Life
Teaching kids (& adults) about climate
Jan 10th
![photo_verybig_110295[1]](http://hitesh.in/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/photo_verybig_1102951_thumb.jpg "Climate: A burning situation")
With Copenhagen behind us, it makes me wonder is there something we as individuals do to help the climate? On one such thought tangent I wondered if it possible to teach kids about climate using a simulation game like Civilisation? On cursory search I could not find anything that could entertain and educate kids.
What would it be?
An empire building game that needs to balance technology, way of life and climate to achieve sustainable conditions. The players will need to move from stone age to iron age to industrial age to knowledge age. All this is well covered by games in the Civilisation series. The difference is, to advance in the technology tree, they will need to consume resources and they need to understand that resources are limited and that consuming them is not without consequences.
Learning
A game that will show the interdependence of several factors like:
- Exploitation of natural resources (wood, coal, oil, gold, diamonds, animals, fishes etc) for technical progress and their costs in terms of environmental impact
- The long term implication of the such impact
- Investing in technology to achieve sustainable development
- Also the flip side of not consuming natural resources and it impact on growth and empire building
- The need to consume resources to ‘unlock’ next levels of technical innovation
- Trading of resources amongst empires which have surplus of something
- I would probably underplay the option of war and more of foreign trade as a means to acquire scarce resources.
What next?
I am not a game developer so wouldn’t know how to get about doing it. But may be some like minded people will come together and look at it. Maybe Freeciv can provide a starting point. Maybe it even becomes successful and makes some money for the creators.
An angel has landed
Oct 27th
On the 21st, our wait finally ended and a little angel arrived. We have named her Prisha, meaning “God’s Gift”.
Sharing a few pictures taken on the day of her birth.
A list of list managers
Sep 20th
There are a large number of list / task managers that it needs a list for itself. Seems like every one wants to create a task manager, and who could blame them? The only reason I looked up all these task managers is because I had an itch to write one myself.
30 tasks, to-do, project, collaboration, goals management tools
| Service | Comments | Paid / Free* |
|---|---|---|
| blablalist.com | simple, barebones, task list, collaboration | Free |
| flexlists.com | advanced, online database | Free |
| gonutshell.com | note taker, web scrapbook | Free |
| gootodo.com | Email reminders | Paid |
| gtdinbox.com | GTD, Gmail, | Paid |
| hipcal.com | Notes, Tasks, Collaboration, Calendar, Reminders | Free |
| hiveminder.com | Notes, Tasks, Collaboration | Free |
| lifetango.com | goal list, social | Free |
| lifetick.com | Goal tracking | Paid |
| listography.com | List of lists, Home page style | Free |
| mail.google.com/tasks | Simple tasks, gmail integrated | Free |
| monkeyon.com | reminder service | Free |
| mynoteit.com | Notes, Tasks, Collaboration, Aimed at Students | Free |
| netvibes.com | Homepage, Task is a module | Free |
| orchestratehq.com | simple | Free |
| placestodo.com | Todo linked to locations, Mobile | Free |
| rememberthemilk.com | Grand daddy, simple yet advanced | Free |
| roughunderbelly.com | prioritise | Free |
| tadalist.com | ROR demo app, simple, collaboration | Free |
| task.dlma.com | simple, barebones, task list | Free |
| taskbin.com | Tasks, Advanced Features, Collaboration | Free |
| tasktoy.com | strange | Free |
| tiddlyspot.com | wikified task list, local | Free |
| todoist.com | Calendar, Tasks, Advanced Features | Free |
| toggl.com | time tracker | Paid |
| Toodledo.com | folders, subtasks, due-dates, priorities, tags, contexts, goals, notes, time estimates | Paid |
| tudulist.com | Calendar, Tasks, Advanced Features, Collaboration | Free |
| voo2do.com | Calendar, Tasks, Advanced Features, Collaboration, Project Management | Free |
| zohoplanner.com | Simple, collaboration, reminders | Free |
* All paid services have a free version of some type.
If there is any correction to be made, please leave a comment. I have deliberately left out comparing or reviewing them since it might be like comparing oranges to lemons 
Toodledo has another list comparing features of the popular ones: http://www.toodledo.com/info/compare.php
If only there was a site that does the things for you!
What colour are your glasses?
Sep 7th
Stephen R. Covey in his landmark book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” defines 9 possible centres that people have:
- Spouse-centred
- Friends / Enemy-centred
- Family-centred
- Money-centred
- Work-centred
- Possession – centred
- Pleasure-centred
- Church-centred
- Self-centred
In other words, these are the glasses we see the world through. All decision making is coloured by your bias towards one or more of these. But none of these are worth centring ones life around, they all blur the view. So he suggests taking off these glasses and seeing the world in the light of the principles that you value. If one has a mission statement and knows the principles he values most, then making decisions is easier.
Role Playing
Sep 3rd
As hinted in the previous post I will take a departure from my general blogging topics and talk about life. Let me talk about something that troubled me and still slightly troubling me. 
I have been under a lot of mental and emotional stress lately, and did not know the reason. But with a lot of introspection and a couple of very good reads, I was able to find the root cause of this and am in a much better state of mind. Ask my wife 
I will like to share this to spread the good words that helped me.
So, what was wrong?
Introducing life
Sep 2nd
Life is not something that happens between work, work is a small part of life. So I am adding a category on “Life”. Hope this will increase the work-life balance of my blog, more on this later.
Though the number of posts under this category would be less, it just means there is more to life than I would like to share on a public medium.
Here’s to life…
