Aug 21
Tap is the new click. Twitter is the new hello. Green is the new world peace. Hope is the new coke. Constant is the new change. Change is the new banality. Geek is the new cool. 200 is the new 99.94. Mediocre is the new ubiquity. Google is the new Microsoft. A bigot is the new patriot. Slactivism is the new tree-hugging. Reality TV is the new soap opera. Gay is the new pride. Geolocation is the new 'where in the world are you?'.
A hurricane is the new social equalizer. An earthquake is the new birth control. Global is the new local. One way is the new spoilt for choice. Traffic jams are the new stop and smell the roses. War is the new peace. 'Whats your name, again?' is the new networking. 'Fasten your seat-belts' is the new risk. Real-time is the new telegram. Finding a parking slot is the new crystal maze. Breaking news is the new mundane. Photography is the new stamp collecting.
Tiger is the new dinosaur. Man is the new dodo. Rainforest is the new desert. Metrosexual is the new angry young man. Size 0 is the new 36-28-36. 'Hows it going?' is the new 'Hi'. Plastic is the new plague. Wireless is the new cordless. China is the new America. Facebook is the new marijuana. Voyeurism is the new porn. Anti-ageing is the new skin whitening. 'Save the planet' is the new human arrogance. Search of extraterrestrial intelligence is the new Mackenna's gold. Atheism is the new extremism.
And since this whole thing needs to have a point, 26 is the new super awesome.
Aug 16
I haven't really had much time to explore the city. Pittsburgh is a small college town with a lot of young people. Students are given special privileges and the cost of living, i am told, is very affordable when compared to bigger cities in the country.
The people are very friendly. An old man walking on the street stopped me and asked if i was from the 'land of vishwanathan anand'. When i told him i was, he promptly gave his chess club brochure and told me that i had to come visit his club. I promised i would.
There is a quaint little coffee shop with about 5 things on the menu. But it is the most inviting place with free wifi, shelves of novels and comic books and a wall adorned with letters and postcards that people have to written to the coffee shop. People sit there for hours just reading or watching the evening go by. Time ceases to matter and ergo, it is my current favorite place in town.
The weather has been uninviting and the food, repetitive. But Carnegie Mellon has been great. Endless possibilities.
Jul 30
Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter show information in reverse chronology. The latest is on the top and as you scroll down, you are taken back in time. This is largely meaningless. Just because something happened recently doesn't make it more important or interesting than something that happened a little earlier. Further, it makes it harder to find something that is more interesting, buried as it is, beneath all the fluff.
Social websites are about people, interactions between people and stuff shared by people. Ideally, the websites should be designed around these and not around a timeline. I would love Facebook to look like so (the same concept could be applied to Twitter as well):
There would be separate sections called 'People' which would group everything that's happened (comments, photo uploads, videos, linked shared) by people, 'Conversations' which would point me to my friends commenting on each other's posts or writing on each other's walls (sorted by most active), 'Photos & Videos' where i could jump in and immediately see personal photos and videos (grouped by people) and 'Shared Stuff' which would show me links, YouTube videos and other shared items.
One could go one step further and add more intelligence to the system, by sorting all these lists by the people closest in my friends' list; the people i interact with the most. The screen could highlight groups which have had action since i last saw them or the ones that it thinks might interest me the most, based on what i have liked or viewed before.
Timelines add no value to social interaction and it is time the chronological stream of news dried up.
Jul 25
The last week has been okay. It has been complicated driving on the other side of the road and it's funny greeting everyone with "How's it going?" (How's what going? where it is going to? Wasn't it happy where it was?). It's been frustrating getting used to the american way of doing things which is, as far as i gathered, diametrically opposite to the simple way of doing things. The food could have been better, as could have been the weather. My internet connectivity has been spotty at best with no computer / phone and a bunch of traveling. The painful long flights in cramped seats haven't helped one bit.
It has been a great last week. Wonderful people so full of enthusiasm and sheer happiness, fairs with myriad sounds, a fantastic butterfly park and a spectacular aquarium, a hike up a snow-clad hill and a vintage car show. The evenings spent looking at the skyline and the afternoons at the busy markets.
But the highlight was a magical hot air balloon ride up to the heavens. It was a little bit like stumbling onto a rainbow when all you were looking for was a waterfall.
Jul 10
Nothing much has changed since the last time i was in college. I have been going to work fairly regularly, taken some pictures occasionally, made a few friends, learnt a little about wildlife, bought some banal things, been exposed to a smattering of cultures and perhaps made a difference to a few lives. And yet, everything has changed. All the insignificant incremental changes add up over a 5 year period.
And now, it's time to fly.
