California ...

I am going to be in Newport Beach, California for the next three days. It is a homecoming of sorts for me, as I spent about four months living here at the Marriott Suites during 2004. Its been more than a year since I was here though. It was great, landing at good ol' John Wayne airport, driving up MacArthur Blvd ... Its going to be a hard three days though - I am part of a team that is organizing a strategy workshop for a local company.

If Indian states were to be matched against US States, I would classify California as the Goa of the US, or vice versa ... That would be an interesting exercise would it not, to match each Indian state against a US state that is "relatively the same" - Meaning that both states are looked at in the same manner, by the populations of the two respective countries.

For example, Bihar and Arkansas might be matched up, as both of the states are unanimously regarded by Indians and Americans respectively as being hell-holes. That is not to say that Arkansas resembles Bihar closely, but the objective was to do a "relative" analysis.

Geez, that was long winded !

This has to stop ...

In a very recent post, I was wondering aloud about the need for so many journalists to be embedded in Iraq for extended periods of time. And within a week, an ABC journalist and cameraman get themselves shot at ...

Do we really need to have so many journalists in Iraq ? Doesn't the responsibility of protecting these journalists overtax an already over-strained military ?

I see no reason for ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and CNN to each have their own crew there, especially considering the fact that their news reporting is so dramatically "different" from each other ...

Why not have three journalists and cameramen there, at a time ? I don't believe that the Government should be allowed to have a monopoly on war-time news reporting, as was the case in previous wars, but geez, these embedded journalists are just overkill.

Putting their lives at risk to what end ? Does anybody in the US not tune them out ?

Mugtagged !

Folks, I have been mugtagged by Ponnarasi !

I am supposed to post a picture of my favorite mug ... Well, I dont drink coffee or tea and as I live in a very functional, bachelor pad - I only have one mug ! - So, I suppose that automatically becomes my favorite ...

I bought it during a spring break trip to Myrtle Beach.

Bringing up kids ...

I was talking with a very good friend of mine yesterday after a looong time, and we were chatting about a bunch of different things .... And one of the topics we talked about (though neither of us has any first hand experience with it) was the difficulty of bringing up kids in today's world ...

We were exchanging horror stories about what goes on in the "elite" schools in Chennai.

- Kids carrying around 50,000 rupees in cash to school
- A birthday party for a seven year old where every child invited gets a cell phone
- Foreign holidays becoming the norm, with children holidaying in india being looked down upon

Things are becoming more and more difficult for children growing up in India - A sudden spurt in prosperity without the benefit of experience and gradual maturity is creating a crazy situation that I cannot even describe completely.

I always thought that it was much easier to bring children up in India .... That children brought up in the US would be confused (ABCD's) and that they would be so conflicted that they would never be able to have a normal life. I dont think this is true any more ... Children in Chennai are as confused as the ABCD's ...

India really isnt the staid, comforting haven that I can go back to ... Money has changed it all ...

Does Sachin Tendulkar sell more Pepsi ...

I was having this debate with a few friends in Bangalore. I would think that this must be quite a common theme of discussion amongst Indians around the world ...

One of my friends argued that there was no logical connection between Sachin and Pepsi and that there was no intrinsic advantage in using him to promote the brand. He believed that people drank colas purely to quench their thirst and/or because they liked the taste. He believed that almost no one would go to a second store if the first store was out of their preferred cola brand - In other words, a Pepsi-drinker would in most cases accept a Coke if Pepsi was not available.

I believed that paying Sachin millions to promote Pepsi was worthwhile because of the following reasons:
1. Buying a cola is an emotional decision - Demanding Rs.10 for something worth Rs.1 is only possible if there is a strong brand/emotional connection or an association with a perception such as "coolness", "being IN" etc ...
2. Substitution would be accepted by most people, but the challenge is to be people's first choice and then develop a good distribution strategy that would prevent your product from being out of stock.
3. What else can a Cola company do with their money ? Their product is already as cheap as it can possibly be, the distribution network is set up ...

And it even makes sense economically. Lets assume Pepsi pays Sachin Rs. 10 crores/year for his endorsement.

India's population is about 105 crores.
Of this, about 75 crore people are probably not regular consumers (<6 per year)
Of the remaining 30 crores, the average yearly consumption is probably about 18 bottles.

Lets then assume that the 30 crores is evenly spread amongst Pepsi brands (Pepsi, Mirinda, 7Up), Coke brands (Coke, Fanta, Sprite) and local brands (Kali Mark, Bovonto, Fruitang !).

