[Disclaimer: I do not own rights to the pictures and images below. They are taken from links directed to by Google search when I searched 'cup of coffee'.]
Declaration: I am still unable to play with electrons and so I am enjoying plenty of free time which is unfortunately going to come to an end next or next to next week, although yesterday I was squeezed into a sudden tight deadline by a person fond of 'last-minute' notice. Hilariously, I'm more 'last-minute' guy than he is :D
Venue:
Starbucks Coffee, N. High St. & 14th
Ave., Columbus, OH
Time:
Early evening, June 30, 2012
SK: So does this kind of power failure extending
to a few days happen in your country? I mean, what would be the worst case
delay in fixing a power failure?
PSP: No, no…I would say maximum 30 mins…the power
will be restored by then. It’s getting terrible here. A couple of days without
power is very disappointing…we can’t do anything at home – can’t charge
laptop/cellphones or watch TV or even run the AC in these hot days…
SK: Ya, makes sense…imagine if such a massive storm wrecks havoc in some
places on India.. that’s it.. it will take forever to fix.
DN: hehehehe…and what if a massive earthquake
destroys a city?
SK: That’s it! There won’t be electricity for
months…
PSP: Months? Oh..
SK: So is your country very earthquake prone
like Japan?
PSP: No, not like Japan of course.
DN: I read somewhere that California suffers at
least two very mild earthquakes every day.
SK: Ya, ya.. seems San Francisco lies on some
fault line…a massive earthquake might rock the Bay Area anytime..
PSP: Not only San Francisco, but the whole of
California may have a super earthquake….
SK: Ya…so what about your place? I heard there
is a massive earthquake due at your place already? It can happen anytime right?
DN: Ya man.. it’s been occurring almost every 50
years for the last 200 years…the last one was in 1950s…so it should have
happened by now…it can actually happen anytime.
SK: Is your home town kind of safe?
DN: Naah, everyone’s gonna die I guess…the 1950s
one was really massive… it changed the course of Brahmaputra after all.
SK: Ya, all these places like Japan, California
are so earthquake prone.
PSP: But the kind is different..as in, in
California the continental plate is moving towards the ocean, while in
Himalayan region, two tectonic plates are merging into each other that gave
rise to the Himalayas… in Japan, it’s again different.
DN: So these plates kind of float on water
right? I mean, they keep on moving..
PSP: Water? No I don’t think so.. the plates are
like few tens of miles thick, right? They are not on any water man…
SK: How can it be water man? The oceans also are
contained in those plates..
DN: But these plates keep moving.. so they need
to be on some dynamic body which can move.. so what is it that moves? Why do
plates move in the earth’s crust? Ya, it’s not water I’d say, but some kind of
dynamic platform.
SK: I don’t know why exactly they move, but when
two plates collide, there’d be earthquake, and if one plate contains an ocean,
then we’ve Tsunami. It moves the ocean bed.
DN: Man, we should just be able to control these natural calamities..they
kill millions!
PSP: hehehehe…if we can control such natural
calamities, then we shall probably have developed technology to fly to nearby
stars as well…
DN: No, no…traveling to nearby stars needs a kind of technology that
enables speed close to speed of light. I’m talking of controlling and
manipulating natural vagaries like earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes..
SK: hehehehe…that’s too much…that’s kind of….I
don’t know…I think that’s like arrogance.
DN: No dude, it is not.. that’s advanced
engineering, that’s advanced technology. We are just bullshiting with our
modern day so-called ‘advanced’ technology. Real high-level engineering and
technology will enable us to engineer the plate tectonics and our earth-crust, will
enable us to manipulate and control earthquakes and tsunamis according to our
wish. With advanced technology, we can deflect incoming hurricanes and cyclones
to say, some other uninhabited areas…
SK: hehehehe.. you’re now speaking like a
philosopher…carry on …
PSP: aha
DN: Ok, imagine this. We can manipulate weather,
we can create artificial local atmosphere.. OK? So, if there is a hurricane or cyclone,
then if we have sufficiently advanced technology, we can create local
atmospheres around it to counterbalance the pressure gradient, and just
disperse the damn hurricane! We just make the hurricane non-existent by
creating an opposite atmospheric pressure gradient! That’s called ‘advanced’
technology.
PSP: I don’t
see such kind of engineering or technology happening in our life time…
DN: Yeah, but we gotta control natural
calamities for sustaining human civilization..even to preserve technology by
preserving mankind, we need to tame the natural calamities. But all these days
we living in a utopia.. a hallucinatory environment forcing ourselves to think
we are advancing in technology, but we are NOT. We are goddamn stagnant in our
advancement.
SK: So you mean to say we need some fundamental
breakthrough? …
PSP: Yeah, that’s what we need. All these
Facebook, Twitter, Internet, etc etc. are making people believe we are
progressing, and we are ‘connecting’ better, but we are not progressing in real
terms of technology. We are in an illusion.
DN: Precisely my point. Facebook and internet
addiction is simply making millions of people dumb. A few smart people make
massive amounts of money by enabling millions of dumb people to waste their
time and their creativity. How sad! I mean, really, what was the last ‘real’
technology that we humans developed? Something that changed the landscape of
mankind? All these progresses in software and facebook and stuffs like that are
all illusionary, I am biased I think, but that’s my opinion.
SK: Ya, these are ‘entertainment’ industry..
that is consumer electronics and consumer entertainment… Xbox, juke box,
playstations, social networking, etc etc… they are NOT real technological
progresses that change mankind’s progress.
PSP: These are for entertaining people as you
said, by a few smart people, to make
millions of people become dumb and waste their time and creativity, as you
said. All these are very illusions.
DN: Ok, so what is real technology? Real
engineering? Automobiles and steam engines – that’s called real engineering.
Nikola Tesla designing the AC generator and motor to supply commercial
electricity to household – that’s real engineering. The transistor – that changed
the landscape forever, the LASER – those are ‘real’ technology, that really,
really changed the face of mankind forever. We really need ‘real’ advancements
to control earthquakes and tsunamis, man…we need to engineer weather and
climate.
PSP: Hummm….it’s far.
SK: So technology is stagnating, huh?
DN: yeah.. I mean, I think what we’re doing now
in our PhD research is probably not ‘real’ technology too,.. our efforts in our
PhD research to engineer the speed of electrons in transistors to make
electronic devices work faster, is probably a pseudo-technology, but at least
until we get our PhDs, we should convince ourselves it’s a ‘real’ and ‘useful’
technology.. heheheheh
SK: No, it is real man … we are not doing
useless shits.
PSP: Shall
we leave? It might rain after sometime.
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