xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#" Goes the Distance: January 2010

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Fear China(or Fear Google(or Fear Both))


There is an certain image that goes by the name of 'TankMan'.
A Google Image search returns results showing a row of tanks being halted by a single Chinese student.
You Tube videos show him getting in their way with no chance of letting them pass.
While they are pretty hilarious to watch they showcase the stronger and finer side to human nature.

Not unlike a lot of stuff that shows up on the internet....
But why TankMan is so significant is that a month ago it would not return any results in China.
TankMan is a symbolic threat to the it's communist regime,
and has been censored for decades from the Chinese public.
Any search on google.cn is highly monitored,
and you could get into serious trouble 

if you were found digging up the wrong stuff 
at home or a cybercafe.

Nonetheless,China has risen from being a famine scarred,genocidal maniac
to a mighty Communist Giant reaping the sweet fruits of controlled capitalism.
The GDP(average income) of a citizen of Beijing is a close equivalent 10,000 USD.
China is the single largest investor in clean energy...

way ahead of any nation in the Americas or Europe.
They have the 4G spectrum ready for implementation while here in India,3G is yet to set foot.
The Chinese development model focuses on shifting industry to lesser developed areas of the country ,
once it becomes too expensive to continue in a particular province.
Roadways,Dams,Bridges,Ports,Nuke plants and still a long way to go before it we see it reach its summit.
Superpower of the 21st century and a monster to beware of...here's why.

China keeps it's currency value artificially low so that jobs from Ohio and elsewhere can keep coming their way.
They tend not to care about global opinion and could well be on their way to pushing other communist regimes(N.Korea and Russia) to call shots.
China as we know, is an iron clad communist that has ruthlessly suppressed any action or demonstration that speaks against it's principles.
It would not matter if the demonstration was peaceful or other wise.
It is a little known fact that Mr.TankMan was later arrested and shot(we only get to see a clipping of the video).
Thousands of democratic supporters were shot,arrested and doomed to disappear into the gulags.
Mr.Xiaobo was sentenced to 11yrs on Christmas Day inspite of gobal protests and the US lobbying for his release.
The Chinese govt is a tacit supporter of North Korea's Missile programme and is conveniently trying to grab Indian footing in the North East.
COP15 was a failure of global proportions with things going pretty much the China way.
The introduction of English into the Chinese curriculum as a compulsary subject is going to blunt the one edge that India had over China.
As Bill Gates said "In China,if you're a one in a million,there are 1300 just like you".
China has no shortage of people to run it.

So coming to the Google situation...why can we now  see TankMan on Google China ?
Here's the deal.....
China and Google have had  a long standing agreement that if Google was to be allowed in China it would have to censor it's search results.
It worked fine for both monsters until two weeks ago when Google's servers were broken into by a supposedly Chinese source.
GMail accounts were hacked and 'certain data' from secure servers was stolen.
Google was....well....'not happy' and broke the censorship agreement threatening to pull out of China if it's security could not be guarunteed.
To look further like the boss of the situation,it threatened that they would also pull out if censorship was forced on it's search results.
Sounds alright at face value ,
But it's a little odd that Google would threaten to pull out of the world's economic goldmine over a few stolen emails.

But here's the real deal.....
There's a a system called Cloud Computing that is well.....Google's Baby.
It is a Google N-Bomb that it plans to drop over Microsoft to break their monopoly in the Office applications industry.
Everything would be run over the internet and you would never need to install anything on your computer ever again much less pay for it.
And guess who would be running these services....well Google.
Now if Google is to win and secure the trust of all it's clients for Cloud Computing who are worth millions of billions...it has to prove that it's services are secure.
You would'nt want your personal videos or projects to be hosted on a server that could be stolen and viewed by a guy name 'Hu'.
That's exactly why the threat is very real...very much worth pulling out of China.

Google is a monster that feeds on information.

Storing all of your documents (personal or professional) on a cloud server would only give Google what it's hungry for.
Google's supercomputers run complex algorithms on user data to derive any kind of  results they need.
And I mean any kind. 

Think of a situation....
Where a certain computer could pull information on you from your You Tube, Gmail and Blogger account and be able to predict whether you would instinctively turn right or left to run if cornered....shocking but true.
Google has already acquired a controlling stake in two energy companies...why?....to power it's own Cloud Servers.

It's a little ironic but I'm posting this on a Google partner site.

So here's  the deal....we got two monsters...which one keeps you awake at night is your choice...or is it ?




Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Back (on) Track

A compromise of sorts.
"Continue with the agitation...but take a break for your exams",says OU.
Fair Enough.....I can live with a delay in my exams...beats having to lose a year.
The only irritating  part is that I'll have to take time off an awesome project to open my books again.
Kurnool plans went bust......no thanks to the agitation...
Will have to set eyes on something else...Lavasa Maybe.

Won't be playing basketball for a while...hurt my nose pretty bad in the last game.
It's swollen to twice it's size and is a glowing shade of bright pink.
I could use my nose as an indicator while making turns....
Better yet...could hang last year's Christmas decor on it for Extra Bling.

I've become a laughing stock everywhere I go...good reason to take time off from the project...besides the exams of course.

Let see how it all turns out.