Monday, September 2, 2013

Google Glass, Sension, Autism and American consumerism

I was just abt to play a prank on people.

Google introduces Retail app for google glass which detects human emotions to help retailers oversell products to desperate or heart broken clients.

For some reason, I am not comfortable with Google - not the search engine, that's great. But, Google being everywhere, watching my mail, my searches, etc is a little uncomfortable for me. You feel naked and powerless. You never know how they use data about you. I am a naive surfer. I surf things that interest me. There are others about whom Google wants to know about. They are not here for charity, are they? They need to make money. They have google ads. The have phones.. They are having glass now. They understand us better than our spouses. The track our choices and mine everything about us. They can sell this data to companies who can sell us products. They want to conquer the world and we're happily letting them do so in the name of digital revolution and evolution. We as a country, never seem to learn from the past. We let the Dutch, Portugese, French and British come and conquer and plunder our land. Yes, they did build rails and schools, but they looted the country too. Thousands of people died, fighting against the British. I don't know how a land like ours could have let that happen.. and that is not even too long ago.. Just 50 years ago all this happened! Now we have a whole nation which lives on McD and Coke. Now we are slaves of the Americans! We buy their brands. We use their apps. We crave for iPhones and iPads. Why can't we be proud of our heritage and create a different nation? The American dream created capitalism. It created the mortgage crisis, Wall St failure and recession and the layman who has no idea what globalization is, is paying 50 bucks for rice and 90 bucks for dal, 82 rupees for petrol and 70 rupees for onions. His life has become messy. We are a conservative nation. Our forefathers used resources carefully. We reused as much as possible. Nothing went waste in a house. But look at American consumerism.. I imagine Costco and Walmart. Everything is super sized..There is so much buying, using and wasting. How much trash do they generate? How many paper products are flushed? How many coke cans are consumed? How many gazillion litres of fuel do their cars use? This 20% people consume 80% of the world resources. They have surrounded all the oil fields and are now the richest country. They are the best marketers of the world. They market such crappy Hollywood movies (and some occasional good ones). The Oscars seem like a joke sometimes. Yes, they have talent. For sure.. They are pretty up there in digital revolution and penetration. But - the question is, do we need all this? Our country is far behind on so many things. Our quality of education is pathetic. Once we address that, we would not have all the educated people migrating to the US or craving for iPhones. We may churn a new breed of youngsters, who know who they are and will create their own stuff instead of being a poor imitator or simple consumer of American products.

I was wandering to read abt Google Glass and came across an existing app!
It's from Sension. Before that, here's a short understanding of Google glass.

It's a handsfree device, so your hands are free - to drive, to sign cheques (does anyone do that anymore?), to carry your luggage, carry your baby, tie your laces, ride a cycle, drink your cuppa or other romantic things as well.

Takes pictures. Records what you see. Share live. Directions. Send messages. Ask questions and be answered. Google translation. Gives your flight info. Basically a phone with camera




Abt Sension:
Sension started from our passion for education and our goal to give every student in the world a unique, one-on-one learning experience. We wanted to replicate the live experience of a teacher reacting to a confused student in the classroom. Through our initial attempts to create such a personalized experience, we quickly realized that consuming web content is currently a broken, one-way static experience.

The software was originally designed to make online teaching tools respond to a user's behavior for a more interactive learning experience.
"But we quickly realized that this stuff goes beyond what we'd intended," Voss told The Huffington Post. "Through the process of building the facial tracker, we discovered it could be used to track emotions, as well."

“Anything that can be used to facilitate social understanding in people with autism is potentially beneficial,” Derek Ott, a professor in the Psychiatry Division at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine

From a prank mood, it brought me into a sober mood. I donno much abt autism.
I feel bad for people who have to struggle a bit more than ABLED people to do the same things. It seems unfair but I know these people are strong enough to overcome such challenges.
Yday I saw a group of hearing and speech disabled kids at MG Road. I asked them if any of them wanted a drop but they responded "Can't hear or speak". I then left. I had tears in my eyes. I shouldn't have. They are normal people. Why do we think they lack something? Imagine a world without the noise.. yes you miss out on the music too.. but today's world is more cacophony than music.. Their world is probably very different...Their vocabulary, their emotions, their responses, would all be different. I wanted to spend some time with them to understand their world. One day maybe I will get a chance. 


