bid chronicles

Over the last few years, I have been thinking a lot about home, Bangladesh. My last few visits just confirmed that there are some some things in Bangladesh that are showing no signs of improvements. Hell, there are problems which people don’t even want to think about solving. Since, observing all the situations I have been trying to figure out new tactics of attacking the problems. I think I finally have something for one of the major problems – shortage of power.

Ever since I was born, I have experienced power outages that the locals call load shedding. Which makes sense only when you realize that the term was not coined as that was the actual reason why the outage occurs. You see, the requirement of electrical power in Bangladesh outshines it supply by some crazy amount and over the years instead of supply catching up with the demand, the demand has managed to start running away.

The government has recently been trying to control this issue before it goes completely out of hand. They’ve cut down the hours of commercial zones at night to reduce the power drained by all the flashy lights. They are currently even trailing Daylight Savings. While these changes seems to positively affect the situation, they are merely just band-aids. We need better solutions.

I’ve heard that the power stations are only working at roughly 30% efficiency. I don’t even know what the usual efficiency average is of a power station. In fact, I don’t even know what types of power station we have in Bangladesh. I know what at least one is from a waterfall. How many do we have anyway? Surely if we can increase the efficiency of these stations, we are going to see some great changes. What about costs of such repairs?

Some people suggested that the government can increase the cost of power in the commercial zones. Indeed, that would cause them to manage power better to not take away from their profits. Would jacking up the price of power really work? It always reminds of the “Save Energy” stickers we had at the Georgia Tech dorms asking you to turn off the lights when you left; but then as you walked around the campus you realized that some of the non-residential buildings are lit nearly 24/7. Hell, it will probably be even worse in Bangladesh, considering the corrupted approaches that a corporation can take to utilize more power but just pay the same bill.

No, that didn’t seem like a viable solution to me either. We need something else. Something that would inherently interest the corporations due to the potential savings. Some of you probably know what I am talking about already. Yes, I’m talking about going green.

It had occurred to me this year when I analyzed how people (including myself) was dealing with the problem of higher gasoline (petrol) prices. I personally drive at least 400 miles a week; that’s a little over one tank of gas. With the prices going up, I just had to start budgeting more money towards fuel per month, but that was just the start. Soon, I started to keep track of my mileage; playing with different variables to see what would affect it positively. Later, I noticed that my driving behavior has changed giving me roughly 4 extra miles per gallon. I even started thinking about changes to the car that would help. Even thinking about greener cars as a replacement.

While the decision to switch to a greener driving habit, or a greener car will eventually help the environment, my need to go there had nothing to do with either. It didn’t even have to do with a gasoline shortage in the area either. It was all monetary. I didn’t have the resources to keep up with my lifestyle, so I had to change to balance it out.

How about making the same changes to the power grid in Bangladesh? Think about it. People loves their hard earned cash; even when it is not so hard earned. Hell I have heard stories of people sending bribes that would reduce their bills, just because that was the cheaper alternative. Surely when they realize that they would have to pay less and less in power bills with more and more greener changes they make, they would be tempted?

And once they switch to alternative power sources, not only will it give them (hopefully) 0% power outage, but it will also reduce the demand on the government power grid. See going green, doesn’t have to mean a better world for our future generations only, it also can mean a better world in the present.

Personally, I am very interested in trying out wind turbines on tall building and near the coast lines. Even if it is done as an experiment, I feel confident that the results can impress various corporations and tempt them to reconsider the higher setup cost that can drive the operation cost lower.

Just think about it.

It’s always amazing how technology changes as time progresses. I always told my parents that we are in an era where it is rapidly improving and changing. It is not a surprise that while I used to check emails every morning now, I check Facebook.

What has recently amazed me is how the rest of the world is getting on with the new web improvements. Not too long ago (before Watchmen released) i was mentioning to my friends as to how if you really crazy about some movie, you can get all this extra information. Even beyond what E! can give you. Watchmen had a twitter account that was updated as if you were living through the time before the movie. Pictures on Flickr and videos on YouTube all gave you a glimpse of the world that you will soon immerse in when you go to see the movie.

Today, I read about the Pilot screening of NBC’s Community. If you become a fan of the show on Facebook, you can get see the full pilot without advertisement right there before it even airs on the traditional silver screen. This sort of marketing of previously unheard of. Sure they did it for music before. You could listen to the full song if you listened to some radio show. You could get an exclusive clip here or there. But a full show..

Of course, by becoming a fan of the show you automatically advertise for them on your profile so your friends and see it and they can join in and the crowd takes care of the word of mouth and all the company had to give was an incentive. It’s great to see people taking the initiative and getting on with the new world order

As some of you know I was actively looking to find a smaller antenna for Pheonix and eventually settled in for one. However, what I quickly discovered is that it effected the reception capabilities drastically. Namely, the weak but very audible signal of WREK out in the jungles of Cumming was quickly replaced with pure static.

For a while, I ignored this, since I really just wanted to have the small signal. I justified it by claiming that I don’t listen to the radio much anyway. Unfortunately, that isn’t true. When I’m done with my podcasts or a new album, I usually switch to the radio. Sometimes I just like listening to the classics on my way to work. Yet, I ignored the problem and let it be.

Then came summer. All of a sudden out of the blue all the radio signals seem to have been adversely effected. May be the summer storms turned most of the stations I listen to slightly away from my travel route. It’s crazy none the less. Today, I finally gave up. I want my radio. I’m taking it back.