2026: A SpaceX Odyssey

I am going to gloss over the rather clever play on words drawing inspiration from the title of Kubrick's book/movie, mention in passing that I came up with it without the help of AI, and move straight to the gist of my tirade. When it comes to finance/investment, I have strong feelings! 

Unfortunately, what happens in the US equity and bond markets impacts everyone around the globe. I truly wish it weren't so. I truly wish Indian markets were insulated better against what happens with FIIs, bond markets and the overall US equity markets. But the ground reality is that this is not the case. The current hot news doing the rounds is the SpaceX IPO. What an event. Everyone wants in. Valuations are sky-high, profits are . . well, there aren't any. Yet. Events like these really call into question the efficient market hypothesis. As a disclaimer, I am not arguing about the future potential at all. Far from it. SpaceX might be the Star Trek of our times. They might change the world by mining asteroids and putting up data centers on the moon. All might be legit. But it certainly ain't happening overnight. To quote Roy Amara, "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run." Lets sum this up for a bit. 

On May 1st of this year, NASDAQ changed a bunch of rules (reduced seasoning period before index inclusion, public float thresholds, amongst others). On Jun 11th, SpaceX debuted on Nasdaq. by July 7th, it capitalized on every single one of these structural loopholes to force its way into the Nasdaq-100. There's no doubt about this. Debating this point is moot. It's generally accepted the rule changes were for SpaceX's benefit. 

While this is happening, the research teams of the SAME investment banks that underwrote the IPO published buy ratings that defy common sense, logic and math. For example, Raymond James published a target of USD 800 for SpaceX which would take it's market cap to USD 10 trillion which is 31% of total US GDP. 

Cherry on top - SpaceX still lost 7% of its value since its inclusion in the index and 39% of its value since its post-IPO peak. Not surprising since it's not turning profits, hemorrhaging money and does not have a contract pipeline beyond its defense contracts. Rigged game if there ever was one. Nasdaq gets bullied into a mega-IPO. Passive funds get bullied into adding SpaceX in their indices. Research analysts get bullied into publishing nonsensical buy ratings. 

In Ayn Rands dystopian novel Atlas Shrugged, one of the protagonists, Francisco D'Anconia,  deliberately hypes up worthless, non-existent copper mines to drive corrupt politicians, looters, and parasitic investors into a speculative frenzy, only to watch the engineered bubble burst and bankrupt the very systems trying to leech off his productivity.

Looking at the SpaceX listing, it's hard not to see the parallel. Either Elon is the ultimate con artist, or he is playing the real-life d'Anconia. If it’s a grift, it’s a historic transfer of retail capital to the top. But if it’s a d’Anconia move, Elon is playing a spectacular joke on modern financial systems. Forcing captured regulators, passive indexing giants, and fee-chasing underwriters to choke on a capital-hemorrhaging physical utility they valued as a multi-trillion-dollar monopoly just because he slapped an "AI" label on it. Either way, Galt's Gulch has never looked this expensive.

But there's some hope. While Nasdaq and FTSE Russell practically tripped over themselves to change their listing rules, S&P Dow Jones Indices flatly refused to play ball. They stood firm on their strict requirement: a company must show consecutive GAAP profitability over four quarters.Because SpaceX posted a massive $4.28 billion USD net loss in Q1 2026, it remains strictly locked out of the S&P 500. It turns out, guardrails can exist when a registry actually respects financial math over transaction-fee dopamine. Nasdaq surrendered its integrity for a historic listing fee; S&P looked at the same spreadsheet and chose to act like the only adult left in the room.

I could go on and on about how the underwriters and corporate insiders earned a hefty profit and left the retail investor literally holding the bag. Mega funds like Blackrock, Vanguard, global sovereign wealth funds from the middle east . . all earned a profit. They bought in at USD 135 per share. The IPO commenced trading at USD 150 per share. Guaranteed profit. Most cashed out. Some waited for the frenzy to peak at around USD 225 per share. The mechanics of this wealth transfer are almost beautiful in the scale of their grift. But the real master stroke was the NASDAQ100 index inclusion. By forcing index inclusion in just 15 trading days, they unleashed a legally mandated wave in passive fund buying. This algorithmic, non-negotiable volume provided the ultimate pool of exit liquidity, letting the smart money (read corporate insiders) systematically dump shares without crashing the market. The net result - the retail investor, the common man is left holding the bag. 

On a side-note, SEBI treats merchant banking and equity research like radioactive isotopes. While SEBI swings the other way by being too interventionist, they proactively hunt down predatory "finfluencers" and try to prevent cross-selling. It's not perfect, but SEC can really learn something from SEBI. 

Ultimately though, we can't hope that financial regulators grow a spine and start looking out for the little guy. That's not going to happen. The system relies almost entirely on the financial illiteracy of the common man to swindle him'/her out of their hard earned savings. Boom-and-bust cycles will always exist because human greed is an immutable constant. But when the common man stops providing the free capital that keeps these valuation hallucinations alive, the investment banks are left choking on their own supply. The path to this financial literacy begins with mastering the basics. The very nature of money. There's a ton of good literature out there about the psychology and history of money. From Morgan Housel to Robert Kiyosaski (bit controversial). From Michael Lewis to Nassim Taleb. Point is - an informed investor can behave a bit more rationally than someone who is just "buying into the hype". It's time to understand how the plumbing works and call out the BS.  

From Combustion Chambers to Circuit Boards: What driving EVs taught me about embracing change!

Some months ago I penned down some thoughts, a vanguard defence as it were, of why I still drive manual transmission cars. Pretty heartfelt stuff. Pretty irrelevant too since most cars being sold now are automatics. Recently I've gotten my hands on a car with an electric powertrain. Which means no gears, instant torque on tap and no noise. It's been a pretty strange experience. Which meant I had to pen some thoughts on that as well. Me being me, I search for underlying mental models. Not so surprisingly, even when it comes to the prickly topic of ICE vs EV, some are evident.

I feel modern day EVs/HEVs/PHEVs differ fundamentally in their approach to driving experience than traditional ICE cars. How they look at driving itself is different. The former wants to isolate you from the road, the latter wants to connect you to the road. I'm not judging. Neither is good or bad. Just that the approach is fundamentally different. To use the “Amazonian” term, two different mental models.

