Why I blog?

Several weeks ago, I landed up on this site called TheWhyILog and it got me thinking about why I myself am doing this? Though I did touch on the topic when I resurrected sneaker.org now that I've been doing it for a while, I think I could write more about it so...

Blogging is a weird thing. At some level it goes completely against my fears of privacy and security and at a different level it has become somewhat addictive. I guess the inklings of becoming a blogger probably started when I put up my original home page (what I now call vanity pages) and began posting weekly updates on what's new on the page; but I never got completely hooked until recently I think it was around mid-july 2000 when I really go into it. But why? I'm not an extroverted person by any means, so why would I get so addicted to blogging? Why wouldn't the fears of security and privacy take precedence over the urge to share information over a public medium?

To a large extent I, and possibly several other bloggers as well, treat this as a vent, a release, something to let the pressure out lest it muster inside to the point of causing a devastating explosion. Especially, when you're not sharing the stuff inside your heard with another person - and that could be for multiple reasons, either you don't have anyone you can share it with (an s.o.), or you're not comfortable sharing it with the people who you know would care (family and friends), or you're just afraid of only a few people knowing what you think. In either case, and possibly in several others, blogging becomes the substitute and a damn good one at that.

My fears of privacy and security still come up every once in a while and possibly taint my entries somewhat, however, for the most part there is a security in public anonymity, as I have described it earlier. The web becomes the audience. An audience you do not know and so cannot for the most part fear. What you write is public.. available to everyone... so there are no secrets and if there are no secrets there is less to worry about. It's an open book. What I write in my blog is an open book. If you care enough to read it, more power to you.

The reason I started blogging was because I just had to (and still have to...) get things out of my system. The biggest thing being my immense frustration with irrationality, followed closely by my need to widen my circle of friends which, as I realized a bit too late, had dwindled into a null set during the time I was going out with my now ex-girlfriend (nearly 4 years). So there was a void I needed to fill and blogging filled it for me. It gave me an outlet and has also helped me to get closer with some of my existing friends since even though we may not discuss what I write about on my site now know me better than they did... to be a social recluse who often thinks too much ;-)

The one other thing I hoped to achieve by blogging was to come across people who have a head on their shoulders. I've found that most people who blog seriously (about more than just this is what I did today) are generally all highly intelligent, well read and mature individuals. Similarly, my site is really targeted towards people who think and those who like to think. To drive the point home by use of an exaggeration: Stupid people annoy me and since I can't find enough people with adequate clue in real life, the Net is the medium that may help me establish contact with people who may have learnt to make use of their ability to think.

So why do you blog?

A global response...

Mermortal ICQ'd me a link which really shows what the global sentiment on the attacks at the WTC, The Pentagon and the crash of UA 93 in PA is like. The site has some amazing pictures. I just hope whoever is hosting it doesn't take it down so that the link remains active.

So check out: America's Tragedy as seen by the World

oooooh... Q33NY...

A friend of mine who is well aware of my proclivity for being skeptical forwarded me an email he received. Here is what it said:

Did you know that the number of one of the planes that hit one of the two towers was Q33NY?
In MS Word, type in this flight number Enlarge the font size to 26 or more. Change the font to Wingdings.

So I did this and here was my response:

This like everything else is completely STUPID. In fact, why don't you go type in the word STUPID into Word. Enlarge the font and change the font to wingdings too. Notice anything? You can assign meaning to anything. It's all perception. And people are just f'd up...

Since it's really not worth wasting time in trying this out (but you do NOT have to believe me, so you're welcome to go try it yourself), I'm providing a screenshot of what this looks like in Word. Q33NY shows up with a plane, 2 sheets of paper, a danger symbol and a star. Stupid shows up with what could be seen as oil, snowflake, a cross, a flag, a hand and a thumbs down. Draw your own conclusions.

On a similar note, I'll post a copy of an announcement I just received from CSICOP via email as a public service announcement:

CSICOP Tracks Misinformation and Hoaxes in the Wake of the Terrorist Attacks
September 20, 2001

The terrorist attacks in Manhattan, Washington, DC and the Pittsburgh area constitute the most tragic and violent events ever perpetrated in the United States. As with other tragedies, conspiracy theories, hoaxes, and other forms of misinformation crop up almost immediately, playing on people's hopes, fears, and appetite for amazing tales. E-mail has multiplied the speed and extent to which hoaxes, rumors and urban legends spread.

In the interest of public service, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal has created the HoaxWatch Web page, a source for factual information that debunks much of the claptrap circulating in e-mails, the Internet and elsewhere. We will update this site in reaction to new developments and we're extremely interested in any e-mails or Web sites circulating suspicious information.

