April 23, 2020

Fine

I am not sure what it is but I am not able to work these days. I mean it's not like I have work work, which may be part of the problem, but I did keep myself busy so far with something or the other. Like writing a book. Taking courses but these days I am unable to do so. It's not like I don't have the inspiration to do work, especially with the book. It's just I can't form sentences to write what I want to write. The flow is missing, which is ironic as I can write a blog post about not working. Like this one. 

Part of me wishes I was employed at the moment. Earning your salary is a powerful motivator. Although it might be just the present environment that might be doing this. Who knows? I just don't want to sit in front of my laptop, staring at the screen, doing nothing. Any solutions?


April 21, 2020

Exit Startegy

Of course, I am talking about COVID-19. With the number of infections in the world crossing 2.5 million and race being on for developing a vaccine, I wonder if we are focusing on the right thing. I mean, it will take about 12-18 months to develop a vaccine. The virus has infected 2.5 million people in the last 4 months (it started spreading outside China in Jan). With the rate of contagion being highish, how many will it infect in the next 12-18 months? As per my calculation, we will infect the entire population of the world in about 7 months since the start in January at the current rate of spread. We are already in month 4.


Even at a slower rate of infection, the entire world will be infected in 288 days. So, again, what's the point of a vaccine?
 

Well, we don't yet know how bad the re-infection would be. By re-infection, I mean people who have already gotten better from COVID-19 infection may get re-infected. How bad this re-infection would be? Will it be better or worse than the first infection? Only time will tell. There is also a possibility of the virus mutating itself with time. I don't know if the vaccine will be effective in that case. Would we need to reinvent another one?

 Also, I can't imagine it will be possible for us to be in lockdown for the next 12-18 months. Economic costs need to be balanced. There will be lives and livelihoods lost that will start to mount up soon. So lives lost due to Coronavirus need to be balanced out with lives and livelihood lost due to lockdown. 

The point of the lockdown, in the first place, was to flatten the curve so that our medical sector can cope with the number of additional people getting sick. The keyword being "additional". Without turning down existing patients or other patients. Minimize the collateral damage as well as damage due to COIVID-19. We have been building new facilities all over the world. Is it enough? Do we have enough supplies? And most importantly, do we have enough medical staff to deal with this? Are we prepared? 

The next question is have we flattened the curve? Is it enough?   If not, then do we know when we would have done so? 

Again, this needs to be balanced with Economic costs, social unrest, and collateral damages. We don't want to keep focusing on one problem only. We have multiple problems. We need to find the best solution that help with these multiple problems. 

PS: 1. These are back of envelope calculations although I don't think they are too far from actual rates. 
2. For India:

With the actual rate (ignoring initial days), we will reach 1.3 billion in 161 days from January 22, 2020. The date would be 1st July 2020.
This is 33% less rate than actual. We reach 1.3 billion in 222 days from 22 January 2020. That will be 31st August 2020.



April 13, 2020

Discipline

I jumped 'B' and 'C', I know. But guess what? I think I lack the 'discipline' to follow through a challenge/routine. To be honest, it felt like I would be writing for the sake of writing while having nothing new to share. That wasn't incentive enough, I guess. To write just to write.

I may have done this ten years back. Heck, I think I would have jumped through hoops last year too. I just feel too old to be jumping hoops anymore. Either that or I have jumped through too many hoops without any expected results. I just don't see the point of jumping hoops anymore, for anyone or for anything. Nothing works even if you keep jumping hoops. So what's the point.

Either way, yet another project in the past few months that I am not following through...

April 11, 2020

Apocalypse #AtoZchallenge 2020


Really? Well, that's what few people claim this to be. I mean I know we are not in a normal situation at the moment (no, I don't use abbreviations. That must show my age but I don't care). I am not sure it is as bad as an apocalypse. Things are bad. Yes. More than half the world population is in some form of restricted movement scenario. We are watching counters for infected people and deaths go up and up. It's scary. However, the death rate is 6%, unlike ebola with up to 90% death rate. The issue we are facing is the speed at which this is spreading, hence the movement restrictions. So can we not make it something bigger than it already is?  