This shift is perhaps most tangibly felt in the evolution of the gear shifter, which has transitioned from a mechanical instrument of engagement to a digital prompt. In a traditional manual transmission, the gear lever is an extension of the gearbox itself. The "thump" you feel when slotting into gear, the mechanical resistance, the audible click, the vibration traveling up the stick. It is a direct, physical handshake between the driver and the engine’s internals. It confirms that the gear has locked, grounding the driver in the reality of the machine's state. It's raw, it's visceral. As we moved toward the DCT (dual-clutch transmission) and it's more advanced CVT (Continuous Variable Transmission) and automatic era, that connection began to soften. The physical urgency of a hard mechanical lock was replaced by a smoother, more deliberate motion, often mediated by cables and electronics. While still mechanical in spirit, the act became less about commanding a cog to engage and more about selecting a state of operation. In fact, for a DCT, you still feel some of the connect. The sensation of the clutch engaging and gear changing is still there, it's just softened and not so visceral. In fact, the DCT developed as a need for the driver to feel some tactile feedback over the very delayed reaction of an AMT (automated manual transmission). CVT takes it further by removing the need for a clutch to be engaged at all. This is reflected in the user input. CVTs don't need a “gear shifter” so the “toggle” which still sometimes resembles a stick, doesn't feel so connected to the whole system. Today, in the EV/HEV paradigm, the "gear shifter" is frequently reduced to a rotary knob, a push-button array, or a stalk mounted on the steering column. The tactile feedback has been abstracted away; the physical sensation of "shifting" is gone, replaced by a satisfying but ultimately cosmetic click. This shift mirrors the broader transition in automotive philosophy: we have moved from manipulating a mechanical linkage to sending a digital signal. The driver is no longer commanding a physical force but rather confirming an intent to the vehicle's computer, prioritizing the clean, buttoned-up composure of the cabin over the visceral, clunky honesty of the machine. Come to the cabin experience. Even inside the cabin, this transition is evident. In cabins for cars as advanced and premium as the Corolla Cross, the ICE impact is evident. It's a mechanical device. The infotainment system is large, but the electronics are subservient to the machine. It's obvious you're sitting in a car with an advanced infotainment system. But it's still obvious it's a car. Cut to EVs/PHEVs coming out of the Chinese ecosystem. It's as if the shackles of restraint are thrown away. There's no pretense at masking the digitization. You step into a digital device not a mechanical one. The screen is front and centre. The steering wheel is smaller. The buttons are plush against the consoles or digitized altogether and blended into the infotainment system. The cabin experience in modern EVs extends this digital-first philosophy beyond just screens and controls. In many ICE vehicles, the interior architecture is defined by the central tunnel, which is a necessary housing for the transmission and exhaust components. This creates a distinct separation, a cocoon for the driver and passengers, reinforcing the idea of a machine built around the drivetrain. In contrast, the absence of these mechanical components in most dedicated EV platforms allows for a "flat floor" architecture. The transmission tunnel disappears, liberating the cabin floor space and turning the interior into an open lounge. This spatial shift from the intimate, cockpit-like feel of a performance ICE car to the expansive, airy interior of an EV is the most immediate physical manifestation of the powertrain's removal from the cabin environment. Furthermore, the sensory landscape inside is fundamentally altered. In an ICE car, the cabin is an acoustic chamber designed to manage the engine’s presence. You hear the idle, the revs, and the thrum of the motor, all of which provide constant, albeit often filtered, feedback on the engine's load. Engineers spend years tuning the sound to be pleasant, sporty, or authoritative. In an EV, that primary sensory anchor is gone. The silence forces a rethink of the entire cabin atmosphere. Without the engine as a backdrop, wind noise, tire roar, and the subtle whir of electronics become the new focus, leading to cabins that feel less like a mechanical workshop and more like a serene, hermetically sealed sanctuary designed for isolation rather than engagement.

Again, I'm not judging. I'm enjoying this new experience these days. It's different. It's not like driving a car at all. I sometimes miss that thrum, that thump, that feeling of connection. When you learn to drive, you learn to listen to the car's engine, the gears engaging, the sound, and the feel. That's what tells you whether you're in the right gear or at the right speed. Driving an EV is entirely different, and it will take time to adjust. It feels like a massive transition in the automobile industry: the old vs. the new. Rather than looking at it as a “loss of soul,” I'm looking at it as a “migration” of it. From the combustion chamber to the circuit board. Guess this automotive example is just a microcosm. We live in an era of constant change. AI, robotics, hyper-automation; they are fundamentally altering the way we live and work. Transformation is the new baseline. Why would something as personal as driving be left behind? Hell, I'm embracing the shift. Adieu to the visceral feeling of driving a car (albeit with nostalgia), hello to the high-tech isolation of a digital transportation device! All aboard, I say!

The Era of Absolutes

 We hear a lot these days about the world becoming polarized. It is either good or bad; right or wrong; all or none. So many national and global events today draw sharp reactions from either side of the spectrum. But whichever side of the spectrum you align or identify with, more and more people have sharp opinions and extreme reactions. We hear this often from so many quarters – the world has become divided; politics is becoming polarized, and opinions have become extreme. but what does it mean exactly?

Take the recent example of China. We have people on two sides obviously; but most Indians believe that China is an evil, authoritarian regime that is hell-bent on destroying their competitors (read India) and hell bent on world domination. If you purchase and use Chinese-made products, you are branded a traitor. If you refuse to use them, you are branded a hyper-nationalist. Another polarizing topic is Narendra Modi. You can either love him or hate him. People fall into these two distinct categories. Either he can do no wrong or he can do nothing right. Either he is saving the country and the world from apocalyptic melt-down or he is taking the country down the path of a genocide and/or economic ruin. The most recent polarizing topic is of course the Israel-Hamas conflict. You see opinions expressed strongly on both sides of the dispute – you are either an antisemite or an Islamophobe. There is no middle way!

That is a most curious phenomenon. The question that comes foremost to my mind is – has public opinion always been this sharply divided? Has the discourse always been about two extremes? Perhaps we feel this way because this is the only “age” we have lived in. Statistics suggest otherwise. A 2022 study by Anindita Borah and SR Singh ^[1] on political polarization in India through social media network analysis and mining concluded that there was a significant amount of polarization (non-overlapping social media interactions) for retweets in general and controversial topics in particular. A 2023 study by the Association for Democratic Reforms found that 72% of Indians believe that the country is more politically polarized now than it was 10 years ago. A 2016 study by the American National Election Studies ^[2] found that Americans have become increasingly hostile towards the opposing political party. The study found that the share of Democrats who view Republicans as "very unfavorable" increased from 35% in 1992 to 89% in 2016. The share of Republicans who view Democrats as "very unfavorable" increased from 38% in 1992 to 85% in 2016. Prima facie, these are significant changes. To conclude, statistics from studies around the globe indicate two things - first; opinions are more polarized today than before and second; this trend is increasing.

