e-Nagar

The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.
-John Maynard Keynes

Creativity loves constraint, but creating artificial barriers (mental/process) simply kills a wonderful idea.

Let me narrate a real life incident:
Big reorganization is happening in my office. The resulting suspense and tragedies are leading to lots of interesting water-fountain gossips.

Yesterday, an office colleague, got really amused and remarked. “Someday, when I have enough money, I will make a movie out of it.”
I said “Why wait for tomorrow, just write a script and by Christmas you can shoot it.”
To my suprise people ended up staring at me as if I am doing some blasphemy.

Every day about 100 new movies are published on YouTube. For a 100$ they buy/rent a video cam and gather the neccessary equipment. They creates costumes out of everyday garments, use the offices (weekends), parks or personal homes for sets/background and just shoot often under natural light.

Most of these movies are no better than the skids and dramas we used to have during the high-school, but they always convey their meaning.
Technology has made everyday movie making a very economical weekend hobby, yet most people are so much used to Karan Johar kind of megalomania that they just can’t think practical.

The result is that this idea ends up along with the ideas of crossing the oceans in rafts, cleaning the attic and other crazy stuff which you plan for but never execute.

The first nuclear reactor was build in the late 30ies and tested during the fag end days of the 2nd world war. So as on this day nuclear technology is 70 years old. Everybody who had science in high school would have learned chapters after chapters about fission, nuclear reactors, hydrogen bomb, cyclotron etc. The technology is very old, high school students have access to the basic principals… what is stopping them from making one?

In fact I recently came across a book where a high school kid from Michigan actually made a rudimentary nuclear reactor in his own backyard. Scary isn’t it?
Well when will politicians and statesmen realize that you do not need a multi-billion dollar facility and government sponsorship do achieve these feats?
Suppose a bunch of kids from Iran create a mushroom cloud for New year/Ramzaan/ 4th July/ Deepawali etc. What should the government do? Should they hail them as heroes or do damage control and banish them from the country?
Even though no body was harmed should they be treated as scientists or as fellow anarchists?
Even though the government has no role to play would the UN/USA put trade sanctions/embargo on countries like Iran?

—–
How would UN/USA and nuclear power react :
1) Trade Embargo: Members of such household are hereby forbidden from exporting/importing goods and services directly from other nations.
2) Sanctions: Members of such household are debarred from all government aid programs. They can no longer get free food grains under PDS (Public distribution system), they will not get subsidized education and Medicare.
3) Weapons inspection: Officers will repeatedly knock at your door, strip search you just to make sure you do not capabilities to manufacture WMD
4) What if you do not cooperate: They will bomb you to Stone Age, and then try the head of the household to causing the misery to the rest of the family. Finally the report will conclude that no WMD was found.