Using old technology during economic uncertainty

There are a lot of negative views of the global economy in the news recently. Although most of us would like to continue our lives in a positive way, we should prepare ourselves - just in case the worst scenario played by the 'experts' becomes true. A few steps can be taken to ensure that we can maintain a modicum of normal lifestyle if things becomes tough.

First of all, print out all important information on survival tactics in case of total economic meltdown. The reason for printing is obvious and it is also important to store all the survival kits somewhere where it is easy to access.

Next, do stock up on batteries. These will be useful to power clocks, torchlites and radios. Get solar powered electronic gadgets such as wristwatches and calculators. Get some cheap, low powered transistor radios if you don't have one already.

Transportation may become expensive due to fuel cost so it will be wise to get a bicycle. Get one with added storage containers so that it can be used for grocery shopping effectively. If possible relocate to an area near to amenities so that you dont have to travel far to maintain your life.

Other things to get will be water container (dont forget to fill up with water!), tissues, durable clothes, foodstuff, candles and matches. Also get mosquito coils. Finally try to be more friendly with your neighbours!

Government and Technology

Technology is just a tool to make our lives better. At the very basic level, if we have enough knowledge and desire to live thriftily, we can leave off the environment for a long time without electricity or piped water. This extreme lifestyle would be suitable for individuals or small groups of people. For larger groups of people, the system breaks down and the the lifestyle can deteriorate badly.

For a modern society to function well, technology is the key for peaceful existence. The growth of human population around the globe and the desire to leave near the workplace forces people to live in close quarters with each other and this necessitates investment in high technology to keep the society functioning and citizens happy.

As we grow as a society, we require stable government to nurture complex studies and programs to develop newer and more sophisticated technology. If we look at the semiconductor industry, the advancement have been amazing. As limits of chip fabrications have been reached, a new method or process or substance have been found which then pushes the boundary of what can be created to another 5 years or so.

The same thing with the auto industry. 40 years ago, many car manufacturers were unique and each make cars in the areas they are good at - speed, comfort, fuel economy. Nowadays we have cars that can do all of the above at very reasonable prices. We can also find similar advancement in the aerospace industry and almost any other modern technology based industry.

All the above are only possible with the existence of stable government, both at the country level and also at the regional level. Without its inherent stability over the past 150 years, USA could not have been the superpower it is today. The same goes to Europe and Japan, who in the past 50 years have not involved in any major wars or civil strife. Therefore the progress technology and continued expansion of the human population globally requires a stable global geo-politic environment.

WiMAX update

WiMAX have been touted as the challenger and the real alternative to 3G technology for quite some time. Unfortunately, it hasn't been successful in dethroning 3G as the network technology of choice for high speed wireless broadband service. For now, there are only scattered service providers around the world using the WiMAX technology.

The main issue is still technical problems associated with getting all the network components to work seamlessly with one another. Although the standards have been around for quite some time, the biggest problem is the realization of the products in the real service provider environment. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done.


On the other hand 3G has a big pool of manufacturers and most of the manufacturing and implementation problems have been sorted out. They have also speeded up the deployment of the 3.5G or HSPA technology and now there are many services around the world that provide 3.6Mbps and even 7.2 Mbps services for their consumers.

What can the WiMAX providers and manufacturers do to address the problem? The first thing is to get their act together and investigate the full extent of all the issues still pending with the WiMAX ecosystem. One should know all the problems out there so that a concerted effort can be made to fix each and every one of them so that it will be a much smoother roll out for the operators. By ignoring some of the problems, it will only scare away potential interest in the technology and make existing implementers face a lot of pain using them.

The Quest for viable alternative energy source

Imagine our world without supplied energy .... our lives will become unbearable within a day for many people and most social systems will probably collapse within a month. Our daily lives and the economic systems are fatally dependent on continuous energy supply. If the energy is choked, it can be used as a tool for war and suffering.

The recent speculative price hike proves that we need alternative fuel supply so that our safety, comfort and security can be planned with much better confidence. It had caused a race to get alternative energy supply such as from the sun's rays, wind power, geo thermal power and even nuclear power,which used to be bad word for the young and informed generation.


Alas, with the recent reduction in the price of oil, governments and public have begun to abandon their quest for a viable alternative energy. This should not be the case. We should still strive to find a good alternative to the oil and strive to maintain a good balance between both - ideally between 30% to 50%.

One aspect of the energy race the government needs to look at is what will their action will be if somehow a new source of energy is found which is tremendously cheap and freely available. They should plan for a minor social upheaval as the industrial and financial structures change happens to counteract this.