Being a numbers guy, the second question that comes to my mind is whether this polarization has any correlation with income, education, age etc.? Extent of political polarization being the dependent variable, it would be worthwhile to check the independent variables that have the highest correlation in terms of impact. Are richer people less likely to have polarized opinions? Do highly educated people tend to avoid political extremes? Does political extremism taper off or increase with age? All truly relevant questions which should have some independent studies done for further investigation. But while this can be done by more capable people than me (read TISS or any other educational institution interested in this topic), armchair thinkers like me can sit back and contemplate more anecdotal incidents. A recent conversation with an acquaintance brought home this point in stark and brutal fashion to me. This conversation was with a young person (just under 30) about the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. It lasted around 30 minutes and it almost seemed to me that we were talking different languages. The disconnect was so obvious as to be comical. While my whole fascination with this topic was of a geopolitical nature and I kept trying to draw the discussion towards facets like the Sykes-Picot agreement, the Balfour declaration, the impact of the ‘Law of Return’; this acquaintance of mine kept brushing these topics aside and kept talking of the “ongoing humanitarian crisis” and how one side was the oppressor and the other was the victim. The conviction was absolute despite knowing that the best minds in the world agree that this is a complicated issue. At one point, I had to politely stop the conversation. This (and more such incidents) brought home to me the stark realization that political polarization might be increasing, and that income and education do not seem to have a correlation to it. This of course led me down the rabbit hole of whither did this come from?

One factor that we hear about is social media. It is cited often (and ironically enough, quite vehemently) that a glut of information and echo chambers created by social media algorithms have led to this rise in polarization. But to be honest, I feel that this simplistic solution is like missing the forest for the trees. Could very well be that echo chambers are created by polarized opinions rather than the other way around. I feel we need to go deeper. While social media might or might not be the root cause, there are two particularly important considerations that I would like to lay down – Firstly, reduced attention spans and secondly, the need/gravitation towards instant gratification.

Let us first talk about attention spans. Herbert A Simon, An American economist, political scientist, and computer scientist uncannily prophesized this in a 1971 paper titled “Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World.” ^[3]

In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.

Gloria Mark, a psychologist and currently the Chancellor's professor in the Department of Informatics at University of California, Irvine, lays out the data in her new book - “Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity.” ^[4] In the early 2000s, she and her team tracked people while they used an electronic device and noted each time their focus shifted to something new—every 2.5 minutes, on average. In recent repeats of that experiment, she says, the average has gone down to about 47 seconds. Another study by Microsoft Corp ^[5] published as a consumer insights report highlights that attention spans (defined here as the amount of time consumers spend on one screen before moving on to another app/screen) has dwindled from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds in 2015. To put this finding in perspective, Microsoft themselves have compared it to the average attention span of a goldfish, which is about 9 seconds. This means that by 2015, on average, humans (at least Canadians as per this study) had a lesser attention span than goldfish. The study goes on of course to discuss the implications of this for marketers but we need not get into that. The point is attention spans have reduced markedly in the last two decades. Even citing high-level data, that hypothesis seems to be true. There has been a 66% increase in viewership for the “Shorts” format from 2022 to 2023. The average length of a typical music video ^[6] has decreased from 259 seconds (about 4 and a half minutes) in the 90s to 197 seconds (about 3 and a half minutes) today. The average length of a typical newspaper article ^[7] has decreased from 1222 words in 2000 to 589 words in 2022. A 2023 report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) ^[8] found that the average length of a digital video advertisement had gone down from 30 seconds in 2000 to about 15 seconds in 2022.

In an interview with Time magazine, Adam Brown, co-director of the Center for Attention, Learning, and Memory at St. Bonaventure University in New York cited technology (read phone usage) as a key factor in reduced attention spans. ^[9] To quote him verbatim -

Human brains want novelty, excitement, and social connection, and devices play into those desires. Checking a notification flashing across your screen can provide a small hit of dopamine, creating a sense of reward that keeps you coming back for more. When you give in to temptation by pausing a task to check your phone, your brain also has to shift gears to stop what it was previously doing and move to a new task, Brown says. This process negatively affects the overall speed and quality of your work in the short term, research suggests, and in the long term, “the more you engage in task switching, the more your brain wants to wander and look for that new thing,” Brown says. In other words, your brain gets used to constant diversions and engages in them out of habit—hence why you might find yourself mindlessly checking your phone even as you watch your favorite television show.

This “malevolent” design is everywhere. To understand how instant gratification has become inextricably linked to our shortened attention span we need to understand the reward mechanism in our brain. The first analogy to draw on is the spike in blood sugar levels after eating carbohydrates. Refined carbohydrates cause a much steeper spike in blood sugar levels than whole/complex carbohydrates. This is because the fiber in whole/complex carbohydrates need more work to be digested. This happens more slowly and therefore supplies a slower release of glucose into the bloodstream. Unfortunately, refined carbs can be highly addictive. Carbs release glucose into the bloodstream and a burst of dopamine in the brain, and this can act like a drug for some people. There is a reason these foods are called comfort foods. The essential molecular structure of the carbohydrate is similar in refined as well as the complex variants. However, the addition of fiber causes us to do more work to digest it and hence delays the gratification. Another example is the ubiquitous slot machine. When one pictures gambling, one often thinks of poker tables, and people in dinner jackets calculating the odds of various combinations in their mind. This notion of traditional gambling was made very popular by actors such as Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. However, slot machines are far more popular. They contribute over 70% of any casino’s revenue. The slot machine hacks into a very primal reward mechanism of the brain remarkably like Pavlov's dogs. We "salivate” at the sight of those reels lining up and that familiar sound which is a precursor to a reward. We continue to press that button, mindlessly tuned in to the short, quick bursts of dopamine or the painful thrill of disappointment laced with hope for the next turn of the reel. Delayed gratification is mostly not addictive. Instant gratification is. It is that simple. This design is embedded by large corporations into everything they try to sell us – from chips with the perfect blend of salt and fat to cola drinks with the perfect blend of sugar and caffeine to tobacco companies with the perfect blend of nicotine and tar to shopping apps with the perfect blend of deals and customized recommendations to social media and smartphones! The last two are a veritable smorgasbord of addictive choices with instant gratification. Smartphones reel us in with the very design of their UI and the way user experience is built. Notifications keep us hooked. That small red number indicating the number of unread messages, the buzz or ping or beep of the notification sound . . it's a science that is being perfected at alarming rates.

