don't have gore and antisocial mindlessness, but can help you and kids move toward the creative, and civilized world.   

Food Force

You can feel downright virtuous having your kids play this sophisticated game associated with the United Nations World Food Programme. Their mission, should they choose to accept it, is to deliver food to an imaginary island in crisis in the Indian Ocean. All the fun elements of a nonvirtuous game are there, from flying helicopters to guiding a convoy of trucks. Excellent graphics and an excellently disguised education in what this UN agency does on a daily basis to thwart hunger around the world.

The bottom line: Play the humanitarian in this sophisticated simulation.

Darfur Is Dying   

OK, the title's a little glum. But this cutting-edge combination of gaming, activism, and education ultimately does something positive. Through high-quality graphics and a genuinely haunting mission, this video game depicts the plight of the 2.5 million refugees who have been forced out of Sudan. Players guide characters from a Darfurian refugee camp in their desperate — and truly terrifying — efforts to survive. Meanwhile, militia groups attempt to capture you. Not for the young or faint of heart; get caught by the militia and you're given a brief lesson involving the abuse, rape, and kidnapping faced by children there daily. After playing, you can click on "Take Action" to read more about the crisis, write a letter to the U.S. government, make a donation, and more.

The bottom line: Play the humanitarian in this sophisticated simulation.

Ars Regendi

Give your child his or her first taste of world power with this browser-based political and economic simulation game. Players control their own simulated state, making decisions on behalf of their populations. Think of it as a Sim City for international relations: Make the wrong financial or diplomatic choices, and your people — and power — won't last long.

The bottom line: Sim City for international relations.

Trauma Center, wii and nintendo-DS

or teens desperate for gore, this Japanese simulation game lets them wield their own blade — not to mention forceps, syringe, bandages, and antibiotic gel. The task at hand is saving people, not hurting them. The gamer is an OR surgeon, charged with battling disease and sewing up injuries. Yes, there will be blood. But it's not the gratuitous kind. Actually, it's the kind that might lead your kid to med school one day.

The bottom line: Immerse yourself in the grit of medicine.

A Force More Powerful

This inexpensive game for your PC doesn't just leave out the violence — it teaches you to overcome it. Born out of the 1999 film by the same name, this strategy game was designed to educate players about nonviolent resistance. In one scenario, the player struggles to achieve voting rights for women in a fundamentalist society. In another, he or she attempts to convince a dictator to hold elections. A decidedly activist bent runs through this elaborate and intelligent creation, and users might well come away muttering about Tiananmen Square or South Africa. But it'll be the peaceful kind of muttering, and that's rare in the video game universe.

The bottom line: What's more powerful than peace?

Giraffe Above

The virtuous virtual world isn't all poverty and strife — younger gamers can spend their time in the gentler realm of animated giraffes. Specifically, the player is an "apple-crazy giraffe on a mission to gobble all the apples in Africa." Move your long, long neck through the maze in search of fruit, and be careful not to back yourself into a corner. You'd have to dig pretty deep to find any reason to feel guilty about letting your 6-year-old play this one.

The bottom line: A gentle puzzle game for younger kids.

Dance Dance Revolution , Wii

You know how it works by now, either because you've seen it in an arcade or at someone's house — a song plays and you dance as instructed by a series of fast-paced visual cues. The more in-step you are, the better you do. You'd be hard-pressed to say DDR is good for the planet in the way a Darfur simulation is, but there's something undeniably righteous about shaking your tail feather to KC and the Sunshine Band. We're not the only ones who think so. It's now featured in a number of school systems — you can't help breaking a sweat — and an official sport in Norway.

The bottom line: You'll literally break a sweat with DDR (my D's love this !!)

Source & Kudos : www.greatschools.net

I am sure there are more..feel free to add in comments