How do artists make money?

I was wondering about this today.
How does a person like Virginia Woolf sit at home and think? Who pays for her food and house?
How did Thoreau make money if he sat in a cabin for 2 years?
What is their source of income?

True artists are a class of their own. They refuse to sell art. They make art which they want to make. They are not driven by the market. When DD was the only channel, I've heard many people say that the theatre people worked in DD. They made amazing stuff. Today with a 100 channels, we have nothing great to offer but saas bahu serials and overdose of bollywood and gossip.
Earlier art was driven by passionate people whose real reason to stay invested was his love for art. Then too there were the average money minded ones, who produced crap but there were many good guys.
Today, the media is driven by "corporates". Their sole reason to invest in a film seems to be money. I am not an authority on these corporate production houses but I can say that with the kind of money pumped in, we don't see that quality coming out. Look at the Tamil industry. So many new, innovative ideas have come at very low budgets. Bollywood is now looking at Kollywood for inspiration. Film makers quip that masses have a certain taste and they are catering to that. I don't know enough abt the chicken and egg issue here. People say crap is made, so we end up seeing crap.

Taking a diversion, what I want to know is, there are all kinds of artists. Some really talented, shy guys. How do they make money? We've heard of so many musicians and actors who died in poverty, which is why probably the current crop charges 20 crores for a movie, so that they can be financially secure towards the end of their life. It takes a hell lot of effort to observe things and make art. Who pays while you're observing? Is art then restricted only to the already rich heirs?


http://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelhennessey/2013/04/02/3-keys-to-making-it-as-an-artist-without-starving/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcTYhaA72iY (Paul Klein on How to Succeed as an Artist)

 
http://artbistro.monster.com/careers/articles/5848-how-do-artists-make-money


Look at what Woof says: Woolf's conception that, 'a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction'. Woolf notes that women have been kept from writing because of their relative poverty.


Is intellect a prerogative of the rich then? How can one think deep thoughts if his stomach is hungry? What is the effect of money on a true artist? I believe that artists produce art just for art's sake. Not for appreciation, not for money. Either of these, is welcome though. You should produce art just because you feel like doing it. 

Again, I am ending this abruptly. I don't know how artists make money. I want to know about their lives and struggled and the ways in which they stay afloat.

Voice of the common man and prescriptions for tackling rocketing commodity prices

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/onion-is-not-oxygen/article5079959.ece

In a well thought article calling for action from all individuals, N. V. Subbaraman states some startling facts.


I was living at Karaikudi, a part of Chettinad in Tamil Nadu, where the dominant community was indeed rich, orthodox, highly philanthropic and well educated. I used to go out with my mother to the weekly shandy and distinctly remember her purchasing the weekly requirements of vegetables for a family of five for less than a rupee. The womenfolk of that dominant community of Chettinad would boycott any shop in the shandy if the cost there was a little higher than in the other shops. The way they treated the shop keeper charging a higher price was unique and the result was that the town was comparatively cheap and life was smooth. All due to the ‘will to resist’ on the part of housewives. 


Can society play any role in holding the price hike? I would boldly declare ‘yes’, if only society really feels suffocated and would like to do something in this regard. But look at the long queue in hotels to find a seat where ‘dosa’ is sold at Rs. 70 a piece, a cup of 150 ml coffee for Rs. 40! Look at the cinemas where a new film is released with people thronging for the first show paying astronomical amounts. Despite the spiralling cost of petrol and diesel, look at the queue in petrol stations. 

Do I resist purchasing onion at Rs. 80 or tomato at Rs. 50 a kg? Onion is not oxygen without which I cannot breathe! Supposing people do not purchase beans at Rs. 70 a kg, how long would the shopkeeper keep the vegetable on his shelves? — right from the wholesale merchant to my street vendor? If office-goers as a class desist using their petrol/diesel vehicles and choose public conveyance, won’t petrol price come down? If we boycott the autodrivers charging an unreasonably high fare, can they continue forever by fleecing the people?
Yes, onion is not oxygen! We cannot live without oxygen but we sure can without onion! Prices cannot go up when it begins to rot!

