On the lighter side-Movies-Now you see me (2013)-Morgan Freeman, Woody harrelson

Federal agents track a group of magicians/illusionists who robbing peter to pay paul (like robbing the rich to pay their audience) in this mind bending and thrilling movie with top name casts and acting. Recommended

Water as a commodity

Not too long ago, everybody had access to quality water and they did not buy it from the store but nowadays water is available through stores and the brands have marketed it so heavily that you think in your mind that the water you are drinking is more pure and beneficial to you than the one coming out of your faucet. And even if some water is claimed to be from spring, it is just tap water filtered, purified and packaged in attractive plastic bottles for consumption. And it is not just in the U.S. but all over the world, the water has become a commodity and affluent people are paying money to buy water in plastic bottles, while the poor people don’t even have access to clean water let alone water in plastic bottles. And as I said long time ago here, water has become a precious commodity now since so many places are having drought conditions. And the way the world population is increasing, water will become as precious as oil in the future because you can live without oil for a few days but that is not the case with water. And where there is water, there is bound to be life so everybody should strive to not waste water since we in the western and developed world have plenty of fresh water, but when drought strikes, then we realize that how precious is the water resource. In the near future, countries will be fighting over water, so please preserve this natural resource if you can.

The woes of the doctors

I was at a party and I started to hear about a doctor detailing his financial woes and how the patient treats the doctors in ways not known in the outside field. The doctor along with another doctor was operating a storefront office near a hospital and he started to detail that how many taxes, insurance and other things cost him in terms of his business and cash. He was actually complaining about how much he has to pay in payroll taxes and how the Medicare and Medicaid does not do justice when compensating them for their services and even the insurance claims are taken care off after so many months. Since they have to attend to every patient whether insured or not, the private doctors suffer. He was also saying that how the people pay the electrician, plumbers, and car mechanics right away but when it comes to their health care, they are hesitant even to pay a co pay and they argue about it and ask the doctors to claim from the insurance company. And they have to pay mal practice insurance and also the assorted taxes on businesses as the doctors are considered the upper classes of society. But after hearing how he was suffering and have to be creative in financial situation where the patient demands every kind of tests thinking he/she has insurance, I have come to the conclusion that the doctor become well off after many many years since they have to pay their students loans and then establish themselves and with Medicare and Medicaid payments and insurance payments being squeezed, it is no wonder that the increasing financial burden will be deterring more students to avoid this field altogether.

Tracking your shopping habits

I just started to look at some stuff intensely for a few times and lo and behold, now I open up some sites and I see ads for similar stuffs on that website. It is creepy that they know what I am looking for or even interested in and they track this habit and tailor the ads to my interest. Is it okay? No. Is it preventable, I am not sure about it but it is disturbing that what you have just looked on one site reverberates to all the sites that I visit frequently? And you have read news also that now the retailers are tracking you in store which they had been doing anyway before by asking for your email or your phone number and as through loyalty cards where you get discounts and special promotions. And we are willing guinea pigs in these experiments as we happily give away our information just to get some deals. Unless we stop shopping and completely go incognito, we will always be tracked by the retailers so that they can tailor their products to our needs. Even websites where you usually buy your stuff shows you what is similar to the products that you last purchased displayed prominently when you open that website. It is really astonishing how the retailers have perfected this art by tracking the habit even of their infrequent customers. I don’t even have to mention how they track the buying habits of their frequent buyers and it is happening all over the world and even in countries where the internet is not that powerful, retailers have been tracking their customers even without their knowledge. And this tracking keeps on increasing day by day and we don’t know or are unwilling to escape from this tracking.