Having plumbed many examples of how instant gratification can get addictive, let us dive a little deeper. What is it that makes instant gratification addictive? Think of the baseline dopamine levels in our brain as an “elastic” string tied across two poles. It is a crude but effective metaphor often used by Andrew Huberman (A Stanford researcher and neuroscientist with a special focus on ophthalmology) on his podcast. From sugar to shopping to sex, any addictive substance has two (amongst others) important characteristics – firstly, the time lag between an activity and the associated burst of dopamine (rate of onset); and secondly, the introduction of a spike in the level of dopamine in the brain. This spike must be significantly higher than baseline. The higher the rate of onset, the more addictive a substance. The higher the spike, the more it's addictive potential. This elastic that I mentioned earlier is impacted by these two factors – the flood of dopamine and its rate of onset. But in a short time after the flood, the dopamine levels in our brain drop back down. The higher and steeper the surge, the more they drop. The more they drop, the more the craving for the same experience again. The more the craving, the more reinforcement for addictive behaviors. It is a vicious cycle. Spike, drop, crave, repeat. Over time with repeated abuse of this reward mechanism, the baseline dopamine level drops too. The elastic loses strength, and it sags down. This leads to a host of other problems such as depression, which is a topic unto itself.

Smartphone manufacturers and social media companies have tapped into these characteristics of the human brain just like all other large corporations have done. Some of the key addictive features ^[10] of smartphones in general and social media in particular are infinite scrolling, instant push notifications, pending notification count, personalized recommendations, constant profile customization and instant messaging. Small things like a slight delay when refreshing the feed are by design! They increase the anticipation of a refreshed feed.

Which brings us to the impact. Over the last 10 years, daily average screen time ^[11] has increased by a whopping 23%! A large chunk of that is because of smartphones which has registered an increase of 43% in the same period! As of 2022, we spend around 7 hours in front of a screen every day and around 4 of these in front of a smartphone. But because of the addictive nature of its usage, we are not focusing on anything for too long. These 7 hours in front of a screen are spent scrolling/browsing/flitting from one screen/app to another. As per research done by Gloria Mark (cited above), the average time we spend on a screen is 47 seconds (8 seconds if you believe Microsoft). Even at the higher end of the spectrum, 47 seconds is just not enough to form a nuanced opinion. At this point we will have to delve a bit deeper again ^[12] into neurobiology and how humans make decisions/form opinions. While it is an oversimplified theory, the Triune model of the brain’s evolution suggest that the limbic system is more involved in decisions and actions involving emotion and the neocortex is involved in higher-order decisions, analytical thinking, and rational decision flows. While decision-making is an extremely complicated process from a neurological standpoint and the triune model is considered an over-simplified framework, it does provide a frame of reference or a point of ingress for us to understand the very crude basics. It is safe to say however, that the limbic system is highly involved in lower order emotional processing of input from sensory systems. On the other hand, the neocortex is understood to be involved in higher-order brain functions such as sensory perception, cognition, spatial reasoning, language, and analytical decision-making. The effect of social media on how we think has been well analyzed. A 2023 paper by Sergey Yu Tereschenko titled "Neurobiological risk factors for problematic social media use as a specific form of Internet addiction: A narrative review.” ^[13] found that internet addiction can lead to several changes in the structure of the brain. To quote -

"To date, a large number of studies have been devoted to the pathogenesis of Internet addiction using various neuroimaging techniques, including magnetic resonance imaging, positron and single photon emission computed emission tomography. These techniques have revealed a number of structural brain changes associated with Internet addiction: Decreased grey matter density in several areas, including prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortical layers and an additional motor area; abnormal functional activity of brain regions associated with reward dependence; activation of sensorimotor synchrony with a concomitant decrease in audiovisual synchrony; activation of brain regions associated with compulsive craving and impulsivity; increased glucose metabolism in brain regions associated with impulsivity, reward dependence and the urge to repeat sensations; increased dopamine secretion with a concomitant decrease in dopamine receptor availability in the striatum.

To sum up, social media addiction leads to two especially important effects – it increases our stress, and it increases our impulsivity. This leads to impaired decision-making (amongst other things). As we saw earlier, the neocortex is involved in higher-order processing of information. However, if the brain is hijacked and does not get enough time to involve the neocortex due to a greatly reduced attention span and a highly active need for instant gratification, the result is not surprising – polarized opinions, extreme reactions, and simplistic solutions. We use the limited time our attention is focused on a particular screen to react emotionally and instinctively to the content. In our hard-coded need to make sense of what we are seeing, we jump to conclusions, search for the simplest solution without analysis and form opinions based on emotion rather than logic/rationality. In essence, we are losing our ability for deep, focused, and nuanced thought. That is truly a scary thought. An even scarier consideration is that the brain is a veritable "learning machine” up to around 25 years of age. Neural pathways are being formed and it is extremely easy to pick up skills and reinforce them. After this age, it is generally considered that neuroplasticity goes down and it takes a lot more effort to "rewire” the brain (pick up new skills or change mindset). Young adults who have grown up with an internet addiction and have never picked up the skill for focused, deep, neocortex-worthy thinking will have an especially tough time dealing with complex topics. If this trend continues, we can expect future generations to be even more polarized in thought and even more easy to influence through nefarious techniques of social media manipulation. A whole generation of brain-washed consumers of information ready to amplify whatever is being fed to them and spread it even faster to other brain-washed consumers of information.