P.S.: 1. Well, I am late to the AtoZ Challenge but better late than never.
2. I managed to write the entire post without mentioning Coronavirus by name. Pretty sure you understood what I was talking about anyway. Goes to show we all have associated apocalypse with Coronavirus. That or nothing else is going on in the world that comes close to apocalypse at the moment.   

April 10, 2020

Book Writing

So I am writing a book. A book of Economics, to be precise. No, I am not an Economist per se. I took one class in Economics in 9th grade. I am a Geophysicist (I have a Ph.D. to prove that one) by training and some kind of analyst by profession (I think. Well, I really hope so). 

So I am writing a book of Economics. Because I find it fascinating. Because I think I may have a different point of view. But I don't know if that point of view has been worked on before. If they already have some fancy term for it.

Yet, I am writing a book. And I plan to publish it. I think it's a good idea. Well, sometimes I think I am in over my head on this. 

Yet, I enjoy writing the book. Well, most of the time. So I am going to write that book and publish it on Kindle. I will let the market forces do their job.

PS: How do you figure out that your book is done? I mean I can keep writing and keep adding something or the other to it. How do I know wits time to stop and publish the book?    

April 9, 2020

Would I?

With all that's going on with Coronavirus I am very sure this is going to sound highly inappropriate. I don't know if it's the fear or hope but part of my brain keeps thinking about how would my body will react to the virus. Most of the time, I am confused that it will be mild. Why? Because I don't think after 2 years of all this drama, my life will be as anti-climactic as that. The other part- the one with fear- is scared that it might just be that...

April 8, 2020

Lockdown Life

So we have been under lockdown for more than two weeks now. Being an introvert, I thought that this wouldn't be a problem. And to some extent it isn't. I don't have any craving to go out as such. But the days I have gone out for essential shopping, I feel a bit more down. The usual bustling and the noise, I kinda miss it. Even though absence of usual bustling and noise is a good sign. Still everything seems to be empty. I can't really explain it, it's just not a nice feeling. It makes me feel slightly more worried about the current state of things. It just gets real in a way that staying at home doesn't.  

That being state of things I think I need to find an outlet to rant. I have been ranting on WhatsApp quite a lot recently, which isn't the best option. So will try ranting on the blog instead for next few days. Don't mind me..

P.S.: I miss my blog friends. It's not very motivating to write a post when no one is reading and commenting. Although it is good for my ranting session. At least, I will not  be bothering anyone..

February 9, 2020

Water

I am fascinated by water bodies. Like rivers. When I am watching a river, or a canal, flow, I am enthralled by the volume of water crossing me every second. Water that has travelled thousands of kilometres and that continue to travel thousands of kilometres to reach its destination, which is often an ocean.

Oceans are another fascinating thing. So much water just being there, moving with tides and waves. The fluid allowed free movement in all aspects -the physics of all these movements. And just not that. Oceans cover three-quarters of the Earth surface. Well, I say oceans but honestly, there is only one water body there, isn't it? We like to call it seas, gulfs, bays, and oceans for our convenience but honestly, have you seen a boundary? I mean, where does Bay of Bengal ends and Indian ocean begins? It's like differentiating Europe and Asia as two different continents when they are really a part of the same landmass. Guess the Europeans didn't want to be bundle up with the Asians so insisted on creating two continents from one landmass. If they went by their own definition of the continent, they wouldn't have done so. It's not like having one big continent at that point would have affected anything (EU would have been named something else - that's all). But I digress. I was talking about the Ocean. The big water body that encompasses the majority of the Earth.

And it's not just that. It is expanding, the ocean that is. And I am not talking about climate change and associated sea-level rise, which are also happening. But that's a transient event for the 4 billion years old Earth that has seen many such events. I am talking about plate tectonics.

You see, in the plate-tectonics, there are convergent plate boundaries and there are divergent plate boundaries. Convergent plate boundaries are where two plates converge. This results in the destruction of one of the plate. Divergent plate boundaries are where a new plate is formed from the lava in the mantle.

