Viswanathan K's Thoughts

Recently, my wife accidentally took my ATM card instead of hers to withdraw cash. As the SMS’s indicating the amounts withdrawn started coming in, I realized what had happened. Because multiple withdrawals of those amounts happened at the beginning of every month. Pattern recognition is the name of the game. Google wants to use that for yet more uses of the smartphone. Here are a few examples of what might be coming next: -          If you take lots of photos of nature, the next time you’re in a scenic location, the camera app would open automatically. -          Or, as this site joked , that Health app might wag its finger at you if you hit the pizza joint for the third time that week. -          Tired of remembering and entering those pesky passwords? Google is proposing an alternative : “Instead of asking for a password, the phone might analyse your fa...

“The genius of racism is that you don’t have to participate to enjoy the spoils.” -          Mychal Denzel Smith I saw the above lines in an article on racism. Now replace “racism” with pretty much any other form of discrimination: caste system, religious orthodoxy, sexism for instance, and it would be equally true. That was a lightbulb moment for me. It explained why different forms of discrimination persist even in societies where a decent fraction of the population says (honestly), “But I myself don’t believe in X form of discrimination”. Making that statement allows that set to feel good about themselves, even morally superior to the rest, and, this is the key , yet continue to reap the benefits of that very form discrimination! Sure, they aren’t doing this consciously; but nevertheless, they do reap the benefits of that unjust system. Thus the reserved class guy who doesn’t believe seats/jobs should be reserved based on the ...