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September 29, 2007 @ 6:28 pm by Samir Bharadwaj
Cynicism, disbelief, and ignorance plague the progress of the environmental movement, but surely there are a good number of people who do know and do realise that the impending crisis is real. There have been enough advertising dollars spent on the awareness campaigns, and enough beautiful famous people on red carpets have showed their support for the cause — that’s enough for most to accept as the sign of truth. So how can there be this large and visible imbalance between the awareness level and the level of consistent action in the direction of conservation and eco-friendliness amongst the general population? The simplest conclusion we can come to is that in spite of understanding the issues and recognising the dangers, most people are in denial.
“The first stage is denial,” has become something of a cliché. No one quite remembers what it refers to, or in what context that statement was originally framed. To put things back into perspective, the idea of denial being the “first stage” came from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross who described the five stages a person goes through when facing impending death, in her book On Death and Dying. These stages of grief, as they came to be know, were in order: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. While it might be nice and optimistic to think that all is well because we are still in the earliest stage of this process, please remind yourself where this process is meant to lead — a final acceptance of death. I’m not sure that’s very helpful when it comes to the fate of the human race. While we might in some strange way have already skipped a step and jumped into the “bargaining” stage in the environmental movement (that’s for a future article in the series), this state of denial is something to be very worried about.
If we are smart and have any respect for the good old survival instinct that makes us alive rather than a part of scenery, we should be thinking seriously about this mass denial and what can be done about it. Under no circumstances is it in anyone’s interest (except perhaps the Biosphere’s), for the human race to be casually sauntering towards its impending doom. To reverse this disturbing trend we must first endeavour to understand why so many of us are hiding from the truth of the situation. I think you will find that this comes down to combinations and variations of three human complexes:
- A Fear of Change
- A Sense of Impotence
- A Guaranteed Exit Strategy
(Read more…)
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September 26, 2007 @ 9:32 pm by Samir Bharadwaj
10,000 BRAVE NEW WORLDS
One million years have passed since ancient man first launched his frail metal crafts into the great darkness named “outer space”. Now distant galactic clusters are home to the myriad descendants of the inhabitants of Earth. Now, each world, light years separate from the others, forms part of an island universe called ‘Starswarm.’ …
Thus begins the blurb on the back cover of Starswarm by Brian Aldiss. It is an old edition of the book which was first printed in January, 1964. Like many others in my collection, I picked it up on the streets of Bombay, off Flora Fountain, in the shadows of the large tropical trees that line the pavement beside the stone walls of Mumbai University. I decided to buy it the moment I laid eyes on the cover and the name of the author, but the cover blurb simply cemented my resolve and set my pulse quickening with that yearning to devour that only a hardened bibliophile will relate to. And so on that sunny afternoon, which is when I end up doing most of my book buying in Bombay, the money was paid, the old book was placed into a cloth shoulder bag along with our other finds for the day, and we caught a bus that would take us homeward.
The other little fact that every other hardened bibliophile reading this will relate to, is that I didn’t quite get around to reading this newly found gem immediately. It was only a few months later, far from Bombay in the chaotic comfort of my room that I finally picked up Starswarm again. Once more I admired the beautiful typography on the cover, I let the cover blurb wash over me, and I was hooked anew.
(Read more…)
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September 24, 2007 @ 9:58 pm by Samir Bharadwaj
Our modern existence revolves around technology. It’s not like technology is a new thing. In some form or another, tools and implements of various kinds have helped us in our development from the beginning of time. But sometime in our history, on the way to industrialisation, this technological progress came at the expense of older instincts and memories. In a pre-technological world human beings lived in a state of complete awareness of nature — they had little choice because they were very much a part of the greater ecology and were at the mercy of its vagaries. It might have started as fear of the natural elements, but at some point it had certainly reached a stage of respect. Human beings respected nature and learnt of its intricacies and nuances so that they might survive and thrive in this system. We have now come to the stage over the millennia, when our technology allows us the luxury of ignoring nature and natural forces in our daily lives. We don’t think about it because we don’t consider ourselves to be part of it anymore. In this state of imagined independence, it is little wonder that the environmental movement doesn’t have a wide spread, grass-roots acceptance. How do we think of the greater scheme of things when our only thoughts of nature is a sense of disconnection?
This disconnection is a complicated issue. It is not simply something that can be switched on and off at will. So if we want to understand the current state of the environmental movement, and why it hasn’t caught on in the minds of the masses to the required degree, we need to understand this sense of disconnection from nature. Not just in terms of casual buzzwords like “urban sprawl” and “concrete jungle”, but rather in terms of fundamental human attitudes. In my reckoning these are some of the major human thought processes and the elements of our recent culture that have disconnected us from our environment:
- Branding & Packaging
- Added Value
- Isolationism
- Delusions of Grandeur
(Read more…)
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September 22, 2007 @ 10:11 pm by Samir Bharadwaj
I recently stumbled upon the Blog Writing Project over at DailyBlogTips when there was less than a day to go for the deadline to submit a post on the theme of “Tips & Tricks”. The final list of entries was put up and my entry on taking sharp photos without a tripod was included.
It now falls on me, as part of the prescribed process, to select my favourites from the pack. I tried looking through these and selecting a “top 5″, a “top 10″, or something similar, but being the diverse articles that these are I find that impossible, and a bit unfair. So I have simply browsed through the entire 122 articles in the list, and selected those that stood out and displayed some excellence that attracted my attention:
- 5 Ways to Increase Internet Traffic to Your Blog by Aseem
A nice and short selection of tips to increase blog traffic by Aseem. I like the layout of this blog — very clean and functional.
- 10 Tips for Writing Bookmarkable Content by Skellie
Excellent tips from Skellie, many of which will give you some new content ideas immediately.
