Tea Served in Kullar
Pattals : bowls and plates made of dry leaves
Food Served in Pattals 
Smart PenSo something new on my journal, on my blog.
Apologies I have little time to make it flowery or nice or poetic. This is what is. And time is rare, but thanks for reading.
Well, first, I must say that when I first came here they talked an awful lot about wolves, now they are talking about mosquitoes.
Mosquitoes in Sweden?
Yes, and apparently they are so small that you cannot see them but be rest assured that they see you.
Since there is not tradition of using mosquito nets, be careful when opening windows. None of these critters takes no for an answer, and depending on the heat they multiply fast. And make no mistake, they may be cute, but they are too small to have a heart. They bite.
Plain and simple.
On a brighter note, the daylight is about 17 hrs and more. I walk home at 10 pm and it is bright daylight. I know that by the time I hit my bed, which is close to 11 or so, the night would just be coming around.
And since I have no time to write long drawn out notes on what is going on in Sweden and the changes that I have already noticed here, I most definitely write about my interaction with a student on Thursday, May 6.
A Norwegian student, one of the most polite and quite brilliant came in to talk about his project. And finally I commented on something in his hand that I had noted for the whole semester.
What do you do with that during my teaching? Listen to music?¨ I pointed at headphones plugged into a pen.
These days you have so many of these inventions that it is no surprise that a fax, VCR, phone and a music player can come in one compact gadget. I had seen him use that during the class and never said anything because I am always too caught up in the lectures. I love this class, I can lecture non-stop but also the presentations from the students are just so interesting.
Once during the class I tapped at his head and said, are you listening to me?
“I have it on pen,” he said, mildly defensive, as if I understood what he said.
So, now in my office as I curiously looked at this contraption, he gently extended the earplugs from the headphones towards me. Plugged the headphones into the back of the pen.
I recorded your lecture¨, he said.
I gasped as I heard my voice coming of what seemed like a pen.
He then went onto explain to me, that this pen came with a camera and could recognize handwritings. When I talk about something that he specifically wants to remember, he writes it down on this computerized notebook that comes with this pen. Well, not really computerized but has certain dots and information in the notebook. He simply clicks on that and the recorded lecture goes on to the place where I uttered that word, website, or a comment.
My eye-sockets were hurting because my eyeballs had grown three-size big. And then he showed me this little plate at the end of the notebook that looked like the symbols on a recorder. Record, play, stop, jump forward or backward. First, two pages of each of these notebooks come with instructions so that students/users can refer to them. But just like anything else once it becomes a common practice they just know it.
You can find more about it, he said, on Live Scribe.
A pen can cost up to 150 USD.
I was reminded of a higher education seminar we had in our department. This researcher is actually an economist but was always interested in pictures, art and culture. So about a decade ago he started taking pictures of what he calls *abandoned places¨. The huge buildings that were built, hardly used and abandoned because they were no longer viable, affordable, feasible, or simply out of fashion. Massive multistory hotels, places designed for personal leisure by businessmen who simply went out of business and sometimes factories and warehouses. What amazed me was that the only option left was to tear them down. Often times, the longer these structures were kept without being used the less chance they had of being sold again. Because, the architecture, the wiring, the design got too outdated. It was cheaper to abandon them rather than reuse them. He also noted something that I kept going back to in this discussion with my Norwegian student.
That the first computer that was made in the 60s had less programming than our everyday gadgets today. We are generating so much more waste today than ever before. What will we do?
And in countries like India they replaced ‘kullars’ and ‘pattals’ with plastic cups and plastic and paper plates. Although in parts they still exist. Kullars are quickly baked clay cups that were used for selling tea on tea stalls, mostly on the railway platforms. Pattals are bowls and plates made from dry leaves. Both kullars and pattals are biodegradable.
What are we doing, why can’t we slow down, come up with simpler ways of living?
May be, may be my landlord Erik has the answer. He is a chemical engineer who is researching making packaging from natural materials so that it decomposes soon and is reclaimed by nature.
But will we really have recyclable computers? As was promised a while ago?
All of this philosophy did not reduce my fascination with the “smart pen”.
I did think about copyright and other issues. But having expressed all my concerns. I must admit, this is an amazing invention, albeit another distraction.
Must end with what my multimedia teacher had on his syllabus.