So what is the solution? As someone who has quit a debilitating alcohol and nicotine addiction and has stayed clean for the last decade or so, I can vouch that the path is not easy. To top that off, this is not an individual that we are talking about. We are trying to solve for the addiction of an entire population. We are also fighting the systemic disinclination of the entire establishment (from Big Tech to governments) to do something about this problem; mainly because it serves their needs. A population of these aforementioned brain-washed consumers of information are easy to influence. They’re easy to manipulate and easy to bring to a boil. In this moment of despair, I am reminded of Rabindranath Tagore’s timeless poem which can easily serve as a call-to-action for us and a fitting conclusion to this journey through the rabbit hole.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

 

References 

1. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13278-022-00939-z
3. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/06/22/partisanship-and-political-animosity-in-2016/
4. https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191843730.001.0001/q-oro-ed5-00019845
5. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/60795084
6. https://dl.motamem.org/microsoft-attention-spans-research-report.pdf
7. https://www.statista.com/chart/26546/mean-song-duration-of-currently-streamable-songs-by-year-of-release/
8. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/10/new-york-times-story-length/
9. https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/IAB_PwC_Internet_Advertising_Revenue_Report_2022.pdf
10. https://time.com/6302294/why-you-cant-focus-anymore-and-what-to-do-about-it/
11. https://medium.com/swlh/the-secret-design-tools-which-social-media-apps-are-using-to-create-addiction-e6a502ccb79f#:~:text=The%20psychology%20behind%20all%20this,see%20if%20you've%20won
12. https://explodingtopics.com/blog/screen-time-stats
13. https://seattleanxiety.com/psychiatrist/2022/7/22/anxiety-social-media-use-amp-maintaining-mental-health#end1
14. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370906115_Neurobiological_risk_factors_for_problematic_social_media_use_as_a_specific_form_of_Internet_addiction_A_narrative_review

Using Vanilla Gnome on Ubuntu

Ubuntu is perhaps the most popular Linux distro today. It's got a lot of pros if you look at it objectively speaking. The biggest advantage is of course a very strong and active user community. It's also got a good ecosystem for 3rd party apps and an easy application manager (apt) in addition to the default Gnome store. Since it's debian-based its also got a stable release cycle and pretty strong enterprise support. As of today, about half of all websites using Linux run some version of Ubuntu (just under 49% to be precise). CentOS comes a distant second at 18%. 

Personally speaking, I've been using Ubuntu on my machine since quite a number of years. I've experimented with Fedora, Suse, Elementary . . even tried Clear Linux from the Intel stable. But somehow I keep coming back to Ubuntu. However, the one grouse I have against Ubuntu is its stock UI. With Ubuntu 10.10 netbook edition, Mark Shuttleworth launched its new UI shell which replaced Gnome - Unity. Shuttleworth intended the development of Unity to subsume all other device user interfaces. In fact he said as such in an interview that the future of computing is having a unified interface across all devices. In hindsight, that vision was prophetic and right on the money; but messed up in implementation. Unity never really caught on - neither in the desktop/server space or in the mobile phone space. From versions 10.10 through 16.04 (LTS), Canonical gamely battled on and pushed Unity on all releases. They pushed back against criticism through articles, community engagement, interviews and press nuggets. Shuttleworth finally abandoned Unity with Ubuntu 18.04 and reverted to Gnome. However, this transition wasn't smooth either. Lots of users had gotten used to Unity by then (myself amongst them) and a lot of feathers were again ruffled with this news (again, myself included). Grudgingly and reluctantly we prepared ourselves for the transition back to Gnome. However, Canonical has since retained critical elements of the Unity UI as Gnome shell extensions while discarding the actual UI itself. It retained the Unity Dock but abandoned Unity Dash. It switched its window controls to the right but got rid of the maximize and restore buttons by default. I tried it all as god is my witness. I stuck through all the experiments that Canonical did through the Unity phase. But at one point (somewhere around Ubuntu 18.x) I finally had enough. With every Ubuntu installation, I'd install vanilla Gnome on top of it. Inefficient of course, from a resource perspective; but I loved Gnome. It is clean, functional, minimalist and very easy on system resources. Unlike KDE it's got no flashy animations and effects. Unlike Elementary, it doesn't try to ape some other OS UI. It's got its own philosophy and it makes no bones about it - ease and elegance. 

Very recently I really got stuck into Linux as an operating system and amped up my knowledge of the bash shell, the Linux architecture and open source in general with a bunch of online courses and hands-on DIY projects. With this recently acquired knowledge I started to wonder whether I could avoid installation of Gnome separately and try to just switch off Ubuntu-specific UI elements of the OS itself. Turns out its very easy! You don't need to install Gnome on top of Ubuntu to get the vanilla version. The key differences in pure Gnome and "residual" Unity are - 

• Gnome theme
• Ubuntu dock
• Custom scaling (needed on high res systems)
  
• Minor tweaks

First off, the default gnome theme is Advaita. This includes the colour palette, the icon-set and the general look/feel. To change this, one has to install the gnome-tweak-tool from the software centre. One can do that with

$ sudo apt install gnome-tweak-tool

Once this is done, just go to launcher using the <super> key and type in  "tweaks". Go to appearance tab and change the default theme to advaita or advaita-dark and you're good to go

The Ubuntu dock is basically a gnome shell extension. You can try to switch if off from the tweaks tool but 9 times out of 10 that doesn't work. The beauty of the Gnome UI is its simplistic default panel. The Ubuntu dock really gets in the way. It doesn't gel well with vlc media player and keeps messing up full-screen mode when watching videos. Next up, we switch off the Ubuntu Dock and revert to basic Gnome panel. To do that, we have to first identify what the dock is called. All extensions are stored as files in usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions folder. Just navigate to this folder in the terminal and list the contents of the folder. Like so - 

In this case (and in most cases), the dock is called ubuntu-dock@ubuntu.com (the syntax is usually <name_of_extension>@<author>). Once you have identified the correct filename, just use the gnome-extensions command to disable it. Like so -

$ gnome-extensions disable ubuntu-dock@ubuntu.com

Voila. The dock is now replaced with the default Gnome panel. 

On high-res systems objects looks really tiny. By default, Ubuntu does not support custom scaling. Ubuntu has two window managers (display server protocols) installed - X11 and Wayland. The command for fractional scaling depends on which one you are using. You can find that out with - 

$ echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE

Depending on the output, run the following command -

X11/Xorg - $ gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['x11-randr-fractional-scaling']"

OR

Wayland - $ gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['scale-monitor-framebuffer']"

Once that's done, what remains are minor UI tweaks such as restoring the maximize/minimize buttons, adding battery percentage and date to the top bar, switching desktop icons on/off, changing the font to Cantarell and changing the wallpaper (you can download the default Gnome wallpaper from the Gnome repository.

There you have it, once these minor customizations are done; for the most part, you can enjoy the clean, simple and minimalist feel of vanilla gnome. Just as the makers intended.

