Making it Simple

I was browsing the news and my eye caught on the article about immigration efforts in issuing a National ID card in 2010 to all working Americans or for anyone who wants to work in the U.S. It is a bipartisan effort, if passed, will require everyone to carry a biometric card with fingerprints and other personal information on it. I think that this idea is a good one to implement. With all the latest technologies we have, we should have implemented this years ago. Instead of complaining about illegal immigrants, how they take our jobs, and having to put more forces on our border security to avoid the illegal immigrants, we can start issuing these biometric cards to all workers. Whenever we seek employment, we do need to provide proof of eligibility to work in the US by showing our drivers license and/or social security card along with other required documents. If this biometric card can replace all the cards and papers that we carry, then why not implement it?


Many would argue that carrying such a card is like being treated as a criminal because we have to register with the Government. But even if it is not implemented, are we still not in a long leash with our Government? If you want to drive, you need to have a drivers license; want to work, you need workers permit; you need SSN card for other issues; if you work and not file your taxes, Uncle Sam comes after you anyways. So, to avoid all the identifying cards and to replace it with one biometric card is not all that bad. Yes, one might have to register if he or she is not registered for anything like drivers’ license or SSN card while companies and businesses have to install scanners to process the bio card to make it to work. Everything has a learning curve and once we are down the curve, we will be able to function smoothly.


With one simple card, our wallet size might go down. This card will change the face of how to identify ourselves while boarding planes, getting jobs and bank account, getting driving license or anything to do with identifying ourselves. We are doing that anyways with different cards that we carry around and if we are able to replace it all with one single intelligent card, then why not? I hope congress is successful in passing this as a law so that everyone can get one to make our lives simple. This will get our foot inside the doors in avoiding identity thefts, frauds, illegal immigrants, people who overstay their visas and much more. Most of all, this biometric card cannot be forged or altered and would be a modern common sense solution to all the problems we face with identifying ourselves.

How lazy do you want to be?

Research and new innovative developments is what makes us better human beings. Many agree to this but I sometimes feel that all these developments apart from the problems it solves, is making us only lazier by the day. Take for example, in old days or even a couple of generations back, people washed clothes by hand, grinded what they needed for cooking by hand, lot of activities involved manual labor. With the physical exercise that they got, their average life expectancy was 80+ years. But nowadays, we have machines to do all these chores and we seldom get our exercise so we have to end up in a gym to get our exercise done and to stay healthy. Nowadays, doctors and researchers say that we have to try to walk or bike to work to stay healthy and to keep the environment free of pollution. They also say that gardening or doing household work or climbing stairs instead of using elevators would get our cardio workout done. Though, having invented machines like elevators and cars to simplify our lives, we are only backtracking to old ways in the name of becoming healthy.

Cell phones are another good example of innovative technology. While cell phones have made it easier for us to communicate to others from wherever (apart from the problems that is has like the calls not going through because of weak signals or the person on the other end will never know if you are at work working or at the library working on your research paper like you had said or whether you are sight-seeing at Shenandoah), it also has made us lazy. Many (up to 66%) use their cell phone mainly for texting or playing games that are downloaded in it rather for talking. Incidents of texting while driving or walking and getting into accidents are many in number that is heard on the news on a daily basis. Spending so much time on the tiny lit screen has proved detrimental to kids and teens being near sighted. Should anyone be surprised when a research is run to see why kids these days are nearsighted after the fact that you gift wrap a cell phone for their use?

When I was hearing the news on the way to work, I heard a report that a group of researchers are creating an innovative idea on stopping the ringing cell phone that is in the pocket without having to take it out. The method to stop ringing is to smack the cell phone in a particular way on a particular place where the cell phone is. Also, you can smack another way to send a message back to the caller that they are busy and that they have to call back later. Imagine this situation for a bit – You have the cell phone in your pant pocket (or hip clip) and you are in a meeting. The phone rings (technically you would have turned it off or set on vibrate before the meeting) and in the midst of the meeting with your Manager or Director, you are performing smack dance, smacking your self on the leg (or waist). Is that not funny? Are they going to reinvent Morse code for communicating silently over the cell phone?