- Are Your Blog Posts Actually Useful? by Matt
Short, simple, and Matt makes a valid point.
- Tips on Gaining Page Views and Returning Visitors Using Post Series by Sarah
Sarah presents a good, well-organised article with a strong chunk of practical information for bloggers.
- 10 Simple Ways to Show Reader Appreciation by Ronald
Ronald takes a rarely taken route when it comes to blogging tips, and covers the social aspects of blogging and readership. Some real gems here.
- How To Build Lasting Relationships With Your Readers by Vivien
Another article about the social side of blogging, by Vivien. Very cleanly laid out and easy to read.
- 10 tips for successful presentations by Computhomas
Simple, practical, useful.
- 6 Tips to Generate Outstanding Ideas by Luciano
A well presented and multi-layered post from Luciano about the process of ideation.
- How to Keep Your Marriage, Despite you Heavy Metal Addiction by Alexandre
Hilarious! Enough said.
- Quick Meals, Not Fast Food by Geoff
Good practical advice on “quick” cooking. Geoff manages to pack a lot of tasty material into one post.
- 4 Easy Ways to Make More Money with Adsense by Egon
Excellent and truly useful tips for anyone using Google Adsense. Egon’s tip on implementing A/B Testing on its own is well worth the entry fee.
- 5 Ways to Become an Expert Online… and Make Money! by Chad
Simple, straight-forward and solid advice on becoming a recognised expert online. And Chad’s well written article appears in a blog with a very pleasing layout.
- 101 Tips and Tricks for Better Photos by Ciaran
Comprehensive! I think trying to pack in 101 actual tips into a single article might be a bit of overkill, BUT, I can’t argue with any of the actual content here. It is all good and simple A-Grade advice, so dig in.
- 10 Forums to Make You a Better Blogger by Fred
Fred creates a valuable resource by covering a slightly different angle (forums) of a well covered topic (blogging). Many links here I wasn’t aware of, so good job Fred!
- 5 Tips for Saving Money on a Colorado Ski Vacation by Stacy
I have never been sking in Colorado, nor do I plan to in the near future, but Stacy still gets my vote for writing some good solid useful content.
- How I Got Aerobed to Number One in Google by Julian
Julian present a step-by-step case study of the actions taken during the Search Engine Optimisation phase for a particular site. Enlightening.
- Optimize Your Webpage by Edward
I loved the bold layout of this blog, and Edward’s tips.
- How To Style Author Comments Differently by Michael
Good old fashioned code hacking instructions from Michael, which serve a useful purpose. Excellent.
- 9 Tips to be More Creative by CSS
CSS gives good advice in a well organised format.
- How to Setup a Domino Effect of Traffic by Steven
Steven provides tips and an excellent personal case study on how to use social media sites to generate traffic. Very interesting reading.
- Tips to Optimize Your Blog and Get Maximum Visits by Bikram
Various CSS friendly tricks to optimise your blog layout from Bikram.
- Forgotten Someone’s Name? Use These Tricks by Dee
Good honest tips from Dee on how to deal with a situation many of us face often. Some of these while perfectly practical are also quite humourous.
Good job everyone! And best of luck with the competition.
Samir
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September 20, 2007 @ 11:47 pm by Samir Bharadwaj
In spite of all the seemingly irrefutable evidence and the never ceasing campaign to increase awareness, I am sure any comprehensive survey of the views of every last human being on Earth about the environmental problem would result in the following majority response: “What environmental problem?”. This is not simply me trying to be cynical about the issue. In fact, what I’m trying to point out is that one of the major stumbling blocks preventing the true acceptance of our planet’s environmental degradation by the population at large is cynicism.
Like all complex human issues, when we talk of the environmental movement one answer often leads to more questions. The question here is that if cynicism is one of the main reasons why the environmental movement is not working, what causes this mass state of disbelief? I would attribute it to these:
- A Lack of Knowledge
- A Lack of Understanding
- A Lack of Observation
- A Lack of Trust
(Read more…)
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September 19, 2007 @ 9:17 pm by Samir Bharadwaj
It is blog carnival time again and the celebrations have now officially begun. Sit down with your favourite soothing drink and browse through these at leisure. There’s a lot of good people here with plenty of great content to showcase. So, without further ado, I hand over the stage to our stars:
And that brings us to the end of another boisterous carnival listing. I hope you stumbled upon some interesting sites through these links. Thank you all for the attention and the links.
Until next time, viva carnivale!
Samir
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September 18, 2007 @ 11:32 pm by Samir Bharadwaj
One of the most common problems faced by photographers of all levels of expertise is shaky, blurry, fuzzy pictures caused by your hand shaking the camera at the wrong moment. This becomes worse when you’re taking photos in a dark setting and the camera needs to use a longer exposure. The longer the exposure, the more likely you are to have an unsteady hand. “Use a Tripod!”, is the easy answer, but what do you do when a tripod is not at hand or simply not an option? That’s where these tips come in.
The language associated with cameras is the language of guns: “shooting”, “reloading”, you get the picture. But if you really want to get the best out of your camera in a shaky situation you are going to have to learn to treat it right. In my book, photography is nothing as violent and barbaric as a hunt, it would be better served by the caring, sensual, and sometimes colourful language of love and romance. Keeping that in mind here are some tips you can use to take crisp and sharp photographs without a tripod:
- A Firm Embrace
- The Stationary Position
- Pushing the Right Buttons
- A Shoulder to Lean On
- A Little Action on the Side
- Cheek to Cheek
- The Midnight Rendezvous
- Indecent Exposure
- Let’s Do Some Heavy Breathing
If that has wet your appetite enough for some hot photography tips, let’s move on to the details …
(Read more…)
*grin*
