stack/hopr

Fast switching between tabs open in the browser sometimes gives rise to funny concepts. I don’t recall exactly how the words civil and evil struck me at the same time. And the fun part that you can substitute civil with evil in most cases without any substantial loss to the meaning of the term.

Civilization
becomes “evilization”

The term speaks for itself. Unless you belong to the primitive tribes living in the bliss of nature disconnected from the rest of the world, it is hard to escape this modern phenomenon. Cities are the pinnacle of civilization. The boxed place with millions of people. The height of human greed. Anybody who has lived in a large city with eyes open (and nose closed) must have experienced the evil it has to offer. I won’t get into the details of mean people, crime or the traffic.

Civil servant
is “evil servant”

Everyone has experienced more than one of these type. Filled with apathy and nothing much else, you have to face one if you reside in a place governed by some sort of large government.

Civil works
leads to “evil works”

If someone wanted to take a close look at how evil works, there could be no better place than the roads, sewer system and garbage disposal. The combined work of all the “evil works” departments can put a serial killer to shame. It has the potential to disrupt lives of millions with little or no action. That’s one powerful evil force.

This is the latest in the array of technologies that make driving easier. These cutting edge parking sensors do not use ultrasonic, magnetic or infrared sensing. Instead, it relies on the sound near audible range and material vibration. It couples this with visual data to give the driver a good idea of reversing space.

Pros:

• Maximizes the reversing distance available.
• Cheap.

Cons:

• Does not work well around hard metal surfaces, sharp corners.
• Sensing distance is low compared to electromagnetic sensors.
• Requires the driver to reverse at extremely low speeds.

In simple words, you rely on your senses while backing the car. You take a good look around before getting into the car. Then, start reversing. If the space is too tight, you employ the above mentioned technology. You can gently touch whatever is behind the vehicle (except humans). The trick is touching the object briefly with your bumper. The bumper in most cars is designed for zero damage on low speed contact. So, you don’t damage anything. And by feeling the sound plus vibration coming from the bumper, you can stop at the right moment. All this while, watching the space behind the car using direct vision. This direct vision is enhanced if you place one hand behind the co-driver seat.

Use this technology for a perfect reversing maneuver, it’s a skill.

Pay attention to the adjoining image. It is an advert. No matter if you use the internet even for a trivial purpose, you have most probably seen this ad. It is one of the most prevalent Indian Internet ad. It is present everywhere, even on naughty sites.

The interesting part is not its omnipresence. It is the girl that appears in the ad. The smart people at shaadi.com do rotate the girls’ pictures. But, this particular girl has been unmarried for more than two years now. I really feel bad for this girl.

Going by the photograph, the girl is beautiful. She should be getting proposals within seconds of registering on shaadi.com. And she should have gotten married with a couple of months. Somehow, shaadi.com has failed to address the aspirations of this potential bride. I wonder why.

One of the obvious reasons could be technical. That, the search or information finding feature at shaadi.com is broken. Due to which, people just can’t get to see the profile of this beautiful girl. It is hidden somewhere deep within their millions of records. Now, most of the potential grooms registered have a very simple search criteria. They enter the basic parameters like, age, education, location, etc. And start crawling through the result. Whenever, their eyeballs get attracted to a good looking girl’s photo, they click on it. It is really simple.

With millions of such grooms looking up shaadi.com day and night, it is hard to believe this one girl stays unnoticed for such a long period of time.

Another problem could be with the girl herself. It’s the twisted little complexly connected world. And all games of it are played in the relationship arena. Pre-existing romantic relations are kep under cover of fake matrimonial profiles. The elders use test profiles to guage the “market”. Desperate guys use the matrimonial site as a social networking tool to hook up with whatever orientation. And the matrimonial sites themselves are smart enough to use people’s emotions to pump up their statistics.

The Internet is funny and complex just like the real world. I hope this girl finds what she is looking for.

The other day I was talking over phone and the person at the end exhaled heavily into the mouthpiece. I usually don’t get too excited by this kind of behavior, but I got thinking.

What if there was a phone in which you could just the blow of air from the other end and pass onto the phone at the other end of the communication channel? That would be an interesting communication. Imagine your girlfriend exhaling gently into the phone and you at the other end, getting all the sensation to keep you up all night.

Or imagine somebody in a hurricane hit area holding phone in the heavy wind and you using all that power over phone to blow the dust out of your furniture. I would love that kind of application. I’ll take my phone all over my house to blow the dirt out wherever I haven’t dared ever. And considering all the devastation that hurricanes do, this will be a productive work coming from them. People might even start to like hurricanes. I can visualize an exponential increase in the number of storm chasers. But, instead of scientific instruments, they’ll be just driving into the hurricane holding out their phones. I can already see several “Discovery” series titles “The Storm Power Chasers”.

So much for an invention.

And we haven’t considered the sucking action yet. I can have my vacuum cleaner suck the wind out of my phone and somebody at the other end could be cleaning their car or themselves. Just think. You’re travelling with your laptop and it gets really dirty with dust on the keyboard and everywhere. Not many people travel with vacuum cleaners. So, you can call somebody who owns one and get cleaning.

I feel an extension to tihs invention coming already. The smell.

If that phone is equiped to transmit smell as well, that’ll be just great. You can smell what perfume the other person is wearing or what your mom is cooking. Or, if you’re longing for a coffee, you can just call a local coffee shop and feel mildly caffeinated. But, there are pitfalls. Please do not fart while using this kind of phone or use it from the restroom. I’d recommned a “mute” like button for smells.

Another extension: communicating heat.

Do not imagine the girlfriend scenario here. Stuck in a jam on road on a hot day, you can just call office and get some cool air over phone. Save some petrol by not using the car air conditioning. I think this one is a killer feature. We can just transfer heat from one part of the world to another using phones and maintain an average ambient temperature all across the globe. This can mean an end to excessive use of air cooling or heating to make your surrounding better. You just keep talking to people all over the world and the temperature just balances itself.

I think I have just found a solution to global warming. I’m waiting for my Nobel. Does it arrive by post or do I get a call?