How much lazier do you want to get? Is it that difficult to lead a simple life rather than having to use all the gadgets and machines? Why do we need new innovations when we only try to get back to old ways in some time in the name of getting healthy?

Workout for your fingers

I am a firm believer that workout is the solution to be fit and healthy. While I push myself at the gym to get a full body workout, I did not realize that I would need to do a workout for my fingers. Now you all know that I am being sarcastic, right? Who ever gives a workout for their fingers, except the musicians? But kids and teens (or even adults) are so good with their fingers when it comes to texting on their cell phones. One could be driving on the highway at 70-80 mph and still be texting, and some can be texting to become the queen of texting. What I mean will be explained in the paragraphs to come.


I was watching Rachael Ray’s show one afternoon, when Rachael was interviewing a thirteen year old girl who had texted 14,000 texts in a month. That girl had come to the show with her father and a mound of bills from the phone company. Luckily, her father had said, that the family was on an unlimited texting plan which had saved them thousands of dollars in bills while his daughter was spending days and nights texting to her friends. She had said in that show that she would be texting all the time… unless she was asleep. How could someone be texting all the time during a day? Even if they do so, what or who would they be texting? Is it even a proud achievement that she was on the show to gloat about it?


In every profession, one has their own set of vocabulary or slang when they have to communicate and only people in that world can understand what is being said. This is true in the world of texting as well. In the 120 characters limit that one has in the texting world, one cannot embrace the fact that effective communication is the key to get the point across. Texters come up with their own codes to fit in their texts and to convey the message across. Do you even know some of the codes these texters use? SLAP – Sounds like a plan; TTFN – Tata for now and many more. But these are day-to-day usage in their world.


Apart from texting being a problem while driving or hiking the tab on your phone bill, texting has become a problem among teenagers since school kids use this as a means pull a fast one over their parents and to look cool among their friends. It is not that the kids are trying to hide things from their parents or plotting against their parents but just to have a little privacy and to be cool among their piers. But there is always a fine line between hiding and privacy. How many times, one hides the truth and says to their loved ones that they have not lied about anything. It is just that they did not tell the truth; not lied. People who want to lie or hide the truth will always find a way to do so. Kids these days take texting to the next level – sexting, which is scary. Try to find the meaning of some of the codes that these kids use while sexting like 8, IWSN or NIFOC. I can give the explanations here but I don’t want to cross the fine line of being civil here. All I would say is just keep an eye out on those kids of yours who are texting.

Sleeping Beauty

When it comes to sleeping, I would tell everyone that I have no trouble falling asleep anywhere, anytime; whether on a plane or in a car. I felt proud about this fact, as if I had an edge over those picky sleepers who have trouble falling asleep at night or wake up in the middle of the night and cannot go back to sleep; until I stomped on the article which I will discuss in a bit. It is ironic though that I came across this article, a couple of weeks later after I had the discussion on sleep and sleeping habits at night with my friends. We were discussing about how one cannot fall asleep at night or that they would go to sleep and be awakened by the slightest noise and would have trouble going back to sleep. I had suggested that they use prayer beads and keep repeating the prayers for every bead in the chain (similar to counting sheep) and that they eventually would fall asleep or they could pop in a couple of Tylenol, an hour before bedtime and that would knock them out. My friends were going to try and were going to get back to me on their sleeping pattern. But if one cannot go to sleep because of problems they are having in their lives or if they arouse because of nightmares of incidents, they should workout enough to tire themselves off, so the tiredness would knock them to sleep.