Foodicted!

Given that I am such a big foodie, it's surprising that there's hardly any - probably NO reference to food in my blog! Surprising.
I donno how I got addicted to food. In my childhood I remember liking chole, rasam, aloo fry, naan, paneer butter masala, barotta, basundi, cakes, bread jam and fryums.

Then came a phase when I started cooking. I don't remember anything great coming out then.. But by 2005 or so, I was making a few good dishes - my aam panna, cranberry iced tea, kiwi iced tea became famous.

Then slowly my cooking improved. Now, I am a decent cook. I cannot cook south indian dishes. I lack patience. I get pretty heated up near the stove. Oil fumes choke me. Too much butter nauseates me. I hate making payasam. Last week 3 hours of my effort went up in fumes when I forgot to stir the payasam at the 3rd hour.

But, I have a fine taste for food - or so I'd like to believe. I can smell fresh ingredients. I love fresh food and cakes. I choose my food with care. I despise restaurants which charge a bomb and offer me nothing great. If a Darshini does that, I am ok, coz I am losing only 30 bucks. But if a Novotel dishes stale fare and withering lettuce, I will not take it. My food affair in Bangalore nosedived after a series of terrible food experiences which robbed me of my hard earned money. Caperberry, Fava, Olive Beach, Novotel, Taj Vivanta, Spaghetti Kitchen, Toscano, Little Italy etc. I used to subscribe to The Food Lovers magazine and their card. I hardly used the card. All the places they recommended seemed fake.. Not even the famous Abhijit Saha or Manu Chandra served me great food. Somehow the whole magazine, their reviews - seem like paid promotions. It eroded my confidence in others a lot. I was pretty depressed at these things. I even wrote a long mail to them which was never acknowledged. Nowadays I use peer reviews like Zomato, Bangalore burrp and gastronomical blogspot's advice to choose my place.

The smaller but good ones were Herbs and Spices, Ragi ootta at Kamat, Sanjeevanam, Mast Kalandar, Good Luck, Kund, Cafe Masala, world cafe, Chuntney chang and Bistro Claytopia.
Most of these are unpretentious unlike the above list. They don't claim to serve X and end up serving Y. You have average expectations and they surpass the expectations. The best thing is - being unpretentious and serving honest food with fresh ingredients and a certain quality. Out of 5 dishes if 3 make it I am more than happy. Some dishes will not be tuned well or fine tuned. That's ok. Even chef's have moods.. and the ingredients may play spoil sport. I let go of that. When it can happen in my kitchen, it can happen at the Oberoi kitchen too. Your own kitchen will be of the highest standard.

My favourite dessert joints are Spoonful of Sugar, Daddy's Deli, Sunnys and sometimes Lavonne and Berry'd Alive.

Somehow I loved food in Hyderabad. It was reasonable and the fare was delicious. It is possible that I was not so much of a food connoisseur back then.
Now the expected standards for food is very high.
I wonder, how many people enter the restaurant business due to passion for food? Is it the lure of money that tempts them? There are innumerable restaurants in Bangalore. The quality and reliability is questionable. A few weeks after opening all of them serve very average, careless fare. Still - food sells. People in bangalore eat out like anything. The fast pace of life coupled with endless traffic jams drains people. They have no time to cook at home. So, any food sells.

I'd like a world where people only invested in what they're passionate about. That would rule out the wannabes and average and below average guys and leave us with the best!

Back to food, today I was wondering what to cook for lunch. I had some french beans. I was thinking - I should have 2-3 standard recipes for each vegetable. That would make life easy.
On the other hand you can decide a dish and then go buy vegetables around the dish.

There are 1000 ways to cooking things.. start with the raw material or the final dish.. change the cooking method - stew, boil, stir fry, fry... change the masalas... change the accompaniments... there are many tricks to achieve a certain consistency, a certain taste in the final product. Many women who cook for the mandatory 10000 hours to become experts, know these stuff. No wonder your garndma makes awesome sambhar or mixed veg sabzi while you can never recreate the same, despite best efforts and using the same ingredients and the technique.

