Viswanathan K's Thoughts

Kids these days don’t appreciate the value of money. You may be saying that’s been true throughout history, but there are reasons this generation is worse. Unlike most of us, they never see cash change hands and have genuinely no clue of the cost of anything – after all, if everything is paid for via credit cards, the phone, or (even more invisibly) online, how can they possibly have the faintest clue as to what anything costs?   William Guppy’s post on the topic very amusing. And eerily close to where our kids are probably headed. This guy is like the future of our kids – the generation that grew up well off, but didn’t take any steps to stay that way. With Wodehouse-style humour, he starts off by saying: “Two days ago I had the misfortune of finding out that an old friend of mine, who I hadn't seen in some years, has done very well for himself. The fact was related to me over dinner, and in such a way that I was expected to congratulate him.” And adds: “His is an old C...

Some talk about the Internet as being as revolutionary as electricity. Whether or not you agree with that, the Internet evolves at a speed unheard of for something, er, that revolutionary. You get used to how it works; next thing you know, it’s evolved. Or mutated, depending on your point of view. John Herrmann calls what we have now as the third Internet. Though he doesn’t describe the three explicitly, this is what I thought he meant: 1)       First one, aka Before Google: You had to know the name of the site to go to because, well, search engines sucked. 2)      Second one, the Google Era: nobody knew any site, they just searched for whatever they wanted and Google pointed them to the articles to look at. 3)      Third one, the smartphone/app version. The third one is what Hermmann does talk about in detail . Since typing is (still) not exactly convenient on the phone, most people surf by clicking links ...