National Sleep Foundation had researched sleep patterns and has reported that more than 20 percent of Americans get less than six hours of sleep in a day. When you don’t get enough sleep, you have difficulty getting up the following day, you are tired and grumpy throughout the day, have hard time focusing on work and sometimes end up giving your boss weird excuses for not coming to work on time. But these are just mundane effects of not getting enough sleep. Chronic, inadequate sleep leads to cardiovascular disease, depression, diabetes, obesity and it affects metabolism, making people eat more and build up that belly fat. Knowing this, I resent all those people who come in my dreams giving me nightmares and disturbing my beauty sleep. Sleep deprivation also leads to majority of road accidents that we hear about in our daily news.


Even if you sleep for six to eight hours after taking Tylenol or any sleeping pills, some complain that they are still tired or not satisfied with their sleep. That is because that they get poor-quality sleep. What I meant by that is, when you sleep, you have different phases of sleep during the night. Among them are REM, the Rapid Eye movement phase (where you get your sweet dreams about floating in a tub of ice cream or bad dreams about slapping the person you have been meaning to), and Deep or slow-wave sleep. REM phase is needed during sleep for consolidating memories, learning, creativity (Einstein figured out theory of relativity during this phase), problem-solving and emotional balance, whereas Deep phase is needed for the body to secrete human growth hormones for development and physical repair of wear and tear. That is why we let babies and young kids (but kids are supposed to be young – no?) to sleep a lot and we don’t disturb them while they are sleeping, no matter what time of the day, so their body can develop properly. But these phases get affected as we age and also because of caffeine and alcohol. That is why we are advised as to not drink coffee after evening sets. Also, if you have trouble waking up or feel like sleeping during daytime, it just means that you did not get enough restorative sleep. That “falling asleep anywhere, anytime” that I mentioned at the beginning is not to be so proud after all. Maybe it is due to the lack of restorative sleep.


One can monitor their sleep pattern either by admitting themselves in a hospital (expensive proposal) or get a new sleep-monitor device that is available in the market (Zeo Personal Sleep Coach). It has a head band that you wear and go to sleep as usual and the sleeping pattern, and brain waves are recorded in a clock radio like device. The monitor would display your actual sleep time and also the duration of REM and Deep sleep. The device costs about $400 and you get to upload your data from every night on to a web site which would analyze the data and send your coaching instructions for six months, to get better sleep or to improve sleeping habits. This would be a means to figure out your sleep pattern and really know why you wake up tired each morning. I think $400 is worth it for the enduring beauty sleep.

Time dwindler

Back home in India, my family is accustomed to sitting together on the floor and eating dinner. Every single day, my job would be to sweep the floor where we gather together, bring the plates, cups, water and all the vessels containing the food to be eaten. May it be roti and dhal; rice, dhal and sides with home made yogurt; or a simple tiffin dinner, I am to make sure that everything is set in the center of the floor. Then my family members along with guests (if any are visiting or just stopping by) would sit around the food forming a circle, plates would be passed along and everyone would help themselves to their food. The next hour would go by eating the food along with talking about how the day went by for each of us, what plans would unfold the following day or anything else that needs to be discussed with mom and dad.

I am sure many who read this would say that they do the same thing here in the US except they sit on a dining table. But do they forget that the television is running in the background or many have their cell phones or Blackberry texting? With the advent of new technology tools, people want to stay connected or rather update their status to others every minute of their lives. It is not just dinner time that I am talking about but in general family members tend to spend less time personally with each other and spend a great deal of time on internet surfing or watching TV or playing on xbox (or on similar machines) or texting and twittering. Recently, studies at the University of Southern California reported that 28 percent of Americans said they were spending less time with their household family members, reason being that they spend time on social networking sites or on internet. But even before this study, people spent time watching TV or on internet; then why the jump in the rate of families not spending time together? It is because of texting and twittering (or facebook-ing - made that word up!)

Nowadays even kids have cell phones and they have texting capabilities enabled and they could be texting to their friends who are next doors asking whether they want to meet up to play, when they could just holler. If they are not playing outside, they want to be playing video games or watching television. If nothing else, they would be on the internet, playing games. But this is true even for adults. They spend a lot of time on their cell phones and blackberries, trying to keep up with their work at any given time. Years back, work was done at the office and when you left the office, the work remained at the office. Now with laptops that are hauled everywhere one goes, blackberries and cell phones that can receive mail, one gets to work at all waking times that they forget to interact with the family members at home. Another advantage of having access at all times is that one can fib about their whereabouts to their counterparts or parents.

