Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

I hear <Silence> just before all hell breaks loose as millions of women freak out at the same time after reading this headline 🙂 and no, this is not a joke, Mars, Inc. and Barry Callebaut who are the worlds largest producers of chocolate have the numbers to prove that we (and by we I mean you all, since I don’t really like chocolate that much) are eating more coco than is being produced. Last year farmers produced 70,000 metric tons less than the amount consumed and the trend is increasing. By 2020 this number is expected to rise to 1 million metric ton. Ouch!.

The problem is, for one, a supply issue. Dry weather in West Africa (specifically in the Ivory Coast and Ghana, where more than 70 percent of the world’s cocoa is produced) has greatly decreased production in the region. A nasty fungal disease known as frosty pod hasn’t helped either. The International Cocoa Organization estimates it has wiped out between 30 percent and 40 percent of global cocoa production. Because of all this, cocoa farming has proven a particularly tough business, and many farmers have shifted to more profitable crops, like corn, as a result.

Then there’s the world’s insatiable appetite for chocolate. China’s growing love for the stuff is of particular concern. The Chinese are buying more and more chocolate each year. Still, they only consume per capita about 5 percent of what the average Western European eats. There’s also the rising popularity of dark chocolate, which contains a good deal more cocoa by volume than traditional chocolate bars (the average chocolate bar contains about 10 percent, while dark chocolate often contains upwards of 70 percent).

Looking at this article I am tempted to start stocking up on chocolate and in a few years time I can sell them for 10 times the price… All I will have to do is figure out how to keep my sister and other friends from eating up my stash before I sell them. 😉 I believe that will be an impossible task now that I think about it in more detail.

If there was a similar article about caffeine then I would be one of the people freaking out, but since it is ‘just’ chocolate I am fine and not worried. So I will go back and finish my book then go to sleep.

You can read more details about the issue at the Washington Post and Bloomberg.org site.

Story Via: Slashdot.org

– Suramya

Finally the day a lot of people have been waiting for has arrived. Now you can pay for actual physical clothes using your social network clout. What does that mean? Basically if you are buying stuff at OnePiece’s pop-up store in New York City anytime before the 17th of Nov you will get $1 off for every 500 followers you have across social networks. Which would give me just about $0.50 discount if I ever shopped there 🙂

As nice as Klout’s perks can be, they’re infrequent and sometimes have arcane rules. Wouldn’t it be better if you could simply translate your social networking status into cash? OnePiece’s pop-up store in New York City is letting you do just that. Swing by 577 Broadway no later than November 17th and the clothing shop will give you a $1 discount for every 500 followers you have across common social networks, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. While you’re capped at $500 (Hollywood A-listers need not apply), that’s more than enough to score some fresh threads for free. Yes, it’s a publicity grab — but it’s also a genuinely good deal if you’ve spent years cultivating an online following.

I get a ton of ‘friend’ requests on a fairly regular basis but usually I reject most of them outright. For me the only folks in my friend list are folks that I consider friends (apart from a few authors that I want to keep in touch with) and have an interest in keeping up with. This does not include folks I don’t know, just because you are a friend of a friend doesn’t mean we should become friends on FB if we have never met. Or if I took your interview for a job doesn’t mean that it is ok to add me as a friend on Facebook (Yes, this actually happened). For some reason, this small concept seems to be very hard for people to understand. People use the no of friends/followers as a sort of measuring stick for their popularity and if you don’t have many followers then in their mind you are not important enough.

I rarely sign on to my Facebook account and I have posted some 3-4 tweets from my twitter account since I started it a few years ago (those were to complain to Airtel). I am sure if I start becoming active on the network I can easily increase the no of friends I have many fold. But what’s the point?

Anyways, enough ranting about Social media for today. I am going to go finish my book and then crash for the night. Will post more later.

– Suramya

Source: Engadget.com