7 Billion

Today the world has reached a new milestone, which has compelled me to change the very name of this blog itself. Yes, we reached the population landmark of 7,000,000,000 or seven billion according to a UN estimate. According to me population growth is not a good trend and achieving it has some serious implications. The world is already ridden with poverty, AIDS and a host of problems with which the majority of the population can not keep up with. Sure, we have more people and man-force. But that doesn't help the fact that unlike population, resources do not reproduce by themselves. Providing for seven billion odd people is more than what the earth can give.

Here's a breakdown of the world's population growth.

This is positive information. The world has only added one billion people in 13 years since the last milestone of six billion. More people would probably mean higher growth rates. It's not happened in this case due to successful campaigns from the Chinese - 400 million less births. However, even with the current growth rate, it will not be sustainable to have more people on this planet in a few decades.

Food for thought. Comment and express your opinions.

Photography: Volume 1

Hi guys, its been a long time since I've updated this. Got a few photos with my awesome Canon SX1-IS cam. (click to enlarge)

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A pity, because I always found that a rather attractive flower. But a great photo opportunity as well!

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Why thee vile insect, must consume min winsome flower? (old English, just for the heck of it)

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I love this photo. Super macro, so the spider was almost touching the lens of the cam. Came out really well though.

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Not much to say, but like the colours of this.

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Timing is the essence of photography. Looks good as well.

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One of my favorite bugs; the millipede. The revolting insect was dangling from a twig when I captured it (sounds like pokemon there).

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Could have put a bit more emphasis on the bird, but the flowers gave the picture a nice setting,

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A pretty good shot to get it in that pose. Over-exposed (+2) I think, but that puts the bird in the spotlight.

Hope you like the photos. Review and comment.

The 1 = Everything equation

What's your unlucky number?

"13", say some people

"Nooo, 4", say the others.

My unlucky number's 1. Yup. The closest whole number to zero really sucks for me. Cricket: Lost by 1 run. Badminton: 20-21 (no deuces). It's pretty much everywhere. More so from a competitive exam viewpoint: NSO, IMO, IAIS, they've all gone up in smoke because of 1 mark. But that really doesn't compare to my worst defeat.

Infosys CTY.

I was pretty happy with myself till I got to know of the top six. I couldn't believe it, so I stormed into the co-coordinator's room.

"How much did I get", I asked.

After fumbling a bit, she said I got 18/20. I didn't know how that could disqualify me because everyone else got 18/20 as well.

"I could've chosen you instead of anyone of the other six. But your mistake, well, I can't pardon that."

I had messed up on the easiest question in that paper: "What's 25% of 25%?". I decided not to argue. It really hurt that I screwed up on that. Every morning for a few months I woke up with the same question, "What good am I in anything else, if I can't even make it to the top six in my school?".

Scars don't fade easily, and this one didn't heal till a month ago.

There you have it: 'The 1 = Everything' equation.

After the exams...

Well, today concluded a week's long affair of exertion. To be honest, it really wasn't a lot of work this time. Can't say that these exams really ended on a high note with every student's perennial fear - Hindi.

Photography's awesome! Expect pictures in my upcoming posts.

Before the exams...

I really haven't been doing justice to this blog for quite some time. It's probably out of laziness that I couldn't bring myself to update it either. With the advent of Pokemon Platinum on the emulator, factor the time I want to spend on this to zero.

That can change now. Queer time to restart, few days prior to the exams.