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I am back after my 15 day solo cycling trip from Delhi to kathmandu. The trip deserves a detailed travelogue, which I have started writing. What can’t wait is the space invader graffiti I saw in Thamel, Kathmandu.  Obviously by Invader , it looked the part amidst mero mobile and hotel signs. Though none of the local people knew anything about it.

Kathmandu is very cosmopolitan, must say.

Teenagers from trinidad have put up 15000 watt speakers on their BMX bikes. Well that is indeed awesome, but what caught my eyes were the teenagers. They all look indian. And trinidad has strong connections with UP-Bihar. And the head of the crew is Nick Ragbir. And there’s a documentary made about this.

Came across this job site - called workosaur.com. It’s USP being, it has the most 7 figure salary jobs. Good but no great shakes. Another job site I thought.

But then I saw a link on the top corner which said, “Boss is Around? Look Busy”. When clicked lead to a page full of graphs and charts.

This minor thing made me look again at the site. It tells me that this is a startup where people love their work. That they understand their niche audience. So it tells me to take them seriously. Kudos for the sense of humor.
Earlier posts on sense of humor:here

I am designing some icons right now. While researching about icons I came across these fantastic icons, of the olympic mascots. These have been designed by  turbomilk. I like em :).

I was having a watermelon yesterday, when this thought came into mind. A seedless watermelon would be so nice. No fussing around with the seeds. No fumbling with the tongue to get the seeds out.

Then found out on the net that there is indeed such a watermelon. Surely all of you have eaten seedless grapes. I guess 99% commerical grapes are seedless. So I guess due to their user friendly nature these seedless fruits would qualify for “usable fruits”, wouldn’t they?

A little more research gave me this:

All of the above techniques for seedless propagation have one serious flaw: they lead to a decline in biodiversity. Because they involve essentially making carbon copies of one plant, if an agricultural disease which targets that plant evolves, it can spell big trouble. Many famous cultivars of seedless fruit, for example, are grown all over the world, and these stocks could be extremely vulnerable to disease or pests. The decrease in biodiversity is also bad for the species in general, as the more diverse a species is, the more likely it is to survive, as a general rule. read more here.

So I guess there’s nothing called a free lunch. On one hand these are useful to the customers. On the other hand very vulnerable to disease. Which explains the need for industrial pesticides. And how these pesticides find their way into our bodies.

Are their any other examples where usability has a really bad side effect?