Parsing Information on the Internet - What's true and what's not

Credit - The Inquirer (philly.com)

There is a LOT of information floating around on the internet these days. With more and more exposure to this information and increasing integration of normal people like you and me with digital media, it is very easy to be misled by random chunks of information floating around through FB pages, WhatsApp groups or blogs/pseudo-news sites. An example is how Cambridge Analytica purportedly used personal information from FB to influence the US electoral process by bombarding propaganda at targeted demographics. While the jury is out on this one, what is clear is that it has become very easy to mislead the normal public and very easy to make/build opinions in the digital age. We simply cannot control what information we are bombarded with, but we can definitely control how we react to that information and how we let it influence us. With that in mind, here's a few simple things that all of us can take care of when digesting information floating on the internet - 

1. Avoid trusting a quote or a statement unless the source is quoted along with additional details on said quote or statement. For eg - "we've found out from reliable sources in the ministry that. . ." might not be genuine. On the other hand, "in his statement to the press dated dd/mm/yy, so and so clarified that . . ." is a more reliable statement because you can check for that press interaction. 
2. Avoid trusting a number or statistic unless there's a citation. A citation will always have the source of the data and a contact where you can validate that data. It can also be a link to an online survey, but then you have to take online survey statistics with a pinch of salt. In either scenario, with a citation, (at the very least) you'll know where a number is coming from. For eg - a random statement like "65% youth unemployed" is a bogus statement. On the other hand, "Unemployment rate for Mar-18 in India stands at 3.46% according to the latest set of data released by ILO (International Labor Organization) published on tradingeconomics.com" is a more trust-worthy statement. 
3. Avoid trusting random WhatsApp posts, random FB pages unless their provenance is verified. A good way to assess this if you can contact the admin. As Mr Weasley tells Ginny, "Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain". If you can't contact admin on an FB page or forward is anonymous and random; more often than not, it will be untrustworthy.
4. Avoid digesting information without proper numbers/statistics to back it up. A reputed news house or information outlet will adhere to points 1 and 2 above so that you can assess the authenticity of the information you are being served. 
5. Always know the political leanings of the media house which you are reading / watching news from. Most media houses have some political leaning so you can gauge and assess for yourself what level of slant they bring in and in which direction it is. Most print media is anti-establishment (for eg the daily paper "Sakal" is owned by Mr Pawar) whereas a higher proportion of digital media has leanings towards the establishment (eg - swarajyamag.com). You can find out similar information about TV channels as well. NDTV has a bias against the establishment whereas Republic TV is more pro-establishment. 

As educated citizens of India, it is our duty to think rationally and critically about what we read on the internet, build opinions after due diligence and express our own opinions carefully. Let's be safe out there! 

Web Searches from Gnome

Ever since Gnome converted their menu to an activities panel with Gnome 3, I was waiting for the community to integrate web searches directly into the GUI shell. Frustratingly, till Wily Werewolf (Oct 2015), Gnome hasn't done it by default. Given that the internet is the de facto place for people to land on to once they load their operating system, this is a big miss. Truth be told, even Microsoft hasn't been able to convincingly integrate web searches right into the OS, but then again; if we keep comparing Linux distributions to Windows we're not getting anywhere. 

So I finally gave up and started checking out extensions for Gnome; and Hallelulah! There's one developed by awamper which is really nifty. You can download the extension here. Works like a charm. 

If you get an error (in Firefox) as follows - 

just ensure that the Gnome Shell Integration plugin is active. You can check that here (about:addons) - 

Once downloaded and installed (you just need to switch it on in Firefox and it will give you a pop-up asking whether it can download and install the extension), you can activate the tool by pressing CTRL+SPACE. It's that easy! Just type your search and it will open a Gnome panel that will allow you to enter a search string - 

More importantly, the tool allows you to edit your preferences to select a default search engine, add a custom search engine, placement of the helper tool and a few other nifty settings. 

Overall, quite useful. Once you enter a search string, it will automatically open the default search engine with the results of said string. Over the course of the past few days, I've gotten so used to it that I inadvertantly press CTRL+SPACE even in Windows! 

Breaking the Myth - Windows is User-Friendly

Got myself a new machine recently. Had FreeDOS out of the box so it was up to me to get it up and running; the way I like it. I chose Windows 10 Insider Preview version and the latest Ubuntu 15.04 (Vivid Vervet) distribution for my dual-boot configuration. Let's just say that Windows 10 is still WIP - and how! But that's not the point. Even if I was using Windows 7 or 8, I still feel that the mantle of user-friendliness need not sit with Microsoft any longer. Here's a few quick points of comparison. 

• First off - install size and system requirements. The Ubuntu bootable USB is under 1GB whereas any Windows installation is 3.7GB. You can run Ubuntu without a lag on a machine with under 1GB RAM. But try that with Windows and you'll be pulling your hair with frustration. 
• Right out of the box - It's time for someone to say it. Nothing works out of the box for Windows anymore. It just doesn't. I had to install display drivers to get a decent workable resolution, audio drivers to ensure sound was setup and ethernet drivers. Thankfully, Win8 drivers worked for Win10 as well. On the other end of the spectrum, everything worked out-of-the-box for Ubuntu. Didn't have to install anything other than the OS. 
• Ease of Setup - Here too, there's no major difference left between Ubuntu and Windows. In fact, if I didn't  have to partition my hard-drive, I think the Ubuntu installation was as easy. As far as install-time goes, Ubuntu installed and was set up in under an hour while I took an hour and thirty minutes for Windows to get installed. 
• User-Friendliness - I belong to the "habit-is-user-friendliness" school of thought. If you use an OS long enough, it gets "user friendly". It's a very natural cognitive bias we all have; that familiar things are better than unfamiliar things. Hence we give them a label of user-friendliness. But consider the facts. Ubuntu comes with little features that are really useful. An example is the "disable-touchpad-when-typing" feature. It essentially locks the keypad when you are typing. On my Windows 8 machine, there have been soooo many times that my cursor has moved accidentally when typing and I've had to redo the whole thing. Ubuntu/Linux has always had multiple deskops while Windows is just coming up with Workspaces. The Linux community with GNOME was much faster to experiment with a "Panel" whereas Microsoft adapted it in Windows 8. I do have a lot more examples, but the point is that there's no significant difference between either OS when it comes to user-friendliness. In fact, now that I am used to Ubuntu GNOME, I prefer it to the Windows interface. My mouse automatically moves to the upper-right corner of the desktop even on my Windows machine to get the GNOME panel to pop-up (does that without a click btw)! 
• App Installations - This is where it gets a tad tricky. If I have a tarball or a package that I need to manually install; well, Linux gets messy. But if I've got the app available in the Ubuntu Software Centre, it's a breeze. In fact, it's easier than Windows. I just go to the product website, gives me a 1-click install option, I click on it, it opens the Ubuntu Software Centre automatically, I accept installation request, enter my credentials and it just sets up the software. As easy as falling off a log.