Oprah Winfrey’s show had featured “What Can You Live Without?” challenge on television earlier, to see if families can live without computers, cell phones, television, iPods, or video games for a week. The idea was to get families closer to each other and to make them understand others' interest and to have something in common that everyone can be involved in doing, thus spending time with each other. Was Oprah forgetting that this was aired on television and one would have to be watching television to begin with to get this idea? Technology was made by man to ease our job in every aspect. But when one becomes an addict to the technology, then who is the boss? Take a break from hanging on to your cell phones even while working out at the gym or taking a stroll in the park. See if you can be without watching television for one day in a week (did someone get a heart attack?) and instead go out and do something as a family. Maybe by the end of this summer, we will end up with more closely knitted family than couch-potatoes.

In your face

I started blogging a couple of years back with the sole intention of improving my writing skills and to be able to express my views openly in public. When I write, I tend to write no more than three or four paragraphs in general. Honestly, who has the time to read through paragraphs of what you write on the same topic as the ongoing news or articles. Any news channel on television (FOX, NBC or CNN) or radio (103.5 FM) would give you a good coverage on what is going on around the world. Cell phones have news cast which is updated constantly and there are numerous websites which have newspaper online and of course the actual newspaper in itself is still there.

With so many news sources and news to cover and so many people blogging on what they think about the news and the news source, all you need is one more blog to say the same thing in different ways. Many will take out their swords (or pen or type?) to defend themselves saying that they need to write that much for effective communication. While I believe that effective communication is needed to get the point across, there is no need to write the same point in ten different ways in the same blog or article or for that matter on the same blog site. That is overkill. Pretty much many blog sites seem to be talking about their self achievement or how good they are in what they do, tooting their horn, given the fact that it is their own space for writing what they want. What do you expect?

I read an article on CCNmoney site which mentioned about how many different social networking sites are in place, like FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter, Orkut, LinkedIn, Tagged to name a few and how they rank in terms of usage and the effects it has on work ethics. FaceBook, started in 2004, ranks first with users logging 13.9 billion minutes on the site in April of 2009. This site has many improved features like leaving texts to attachments to pictures. Ranking second is MySpace with 5 billion minutes, Twitter, started in 2006, with 300 million minutes with only text (“Tweets”) capabilities of 140 characters limit and LinkedIn with 202 million minutes. The article mentioned that FaceBook was lifting the limit of having 5,000 friends connection for a member. Seriously, if I had a FaceBook account (which I do and I seldom use it. Who has the time to post comments in all these sites after talking with your friends over the cell phone using the minutes?), would I have 5,000 friends? Who has that many “real” friends?

Many of these social networking sites are banned at many work places to prevent employees from wasting their time. Is it not enough that they waste time during work hours, browsing the internet for news, deals, shopping and taking a quick shopping or smoke or car maintenance break in between? A productive work day is only three to four hours out of the logged eight hours at any given office. I am talking about white-collar jobs. Of the productive time, some will go in meetings and discussions over the phone or mail. To top this off, all we need is access to these sites and instant messaging and then we complain about our falling economy and jobs being shipped overseas.

Big Bucks, No Whammies

Before you think that I am going to be talking about gambling, put a leash on your thoughts. This is about the revenue generated by Montgomery County, Maryland this current fiscal year (by the way, fiscal year runs from October to September) by installing speed cameras around the area. The county has made $15 million in revenue this year. The speed cameras were installed and functioned since July 1st, earning $1.5 million a month. If you are caught on those speed cameras driving past the speed limit, you would receive the citation in mail with the nice little picture of you in the car with your license plate. The fine would be $40 per citation and luckily there are no points that go on your license. Know that if the same thing were to happen, that you sped and the police officer pulls you over, you get about $90 in fine with two points on your record. The least you can do is pose a smile when speeding past those cameras.

