deviousways

So billionaire tech investor/entrepreneur Vinod Khosla is in the news, again. But for not the right reasons--as the father of a child who has had her privacy violated. His daughter's ex has apparently threatened to make her nude photos public. That's not the whole story of course, but how terrible this must be. As a parent myself, I cannot imagine how traumatic this must be for the family. But you know, I kept thinking, how could this obviously super intelligent young woman (she and the alleged extortionist ex met as students at Stanford University) do something so dumb? Share nude pictures of herself with her then boyfriend? Granted, they were in a relationship and all that. But this is a young woman who must know and who grew up knowing just how powerful technology can be, how all-reaching it is. How invasive, how intrusive it is. Yet, she shared her intimate pictures and is now being blackmailed over those very pictures. Why would she do something so dumb? Actually, the ...

Are you a hands-on parent? Are you spending the holidays taking your child to summer camp activities--craft, art, sport, swimming, skating, etc.? Or are you the type who prefers spending time with him or her, creating make believe stories, doing finger painting sessions, building lego cities, together? And, do you ever wonder, how much 'parenting' is enough? And if you are doing too much 'parenting'? Well, I do. All the time.  I worry that if my five-year-old spends all his free time with me (especially during these holidays), he and I will no longer enjoy each others' company. I believe that it is not my job to constantly keep him occupied and entertained. More important, I believe that if we (that is, him and I) have some time away from each other, then both of us get the space and the freedom to be ourselves. Okay, to be totally honest, that applies to me, more than him. Time away from my son is precious for me--it's an opportunity to just be...

A couple of months ago, a former national level cricketer's father went missing in Mysore's Devaraja Market. The local police sprang into action and the gentleman was found in a couple of hours. In that time, though he had wandered some 5 km from the spot he was last seen (the market). News reports quoted the police as saying the elderly gentleman suffered from “age-related forgetfulness”. Now, I don't know if the cricketer's dad has some form of dementia. If he does, I do hope he is getting treatment (medicines can slow the process of brain degeneration but not halt or reverse it). I also hope that his fasmart technology, privacy, Facebook, mily is alert always whenever they go anywhere. Because the elderly gentleman, if he has dementia, can easily go missing again. Such wandering is a behaviour associated with dementia. According to the Alzheimer's Association of the US (www.alz.org), six in 10 people with dementia will wander. More frighteningly, res...

So you voted? Wow. Did you click a selfie with your inked finger prominent? Wonderful. Well, as for me, I have a secret that's been giving me heartburn. I didn't vote. I didn't get my voter ID on time, you see. So I have not been on Facebook with my voting selfie. And each time someone puts up a post saying "If you don't vote, you don't have the moral right to talk about corruption or lazy corporators or crib about how your city/state/the country is run", my heart sinks just a little more. Because truly, I don't think I am a bad person. I do not believe I no longer have any moral authority to call myself a 'citizen; of this country. At the most, I am guilty of being lazy--because I did not get my voter ID on time. On the contrary, I think I am an involved citizen. I religiously segregate my waste, separating dry from wet--and then I deliver the bags to the dry waste collection centre. When I see a creature in distress--street dog/animal/b...