The profit/bottle is probably about Rs 1.50 for the cola companies. So, the value of a cola-consumer is Rs.27/year. In order to justify paying Rs. 10 crores to Sachin, he has to increase the Pepsi drinking population by (10 Crore/Rs.27) = 0.37 crores.

This can be achieved by converting a Coke/Regional brand consumer or by making a non-regular consumer a regular consumer. In other words, the target audience is 95 crore people. So the desired conversion ratio is (0.37/95) or 1 in every 256 people.

Of 256 people you know, would one person drink Pepsi just because Sachin drinks it ?
I think so ...

Like an old Tamil movie ...

In the Tamil movies of a long while ago, the songs in the movie would typically be sung by the actor and actress themselves. And the songs would not be sung in a recording studio and dubbed in - The actors would sing the song as they did their dancing ! Truly, those folks were multi-talented :-)

Yesterday, I saw an awesome movie called "Hustle & Flow", which brought together a few of the things I love the most - Hip-Hop, an underdog, grit, a dream and great acting in an indie (sort of) movie.

The movie revolves around a pimp who raps. He lives in a house with three prostitutes that he pimps. He decides that he wants to cut a record and gets a recording studio set up at home. He starts rapping and gets one of the women to try singing - And this becomes one of the best scenes in the movie - Of free-flowing rap, frustration finding its outlet, sweet release in the form of music and I felt that they were singing the song themselves ....

Reduce the spray ...

A couple of days ago, it rained quite heavily here in Raleigh. And unfortunately I had to drive somewhere while it was raining. And as usual, the visibility on the highway was really bad, partly because of the rain, but mostly because of the spray from the tires of the cars ahead of me.

Would'nt it be nice to have some sort of plastic deflector that could be placed behind the tire - Especially if they would automatically come down while the wipers are switched on. The mudguards that most cars have are just not large enough.

Momma's boy !

This is really funny !

Hiring People

I have been trying to hire some people for a company that I recently set up - And in that context, I put an ad on India's No. 1 job search site Naukri.

Though I have gotten several excellent responses, there are some funny things that I have noticed ...

1. Would you like fries with that ?

A large number of applicants (Indians) with a degree from the UK or Australia. That isn't funny by itself, but its incredible how, without variation, each one of them has worked at Burger King, Blockbuster or sort of a dry cleaner and has put that on their resume as "Work Experience" ! Guys, take that off unless you are applying to Saravana Bhavan !!

2. Incredible, but true ...

I remember a story that my grand-dad's brother (who became Principal of one of India's top 10 Engineering colleges) used to tell about an interview for a professorship at BITS, Pilani.

He went in and found his interview panel full of Tamil Brahmins. The custom then was to append one's caste to one's name. He was asked for his name and after listening to his response (which did not reveal his caste), they asked for his father's name, which again did not reveal his caste ... He was not asked any further questions and was asked to leave.

Of course things have changed DRASTICALLY since then and I was a well-accepted student at Pilani myself, with so many great Brahmin friends ...

However, after so much development and globalization, I find it amazing that a few applicants still put their religion on their resumes ! And worst of all, some of them have their caste as well ! I instantly trash any resumes that have any mention of religion/caste, no matter what their religion/caste may be ...

If Joe Lieberman had won ...

While watching a movie tonight, I saw a clip of Richard Nixon being sworn in as the President of the United States. And as is the custom, he had one hand on the King James bible and the other was held up. Which got me wondering what Joe Lieberman would have done if he had won the 2004 elections (He is an Orthodox Jew) ?

Or for that matter, how were his swearing in ceremonies as Senator held ?

Henry Kissinger, who was also a Jew (though not Orthodox), took his oath to the office of Secretary of State with his hand on a bible and throughout his tenure displayed absolutely no inclination to support the Jews (read Israel).

Something similar to Kamaraj, the Tamil Nadu chief minister who decided he would give absolutely no favors to people of his caste (Nadars), who had supported him during his campaign. This would have been okay, except for the fact that in his desire to have an unblemished record, he went to the other extreme and would refuse to help Nadars, even in legitimate situations. And of course, in the next election, he famously lost his deposit to an unknown rival candidate.

Entertainment of the Western world

Sometimes, when I listen to NPR as I am driving, or when I read CNN.com or when I read any of the mainstream newspapers in the US, I have started realizing that although the material needs/greed of the Western world is one of the prime contributors to the strife around the world, a close second is the need to keep people entertained. And when I say "entertained", I am not referring to activities that would bring joy to people but just things that would keep a person's mind occupied.