In summary, I must say that Ubuntu and the Linux community have bridged the gap between Microsoft and open source linux distributions fast and well. No longer can we say that Windows is more user-friendly. Not at all. In fact, as a user; I wouldn't use Windows if I had a viable alternative for Microsoft Office. The day is not far when the open source community cracks that problem too. 

In anticipation for that day, I'm starting off with Google Docs just in case. :-)

Partitioning a disk to install Ubuntu

One of the biggest stumbling block for a newbie to install Linux on a machine with Windows on it is partitioning the hard drive. Partitioning a disk is tricky without the added pressure of knowing that if you mess something up, you risk losing a working installation of Windows as well. Here's the good news - Ubuntu has made it really easy. Apart from the partitioning window, things don't get too complicated when installing Ubuntu. Here's how to go about it.

First off, we need to understand the basic difference between a Windows filesystem and a Linux filesystem. Think of Windows as a block diagram where the various partitions of a hard drive sit at the same level. Your C drive and your D drive are the parent folders of their own heirarchies, something like this - 

Basically, the logical partitions of a windows hard drive are masters of their own domains (no puns intended). They command their own trees like feudal lords, so to say. Their respective drives form their own folder structures and the root folder of each logical partitiom is the beginning of the structure. Linux is a bit different, something like this - 

The folder structure itself acts as a organizing system for logical partitions in Linux whereas the partitions act as the base for the folder structure in Windows. This means that teh entire hard disk (the physical partition) needs a mount point too. This is the root folder (/). In the root folder, you will find mount points for the other logical partitions (they could be a folder in the root folder or a sub-folder within a folder too). In the example above, /home is the mount point for a logical partition and becomes the root folder for that particular partition.

Coming back from theory, what we need to remember when installing Linux and when we come to the dreaded "Something Else" option when we are installing Windows is that each partition in a Linux drive needs a mount point. In essence, we need part of the hard drive that is formatted using Windows NTFS file-system and part of the drive handed over to Linux ext4 file-system where each of its partitions have a mount point. A standard dual-boot hard drive will be configured as follows - 

When the time comes to choose partitioning (Step 4 in the installation process outlined in one of our previous posts here), and if you're thinking of being a dare-devil and choosing the "Something Else" option, understanding these concepts will give you an idea of how your hard drive needs to be structured. A sample partition table is as below - 

• The first partition is the one allocated for Windows with 50GB labelled "Windows". 
• We then have an extended partition which contains the following logical partitions 
• A root partition for Linux of about 50GB with / as the mount point. 
• A swap partition of about 4GB
• A data partition with "/media/observer/data" as the mount point but partitioned as NTFS which both Windows and Linux can use for storing data.

This is the only tricky portion in installing Linux. The rest is as easy as falling off a log! 

For more detailed information, check Ubuntu's official documentation on partitioning your hard drive. This document provides a clear explanation of what partitions are, how to use them and what to do when installing Ubuntu. I also found a very useful and very easy instructable on doing this, which you can access here. This includes a very detailed and step-by-step process on dual-booting Ubuntu with Windows 7. 

Happy computing!

The Future is Open

This advert was released in 2003. It opens with the picture of a kid learning from its elders. It learns poetry, data analysis, computing, aeronautics. We hear voices say, "it's just a child"; but the kid continues learning. The child is Linux. The future is open. 

Its 2014. The child has grown up. And how. Linux is currently the backbone for 90% of all supercomputers, 70% of all web servers and 50% of all mobile phones in the world. From applications as diverse as mobile computing to particle physics, Linux has grown. The child is now a youth. 

And the journey has just begun. The fascinating phenomenon that is open source is spreading its reach. We are slowly learning that sharing knowledge is the key to progress. We are slowly learning that collective wisdom is the path to enlightenment. At the same time, we are slowly learning that a quest for improvement is inherent in humanity.

The future is indeed open. 

OpenELEC DIY - Using Raspberry Pi to make your TV smart!

This is one of those rare DIY posts. For many months, I have been hearing and reading about how cool Raspberry Pi is and how it's the bee's knees when it comes to cheap computing. Finally I decided to take Pi up on that claim. I decided to hook it up to my TV to set up an entertainment server. After some initial hiccoughs (natural considering that its a Linux distribution and requires a fair amount of know-how to install and setup), I managed to set up OpenELEC 4.2.1. With this done and with some tweaks and customizations, I now have a smart-TV since OpenELEC is a near fully functional Linux OS, a media server and the ability to hook up USB devices to said system thus giving me the option to set up a home network for all my devices. 

Requirements - 

To set up a functional OpenELEC system, here's what you need:

• A Raspberry Pi. You can buy this from Amazon. You may also want to buy a casing for the Pi which costs approximately INR 500.00. 
• A TV with HDMI output (most TVs nowadays have HDMI). 
• An ethernet connection (optional)
• A bluetooth keyboard and mouse (for input to the Pi). 
• A micro-USB charger (a normal phone charger works adequately).
• A micro-SD card. 
• A laptop to set up the Pi.

The Process - 

In essence, setting up a Pi is as easy (or ought to be) as falling off a log. The broad steps are - 

• Setting up the Pi by connecting all hardware to the Pi board
• Setting up the micro-SD card with an operating system of your choice. 
• First boot. 

Setting up the Pi - 

This part is quite easy. All you need to do is connect the required hardware to the right port on the Pi. The following diagram will make it clear as day  -

Setting up the Micro-SD card - 

To do this, you first need to decide which operating system to use. Raspberry offers users the choice of a very easy click-to-click installation route called NOOBS (New Out of Box Software). This is basically a menu which gives you the option to choose an operating system and install it. The Pi uses a micro-SD card as the internal storage. Since I wanted to hook up my TV to the Pi, I went for OpenELEC (Open Embedded Linux Entertainment Centre). The process to create an OpenELEC micro-SD card using a Linux machine is a tad convoluted. You can find detailed instructions here. If you've got a Windows machine, things are much easier, though I recommend using a Linux console for getting down and dirty! From Windows, it basically boils down to 

• Format micro-SD card using FAT32. 
• Download OpenELEC image
• Download a disk imaging tool (you can find one here)
• Burn the disk image onto the micro-SD card. 
• You're good to go. 

