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The debate around surveillance, government overreach, NSA, Prism, XKeyScore has been split in two categories. Well, three actually. The first will be the government, which feels that all this is justified, because "think of the children." They justify the stripping away of the civil liberties of not just their own citizens, but those all across the world for the purpose of supposedly protecting their own. Cluck cluck. The other two camps are the people who are subject to this surveillance. One camp argues that they have "nothing to hide." The other camp argues for increased encryption, and these are camps that will create PGP keys, hold keysigning parties, encrypt everything lest the government gets their data. I think both camps miss the point. Privacy is not the same as secrecy. I know what you do in the toilet, that does not mean that you will leave the doors open, or let the toilet walls be made with glass. Humans have evolved to respect privacy, the confide...

Warning: This post is meant for a rational audience who likes to wrestle with controversial points of view. If you are not amongst the rational category, please stop reading immediately . The author is not responsible for any results/consequences of reading this blog. The free market economy is touted as perhaps the best thing that happened to mankind since the invention of the wheel. The market is the place where we trade, where we can exchange goods and services for those which we cannot produce or are outside our skill sets. Money is just a way to facilitate trade, and is not an actual commodity. Or is it? Apparently, we can put a price on money. But it's not just about money. The free market is said to offer us ultimate choice; a scenario where the consumer is king; the ultimate in stable equilibria; and an invisible hand that always promotes the good of mankind. However, capitalism, like other systems is an idealistic model, and the systems which we have in place are a po...

All hail the idiots, for it is the idiots who run the world. Confused? Let me explain... People are idiotic. They yammer and yell, and yet do nothing, but run the world. The ones who do the actual work are often silent spectators, fed up of the idiots that rule them. Calling my readers "idiots" does not make for healthy relationships, so I'll refrain from doing so. But I'm fed up of the idiots that dictate how I live my life. The idiots pay $ 20 for a movie they cannot copy on their computer, because the DVD is encrypted. The idiots are willing to pay $ 1000 for a software that does the same work they could do for free. The idiots keep the big corporations alive, which then dictate how we live our lives. Yet, it is by the action of the idiots that our world, as we know it, can continue. Think of it... how different would life be, where everyone could make their own movies and share them with the world. If anyone wanted to do anything, (s)he could do it him/hersel...

Steve Jobs is a genius. He manages to make the most crappy products instant best-sellers. But he does not stop there. He manages to make his customers feel stupid when his product does not work and blames their lack of understanding. And people feel stupid. Take the example of the iPhone. This crappy phone has all the features that may be found in any Android. However, you cannot change the battery of the phone yourself, the phone takes up to 15 minutes to boot up (a friend of mine has an iPhone, because of the boot time, he cannot afford the phone to switch off), and most annoying of all, you cannot even fit your own SIM card in that phone. It has to be hacked to microSIM proportions before it can be used. That simply means that one cannot use the same SIM card in any other phone. Shipping the phone for repair incurs a courier charge comparable to the cost of a new phone. And yeah, many people are locked on to their network service providers due to the iPhone. The iPad. Every sane ...