Wired

I know I am growing old, the 'generation next' has given way to the 'generation virtual'. Gone are the days when email and the occasional website were cool enough, now they are the bare minimum. In this day and age of instant gratification, instant relationships weren't far behind. Enter the networking sites to bride the gap. I remember learning the ropes of getting penpals across the globe first by using magazines and then through websites. Now its all about the instant messages, pictures, videos and a 101 different ways to communicate with mostly non-lasting relationships ... not that my penpals lasted too long :)

I, like everyone else, hate to loose touch with friends and these new modes of keeping in touch have almost eliminated the chances of loosing touch (Ofcourse there is no antidote to apathy or the technologically challenged). It has also spawed a new era of virtual relationships, that sometimes really throw you for a spin ;)

Before I continue here is a rundown of these sites that I am aware of!

• Orkut - This one is from Google. Sends you for a spin with its undependable server responses. Has a huge Indian/Hispanic presence and a good way for the IT guys to show how cool they are ... lets you set people's coolness,sexy and trusty levels. As expected I am non of those!!! Atleast according to this site. Lets you upload upto 12 pics and has a limit of 500Mb for each one.
• Hi5 - Huge Asian/Hispanic presence, and is more cumbersome than orkut. Makes up for it by letting you have complete control over your page. Lets you post unlimited numbers of pictures. Lets you give "Hi5" to your friends ... surprisingly I got a few of those. Also have friends of friends put up photoshop edited images of mine with their "friends".
• MySpace - Probably the most famous of these sites. I only became a member yesterday after being told about it by more than 10 people in a single day. Has more than 63million members and growing and according to a source the second most visited site currently. Comes with its own baggage of being too well known. Too much advertisement!!!
• Facebook - A networking site designed specifically for College and high school students in the US. Networks you according to your school or alma mater. You need a valid US college or high school email id to join. Lets people keep in touch by using the comments feature.
• Bebo - Mainly American presence, uses the person's school to network. Mainly used by High school kids, and before you all think I am a phedophile, want to remind you that I am still a kid ... at heart!

There are million others like Xanga, Ringo ... each tragetting a different demography, geography and social network.

They are indeed a great tool to keep in touch, I can't count the number of old friends that I have hooked up with 'cause of these sites. They also seem to fill the deep seated voyeuristic thirst of homo sapiens with all the wealth of information about completely random people! I am surprised by the amount of personal information that one can glean from these sites (Including mine). Obiviously in the race to be known by millions privacy ranks near the bottom.

The lack of privacy of most of these sites have led some colleges to even block access to them. A college in Texas just did it, while a school that my friend is working at, is very seriously considering the same measure. These are pretty fertile ground for sexual predators and stalker. Am not trying to be too negative but then that's the world we live in. Ofcourse I personally don't have the fear of being sexually assaulted, jus' 'cause who in their right mind would want to do it to me ?? Joking apart its always good to take personal conversation offline at such sites and maintain as much control on your own information as possible.

The other major sign of this new generation is the virtual social net that this has provided. For people who not only want to keep in touch with old friends but make new ones too this is one of the best option. It really speaks to the socially challenged to be bold and be people they really are not. I guess it makes them feel happy to have so many hundreds and thousands of "friends". All I can say is "whatever makes you happy".

I don't know how much of it is good, but it is indeed funny to see yesteryear's movies with virtual holographic girlfriends and almost seeing it in reality now. I am not a psychologist or a psychiatrist but I do know that these virtual relationships don't help in building any real people/social skills. I see so many of these people almost living in the virtual box with all their social interactions being virtual. Its almost like you a real life prep kid! The person across the network has noway of knowing you other than by what you write and that is an easy way out for people with things to hide or with a low sense of self-esteem. And this it not a sweeping generalisation of all users, but just a group of them.

This environment has almost no real consequences for your actions on it. You can say and do almost anything that you want and nothing is going to come off it. If you try saying more half the things that is said on these sites in India and you would sure to have a ton of bricks fall on you :). That probably is its huge appeal, the ability to be a rebel with out consequences.

Before I let you go take a taste of this virtual world, I'll leave you with a taste of what you can expect ... these are actual comments taken from these sites... these are the "pickup lines"!

hey ...sa wur profile...impressive...wud like to know more abt u ....so wat do u do ???. me in to advertising.................u?

Hi,this is ***** from hyderabad.I want to be your orkut friend.waiting for your scrap.byee

hey wassup dear????
u look like a die hard rock fan...is it sooo????
wat type of music u listen yaar????

These aren't even the funniest once :( where does all the information go when you really need it!!!

P.S: Sign up has started for the preview of the new look www.ulyssesdavid.com. Have finally started on this long overdue project. So if you want to be part of the beta testing team, let me know. Those signed up for updates would be automatically included ;). As usual don't forget your daily dose of tamilnole.blogspot.com

Odyssey - Book 2 - Chapter ii - The Village

The second trip of the year had to wait three months after the first trip. Another interesting trip as usual.

This was to spend Easter with a close friend Rajesh and also see the interiors of the US of A. Salem, Indiana is one of those places you would have to search on a map, set in the midst of hills and Ghat roads with a town hall right in the middle.

I can now claim to have stayed in the villages of America, thanks to this trip. Though I did crib about the time it took to travel through the winding roads, it was still fun to take the curves at 80MPH(128 KMPH). Not to mention flooring the gas to 125(201) on the interstate (I-64).

