№ 263. Celibate

A young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to helping the other monks in copying the old canons and laws of the church, by hand.



He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript.

So, the new monk goes to the Old Abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up! In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.

№ 171. Happy Birthday Gmail, Quo Vadis?

Here's food for digital thought: What are the options and risks of Gmail usage. Costs and benefits? Where are we headed? 1984-esque?

Gmail is a superb service, which doesn't cost me a centavo. Yet, as the CNN article said, it's not free. Nothing in life is, as the cliche goes.

I started out with Yahoo but then moved to Gmail not for anything quantum really but simply because the service and the search features were killer. It's all about the delightful user experience. I don't mind sharing my information. As long as I control the bits and pieces I disclose and get to be apprised of the data they're going to mine, dig in big brother Google.

So here goes another turn for singularity. Happy Anniversary Gmail. Maybe I'll regret this much later, but for now, I can't say I'm on the losing end of the deal.

№ 9. At the Post Office

On the last day of our trip last year, I bought these postcards from the stamps museum in Singapore. They arrived quite late---3 weeks after I mailed them in the museum. Airmail, although considered snail-paced now, still works! Real postcards look and feel better, too.

Maybe the post office is still relevant in the age of gmail.