by the meltingpot: Brown rice

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Indeed, what is at work in the recent return of realism is the revenge of geography in the most old-fashioned sense. In the 18th and 19th centuries, before the arrival of political science as an academic specialty, geography was an honored, if not always formalized, discipline in which politics, culture, and economics were often conceived of in reference to the relief map. Thus, in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, mountains and the men who grow out of them were the first order of reality; ideas, however uplifting, were only the second.
And yet, to embrace geography is not to accept it as an implacable force against which humankind is powerless. Rather, it serves to qualify human freedom and choice with a modest acceptance of fate. This is all the more important today, because rather than eliminating the relevance of geography, globalization is reinforcing it. Mass communications and economic integration are weakening many states, exposing a Hobbesian world of small, fractious regions. Within them, local, ethnic, and religious sources of identity are reasserting themselves, and because they are anchored to specific terrains, they are best explained by reference to geography. Like the faults that determine earthquakes, the political future will be defined by conflict and instability with a similar geographic logic. The upheaval spawned by the ongoing economic crisis is increasing the relevance of geography even further, by weakening social orders and other creations of humankind, leaving the natural frontiers of the globe as the only restraint.
So we, too, need to return to the map, and particularly to what I call the “shatter zones” of Eurasia. We need to reclaim those thinkers who knew the landscape best. And we need to update their theories for the revenge of geography in our time.
Here is the link for the whole write up.

Now at 2nd place

My view is that relations between countries in the coming decades are most likely to reflect their cultural commitments, their cultural ties and antagonism with other countries rather than other factors. Quite obviously, power will continue to play a central role in global politics, as it always does. But usually there is something else behind conflicts. In the 18th century in Europe, the issues to a large extent involved questions of monarchy versus the emerging republican movements, first in America and then in France. In the 19th century, it involved states identifying themselves through nationalism. In the 20th century, ideology came to the fore, largely, but not exclusively, as a result of the Russian Revolution. We had fascism, communism and liberal democracy competing with each other. Well, that’s pretty much over. Liberal democracy has come to be accepted, in theory at least, around the world, if not always in practice. So the question really is what will be the central focus of global politics in the coming decades? My argument remains that cultural identities, antagonisms and affiliations will not only play a role, but play a major role in relations between states. The full interview is here.

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Every citizen in the City of Richardson will be able to access 756 Kbps of internet connectivity for free, from anywhere in the city. They will be able to access the internet from their homes, schools, restaurants and parks using standard wi-fi connections which are now installed on almost every notebook computer. That is almost as fast as many so-called high speed broadband connections that one pays dearly for today, and several times faster than the various hotspots at your local coffee shops. And I should note that the tax-payers of the City of Richardson are not paying one penny for this, and in fact are going to see additional revenues as a benefit. ... At the beginning of this letter, I suggested that this would be one of the fastest worldwide rollouts of a technology ever seen. It was just 20 years ago that the first cellular systems were being built. The rollout for mesh wireless systems is going to make that look slow. There are several reasons I make this assertion. But they all center on the facts that installing mesh systems will be cheaper and easier than any previous system and the economics in both the developed and especially the developing world will be so radically compelling. Throw in the fact the any astute politician will want to be at the front of this parade (They will all want to say, "I was the man who helped bring free internet to everyone!") and the groundwork is laid for rapid deployment. In Richardson and elsewhere, MeshLinx is offering the basic infrastructure for free. This avoids all the time consuming, political budget battles in the cities. When a service is offered for free, much of the mandated competitive process is eliminated. Next is the low cost of installation of the system. As noted above, Richardson is a city of roughly 100,000 people living in 27.4 square miles. It will "only" cost about $2,000,000 today to lay the wireless blanket I mentioned above. It will cost a great deal less in the future, as MeshLinx is building the pods at a pace of 100 a month today. The maximum output of the US pilot assembly line is 500 a month. When the demand exceeds this (and it will in a very short time) discussions have been held to move volume production to China. Of course, the world will need tens of millions of pods. The cost for a pod will be a fraction of today's cost, with that installation number for a city like Richardson soon being half (or less) the cost of today. What does that $1 or 2 million get you? The infrastructure to be an internet connection, telephone, security, entertainment provider and a whole lot more company. As noted, it will get cheaper as the number of pods being made each month rises, thus lowering their costs dramatically. This technology does have scale. The cost of physically putting up a pod is not a large part of the equation, as you simply need to run a power line, attach a few bolts to a mount on the side of a building or light pole and then off to the next point. Think about the 40,000 homes and businesses in Richardson. If and (hopefully) over time when 10% decide to pay $50 a month for 10-20 Mbps high speed internet access you could see a revenue of $2.5 million a year just from internet access. Now add in all the other income possibilities (phone, entertainment, security and don't forget advertising revenue on the free service!). Think about your town or country. What would service like this be worth? If you are a small city that does not have high speed connections available, how many businesses that could bring jobs do not come your way because they need reliable communications for their work and their employees? If you are in a developing country, where internet access is difficult and expensive, it will open whole new vistas. Couple that with the various programs which want to give cheap laptops to kids in poor countries, and you could see significant social progress in a generation. Here is the link.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Brown rice

