Are radio and televi­sion really so powerful, or is just that the common man (or woman) is extremely gullible? I was reading a couple of articles about Orson Welles’ radio adapta­tion of The War Of The Worlds — during whose broad­cast a large number of people had actually believed that aliens had landed on our planet — and I realised that even today, the same phenom­enon is silently taking place, of course, without all the panic.

For instance, newspa­pers, news broad­casts and televi­sion programs that are biased towards a polit­ical party or a commu­nity can confi­dently project their opinions as facts, and they can get away with it. There are very few who have the time or the incli­na­tion to protest, and feeble protests are seldom heard. The rest of the populace is ready to believe what it sees or hears, allowing itself to be controlled by propaganda.

Writing an email has certain disad­van­tages as compared to speaking directly to the other person. For one thing, given the various inter­pre­ta­tions possible for every written state­ment, it is neces­sary to always sound polite and positive, avoiding many of the terms and phrases used in common speech.

Secondly, it’s slow. Once an informal email is sent, a reply after a few days is common and accepted. I often reply immedi­ately to emails during an electronic conver­sa­tion, but this kind of prompt reply actually irritates many people because, having replied to an email and completing a chore, it is once again their turn to reply!

Google’s new calendar service is now avail­able, at http://www.google.com/calendar. It has the typical Gmail-ish look — lean inter­face, fast loading, and asynchro­nous Javascript and HTML. Then again, can we trust Google? MSN Passport service was not very successful because I don’t think anyone wanted to trust Microsoft; this time Google seems like a disaster waiting to happen. With every service that Google launches, we’re putting more of our data on their servers — the land of no ‘Delete’ — and the day their security system gets compro­mised, we’re all in big trouble.

Some days ago, there was an earth­quake in Gujarat. On the 6^th of April, there were a few more.

Tremors have liter­ally become common­place today. Prior to the Latur earth­quake of 1993, I used to think earth­quakes were a rare occur­rence signi­fying the awesome power of nature. I still remember the fasci­na­tion I felt when I realized that I was actually experi­encing one. If it weren’t for the loss of lives and property, it would have been a fun thing, even despite the fact that everyone at home blamed me for “shaking the bed”.

Now, if an earth­quake were to occur, I’m more far more likely to say, “Oh, did you feel the second one?”

If you look at the calendar to the right, you’ll notice that there is no entry for the 6^th of April 2006. I decided that it was finally time for a break.

A recur­ring pattern when it comes to resolu­tions is that they are initially executed with great gusto, but the moment there is a break, the enthu­siasm fizzles out. The argument that follows is that if one lapse could be permitted, many more lapses wouldn’t be a very big deal. (I’ve said this before.)

So — this is a test of my resolu­tion to blog regularly. It’s almost like a drama, isn’t it? What’s going to happen next?

To some questions, there are no right answers — any answer is a bad answer. How do you get out of that kind of a situation?

It is said that we depend on technology the way fish depend on water — they hardly realize that it is all around them, but it is never­the­less vital for survival.

Modern technology is mostly powered by electricity, and this becomes painfully apparent whenever there is a power-cut. We look around and realize that we have nothing at all to do. All we can do is wait for things to become normal again. After a while, however, we realize that there are stars in the sky (if it is night-time), that there are (non-computer) games to be played, and that there’s a lovely breeze blowing across the terrace.

Sometimes, it is almost worth­while to have a power-cut, simply to experi­ence — and notice — certain things that we never would otherwise.

Most people I know find it hard to read books or even long pieces of text on the computer screen. Ebooks don’t seem to provide the same level of comfort provided by real books. For some, reading text on the screen for a consid­er­able length of time strains the eyes, but most people find it diffi­cult to sit in the same position for a long time, as is neces­sary while reading an ebook.

The only other thing that differ­en­ti­ates the computer screen from printed paper is that the screen actually emits light of various colours, rather than absorb light of all other colours. Perhaps we could have ‘comfort­able’ electronic displays that absorb light of all other wavelengths whenever a partic­ular colour needs to be displayed.