Cooking involves lots of creativity. That's why your mom cooks new stuff for you always. She will make tur dal in a 100 different ways so that you don't get bored. How many of us acknowledge the effort that goes into daily cooking? The effort taken by the cook to get the ingredients, clean, sort, cut and decide what dish to make and then finally make it... is a long process...It involves patience, creativity and care.
Women who take lots of efforts to feed good food at home are investing in their family's health and also cutting costs down for the family. I salute them.

I have a list of dishes to try.. a list of ingredients which I'd love to hold and smell...a list of dishes I want to become an expert in... but the effort, the fear of wastage and sheer laziness stops me from achieving my food goals. In a wasted effort to learn multiple cuisines, I lost my concentration. I was everywhere, doing everything and mastering nothing. I think, this disease has plkagued many women of our generation. In our parents times, they only had to learn the traditional food of their society, cooked in their respective home styles. Let's say its 50 dishes in all.. They repeat the same and become masters. We, on the other hand pick so many dishes from the internet - we donno which recipe we used.. we don't make notes.. we don't repeat,... we jump from one link to another and lose everything. We donno what we cooked last year. We cook Italian today, chinese tomorrow, mediterranean the next month.. We end up being jack of all trades. Atleast this jumping did me no good. Also, believe me, the best recipes come from cookbooks not the internet.

Having realized my mistaks, today, I want to pick 10 dishes a year, repeat them atleast 5-6 times each and make notes for each and add it to a list of dishes I can confidently serve to my guests. I also want to learn more about traditional Tamil food.. secrets from my grandma and aunts so that they are not lost in time.. to McDonalds and pizzas who have conquered the imagination of a whole nation.





The minority artists who get neglected

DEEPA GANESH
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/in-the-path-of-light/article5083393.ece 
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  • Let there be lightPrasanna on his journey back to the roots; (left) a scene from the playPhoto: Murali Kumar K.Let there be lightPrasanna on his journey back to the roots; (left) a scene from the playPhoto: Murali Kumar K.
    Let there be lightPrasanna on his journey back to the roots; (left) a scene from the playPhoto: Murali Kumar K.Let there be lightPrasanna on his journey back to the roots; (left) a scene from the playPhoto: Murali Kumar K.

Theatre Prasanna, with his new play Mecca Dari, takes a strong position against art that is driven by the intellect. He tells DEEPA GANESH that with diminishing space for hand-made art, it’s a lonely journey for the artisan

