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Friday, December 3, 2010

Technology makes the world go around

The term ‘technology’ can rightly be said putting ‘Science into practice’. If a scientific phenomenon which exists in nature is converted into reality for a common person, technology takes birth. From the depth of an ocean to the heavens in outer space and from the use of a needle to the journey of a space shuttle, we come across nothing but the technology.

Technology has been defined in several ways by different sources, I'm going to quote from Wikipedia and Encarta.

1. ‘the usage and knowledge of tools, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization’

2. ‘the study, development and application of devices, machines and the techniques for manufacturing and productive processes’

If we look back to 19th century we would see that there were hardly a few inventions present at that time as compared to today. Some of the inventions of that era include internal combustion engines, light bulb, telephone, typewriter, sewing machine etc (About.com). Now coming to the present days, we see solar vehicles, LASER holograms, smart mobile phones, touch pads, digitally programmed smart sewing machines and many more. A huge list of inventions cannot be mentioned in an essay of two pages, but it can be observed around us that we are depending upon technology a lot. Let’s have a look at the way how technology is influencing our everyday life.

You get up in the morning as your digital smart phone alarm rings, and then you go to the bathroom, using your electronic toothbrush to brush your teeth. The shaver you use is also electronic. Then you take bath under a shower which may be digitally controlled as to allow water to fall on your body when your body is right under it in a certain radius. As you get free from the bathroom, you put on the dress and then you rush towards the kitchen for the breakfast using, toaster, microwave oven, electric frying pans etc, to prepare your breakfast. You go to the garage and open its shutter with a remote control, the car beeps for you as you press its remote in the key ring with you. You get into the car and start it, the driving seat is adjusted as per the way you sit in the seat. The navigator guides you to the office and you don’t even need to worry about the tolls and speed cameras viewing you because you have updated the navigator using the latest geographical information maps and you are able to avoid these limitations by taking another route as programmed in the navigator.

When you reach your destination the main door automatically opens for you after scanning your biometrics and then you take the lift to the desired level and finally land at your office. Technology works in the office also; you can see your staff working in their cabins with the help of centrally installed cameras and video conferencing system. The surveillance and security system of your office also supports you to be vigilant in case of any unforeseen situation. After office hours you go for shopping and just use the plastic money for transactions and don’t need to carry hard cash at all. You receive a call from overseas on your mobile when you are on the way to home, it is from your father who is abroad and he tells you that your mother is in critical condition in the hospital and wants to see you. Then and there you reserve your flight to the motherland using your smart cellular phone behind which a 3G network of cellular company is working.

These are quite a few examples just to show that how technology is working in today’s world. The lifestyle of a common person is depending upon technology and one does not think about the life without these utilities and advantages which technology has brought to him.

Technology is equally shaping the life of a student at a school, teacher in a classroom, fisherman in sea, doctor examining a patient or treating him, accountant making ledgers and balance sheets, waiter taking an order etc. On a broader spectrum, technology is enabling us to reveal the secrets of nature. Man is trying to devise methods of obtaining low cost energy sources such as in the recent experiment at the European Organization for Research, CERN.

It can be concluded that technology makes the world go around.

 

Monday, September 20, 2010

Man is peace lover

Whatever was the reason behind the creation of this universe it came into being and every specie started its life cycle with the pre-programmed firmware. The philosophy and physics of this universe have been explained by philosopher and scientists, religious scholars and a common person according to their own way of understanding and individual knowledge and approach, but all agree on a same point that the beauty of this universe is due to its nature. This 'nature' is 'natural' by virtue of its creation and every scene of this universe including sunrise or sunset, water or air current, rotation of heavenly bodies about their centres, crying of a baby or vibration of an electron in nth orbit of an atom are the reflection of the force creating all these phenomena.

According to religious scholars this 'force' has been named as God, Bhagwan, or Allah and this creator has designed Man as a peaceful, loving and caring specie. So by birth a Man is a peace lover.  Peace, the antonym of war, is as essential for Man as breathing, eating or living. Every religion of world preaches peace and demands the practice of same. Talk about any preacher or prophet, whether Budha or Jesus, Muhammad or Joseph, Guru Nanak or Moses (peace be upon all), you would realize that all of them gave the lesson of basic human rights, love and condemned war. This means they proclaimed nothing but peace and brought the humanity from the darkness to the brightness of heart and soul.

It can rightly be said that a peace loving atheist is much better than an extremist religious person who loves hatred and wars.

Since the birth of Adam (peace be upon him) it was decided that the Man on earth will not be left alone by God, therefore He sent messengers during different eras. These messengers expounded the will of God and expressed the same by their performance to their companions. For example, the Messiah or Jesus (peace be upon him) proclaimed nothing but peace by expressing that "If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also", this is one of the many evidences of love for peace in Christianity.