A month back I was reading a beauty column in (where else?), the Times of India.

She said many things but what caught my attention came near the fag end of the article.
She said she made it a point to make it her kind of rice --the brown rice. I said to myself why not mine also?

Next morning I went out in search of brown rice.

Actually, I had to meet a friend also and I got into the first rice mill along the way to my friend’s office. Apparently severally women worked in the mill—not a male was to be seen. I approached the lady who is farthest off the running machines which were giving off tremendous noise. Luckily, I could also find some milled rice near her. After checking out several sacks I pointed to the sack which contained what appeared to me what you called the brown rice.

She shook her head and said it was ‘chamang’ and it’s not for human consumption.

I took a fistful, had a good look and said they sure looked like good rice.

She said they would not cook.

Well, that’s puzzling to me. I had in my fist what seemed to be perfectly good rice but she said they would not cook. Why? I asked—“Why?”

She explained that the kinds of rice need to go into two further machines for making them human-ready.

I wanted to shout –“Whoa! I have the brown rice!! No further milling, please”.

O f course, I didn’t shout. After fidgeting with the rice in the sack for some moments I casually asked—“What’s the price?”

“Rs 13.00 a kg”, she said.

By now I was perfectly willing to gamble 130 bucks to see why would not my brown rice cook. So, I said—“Give me 10 kgs of this”.

C’mon, she had that bewildered look in her face! She stammered, cleared her throat and said that she was perfectly willing to sell me the rice but she again warned that it was not for human consumption and again emphasized that it would not cook.

I tried not to send out any sign of not heeding her good advice and said as politely as possible—“Please give me 10 kgs”.

Suddenly, she played forgetful—“Oh! That was all sold out. You have to come next morning to get your 10 kgs”.

I walked out of the mill. Abruptly.

Now, it was the day after. (By now you would be well aware that I could absorb only that much of customer service in a single day. Enough for a day!)

Again, it was a rice mill near another of my friend’s place.

This time also all mill hands appeared to be women. One happened to be a lady who ran a tea stall near my friend’s place—apparently she was out of her own business.

I could only barely uttered ‘chamang’when she said—“Oh! Laigi oiramtare—you must be needing it for some religiously ceremony, right?”

I grabbed my golden chance and said—“Yes, yes”.

“How many kgs? I’ll give you for Rs 12 a kg”.

That’s how I got my first 10 kgs of brown rice!

I went out again for another 10 kgs this afternoon.

The same mill. The same lady.

She was smiling and said—“Another 10 kgs? But why would need ‘chamang’ of all things?”

She took the money for the 10 kgs, had a mischievous grin and said—“We know it’s for making ‘hamei’!!”

Well, for the uneducated ‘hamei’ is the ferment ting agent for making rice beer!

Chamang, laigi, hamei. That’s the story of brown rice!!

Postscript: White rice costs you Rs 15 a kg. Not considering all the vitamins and minerals not polished off from my brown rice, what a bargain I had got, let’s say, notwithstanding the little adventures!

by the meltingpot

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