First Boot - 

This part is quite intuitive. All you now need to do is plug in the Pi to a power source, insert the micro-SD card and boot it up. The first boot will automatically resize the card to suit its installation and throw up the following screens (in order) - 

Once you're done with the simple step-by-step installation instructions, you're good to go! 

End Game - 

Raspberry Pi has revolutionized basic computing. Though the original intent was to aid teaching and to give a low-cost solution thereto, the Pi's multi-functionality means that it is being used for a plethora of purposes right from home automation to robotics. The total cost to set up a fully functional Pi is as follows - 

In essence, that's quite a significant saving if you consider the exorbitant prices that TV manufacturers charge for smart TVs with lesser functionality. The Pi basically converts your tawdry non-smart TV into a fully functional entertainment center with leading-edge features on a scalable model.

The Linux Phenomenon

Click on image to open embedded PDF

This note examines the impact of the open source and FOSS movement with particular focus on Linux kernel development on sociological structures

Big Brother is watching . .

I saw an article somewhere on the internet a while ago and it set my brain whirring. Apparently, sometime back in 2012, Facebook collected usage trends of approximately 689000 users over a period of 6 months and conducted a massive sociological experiment without the users consent or knowledge. You can read more about the actual incident here. You can read the detailed report that the FB team published on the Proeedings of the National Academy of the Sciences (www.pnas.org) here. Why is it such a big deal? Companies analyse information about their consumers all the time in order to gain leverage for sales. What's all the ruckus about?

In my mind, I immediately painted a scenario. In the first part (and call me an addicted Googlophobe), I admitted the fact that a lot of my personal data is stored with Google. Google knows about my physical characteristics through my photographs. Google knows what my mobile number is since they confirm it periodically through Hangouts. Google knows my likes and dislikes (those which I want the world to see through my Google profile and those which I do not necessarily publicise through my usage statistics for Chrome). That's a little bit scary. But then it goes on. Google knows my location almost all the time even if I have my GPS switched off. Google knows my location VERY accurately if I leave my location services on. Google knows personal details of my life minutely since it has all my emails since 2000. Google knows the ups and downs of my life. Google knows about the things I buy, about the music that I listen to, about the movies that I watch, about what kind of information I like and dislike, even what turns me on . .

Gets a little bit scarier right? I recently bought an external HDD from Amazon. The next time I logged in to Google, I could observe more instances of these adverts on my mail page. I could not believe that. It had to be a coincidence. But I was wrong. It's not a coicidence. When I bought earphones online, I saw adverts of audio equipment manufacturers. Gets even scarier. Google Now is already analysing me and suggesting things to me which I currently club under technological innovation and smile at. But now I am seriously worried. For example, I had gone to a village called Dandeghar near Panchgani for a small vacation. The road that I took from my hotel to the main road is a "T" junction. To the left is Panchgani and Mahabaleshwar. To the right is the national highway which takes one back to Pune. The first time that I turned left, Google Now (When i say Google Now where "N" is capitalized, I mean the app of that name) popped up a question, "Are you going home?". I answered back in the negative and moved on. The next time I took a right and it asked me the same question again. This time, since technically the direction was correct (even though I was not going home), I answered in the affirmative. The third time that I left the hotel and took a right turn from the "T" junction, Google Now automatically popped up a card informing me that home was a little over 90 kilometres away and would take a little under 2 hours in moderate traffic near Sinhagad road. I was flabbergasted. 

I now couple this knowledge with the outcome of this rather cheeky and daring experiment conducted by Facebook. Here's what they did and found - "For one week in January 2012, data scientists skewed what almost 700,000 Facebook users saw when they logged into its service. Some people were shown content with a preponderance of happy and positive words; some were shown content analyzed as sadder than average. And when the week was over, these manipulated users were more likely to post either especially positive or negative words themselves."

Consider the implications. A technology company can actually tweak what you think by manipulating what you see insidiously. Now you'll say that it is exactly what the public media has been doing since ages. It has always been bombarding you with what's right and what's wrong. It's always been building perception and has been an important part of mainstream culture. But this is different. The Facebook experiment is a landmark event in the new era - the era of insidious control. 

Now let me draw your attention back to Google for a wee bit. Consider three very interesting projects that Google has been working on. 

• Project Loon - Essentially, Google is trying to connect the entire world to the internet. A vast array of balloons floating in the stratosphere giving away an internet connection in remote areas of the world. Areas where even food can't make its way easily, internet will be accessible. Why does Google want to do this? 
• Google Glass - Everybody knows what this is about. Essentially, Google will be your eyes and your ears. It will hear everything you hear, see everything you see. It will be a part of you. As much as your brain. Quite obvious why Google wants that so much. 
• Google Ingress - This is an augmented reality game. It immerses you in an alternate reality where you are a part of either faction (one faction trying to annihilate certain areas/buildings/objects desginated as "portals" and the other faction trying to protect them). Why did Google spend so much money buying an online game? 

The answer, I feel is in combining these three technologies (cloud tech, wearable computing and augmented reality). Imagine a world where Google will be connected to you no matter where you go and will be able to get inside your head and will be able to manipulate even the sensory inputs you receive to change your perception of reality. Is that scary enough? Just a teeny-tiny example of how it may manipulate its power. This is just a VERY small example mind you. Imagine that Google gets into an agreement with a local restaurant. The local restaurant pays Google money to designate the restaurant as a portal on the game. Gamers (who wear Glass and play Ingress) will automatically gravitate to the restaurant if they are passing near the vicinity to either destroy the portal or to protect it. Increased footfall, increased revenue. Get's even scarier right? Wait for the kicker.

Imagine a world where a rich, nebulous and multinational corporation has the power to tweak reality, make or break politicians, determine or at the very least manipulate public opinion and therefore determine the course of history. Imagine this corporation. This is where Google is right now. It's a world power. Already. The only difference is that it hasn't begun flexing its muscle. It hasn't invested in military tools. Or maybe it has . . ?

Call me paranoid. But I am definitely alarmed at the signs all around me. I can see that technology is getting more and more "wearable" and I worry about it. I don't fear technology at all. Far from it. But I certainly fear the entity that will eventually end up controlling me through the technology that I use. 

Should I be taking steps? I shall wait and watch . . 

But one thing I do know for a fact - Big Brother is watching.