Islam is also a peace loving religion and the treaties of Hudaibiya and Mustaliq are just two examples from the history, in favour of the statement made. The Treaty of Hudaibiya was between Muslims and Jewish at the time of first Islamic State in Medina in the beginning of 7th century AD.

Lets come to the present we find that when a Pastor from Florida announced the burning of Quran on 9/11, he was condemned by a number of people around the world including peace loving Americans. In my recent article I was worried about this announcement but this could not happen due to the mature approach and logical protest made across the globe by peace loving followers of almost every religion.

"We want peace in this world", these and similar words were spoken by one of the runner ups Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi, at the US Open 2010 Mens Double Ceremony, as in this video. This gesture of politeness and love for peace by a tennis player of a third world country is a message on behalf of all his countrymen and religious fellows that every individual in this world is a peace lover by nature, because war is not the solution to any problem.

War sheds the blood and  evanescence of peace takes place as the war dominates.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Flood in Pakistan and the International Community

According to BBC the flood affected area of Pakistan at present is equal to the area of England. Thousands of people have lost their lives, millions of dollars of infrastructure and property have been washed away and hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis are homeless begging for the aid. Children are dying due to malnutrition and there is a very high risk of spreading of waterborne diseases.

The head of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon, visited the flood affected areas and declared that the damage is more disastrous than the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 and the earth quake of South East Asia (which affected Pakistan severely also) in 2005, together. He has called for more help from the international community for the people of Pakistan under this helpless condition.

Pakistani troops are helping their countrymen with a high morale; they evacuated many families from the flood in boats. But still there are a lot of people not willing to leave their homes; they are staying at the roof top of the schools or the highest buildings of their village or town.

Under this situation of catastrophe although the foreign aid is coming in and a lot has been committed also, but the other side of coin is bitter and painful. I was browsing through different websites particularly of the news channels and I found a pulse of hatred among the international community. There were some comments under one of the related stories of CNN which said that the people of Pakistan deserve this disaster and it is due to the extremists produced by the country. People making such comments used the references from history that Indian subcontinent was invaded several time by Muslim conquerors and the local Hindus were converted to Islam by force during different time spans of these foreign invaders. Talibans are the latest Muslim extremists as has been portrayed by the international media. Pakistan suffering from this natural disaster and fighting against the terrorist within its borders has been sandwiched in a number of problems at the moment. If international community thinks that Pakistan deserves this situation as it is a Muslim country which produces terrorists as being Muslim means a terrorist then I am sorry to say that this is not a justified statement.

The nuclear capability of Pakistan which is for self defense of the country against the powerful neighbouring state is actually the bone of contention for the international media. This is the reason that audience / viewers / readers of international media talk about Pakistan brutally. Pakistanis have been facing the consequences of war against terrorism in many folds which includes the suicide bombing and the drone attacks at the civilians, now it is the natural disaster but the international community should realize that this war against terrorism cannot be won without the help of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, so the Pakistanis should not be looked down upon.

This nation will recover from the natural disaster sooner or later but the LABEL on the country as a 'land of terrors' is purely foreigner and Pakistanis need to wash away that like the flood washed away their homes, landmarks, farms and infrastructure.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Towards hatred; call for burning Quran

When we look at the universe we find that everything has been created in pair, for example, if there is happiness there is sorrow, love and hatred are opposite feeling found among human beings as well as among animals. Similarly the physical objects are oppositely coupled; an electron is opposite to a proton with same amount of charge on it. When light vanishes darkness dominates and vice versa.

Spirituality speaking, as angel is to devil same is the relation between wisdom and stupidity. After this long intro what I am going to say is that when you lack wisdom and follow the Satan you can do anything, you may kill your own children, may commit suicide due to the different state of mind and may forget that whichever religion you are following does not teach you to burn any religious book.

When I was going to blog this topic I read through the background of this news in which a church has announced burning Quran on 9/11 this year. I was happy to see that almost everybody has condemned this act of absurdity. What I feel is that every religion teaches love, affection and good deeds, therefore such approach can be the creativity of some evil mind. An Atheist does not believe in God but he has some ethics and he does believe in the basic human rights and he obeys the laws of his country otherwise he can be prosecuted.

According to old and new testaments there were different prophets by the passage of time and they were given charter of God in the form of holy books for the respective religions. Every prophet was (and of course is) the most respectful personality of that time, so as the books revealed on them. The point is that no prophet or religious script should be criticized or burnt.

If this would be done I fear that a wave of hatred will be generated and it would provide the room to extremist to react aggressively. So as mentioned in the following links and comments under them this Islamphobia shall be abandoned.