We ask everyone to please forward any suspicious e-mails or links to our hotline e-mail address at info@csicop.org.

Urban legends and Nostra-dam-us!

As I mentioned, I don't do chain emails.... mass emails annoy me no end. They annoy me even more when they contain total bullshit. Crap. Baloney - which has no basis in truth whatsoever (and that seems to be the majority of chain emails which people still continue to forward around). Urban legends on the Net are about as prevalent as there us junk mail in my mailbox everyday (literally... everyday).

Anyhow, one that was floating around recently was about how Nostradamus had predicted the events in NYC... To anyone who wasted even a iota of their time in consdifering this to be true... please go read the press release issued by CSICOP on this - Hoax Nostradamus Quatrain About NYC Terrorist Attacks
which confirms the fallacy of these emails.

Better yet, go over and read the full explanations of why there are a hoax in the Urban Legends section of About.com - Nostradamus: Did Famed Seer Nostradamus Predict the World Trade Center Attack?. Have fun reading!

Inciting terror...

Terrorism, by it's very definition is the act of inciting terror and fear. Terrorism leads to people changing the way they go about their everyday lives because of fear. My grandmother (I'm sure mom mom will print this out for her to read if she comes across it!) is perfect example of someone who makes it easier for the terror-seeking, brainwashed, cultish ignorant psychotics (I like that description borrowed from the article mentioned below) to achieve the results they seek - making ordinary people who have done them no harm what so ever start freaking out.

My grandmother is in New Delhi. And ever since the first plane hit the WTC in NY, she, like everyone else has been glued to CNN. The moment CNN mentioned that one plane went down near Pittsburgh, the number of people calling my mom in New Delhi to check on me and even those IM'ing or calling me directly too a spike. Nothing spectacular, but enough to make me thing about it and realize that though I recognize the concern and they worry, the better thing to do in the US at least would have been to leave the phone lines open for emergency use... since even if something did happen somewhere, knowing of it sooner when you can't do much to prevent it or affect any change thereafter is pointless.

Recently, CNN ran this story Man questioned in shooting death of Sikh. Now, I expected something like this. I'd expect that the majority of the people reading this would like to think that I'm nuts for saying that. But truly, I expected it. I'm not one to forward chain emails at all. If a chain email comes to me, that particular path stops with me. But I did post the picture from the chain email my cousin sent me in a previous blog since it made a point. A point which everyone reading this probably already knows, but the sad part is that there are places and people - some within the U.S. as well believe it or not - where even people who have a brain, just cannot think before they act.

Now, my grandmom, sitting all the way over in New Delhi; where the danger of fallout from any military action by the U.S. (that's a whole other topic of dicussion in itself) in Afghanistan, especially through Pakistan is a lot higher than any danger I would be in in a place like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; is freaking out about me! I guess all I can say is that the terror-seeking, brainwashed, cultish ignorrant psychotics have unfortunately been successful in coloring the rational thinking of normal people. Sad as it may be, they have been successful in creating pandemonium and fear not only in the US, but all over the globe.

On a similar note, I found an article on a blog (for the record the caterina.net, the original article is on Salon.com) I was perusing. The article - An Afghan-American speaks by Tamim Ansary really makes a point. A point I cannot agree with more. And I can only hope that the people who are planning The US response take heed of what is said in that article. I am all for taking out just those people who did this. They really do not deserve to live. But I am definitely opposed to creating global pandemonim, chaos, destruction and loss of lives of not only innocent civilians in various parts of the world but also those armed personnel of any countries that get involved who will simply be following orders without much choice of their own.

The terrorists are using guerilla techniques. And IMHO, what will work in such a situation is not a massive show of force, but a massive show of smarts, intelligence and precision. Lance the boil, don't make the whole body sick with over potent medication...

Listening to NPR...

I've been listening to NPR pretty much non-stop for the past four days. (Hurray for live streams!) and every so often someone says something that just drives the point home regarding the events in NYC. Even with the live coverage on TV and pictures on the web (Yahoo! has excellent slideshows...) I don't think the enormity and the gravity of the situation in NYC has sunk in yet. The pictures don't convey it. But thinking about 110 stories times 2... 450,000 tonnes of debris... one can just wonder. I found one picture which really showed the scale when you think of the size of the rescue workers with respect to the mountain of debris that needs to be scaled.

The picture says it all

This picture forwarded to me by my cousin says it all...

What is the appropriate response?

