Chapters

"Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy Yea." - The Three Metamorphosis, Thus Spake Zarathustra Written in 1995, "The Road Ahead" was by it's very name a prophecy. A practice in making inferences and expanding our imagination; while educating us about the apparent "magic" of computing and networks.  Serving multiple functions this book is gripping from page one. Unlike most academics and futurism fanatics, Bill Gates was fully invested in the subjects he was talking about. And what comes out as the most basic of insights from this book is that we all are affected and must be deeply invested. This is a snowball that is still rolling. In Chapter 5 "Paths to the Highway", the Gates of 1995 imagines today's semantic systems and the underlying principles that would (and do) support them. He imagines machines talking to each other on "software pl...

 As a fan of Michael Crichton (1942-2008), I am tempted to include him in this blog. And this is one temptation that's worth taking a bite at. Let me share a bit about this author before we move on to the chunk of the matter. A student of science himself (  Biological anthropology & medicine (.M.D.) ), Crichton wrote extensively on possibilities that would soon become a reality. He is most famous for writing the novel Jurassic Park which later got made into a movie. My personal favourites of his novels include Sphere, The Lost World and The Andromeda Strain.  Having read most of his novels a long time ago, the ideas that remain stand out in contrast to the rest of the narrative.  One of these ideas that has been modern man's popular belief that he is not a part of Nature; that Man stands separately, as a controller of Nature rather than a "flowering" of it.  In today's times when climate change and extinction of species has become a topic...

In the book " Being Authentic ", Ric Giardina talks about keeping your perspective (C17). In this chapter he talks about how most of us take life too seriously and how our lives today are centered around the workplace. Giardina then goes on to reference a dialogue between Diogenes the Cynic and Alexander. When I read this parable (insightful as it is), my mind went back to a similar dialogue (albeit not the same) between Alexander The Great and an Indian mystic/yogi. This story is mentioned by Devdutt Pattanaik in this post : Alexander, the Great, after conquering Persia found there, what he called a gymnosophist , or a naked wise man. He was perhaps a Jain muni or perhaps a yogi, who sat on a rock and meditated all day and gazed at the stars all night. “What are you doing?” asked Alexander. “Experiencing nothingness,” answered the gymnosophist. Then the gymnosophist asked, “What are you doing?” Alexander replied, “I am conquering the world.” Both chuckled an...