Pastor calls for Quran burning on 9/11. Book burning for Jesus. To the Quran-burning church. US Muslims react with plans to distribute Quran copies.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

A 12-hour long geomagnetic storm

And it has happened as predicted in my recent article And the Sun wakes up, it has been a 12-hour long geomagnetic storm which produced aurora covering the entire northern hemisphere from Europe to North America as per Fox News update on 4th August. These northern lights were captured  by various cameramen and a slide show can be seen here.

It happens when the space plasma reaches the earth's atmosphere. Radiations cannot make it to the surface of earth except the visible light and infrared. But during Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) from the sun the charged particle travel and reach the upper atmosphere (ionosphere) of earth. These auroral particles produce the light curtains as seen on Tuesday night from different parts of the world, mentioned above.

Scientifically speaking it was not a single eruption from the sun put a series of four continuous emissions and all were earthward. The consequence was such a long geomagnetic storm. The instruments which are used to measure the magnetic field of earth (magnetometers) measure a sort of ECG plot under normal conditions but during such 'storm' since the constituent of earth's atmosphere changes the magnetometers go mad and you can see the spikes and a lot of ups and downs on the plot enhancing the usual value of magnetic field of earth by a large number.

Such storms may be hazardous for the passengers and crew taking polar flights during the storm time. NASA scientists clam that this geomagnetic storm was not a threat to International Space Station (ISS) as it is shielded to prevent the exposure to charged particle from the sun.

The Physics of such storms is undoubtedly complex but for a common person they produce magnificent colorful, spiraling and dancing curtains of light (auroras) as witnessed on Tuesday.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

When the pen vibrates

As per a famous proverb pen is mightier than the sword means when pen vibrates it can change the opinions or views better than the clinking or tinkling of swords.  In the present era of multi-touch iPhone and many more such gadgets, still we cannot neglect the importance of book reading (produced by the pen). Although the things have gone digital but the pen is never out dated tool.

We know a number of authors, poets and the writers who gave us really remarkable master pieces of writing and that is because of their pens. So the vibration of pen is powerful and it can turn over a leaf such as verdict(s) (both favorable and unfavorable), which may include writing the annual confidential report (ACR) of an employee by an employer, a death sentence of a killer by a judge, signature over a treaty between two governments or more, producing best sellers like Harry Potter, Twilight etc.

The pen if it is used to point out or insult anybody is dangerous than a sword which kills straight away rather than to create bad feelings in someone's heart. And if the same pen writes some nice words then Shakespeare or Keats world class literature is produced.

'The Pen Vibrates' is a forum where I would be sharing my views, thought and knowledge about different topics and I hope that my pen will vibrate rhythmically without hurting any one.

And the Sun wakes up

Yeah, the NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory keeps an 'eye' on the Sun and it has been found on August 1st at 0855 GMT that there was a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) an eruption of charged particle from the northern hemisphere of sun. Such CMEs are usual feature of sun depending upon the place of sun in its 11 year cycle. The sun follows this periodic variation called Solar Cycle in which the spots (sunspots) on its surface change in number. Depending upon the variation in the number of sunspots, the sun erupts particles and extra energy other than the normal solar light and energy.

The CME under discussion is likely to produce Solar Tsunami and it is unique of its kind as it is directed towards earth. The speed of this travelling mass has been estimated as 93 million miles per day, so it would strike the earth on August 4th and we may see the Auroras at north and south poles, mainly the people in Canada and USA can see this lighting produced after the interaction between charged particle and  air molecules in the atmosphere of earth.

Other effects may be the drag of the satellites, disruption of high frequency communication, threat to power lines etc.

The Space Weather Prediction Center mentions this situation as G2 geomagnetic storm, as scaled by NOAA.

Can you reply to this !

When he came out of the bogie of the electric train he saw her sitting at the bench of railway station. He walked unintentionally straight to her ignoring the announcement behind him, "Doors closing, please stand clear". It was his daily routine to greet her. She was an old lady in her late 60s, left unattended by her family. She had two sons one was in UK and the other was in a different state. Both sons were family persons with their kids and wives, enjoying their married family lives. She was left homeless and alone to live in an old house and spend her remaining life on charity by the government and the sympathy of strangers.

This and many other similar stories can be found around us, what do you think is the reason of it? Does this happen in the societies where people live in joint family system or is it only seen in the countries where people run after the materialistic life? What is the root cause of this situation? Can any one reply and/or suggest the solution?

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Hi everybody

This is my first blog hope you I can add up 'something' to the bloggers community. I don't have anything on my mind right now but will be back with some article(s) covering different subjects of my interest and the same may also be appealing to the readers also. See you soon.