I-64 has been the best interstate that I have traveled so far ... no traffic and most importantly no cops!!! Was able to touch 125 and maintain an average of 80, not bad for one trying not to get another traffic ticket.

Also the trip helped me to meet up with an old friend in Lexington and experience the worst Indian restaurant I have ever been to (In the US). Shonda hope I didn't spoil your appetite for India food. The food actually was bad but the place was a dump ... probably because their A/C was out but that doesn't excuse the ton of onion skins that were all over the place.

This also was the first time that I had frog legs!! Yes frog legs and they don't taste like chicken ... they taste like frog legs. As we stay on food I need to add Ostrich, Kangaroo and Bison to my list of meat eaten, courtesy of the gun show that I attended a few weeks back. Those were some of the best jerkies that I have ever eaten.

Any description of these remote places of Indiana and Kentuky would not be complete without the town hall in the middle. I had always assumed that the town hall was in the center of the town/city as part of the downtown, not literally like I saw in Salem. It was indeed the center of the town and had a moat like road all around it so if you drive thro town you had a kind of traffic circle.

Check out the pictures here

Miles travelled : 960 Miles (1545 Kms)
No. Of States : 4
Top Speed : 125 mph (200kmph)
Average : 75 mph (120 kmph)

“Americans have more food to eat than any other people and more diets to keep them from eating it”

Check out my diary

Concrete Angel!!

...Somebody cries in the middle of the night,
The neighbors hear but they turn out the lights;
A fragile soul caught in the hands of fate,
When morning comes it will be too late.

Through the wind and the rain,
She stands hard as a stone in a world that she can't rise above;
But her dreams give her wings and she flies to a place where she's loved ...
---Martina McBride

Abuse is of those oft used words that I have heard but never seen in my own life. The amount of news and laws that I see in the US about it makes me wonder if I am living in an alternate universe. It almost looks as if the US is in some sort of sadistic self-decadent spiral, while India is unblemished by such effeteness.

Then you scratch the surface and it all comes tumbling down out of the closet. I have got to hear about these stories of sexual and physical abuse after all these years of believing that such do not exist in the India society. How wrong was I!!!

As with most things Indian, all such depravity have been swept under the carpet, under the guise of familial or personal honour. The sheer number of incidents that I hear about now, makes me wonder whether the protected childhood that I was so proud off has given me a skewed idea of the ways of the world.

The reasons for such abuses being swept under the carpet make me want to wring somebody's neck. Some of them have included "Oh he is my brother", "He is family", "You must have done something inappropriate" and the flat out "You are lying". This posture of people most close to the victims makes it a double burden to carry. The emotional scares are never really healed and nobody seems to take any notice of it.

India does not have a comprehensive child abuse laws. Only now is some effort being put into it, but the effectiveness of it is still suspect. Especially with the family trying to more often then not support the offender, it makes it almost impossible to deal with it.

The first time my nephew learned at school that he could dial 911 if he was spanked at home, scared the heck out of cousin. Now that I am seeing the world in a different light it all fits in somehow. I always imagined it was a western issue and that the eastern societal culture had no such problems. The new stories were all eye openers.

The fact of the matter is that most of the perpetuators are known and close to the victims which makes it all the more hard for the victim. Do you try to get somebody close to you arrested or would anybody believe you at all? The actions of the parents are all the more baffling in such situations. These are people who will give their lives for their kids but refuse to accept that their kid has been a victim of abuse. The worst is when the parent is him/herself the abuser, there really is no where for the kid to turn to in India currently

Don't get me wrong I am all for a pat on the butt once in a while... I have got quite a few stories to tell about that :). But when I was reprimanded at home I knew it was with love, I knew that I was still loved, only my action was not. But I guess there are enough numbskulls out there with a distorted view of appropriate punishments.

I might have made sweeping generalisations in the above paragraphs but somebody has to do it and who better to do it than me!

“Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime.”

Checkout some new pics at my diary
A good source for child abuse in India
P.S: Martina McBride is a country music singer and concrete angel is her hit single about child abuse. You need to check out the video for it ... really poignant.

Green Card!!!

No not green bucks!! Just a card, which states that you can have the rights that you pay your taxes for. Ask any Indian (For that matter any other national on worker's visa) in the US and he would be a subject matter on this, even somebody like me who will violently defend his plan to go back "home".

And before I continue, yes I have applied for green card. Now that the full disclosure is done ...

The reason for this post was a lunch discussion that I had with a few colleagues of mine on the merits of going back to India versus settling down in the US. And boy was there a wide gorge in our opinions. But the general consensus was that, it is a very personal choice that every individual has to make depending on his or her situation.

The thought process that went into deciding on staying in the US was led by the charge that India is woefully lagging in the technological advancement compared to the US. You just can't get an iPOD as easily in India was a favorite refrain. Add to that the noise and other sorts of pollution and corruption ... its a pretty dirty list, explained by a single phrase "standard of living".

On the other hand for people like me its the people that make all the difference. And in that I don't mean that people are better anywhere, its just that blood is pretty thick for me. That and plus I don't have to cook, clean or wash ... ever!

There is a third group of people who complain that they would go back if things got better. In sense the corruption, poverty and pollution went down and the standard of living went up. The catch in this line of reasoning is that there is nobody to take a lead to make a change. This is like asking someone to bear the pain so you can enjoy the fruit. Not that it's wrong in a capitalistic environment but doesn't it sound hollow when you act concerned but don't do anything about it. The road to hell is paved with good intentions

"The quickest way to a green card is marriage"

Check out my other blog that's updated more often and is more like a journal