Is there really a need to have so many journalists embedded in Iraq ? For 3.5 years ? Is it really that important that people can get their news about Iraq from a 100 different sources, while the existence of these journalists in the Red Zone lead to their kidnapping followed by Marines-led rescue operations that have a minimum collateral damage of 10 lives ?

Does the need for Americans to know about "What makes a muslim smile" require them to land in India and Pakistan and film the local people without adequate understanding of the environment, leading to some loutish director mouthing off on NPR about how he caused a mini-stampede in India ?

Is the third world the new source of entertainment ?
Thank God for video games, otherwise some dumbasses would be pushing for an invasion of Iran right now...

The Indian Traffic Army

After having driven in Chennai for two months, and having braved many a rush-hour snarl, I had plenty of opportunity to contemplate the world around me ...

And nothing describes the Chennai traffic chaos better than the word "war". And indeed it is a war of quite a large scale, with every vehicle fighting each other for every inch of road length and the blaring horns serving as the modern-day war conches.

And what if you were to form an army with vehicles picked from the Indian roads ? What would they be ? And what roles would they play ?

Autos would be a definite pick. With their mobility and their ability to squeeze into the narrowest of spaces. In addition, thee Auto regiment possesses some of our bravest drivers, who would risk their lives for an inch of tar.

Fish Carts are another obvious choice with their unwieldy frames that are almost impossible to steer clear off. Their ability to make a clean scratch down the entire length of your vehicle, leaving you with no recourse even with the Police, because no case can be filed against an unregistered vehicle, which according to the city records, does not exist !

Some good, beat-up buses for sure. Some sprinters from the Chennai Transportation Corporation and some marathoners from the cadres of the ECR by-pass riders. And some crabby conductors with the ear-splitting whistles ...

And what about some good ol' beat-up trucks ? Some ancient Fargo's maybe ? Or some Tata's with a fierce looking good luck charm mask of a devil with a tongue hanging out. But then, what could be scarier than a 12 year old cleaner driving a 3000 cc truck !

Imagine a scenario where this Indian motor army was fighting an urban war with the "German Army" ... The German army, with the latest of technology with a fleet of BMW's sedans, Benz Smart Cars, Volvo trucks ...

Imagine the two going head to head in the Chennai, with all of its narrow streets and potholes. I think the Germans would be beaten to death and I can imagine what their fleet would look like after the "war" - Windshields completely covered with paan, about 25 Indians in each back seat (wearing plastic helmets for some reason), a crushed pumpkin on the top, lime juice in the driver's eye, a couple of kids selling dust cloths on the bonnet and an entire auto in the front passenger seat - Not a pretty picture.

Maybe thats why the Iraqi insurgents are beating the crap out of the US Army.

Jet Airways

In a previous post, I had raved about Jet Airways and their incredible service. When I was in India this time, I flew them from Chennai to Mumbai and I was floored by their latest practice ....

The air-hostess was walking down the aisle serving people and when she got to the row ahead of me, I heard her greet the three guys sitting there by name - And I thought, nice gesture, they must fly Jet frequently.

When she got to me, she actually knew my name ! I was absolutely stunned that she had actually taken the effort to memorize the name of everybody ...

I tell you, this airline is going to take over the world ... I wish they would hurry up and start flying the US-India route.

Kids under streetlights ...

When I was in school, we used to live in a place called KK Nagar in Madurai. There was a small man-made lake close to my house and there was a road that was optimistically titled "Lake View Road" ! I used to go for my Maths tuition to a place on this road and on the way back home, I would see lots of kids studying under streetlights - Presumably because they did not have an electricity connection in their home.

My grandfather, who is now a top doctor grew up studying under streetlights as well.

One day, when I was in Chennai, I had gone to Spencer's Plaza. When I was walking back to my car, I noticed something that made me stop in my tracks. A group of kids sitting in a corner of the parking lot, under a tube-light, studying ....

Everything has changed ...
Nothing has changed ...

A countries road to disaster ...

Is paved with inflexibility ...

In a previous post Road to Failure, I had written about how formerly rich families, when confronted with relative poverty, dig their own graves by refusing to modify their behaviour to suit their changed circumstances.

Extending this, would this not be true of countries as well ? The US, currently the undisputed super-power of the world, currently plays the role of an "arrogant rich family" in the world family.