In 1984, for the first Festival of India in London, writer-director-activist Prasanna directed Tughlaq . His political forthrightness left the powers that be jittery and decided not to send the play for the festival. Theatre persons from various parts of the country decried the decision. Some even advised Prasanna to meet the concerned and present his case. “I will not make any clarifications to anyone,” Prasanna stood his ground.
During the Emergency, he returned to Karnataka from the National School of Drama and was instrumental in starting ‘Samudaya’ with like-minded thinkers and activists. This strong leftist theatre movement went to remote corners of Karnataka and through street theatre attacked authoritarianism. With his Abhivyakti Abhiyan, he went on Satyagraha, insisting that regional theatre be accorded the status of national theatre.
Prasanna could have easily been a conformist, but he chose not to be, right from the days when he dropped out of his doctoral programme at IIT, Kanpur. Critical of modernity, Prasanna has espoused Gandhian values and thought, and Charaka, a rural handloom women’s collective that he set up 15 years ago in the village of Heggodu is an outcome of his beliefs. Most production practices at Charaka are manual, and the sewing machine is perhaps among the few mechanical interventions here. Again, this is something that Gandhiji approved; he said: “it does not curtail human labour and human dignity.”
Prasanna, who has firmly voiced his faith in rural renewal, and believes that enterprises like Charaka are an antidote to government’s urban-centric policies, is also someone who exercises trust in the artisan who works with his hands. “I am drawn towards hand-driven artistes, and not art that is driven by the intellect,” says Prasanna, setting the stage for his latest theatre work based on Authol Fugard’s celebrated Road to Mecca . “I am disappointed with the way art is present in today’s world. It is so completely market driven and excessive. You find art on condom boxes also! Why are we doing art? Even when I taught theatre at NSD, I knew everyone was looking at Bombay… it’s pointless…,” he fades off.
Prasanna is angered by people who make a case for pure intellect. How can knowledge be separated from intellect? If art is not driven by experience then it is meaningless and dangerous, he argues. “In my early years, I was shaped by modernists. Over the years, I have come to doubt all that I believed then. It was a source of strength, but mistakes also happened.” The play is about a lonely widow, Helen, living in an African village. She finds meaning to her existence and loneliness by making sculptures, and this Prasanna says is also an expression of his loneliness and isolation as well. “I have distanced myself from this hyper active community,” he adds.
Helen makes bizarre-looking folk sculptures with recycled material. The curious thing about them is that they glow in darkness, creating an ethereal world for her. She believes that all her sculptures are on a caravan that is moving towards the east, in search of light. However, to others in the village, these sculptures are grotesque, anti-church and can only be works of someone on the edge of madness. She is abused by the villagers and Helen’s loneliness becomes unbearable. “It’s an important work for me at a personal level – both from the level of the feminist movement and as a work that helps my understanding of an artist. All her issues are handled at the rural level and has a lot of significance. After Maxim Gorky’s Mother I have not seen another woman character that’s so powerful. She is neither intellectually inclined to become a revolutionary, nor a feminist. Her work is her expression.”
This, for Prasanna, is a major contrast to the community of artists who are mere intellectual beings and are obsessive talkers. “They are landing in the cities in hordes. Helen stands alone amidst this chattering community of artistes. She at once becomes a mirror of the situation and in her tragedy is also our tragedy,” explains Prasanna who has been working on women-centric plays for a while now. “Women have interested me as partners in work over the last few years,” he adds. “In the past I could never talk freely to a woman. But the women of Charaka have showered me with so much warmth. They have fortified my conviction, and in a way redeemed me from many things that I was guilty about…,” says a visibly moved Prasanna.
“I have eliminated everything from my mode of theatre. Sets, props everything has been relegated to the background. Only actors matter to me.” Theatre’s a game of falsehood through which one has to move towards truth. Prasanna, through his theatrical practice, wants to help his actors find their route to truth – his as well.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Power of habit and daily routines for success

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/22/manage-your-day-to-day-99u/

We seem to have a strange but all too human cultural fixation on the daily routines and daily rituals of famous creators as if a glimpse of their day-to-day would somehow magically infuse ours with equal potency, or replicating it would allow us to replicate their genius in turn.
But, a well-engineered daily routine anchors the creative process.

Only by taking charge of your day-to-day can you truly make an impact in what matters most to you. I urge you to build a better routine by stepping outside of it, find your focus by rising above the constant cacophony, and sharpen your creative prowess by analyzing what really matters most when it comes to making your ideas happen.

We tend to overestimate what we can do in a short period, and underestimate what we can do over a long period, provided we work slowly and consistently. Anthony Trollope, the nineteenth-century writer who managed to be a prolific novelist while also revolutionizing the British postal system, observed, “A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.” Over the long run, the unglamorous habit of frequency fosters both productivity and creativity.

Frequency  helps facilitate “bisociation” — the crucial ability to link the seemingly unlinkable, which is the defining characteristic of the creative mind.
You’re much more likely to spot surprising relationships and to see fresh connections among ideas, if your mind is constantly humming with issues related to your work. When I’m deep in a project, everything I experience seems to relate to it in a way that’s absolutely exhilarating. The entire world becomes more interesting. That’s critical, because I have a voracious need for material, and as I become hyperaware of potential fodder, ideas pour in. By contrast, working sporadically makes it hard to keep your focus. It’s easy to become blocked, confused, or distracted, or to forget what you were aiming to accomplish.
[…]
Creativity arises from a constant churn of ideas, and one of the easiest ways to encourage that fertile froth is to keep your mind engaged with your project. When you work regularly, inspiration strikes regularly.