Many (who are victims) may argue that posting such speed cameras at almost every signal or road to trap drivers to make revenue is not good. But I don’t think it is such a bad deal at all. When DOT is posting signs on speed limit, it becomes the duty of the driver to follow that speed limit while on the wheel. When the sign reads ‘speed limit 35 mph’, why is there an urge to go at 50 mph? Is there a plane waiting for you to catch or are you speeding to propose to someone in front of the whole world? (That would be worth to get the speeding ticket for). Does it not suffice to know the rules and adhere to it? Must someone be watching over to see if you follow them or not? But that is the human nature, to push the limits and see how far one can go without getting caught.

Now the cops are getting smarter and DOT has these cameras installed to get two shots in one aim. They can make sure that the drivers follow the speed limit and drive safely around, and to generate revenue while making sure that the rules are followed. Getting about $53,000 per day by just flashing few light bulbs on those cameras is not a bad deal at all for the county. It is their hunting season and they are looking out for those who want to try those driving maneuvers on the roads. Now that summer is around the corner, you can see cops on the motorbikes as well, targeting those who violate traffic laws. It is big bucks for the Montgomery County and hopefully speeders won’t have to say ‘Cheese’ and avoid the whammies!

Too grim to grin?

One thing that is nice about me is that I always have a smile on my face. No matter what, I always smile and that smile has gotten me into trouble as well. I would be with my friends and family in a situation where the car would get stuck in the snow or the car would skid, I would have a smile and people would get upset about it. Friends would hurt me emotionally (knowingly or some unknowingly) I would just smile it off. Many admire me because of my smile and some have said that I smile like Catherine-Zeta Jones in ‘Mask of Zorro’. I think smile is one of the characteristics that only humans possess and one could use that to conquer anything in this world. Or is it?

USA today, reported last week that four states - Arkansas, Indiana, Nevada and Virginia, have banned smiling while posing for their driver’s license in order to get a neutral look that would help the face-recognition software in identifying people who would try to apply for multiple licenses or those who get a license under an assumed name. This face-recognition system costs about $63 million. The software measures permanent facial features at nearly 100 different points, so if someone sports a big grin it can cause two photos of the same person to not match. So what happens if a guy comes in a beard and mustache for a picture and after a couple of months he returns to get another license with no beard and no mustache? I am sure the software would go haywire yet again.

I can understand if someone is being asked to take off glasses or hat or brushing hair off of the face to get a good picture or capturing a cleaner image even for the software but not smiling or rather not showing the teeth and having to keep a firm zipped lips is something else. There would be a strong opposition in the cosmetic dentistry because of this software. What is the point in spending so much on those costly veneers only to keep your lips zipped on a photo that you would flash most often?

I remember the time when I went to DMV to get my first license here in the United States. I was grinning ear to multi-pierced ear to finally have that laminated piece of freedom in my hand. I could not stop smiling that whole day. But today if I had to go through the same scenario, I would be told to ‘zip it’ before the picture was snapped. All in the name of making this place a safe haven.

Every dollar is worth it

With soaring fuel prices, one has to wonder how much mileage you get on a car. People are resorting to ride share or using the metro, to cut down the fuel expenses. Take the fuel prices and compound it with the growing recession and bad economy, and one gets to think twice before making any road trip. This has lead to the growth of scooters and motorcycle usage. Scooters costs about $1000 to $10,000 and motorcycles cost about $3000 to more than $10,000, depending on the model and they can use fuel or electric charge and can give up to 35 miles per charge or fuel tank.

One thing that I miss here in the US versus in India, is the freedom to take my bike (I don’t mean the bicycle and we, Indians call the motorcycles as bike) around to get the shopping done. Maybe it be going to school or college, or a trip to the bookstore or picking up a few items that mom needed at the groceries, I would take my Kinetic Honda (similar to scooters here) or my brothers Hero Honda (motorcycle). Helmet there is for safety but not many wears them and I did not wear it for my short local trips. Now-a-days, it is a law even in India, to wear the helmet when you are on main roads.