On Tuesday, the media was back to doing it's job. On Tuesday the media was reporting news. Breaking news. But as I continue to listen to the coverage on the TV with anchors such as Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw (I don't have cable...), or the stories on NPR and the Web, I can't but help wonder at what point will the popular media go back to being the media instead of reporting the news.

The incidents at the World Trade Center, The Pentagon and aboard each one of the hijacked planes are no doubt the worst acts of terrorism that we have seen till date. More than any other terroristic activity in modern times. They are deplorable, reprehensible, pathetic and a whole lot more than I can describe with even the choicest words. To watch the people on TV who are looking for their friends and family with continued hope of survival is painful for everyone that I've spoken to. So needless to say, everyone has an appreciation of the gravity of the situation...

What's frustrating to me is that there isn't much one can do about it. There is enough blood... unfortunaely, because it simply seems to suggest that there aren't that many people alive to be able to use that blood. Blood doesn't do any good when you're already dead. There has been enormous amount of financial support coming in as well, starting of course with the $40B approved by the US Congress... an unprecedened amount. And of course all the financial assitance coming from donations being collected across the US and in other countries. I was pleased to see how easy Amazon, PayPal and CNET and other had made it to donate online.

Bush in his addresses seeks retribution. I have nothing against that. If the US can deterministically link certain individuals to this crime, sure... go right ahead and take them out (I've written before about bearing responsibility for your own actions and also darwinism.... the scum of the earth also need to bear responsibility for their actions and to support darwinism be eliminated). However, note that that is qualified by deterministically and also with individuals. But this is not an easy problem. In fact this is a problem which may not have a "solution" at all - one where we are constantly striving for a particular state of the world, which cannot be achieved because the problem itself is akin to having cancer or aids. Extricating tumurous cells from the body, or attending to the symptoms of aids only provides temporary relief - often welcome temporary relief. However, neither approach eliminated the root cause of the problem. And like a pernicious weed, as long as there is a root, it rears its ugly head again.

By no means am I chastizing any of the approaches any of the people in the position to adopt those approaches may take. My point is simply one that has been recognized by several people already, but bears to be repeated... This is a hard problem. Terrorism is a hard problem. Of course that doesn't mean that we don't try and solve it... we have after all been successful in in other hard problems. And the creativity, intelligence and determination of the sane half of the human race cannot be underestimated.

When belief becomes the weapon...

I'm sure by now everyone on the planet who cares has heard about today's flurry of terrorist attacks which converted planes carrying passengers into guided missiles. I'm also sure that you've read and heard more about this than you would ever want to. But still, I figured I'd rant a bit about it... not about the massive chaos and destruction and loss of lives, but more so about the people who can be so depraved to do things like this.

All of these attacks, including the ones recently in the middle east have been done by suicide bombers - people who are convinced beyond all odds that their belief in their cause is the only thing that matters; people who are so brainwashed that they are willing to fly a plane into a building knowing that there is no way they will come out of their plan alive.

Recently, I read two books, both of which thankfully fiction, which were based on the premise of mass-destruction of human life by terrorists. One book was based on the threat of bio-terrorism. The other was based on chemical terrorism. (Ironic that just in the past week or so, I not only wrote about terrorism, but also about the Taliban - and what we hear on the news today is a mix of both...) In both cases however, and also in most of the real-life terroristic activities we have witnessed to date, the weakest link in the terrorists' plans was the fact that they still valued their own life and cared to get themselves out alive. That appreciation for their own life, gives us a a chance. But as we horrifically witnessed today, when a terrorist crosses that line where their own life becomes secondary to the cause and the belief that controls their mind, then things are different. Very different. Frighteningly different.

I've always maintained that the greatest position of power is when you have nothing to lose. Because when you have nothing to lose, then you also have nothing to fear. When you are confronted with a hopeless situation, you begin to take chances which you would not otherwise consider. I've used that principle before, but I've used it to get myself out of bad situations or to improve my situation. But combine that with the level of brainwashing that religious fundamentalists, extremist groups, political organizations and even some organizations and institutions which are part and parcel of the everyday lives of the masses of the world population (in my opinion -- which you are not obligated to subscribe to by any means -- religion and belief systems are the biggest culprits for some of the major problems that plague the modern world from the middle east, to kashmir, to boznia, to ireland, to indonesia, to burma or any other major crisis area of the world... they all find their roots in religion)

The weapon for todays depraved and reprehensible acts of terrorism in NY and Washington was not just the hijacked airplanes, but as much so the belief in the heads of the terrorists who planned and executed this attack.

On a side note, the news has been reporting that one of the hijacked planes crashed just south of Pittsburgh -- I bet the terrorists who masterminded this attack are watching CNN and wondering: "Where is heck is Pittsburgh!??"