And of course, every rich family will pass into relative obscurity at some point. And so will superpowers - The US cannot expect to retain its position of pre-eminence forever. Spain, France, Portugal, UK, Russia, India, Iran/Iraq, Italy and Germany have all had phases of super-powerdom.

Being a super-power in these modern times comes with some agreeable advantages - The ability to wage war with any country of one's choice, the ability to use the World Bank as a tool to puppetize Third World countries, the ability to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries and the ability to use foreign lives as fuel for their own economic growth (Either in nationalistic expansion, technology guinea pigs or psychological chess).

This behaviour is sustainable as long as the country retains its position as a super-power, as the accompanying economic and miliary might disallow any significant opposition. However, when the US starts slipping from this position, I will wager that the country will continue to display the exact same behaviour that it displays today and consequently shoot itself in the foot and make any process to climb back to the top that much more difficult and painful.

A Filler Post

Rottweiler vs. Honor Student

Here in North Carolina, it sometimes seems like every second car has a bumper sticker which says something like this - "I have an Honor Roll student at Apex High" or "Proud Parent of Millbrook High Honor Roll student".

Today, I saw an awesome bumper sticker that must have been created by somebody that was fed up with the above stickers ! It read "My Rottweiler is smarter than your Honor Roll student" !!

Sagnik's attempt to do a "Russell Peters" !

Check out this hilarious podcast by Shaggy (my BITSian batch mate) on what would happen if an Asian and a Gujju mated - http://www.sagniknandy.com/podCasts/pod-3.mp3

Indian Stock Market

Please go below 8500 levels again ! Please, please, please !!

A Rant ...

(This post is entirely personal and it is not my intention to convert anyone to my way of thinking.)

I do not accept Hinduism as a way of life and worship.

I hate what Hinduism is today:
A religion of fear, fed by the perpetuation of superstition.
A religion controlled by a small coterie of elitists that have chosen to make this religion a tool for personal aggrandizement
A non-inclusive religion, that thrives on the disenfranchisement of the people existing on the periphery of society, the ones that need the most help/direction
A religion that takes more than it gives

I believe in God - I believe in him as a superior being that influences everyone's life and was responsible for the creation of earth and life on earth. I might even accept him as having passed through Earth in the forms of Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma and the various other mythical figures. I believe in miracles, I believe in deviations from recognized physical laws and I believe in illogic.

However, I believe that God is beyond corruption and that he is not subject to flattery, does not discriminate, is not greedy and is, all-in-all, much above the base form of worship that Hinduism forces one through. I believe that godliness and belief in God need only be in one's mind - There is no need for any sort of external manifestation of these beliefs.

This post has been building up for several years, but a recent article in the "Indian Express" finally triggered it. The article talked about the plans to build a "branch" of the Tirupati temple in Chennai at the cost of Rs. 100 crores. What in heavens name is the need for spend that money on a pile of stones when people starve to death a few miles away ? Does a diamond crown make God greater ? Does it make him happier ? I think not. The Tirupati temple receives more than one crore rupees as donations everyday - Enough to feed about 200,000 people for a day. Instead, a small fraction goes to feeding the poor and the rest goes to buying gold for God. What irony ! God created everything on Earth, including every gram of Gold and you believe he is happy that you take the food from people's mouths and buy gold for him ? Or give him flowers ? Or build a new temple ? Or celebrate a holiday ?

God is ABOVE all of this ... Hinduism has become an instrument for people to display their materialistic core and priests and other religious functionaries have shown their readiness to corrupt the religion by allowing "devotees" to form a "partnership" with God, with a promise to give God a certain portion of their profits every year. Bullshit !! Go feed the poor, educate the illiterate, protect the oppressed !! God does not need money, human beings do.

Why attempt to drag God down to our human level by involving him in monetary transactions - Why not elevate ourselves to his level instead ?

Hinduism seems to following the same route that the Catholic church has already taken in the past - The tendency to get involved in politics, the corruption/vice of top authorities and the ill-treatment of a certain section of the community. I now understand the rationale behind the efforts by leaders such as Periyar to create the "Suya Mariadhai" (Self-Respect) movement which eschewed Hinduism and all its constituent actions, including the caste system, superstitions and customs. Periyar would never pay attention to the "Raagu Kalam" calculations and would always start his major initiatives during this inauspicious time.