Now a plate can be made of either have a continental crust or an oceanic crust. So there can be three different types of convergent plate boundaries. The convergence of a continental plate and an oceanic plate results in the destruction of the continental plate. The convergence of two continental plates results in the destruction of one continental plate (for example, the Indian plate is submerging under the Eurasian plate). The convergence of two oceanic plates results in the destruction of one of the oceanic plate.

But when it comes to constructing a new plate, divergent boundaries only create the oceanic crust. There is no continental crust being created anywhere.

So basically, the continental crust is getting destroyed inch by inch every year on the Earth but not created. It's like continents are on a self destruct mode at a very very slow pace.

Every time I see or read a sci-fi about Earth's final end, in the back of my mind I always have this picture where the planet has turned all blue with no brown and green of continents left. Would evolution make life crawl back to the ocean? Or, would life simply evolve in the ocean while life on continents gets destroyed? Which species will survive, which will die out? Or would the life itself die out? Who knows?

We are still trying to figure out the transient climate change crisis.

PS: Okay, I will bite. Climate Change. So the argument has been made (yes, I am intentionally using passive voice) that to "stop" the current climate change crisis, we should stop almost all Economic growth. Let's play this out. We stop industrial activities, which by the way should include Electric vehicles, computers, telecommunications but guess they will call me extremist for such view so let's be moderate. Let's stop Economic growth which may trigger a recession.  As the economy slows and goes into recession, unemployment will increase. The lower and middle class will be affected badly. We won't be able to create new jobs. However, as the population continues to grow, we have more people joining the workforce. This will increase unemployment further.

Guess all of them will get unemployment benefit which countries will no longer be able to afford due to recession. Guess we can always mint more money. This will increase inflation. As the price for necessities like food, housing increase and still no jobs, this may, and it's just me thinking aloud, instigate riots. But again I am being negative. Say this doesn't happen. But countries don't have resource, money, equipment, industry. The sea level is still rising because you know what, stopping Economic growth and reducing our carbon footprint to zero is not going to stop climate change. So as the sea level rise we don't have money, resource, equipment to ensure we can safeguard our coastal population. The unpredictable climate will impact agriculture so food prices will rise even further. At some point or the other, riots will break out. Everywhere. I hope you can live with the loss of those human lives across the globe. I hope you can imagine the helplessness of those people. Because you are making this choice. For those who say that Economic growth is not necessary, my friend, you need to stop population growth before stopping Economic growth.

It's like we are nailing our feet to the ground, throwing away our weapons, and cutting off our hands when a predator is approaching us so that we can't run or defend ourselves when we are finally attacked. I know a predator is a bad metaphor here but that's how this situation feels like. If anything, we need a strong Economic growth all around the globe and divert the focus of the growth and benefits toward being prepared for the upcoming crisis. That's the only way out. It's going to be a hell of a ride. It doesn't matter how the crisis got started, it only matters that it's coming.

But you know what, it doesn't matter. When I encounter the end of the Earth scenarios and imagine a blue Earth and wonder about what life would be at that point, I always come back to reality with the thought that I will be long gone by then. This is the same situation. I will be long gone by the time all this happens. So please carry on. Don't mind me. 

January 19, 2020

Simply life

"It was my 40th birthday. That's when my life changed. Not drastically. Although the change itself was drastic. I became from a nobody to someone with a considerable amount of power. Not that I wanted power or was seeking it.

I was three months into my mid-life crisis I called the Executive-MBA when this happened..."

I never dreamt of writing an autobiography in my life. But if I ever did, those will be the opening lines. No 'Once upon a time...' and no, it will not start with the day I was born. In my head, the book sounds like quite a thriller. Too many "Oooh and how did she get out of that one..." for my taste. But it has to wait, that is if it ever gets written down. I haven't still gotten out of this particular situation I am in at the moment.

Some day, I will learn the whole truth about all of it. Some day, all this will be behind me. Some day, I will be in control of my own life again...well as much as anyone is in charge of their life. Some day - a day I have been waiting for desperately for the past two years now. Some day. I have tried bribing the Gods for that day to come. I have cried and begged. I have gone on a hunger strike. I have done anything and everything I could but to no avail so far. Some day. I just can't wait for that day...