Alexander Graham Bell, who memorably wrote that “it is the man who carefully advances step by step … who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree,”

Step by step, you make your way forward. That’s why practices such as daily writing exercises or keeping a daily blog can be so helpful. You see yourself do the work, which shows you that you can do the work. Progress is reassuring and inspiring; panic and then despair set in when you find yourself getting nothing done day after day. One of the painful ironies of work life is that the anxiety of procrastination often makes people even less likely to buckle down in the future.

“It’s the task that’s never started that’s more tiresome,” “The days are long, but the years are short,”  “What I do every day matters more than what I do once in a while.”

Everybody who does creative work has figured out how to deal with their own demons to get their work done. a lot of talented folks who are not succeeding the way they want to because their strategies are broken. The strategy is simple, I think. The strategy is to have a practice, and what it means to have a practice is to regularly and reliably do the work in a habitual way. Tchaikovsky (“a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood.”) E. B. White (“A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.”), The notion that I do my work here, now, like this, even when I do not feel like it, and especially when I do not feel like it, is very important. Because lots and lots of people are creative when they feel like it, but you are only going to become a professional if you do it when you don’t feel like it. And that emotional waiver is why this is your work and not your hobby.

 http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/01/09/the-science-of-productivity-animated/

“Studies have found that the most elite violinists in the world generally follow a 90-minute work regime, with a 15- to 20-minute break afterwards.”

When we look at some of the most elite musicians in the world, we find that they aren’t necessarily practicing more but, instead, more deliberately. This is because they spend more time focused on the hardest task and focus their energy in packets — instead of diluting their energy over the entire day, they have periods of intense work, followed by breaks. Not relying on willpower, they rely on habit and discipline scheduling. Studies have found that the most elite violinists in the world generally follow a 90-minute work regime, with a 15- to 20-minute break afterwards.

Mirror mirror on the wall...and the face....

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2013/08/mirrors-cameras-and-cultural-evolution.html

Mirrors, cameras and cultural evolution

It's safe to say that everyone reading this has seen an accurate reflection in a mirror. Everyone you know has seen their face in a mirror as well.
A thousand years ago (a nanosecond in evolutionary time) virtually no one had.
Mirrors are a big deal. Elephants and primates have been shown to be able to recognize themselves in a mirror, and the idea of self-image is one of the cornerstones of our culture. Hard to imagine walking through the world without knowing what you look like.
Fascinating aside: When we see a famous person in the mirror, our perception changes.
I hope we can agree that in 2013, anyone who gets uncomfortable around mirrors, who says mirrors aren't their thing, who tries to avoid a job where they might see a mirror--that person is a bit outside the mainstream.
Cameras are mirrors, but unlike the momentary glimpse of the traditional mirror, they are permanent, and now the web amplifies them. Do you see how many people pose for snapshots? The unnatural posture, the fake smile... there's anxiety here, and it's because unlike seeing ourselves in the mirror, we're being captured, forever. Multiply this fear by the million people who might see this photo on Instagram...
No one gets tense in front of mirrors any longer. Experienced professionals don't get tense in front of cameras, either.
It probably used to be okay to say, "mirrors freak me out," or to assert that they contained demons. No longer. It certainly wasn't uncommon for cultures to resist cameras at first, and to take the phrase, "take a picture," quite literally. This resistance is also dying out and almost gone.
And yet... And yet we still freeze up when someone takes a picture, we hold our breath before we go on stage, we give away our deepest insecurities when someone puts us on video...
Mirrors and cameras each took a generation or more to catch on as widespread foundations of our culture. It's not surprising, then, that so many people fear social media. It's about us, and when we're on the hook, in front of people we can't know or trust, we hold back.
For a while.
And then we don't.

=======================================================================
In Valparai I heard a group of guys saying "Magane, andha pic a mattum FB la potta.. Tholanja.. pona vattu jatty potta picture-a pottu manatha vangittaan da. My girlfriend also saw that".

