Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

Had a discussion with Surabhi today about people comparing two things. She is totally against anyone comparing anything with anything. She gets mad when people compare her looks with her friends or when people compare things in India to things else where etc.

Is it really so bad to compare? We do it all the time, is IE better that Firefox? Is Linux better than Windows? Is food at this place better than the other place? So why do some people don’t like others comparing two people? I don’t mean that you should compare someone with another person and tell him/her that the other person is so much better and that he/she is useless. We can do a positive comparision also, where both the plus points and the minus points of each person is compared. This can be done without putting down anyone.

Comparing yourself against an ideal tells you how much more effort you need to put in in order to achieve the same result. How is that bad? I think that comparing two things allows us to recognize the good points in both of them and if done the right way it generates a healthy feeling of competition between the two but if done incorrectly it can really damage someone’s self-esteem. So if you want to compare someone with another person put yourself in their shoes and think how that comment would effect you if it was directed towards you. One the other hand if you are comparing two inanimate objects you can put down the one you don’t like as much as you want. 🙂

Well this is all for now. Goodnight.

– Suramya

Was talking to Vinit today and his told me about this student in NJIT who was taking pics of the NJIT campus for a photography class he was taking. He was supposed to take 2 rolls worth of pics and submit them, and he decided to take pics of the NJIT campus but was told to stop by the NJIT Campus security as it was a security risk and was not allowed without prior permission.

How stupid can you get? This is a student taking pics so that he can pass a class not some terrorist. And before you start yelling at me to tell me its impossible to know. Think. If you were a terrorist would you have walk around the campus openly with a camera taking pics? Wouldn’t it be easier and safer to visit the official NJIT website, click on the link for a virtual campus tour and use that to plan for an attack? You can even get printed maps of the campus from the student center. For that matter you can goto the photogallery section of my site and under the heading NJIT Campus Views and get photos of almost every building on campus. Does this mean that I am helping terrorists?

I have seen the same thing on bridges etc in NY and NY. Big signs that say “Photography strictly prohibited” All they do is prevent tourists from taking pics to preserve memories. People who are planning an attack are not going to walk around with a big camera to plan an attack, they could just as well use a 5 year old photo to plan where they want to plant a bomb. Its not like the support pillars of the bridge go waltzing around every few days. The ban on photography makes some sense in millitary area’s, Airports etc, where the structure and placement of guards etc changes constantly. On a bridge/college it makes no sense at all.

Well this is all for now. More later.

– Suramya