In every custom or tradition in Hinduism, I see an attempt by religious figures to keep people under their thumb. Every ceremony, every superstition - None of this is sanctioned or required by God and is just an expression of human ego. Every event now involves complex ceremonies and yagnas which place a huge burden on the heads of the poor. The use of the caste system to perpetuate social injustice is another tragic consequence of Hinduism. Fear has become the primary motivation for people to adhere to these practices - This should be replaced by a love for God, which would automatically manifest in service to fellow human beings.

There need be no intermediary between a person and God. One just has to be oneself with God.

There is no need for any translation of your feelings for God, in the form of Slokas
There is no need for a set procedure to follow - No need for formal ceremonies
There is no need for any offerings or gifts
There is no need to go to a specific place, or to do this at a specific time

I am not going to have a religious ceremony for my wedding.

Burqas in Bhopal ...

I read this article recently in "Outlook". It was one of the articles about Bhopal that was published on the last page of an issue - The author had spent a few days in Bhopal and had been struck by how well-planned and resident-friendly the city was, which was certainly a surprise to me, considering the negative mental image I had of Madhya Pradesh.

During his/her visit to Bhopal, the author had noticed a large number of girls wearing burqas, which in itself was nothing special, as Madhya Pradesh has a large muslim population. However, the author also noticed that many of these girls were zooming around on bikes, hugging their boy friends and also wearing fashionable jeans under the burqa ...

And when the author asked local people about this phenomenon, he was told that every Hindu girl in Bhopal had a burqa in hr wardrobe and used it to roam around the city without being recognized !!

Ingenious !

Alitalia/Milan

Am at Milan-Malpensa airport right now. I almost missed the flight at Mumbai because I had my watch set 30 minutes slow !

The Alitalia flight, despite everyone's warnings, was just fine - The leg room was nice, and they were on time. A good episode of "Friends" was thrown in as well.

On the flip side, the air hostesses treated everyone like slaves though and were condescendingly pronouncing english words syllable by syllable to highly educated Indian engineers en-route to their hi-tech careers in Silicon Valley. Oh well, Europeans .... :-)

Milan airport has wi-fi, but I havent been able to find a business center, which I need desperately !

Hopefully, I will be back posting real soon, I have several bottled-up ideas :-)

Back to the US ....

Leaving Chennai today evening ... Its been a phenomenal two months and I can't wait to make Chennai my permanent base - Which will happen if my new company gets a client, which will happen only if I finish working on the prototype, which means I need to go now !

Sketching a woman

Amazing, amazing, amazing !!

Rape ...

Dear Readers, after reading this post's title and the title of a previous post (Sexual connotations of murder), I hope that you have'nt gotten me pegged as some sort of homicidal rapist !! I assure you that this is not the case, and I am still the good ol' village boy, as always.

I have had, for a long time, a theory that the incidence of rape would be lowest in countries where sexual permissiveness was high and/or countries where escape valves for uncontrolled sexual desires existed (Brothels, strip clubs, escorts and such like).

So, I decided to do some research, and I looked up the number of rape victims per capita, and I was quite shocked at some of the stats.

Saudi Arabia had the lowest incidence of rape (0.0032/1000 People) which was quite in line with my expectation, given the fact that a convicted rapist has his member cut off, as punishment !

India was one of the better ones on this list at 0.014/1000 people.

Some of the scary ones:

• South Africa at 1.19/1000 people. Assuming that 99% of the people that are raped are women, this translates to 1 in every 424 women ! And if you assume that only 80% of rapes are reported, that is 1 in every 339 women !!
• Australia and Canada are both at around 1 in every 673 women (Both countries have pockets of legal prostitution)
• The United States is surprisingly high at 1 in every 1,683 women
• 11 of the Top 18 on the list are developed countries
• Netherlands, the world's favorite destination for paid sex, was No. 22 on the list (1 in every 5,000 women)

So, at first glance, it would seem that rape has little relation to income and access to sex (paid or otherwise). Rape, I must acknowledge, seems to have nothing to do with sex - It seems to be a tool of control and suppression (as always claimed by feminists).

Of course, in Bangalore, there was the recent rape of a call-centre worker. The reaction of the City Police was classic - It adviced the women to wear more conservative clothes and not be excessively physically demonstrative to co-passengers.

Of course, its common knowledge that the back seat of call center cabs are the most popular of "make-out" spots for these young 'uns.

The rationale of the Police was that the cab drivers, because of their different upbringing would not comprehend that a woman could kiss a guy in public and not be a whore.

