Saturday, November 01, 2021
People love 2 things. Paint an optimistic picture of the future and try to wash their hands in the current trends. NFTs I believe are one such thing that have become a witness to this. Greg Isenberg yesterday tweeted a short thread on how the concept of NFTs will fix the current broken hiring process. The thread was obviously not received well by many people on twitter. Many of them cam up with satirical tweets to mock Greg. Read this spoof and I bet it will leave you on the floor laughing xD.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the COP26 Climate Conference in Glasgow, Scotland on November 2, 2021 said that India is aiming for net zero carbon emissions by 2070 — two decades beyond the target set by the summit’s organizers.
Why is it such a big deal and is it even possible?
David Foster Wallace in his famous Everlasting Speech mentioned a short story - “There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how’s the water?”.And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”
Wallace explained, “The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about.”
Fossils fuels are so ingrained in our lives that it is even difficult to imagine the impact they have on us. Let’s start with everyday objects!
You wake up and brush your teeth in the morning. The toothpaste contains plastic, which comes from petroleum. You then prepare your breakfast, the grains and cereals were grown using fertilisers which release greenhouse gases when produced. You took your car, which most likely runs on petrol or diesel (if it is an electric one, GREAT! Although mush of the electricity is also generated by fossil fuels currently!). The car you drive is made up of steel and plastic, the production of which again required fossil fuels. You reach your office which is made up of cement, which is produced with fossil fuels in a process that releases carbon as a by-product. You sit in an air conditioned cabin, which contains a coolant - a potent greenhouse gas. You work on a laptop which means more emissions!
In short, fossil fuels are everywhere. When we say about NET ZERO carbon emissions, what we mean is eliminating the use of fossil fuels completely and replacing them with alternate sources of energy. It looks like an impossible, mammoth task that we have got ourselves into. But we don’t really have a choice. Net zero carbon emissions is the only way forward for us to save humanity and the blue planet from a catastrophe we haven’t witnessed ever.
Surely the road ahead is a difficult one, but not something we can’t achieve. Let's discuss the road ahead, the strategies to achieve net zero carbon emission for the next edition.
I have a friend who hates sleeping. There are people who suffer from insomnia and there’s my friend who legit hates sleeping. I was wondering what could be the reason behind this. While researching on this I came across something which I thought could be the reason behind this.
In 1729 French geophysicist Jean-Jacques de Marian conducted an experiment which showed that plants have their own internal time. De Marian was studying the leaf movements of a species called as Mimosa Pudica. The leaves of this plant trace the passage of the sun, but at night they collapse down. Then at the start of the following day, the leaves pop up once again, tracing the passage of sun. This behaviour repeat everyday.
As a part of his experiment, De Marian placed the plant in a sealed box, cutting off sunlight entirely for 24 hours. Despite being cut off from the influence of daylight, the plant behaved as if it were bathing in the sunlight. The leaves expanded just like they do on a normal day and they collapsed down with the setting of the sun. The experiment proved that the plants have their own internal clock and they are not slaves to the sun’s rhythmic commands.
Several years later it was proved the same for humans. We too have a 24 hour clock biological clock situated right above the point where are optic nerves meet inside the brain. In an another famous experiment to understand what causes to sleep, two scientists locked themselves inside a cave - in sheer darkness. They wanted to determine if sun has any influence on their sleep cycle. There were two results that came out. The first result was a predictable one - there was no change in their sleep cycle. They slept for 9 hours daily and had a proper sleep cycle. The second was something unpredictable. The experiment revealed that the cycle of wake & sleep were not 24 hours in length, but rather a longer than 24 hours. What our brain does is, it uses daylight for this resetting purpose. The light of the sun methodically resets our inaccurate internal timepiece each and every day, winding us back to precisely, not approximately twenty four hours. This twenty four clock that sits above the intersecting point of the optic nerves is called as suprachiasmatic. It controls our patterns of sleeping.
In short, we all have a 24 hour clock sleep & wake cycle which resets. Now either my friend’s brain is not able to reset the cycle of wake & sleep back to 24 hours or suprachiasmatic in their brain is not doing its job with utmost sincerity!
What do you think?
See you next Saturday, until then have a great weekend :)
Cheers!
Some things that you may find interesting-
Article: Everlasting Speech by David Foster Wallace
Video: How imaginary numbers were invented?
Podcast: The Joe Rogan Experience - Amishi Jha
Song I am listening to: Wildest Dreams by JK Beats
Thought of the week: "Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom."
Here are the last three posts if you were too occupied to read them:
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