“Technology has nothing to say, so you better do” meaning it is always the man/woman behind the technology that decides its best potential. No computer can make a man, it is always, and I know that at least in my lifetime it will always be the other way around.
Well, first, I must say that when I first came here they talked an awful lot about wolves, now they are talking about mosquitoes.
Mosquitoes in Sweden?
Yes, and apparently they are so small that you cannot see them but be rest assured that they see you.
Since there is not tradition of using mosquito nets, be careful when opening windows. None of these critters takes no for an answer, and depending on the heat they multiply fast. And make no mistake, they may be cute, but they are too small to have a heart. They bite.
Plain and simple.
On a brighter note, the daylight is about 17 hrs and more. I walk home at 10 pm and it is bright daylight. I know that by the time I hit my bed, which is close to 11 or so, the night would just be coming around.
And since I have no time to write long drawn out notes on what is going on in Sweden and the changes that I have already noticed here, I most definitely write about my interaction with a student on Thursday, May 6.
A Norwegian student, one of the most polite and quite brilliant came in to talk about his project. And finally I commented on something in his hand that I had noted for the whole semester.
What do you do with that during my teaching? Listen to music?¨ I pointed at headphones plugged into a pen.
These days you have so many of these inventions that it is no surprise that a fax, VCR, phone and a music player can come in one compact gadget. I had seen him use that during the class and never said anything because I am always too caught up in the lectures. I love this class, I can lecture non-stop but also the presentations from the students are just so interesting.
Once during the class I tapped at his head and said, are you listening to me?
“I have it on pen,” he said, mildly defensive, as if I understood what he said.
So, now in my office as I curiously looked at this contraption, he gently extended the earplugs from the headphones towards me. Plugged the headphones into the back of the pen.
I recorded your lecture¨, he said.
I gasped as I heard my voice coming of what seemed like a pen.
He then went onto explain to me, that this pen came with a camera and could recognize handwritings. When I talk about something that he specifically wants to remember, he writes it down on this computerized notebook that comes with this pen. Well, not really computerized but has certain dots and information in the notebook. He simply clicks on that and the recorded lecture goes on to the place where I uttered that word, website, or a comment.
My eye-sockets were hurting because my eyeballs had grown three-size big. And then he showed me this little plate at the end of the notebook that looked like the symbols on a recorder. Record, play, stop, jump forward or backward. First, two pages of each of these notebooks come with instructions so that students/users can refer to them. But just like anything else once it becomes a common practice they just know it.
You can find more about it, he said, on Live Scribe.
A pen can cost up to 150 USD.
I was reminded of a higher education seminar we had in our department. This researcher is actually an economist but was always interested in pictures, art and culture. So about a decade ago he started taking pictures of what he calls *abandoned places¨. The huge buildings that were built, hardly used and abandoned because they were no longer viable, affordable, feasible, or simply out of fashion. Massive multistory hotels, places designed for personal leisure by businessmen who simply went out of business and sometimes factories and warehouses. What amazed me was that the only option left was to tear them down. Often times, the longer these structures were kept without being used the less chance they had of being sold again. Because, the architecture, the wiring, the design got too outdated. It was cheaper to abandon them rather than reuse them. He also noted something that I kept going back to in this discussion with my Norwegian student.
That the first computer that was made in the 60s had less programming than our everyday gadgets today. We are generating so much more waste today than ever before. What will we do?
And in countries like India they replaced ‘kullars’ and ‘pattals’ with plastic cups and plastic and paper plates. Although in parts they still exist. Kullars are quickly baked clay cups that were used for selling tea on tea stalls, mostly on the railway platforms. Pattals are bowls and plates made from dry leaves. Both kullars and pattals are biodegradable.
What are we doing, why can’t we slow down, come up with simpler ways of living?
May be, may be my landlord Erik has the answer. He is a chemical engineer who is researching making packaging from natural materials so that it decomposes soon and is reclaimed by nature.
But will we really have recyclable computers? As was promised a while ago?
All of this philosophy did not reduce my fascination with the “smart pen”.
I did think about copyright and other issues. But having expressed all my concerns. I must admit, this is an amazing invention, albeit another distraction.
Must end with what my multimedia teacher had on his syllabus.
“Technology has nothing to say, so you better do” meaning it is always the man/woman behind the technology that decides its best potential. No computer can make a man, it is always, and I know that at least in my lifetime it will always be the other way around.