My first instinct was to say "Bull Shit" to the police's request - However, on second thoughts I wonder if there is any other safe option ? It is all very well for women (and men) to behave in exactly the way they like and expect to be treated perfectly normally. However, with the gulf between the rich India and poor India growing (especially in matters of sexual morals), accentuated by dumb vernacular movies showing the woman in a short skirt as inevitably being a "vamp", it might be asking for too much to expect the cab-drivers to look beyond outward appearences and actions.

I believe that the problem is that of communication. Poor Indian men (indigent, that is !) have very very little communication with women - This is usually restricted to their mother, sister and an odd cousin or two. In this absence of communication, the man's perception/stereotypes of women is largely shaped by the movies !

There are men who want sex and women who want sex - Its just a matter of connecting these two groups, with a robust communication system to facilitate the negotiation !!

Vending Machines

Vending machines are absolutely ubiquitous in the US, with vending machines in the most unlikley of places (Restrooms, gyms (M&M's) and ATM's) !

I have noticed that the trend towards vending machines is slowing catching on in India ... However, I really wonder whether its necessary given that we have such a surfeit of employable people that are ready to work for a pittance.

In fact, the other day, when I was walking towards a vending machine at the Chennai Airport, I was surprised to see a person stand up and "operate" the machine on my behalf !

The sexual connotations of murder ...

I watched "Arindhum Ariyalum" a couple of days ago with Novich. Quite good.

Arya, who is the "hero" of the movie, is the son of an underworld don. He is an absolute hothead and is ever-ready to cut up people with his "aruval".

In the Tamil slang that is used by the goondas, "poatturuvaen" means "I will kill him". Strangely enough, the same word can be used to refer to sexual intercourse as well.

When I heard Arya running around using this phrase, it triggered a memory in my mind of a scene from the God Father (which I have read about 50 times).

When Michael kills McCluskey and Sollozzo and gets into the get-away car driven by Tessio (the safety valve caporegime), Tessio asks him "Did you do the job on Sollozzo ?" which again is a phrase that could be used to refer to the act of seducing a woman.

How did murder get this sexual connotation ?

Food via an SMS

As I have mentioned several times before, I absolutely love my mother's cooking ! Now that its time for me to leave India and go back to the US (on Jan 7th), that is going to be one of the things I will miss the most ... I was speaking to my mother about this the other day and she was telling me that she wished there was a way to SMS food to me !

Now, although at the surface it seems quite ludicrous, I dont think its entirely unrealistic ... With the advent of Virtual Reality technologies, this is going to be possible one day.

If you really think about it, eating is a very sensual experience

• Eyes - Color, presentation, familiarity
• Ears - Sizzle, crunch
• Tongue/Lips - Taste, texture
• Hand - Feel, temperature
• Nose - Smell

If I eat a piece of Chilli Chicken for example, its specific sensual characteristics register in my brain and trigger a series of reactions in my brain, that includes a complex interplay of prior experience, the five senses and my own "personal taste".

Do I HAVE to eat a piece of Chilli Chicken for these emotional responses to be triggered ? Or can they be triggered by bypassing the sensual organs (Eyes, Ears, Tongue, Hand and Nose) and going directly to the brain ?

What is the exact seats of visual, auditory, taste, tactile and olfactory senses in the brain are identified and wired ? Would precise amounts of electrical impulses applied to these spots produce the same response as eating a piece of chicken would ?

If that was possible, would that be the future ? With my mother cooking some chicken, getting that "translated" to sensual variables, transmitting this via an SMS to me, my Virtual Reality set-up using those variables to activate the electrodes ...

The high that comes from eating chicken, without actual ingestion - Would this be the foundation of a perfect diet ?

And maybe smokers and drug addicts could get their kicks without actually abusing substances ?

If this comes through, the importance of logistics/transportation in the world would be reduced drastically - If I wish to eat a Jersey Mikes' sandwich in Chennai, I could order it online and have an "sandwich SMS" sent to me !

And, further global commerce would be modified drastically with ways of production and distribution being changed. Also, there would be a huge market for a "perfect food" - With exactly the right amount of calories/nutrients - It's taste and ability to fill one's stomach would no longer be relevant.

This could be extended to arena's beyond food as well. Travel is one obvious one.

PS: As is evident from this post, I don't think that there is any chance that I will stick to my New Year resolution !

Happy New Year !

I hope your year is filled with peace, prosperity and love ...

I have resolved to treat my stomach with more respect this year. What about you guys ?