I heard the same things from multiple people. I too fear FB photos. I don't want an ugly pic of mine sneaking there, for the whole world to see...  I haven't exactly portrayed to the world that I am a beauty but nevertheless I don't want my ugly pics to be seen by all. Why this fear? Why should I care what others think of my face? Do I fear losing some friends? Of course my closest ones love me the way I am.. but somewhere there is insecurity lurking.. somewhere I am not 100% confident...Except a few people others don't know me... they judge me by the looks.. feel I am too old.. old enough to be having a teenage son or daughter.. I feel bad.. that all the skills I have learnt are of no use. Sure, these people are not meant to be friends, nevertheless it hurts. I got hurt when a guy called me 'aunty' at work.. a guy who himself suffers from balding. Guys so casually remark about women as if they are not living things. In theatres and malls you can see scores of guys judging women's looks and assets and clothes...The term 'aunty' to refer to a woman in a derogatory sense is so unacceptable.. I don't know why this thing bothers me. I do spend a few CPU cycles every now and then, thinking abt this issue. Why should this affect me? I am not looking for a lover.. I am not a model.. why then should it affect me?
FB photos, given the number of people who can access is, makes everyone a sort of celebrity in their own way. Just like a celebrity cannot be caught offguard, without makeup, without well done hair, we too fret and worry about being caught in a bad pose, bad hair and soggy clothes. I think FB has unknowingly changed the laws and rules of friendship and more so of dating maybe.  We form a mental picture of people based on phone conversations or internet conversations. Many a times when we meet the person, we may feel a disconnect between the actual face and the imagined face. That may even alter our opinion about the person. The freckles, the tan, the weight gain, the balding hair, skintags, dark circles, grey hair, choice of clothes and shoes - nothing escapes our notice when we see a person. Sadhguru said that it's good that the dhyanalinga has no form - like him. Else we would start judging it by the way it sat or spoke or moved.
Can we get away with the face thing? I maybe selfish to want that because I am not endowed with external beauty. But, really, for something which we really do not control, is it worth the effort we put? So many people are denied many things because of their looks. Looks can kill.. yes, bad looks can get you killed.. if you don't fit the stereotype you have to live through many things. Is it worth it? What if we all have masks? If we wear burkas as I earlier suggested? Can we then start focussing on other things than the face? 
Why does a mirror make people unhappy? When we dream about us, do we we use the same face or use a face that we like? If all of us had the option to choose our own face, which face would you choose? I've thought of it a couple of times atleast... If I think about a face, will that face stick to me?
How are today's relations? Do todays teens let looks affect their relationships? I still believe that the beautiful girl or handsome guy gets to pick more.. but is everyone given a fair chance? Why should we call fair chance when fairness itself has led to great unfairness? It should be called dark chance...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2013/06/07/how-the-human-face-might-look-in-100000-years/
Kwan stresses that 60,000 years from now, our ability to control the human genome will also make the effect of evolution on our facial features moot. As genetic engineering becomes the norm, “the fate of the human face will be increasingly determined by human tastes,” he says in a research document.
 Kwan believes the human face will reflect “total mastery over human morphological genetics. This human face will be heavily biased towards features that humans find fundamentally appealing: strong, regal lines, straight nose, intense eyes, and placement of facial features that adhere to the golden ratio and left/right perfect symmetry,” he says.
If we choose how we look, instead of nature deciding it for us, how will the planet look like? Will it have happier people than today? Then, we will find something else that is not in our control and fret and fume and then genetically modify that, maybe. Are we born to be discontented? Is discontentment the mother of future inventions?
Then we have this:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=you-are-less-beautiful-than-you-think
Inflated perceptions of one’s physical appearance is a manifestation of a general phenomenon psychologists call “self-enhancement.” Self enhancement is not the same as lying or deception. Lying takes a toll on the lier and people have negative emotions when they see people deceiving them. In self-enhancement people truly believe that they have desirable characteristics, they can promote themselves without having to lie. Self-enhancement also boosts confidence. Researchers have shown that confidence plays a role in determining whom people choose as leaders and romantic partners. Confident people are believed more and their advice is more likely to be followed.
 Why we cheat - especially through the internet or phone, is another heavy topic which I can read and blog about later.