Using the scooter or motorcycle is convenient and quick and you can get return on every dollar on fuel. I now see a few bikes around here in the US where high school or college students use it around the campus or make short trips to the library or groceries. My routine or trips, apart from going to work from Centreville to Ashburn, revolves around my home. I take Yash to school, which is about a mile from home and then to his classes like Kumon, Tae-kwon-do, Chess club, and Soccer in and around 5 mile radius near the house. My library, groceries, gym and other shops is within the same range.

Even if I use my car to go to work (if I go on the bike with helmet, I would end up with a bad hairdo day), I could still use the bike to run my local errands for myself or for Yash. I would have to buy an extra helmet for the passenger and figure out a place to store them within the bike when the bike is parked. This would cut down on fuel expenses tremendously, in this ever rising fuel prices and growing recession. Parking becomes easier, and traffic grids can be avoided as well. If you have a motorcycle that is well-built, you can even take it to work to and from, as far as D.C. Bikes can be used from early spring to late fall but not a good choice in terms of safety, in winter and during rainy days. Seeing how much of a snow we get in our area, we can use bikes more often for convenience and inexpensive means of transportation.

Rest in Peace... Eventually ...

They are making it easy on us, aren’t they? I am talking about the Kindle DX, a new version of Kindle that was unveiled yesterday. I was listening to the news about it on my way home yesterday and how it has added features that make it better than Kindle (or Kindle 2). This device can hold up to 3500 books, has almost 3gb of storage, large screen with auto rotation feature and with no need to zoom or pan out while reading the eBook on it but the cost is almost $500. Is it worth it?

Of course, it is all worth it. It certainly will be cool among college students who usually beg, borrow, (steal?) loads of textbooks for their courses. The same textbooks can be loaded on Kindle and can be read from as if reading an actual book. This will save up on book costs eventually and also be eco-friendly as that many trees will be saved in making these books. Any other book (guilty pleasure of reading?) can be loaded on Kindle via subscription besides newspaper and magazine. As it is, the future of newspaper is at stake. I meant the actual newspaper that you can feel it in your hands and read but at least eNewspaper will still keep the newspaper saga alive via this life support. By getting rid of actual books, students can make room for their most wanted items like video consoles and cases of beer in their room.

Reading that I support Kindle, some who are avid readers would come charging at me with a sword (or rather pen – mightier than a sword) for their defense. They would argue as to how that feeling of holding an actual book and reading will vanish with Kindle. To them I say you still can hold Kindle like you would hold any other book. Yes, it would be staring at another screen apart from TV, computer, or video screen but you also can listen from Kindle like books on tape. But honestly, cutting down so many trees to print books for the pleasure of just feeling it while reading is so contrary to the fact that we are on a band wagon singing about go-green, eco-friendly, and saving the world.

I am an ardent reader too. Any free time I would get, I would be seen reading or going to local libraries back home hunting for my mystery novels (okay, I read all those Nancy Drew, Poirot and Perry Mason mysteries). I also used to collect all these books but after reading it once, you just arrange them in your shelves and that is the end of those books (of course you read it again later if you want to) but then I realized there was no point in buying all these books and hoarding them. Rather a better deal would be to just borrow it from the library – my contribution to saving the trees.

In all aspects of life we go through a cycle of evolution. We invent an item, and then we make that item even better by polishing its features. Take for instance the music player. We started off with vinyl records, 8-track, cassettes tapes, CDs and now mp3 and iPods. There is plethora of devices that we have seen do the same thing – play music. But the medium has changed for the better and we are accustomed to these changes for our own good. This same logic can be applied to books. We started off with papyrus and natural ink from plants that was used for writing using a feather. From there we graduated off to book publication, books on tape and iPod and now Kindle. I am sure that people who now talk about holding the actual book and refusing to accept Kindle will own it soon; it is just a matter of time. It is the medium that is dying, not the reading.