Red flag act, web, Mukesh Ambani & cricket - Edition 11
Around 1860 cars started gaining traction in the United Kingdom. This mode of transportation threatened the locomotive industry and the horse-drawn carriage operators. So they joined hands and lobbied the lawmakers to pass a new law. This law was introduced in 1865 and it became famous as the "Red Flag Act". This new act introduced the following laws.
A locomotive must have at least three people - a driver, a stoker, and a man who would walk before the automobile by 60 yards waving a red flag to warn others of the incoming car.
And how fast the cars can come to be warned off. The car could go at a maximum speed of 4 miles/hour on the country road and a maximum speed of 2 miles/hour in the city. A fine of £10 would be charged for "speeding".
In 1896 this law was amended to change the speed limit to 14 miles/hr and now a man carrying a "red flag" was not needed.
James Dyson, the inventor of the Dyson vacuum cleaner, mentioned in his memoir that the UK government's attitude toward the new technology hasn't changed much since then.
In 1896 as the UK was amending the law the state of Pennsylvania in the USA passed a new law applicable to all horseless carriages. As per this law on a chance encounter with cattle of livestock following procedure needed to be adopted:
* immediately stop the vehicle
* immediately and as rapidly as possible disassemble the automobile, and
* conceal the various components out of sight behind nearby bushes until equestrian or livestock is sufficiently pacified."
The question is 100 years from now what the future generation would write about the absurd thing we are doing currently? What is it that we should be promoting instead of restricting? Because of those laws car makes of UK lost ground to other companies from around the world. Should more countries be adopting crypto even though it feels counterintuitive? What about AI? What about climate change? What about the driverless car? Should we promote it more even though we know until the technology matures it might cause more accidents? When technology is safe enough? What if we wait too long and in the meantime, others have taken the lead?
Web is killing individuality : The promise of the Internet was to be what you are and shine through your individuality. individuality. However more and more we all end up watching the same viral videos, the same famous tweets, and same news on multiple platforms. Everyone is becoming like everyone else and that's killing everyone's personality. The best solution is to break away from the Internet and when you are using the Internet be cognizant of the fact that algorithms are pushing you to be just like the next person down the road.
Speech by Mukesh Ambani in 1998 : 25 years ago Mukesh Ambani spoke about how India will evolve in the coming years. 25 years later India has changed quite a bit and of course, Mukesh Ambani is the 10th richest man in the world.
Barnes & Nobles is making a comeback : This is a comeback story. Over the years Barnes & Noble has been losing ground to Amazon. Over the years I've seen many Barnes & Noble stores getting closed.
I like visiting Barnes & Noble and holding the physical books in my hand. I'm really happy about this turnaround. This is also the story about giving power back to the people who matter.
Barnes & Noble is in the business of selling books. Book lovers should have a say in the matter, not the corporations peddling their books.
Big data is changing cricket : This is the age of data and ML. Now that we have software that can crunch a large amount of data, it was only a matter of time before we had something like this. A model that will predict how the game is going.
A straight line is not necessarily the fastest route : Seems pretty counterintuitive to me.