a recent online privacy mis-adventure for a friend ended up with him calling me to help him login into his Facebook profile. somehow he had managed to lock himself out of his own profile and he was unable to bypass the password reset settings. this prompted me to think how much is too much? on one end we have activists crying for breach of privacy by Facebook, then we have mortals crying foul when they are locked out from their profiles due to the security features of Facebook. what we don’t realise is that it all boils down to a choice. even Facebook has given you a choice, on the level of security you want or rather may need. “Choice is an illusion, created between those with power, and those without.” as said by Merovingian in Matrix. are we choosing the levels of security or are we made to choose them? the effort we had to put in to restore my friend’s account impressed me of the security a Facebook account provided but the same was cheesed off by my friend as it was as good as getting locked out of his own house without the keys.
looking at the recent cases of people complaining regarding their FB profiles getting impersonated or being hacked, i guess its good to have this kind of security, at the cost of your being patient, i don’t think they are asking a lot from us.
a man whose desire for bikes & love for tech n music is dwarfed only by his passion for the moon!!! this was one of the best ways you could describe him. a perfect lunatic who was in love with the moon. as a kid he used to gaze at the white, through the window grills, wondering if he could become a spaceman and fly to the moon. he used to hum to the tunes of ‘to the moon and back’ by savage garden. used to go on moonlit treks all over dalma and the western ghats, thinking he could be closer, may be get a better view. thoughts even wandered to the moon being made of cheese, wonder now where that thought came from. he was in short smitten by the moon, fell in love with the sky, the rocks and starts alike. no matter what, the moon was always the queen of the dark bottomless sky. most of all he opened himself wide to the glory of the night. moonified could be a term used when he being so obsessed called one of his own the moon. so much so that everyone he knew can claim that they saw moon walking the earth. the high tides rushing straight to the head causing blackouts. 124 weeks of perfect harmony ends in shock, the aftershock of which is still in form of ripples. the sky went black, he craving for the white every 20seven days. a few letters, few melodies, mark the day. then comes the total eclipse of the heart, only in this case, the heart doesn’t see the light of day. around him are a million stars, all vowing to make him shine, all get together in a bundle to turn him all sunshiney again.
This was posted by a fellow Bike Nomad … felt it is a serious concern, hence posting it here.
I feel compelled to post this after reading 4 trip reports on 3 different forums where alcohol consumption has become the high point of the report!
Many of us on a forum like this love to head out on the open roads, head out into the hills and beyond. Putting the windshield down, flooring the throttles and feeling the wind on our face gives us a high! I am no tee-totaller but do we really need to add alcohol and drugs to this mix?
So alright, we have a few drinks and maybe some other barely legal intoxicants! After a hard days ride, alcohol may help relax the mind a little bit and help us get some sleep so we are ready in the morning for another day. But can we at least promote a culture of safe riding/driving and responsible drinking?
Many bike clubs, especially those with *ahem* “bigger bikes” in particular, seem to promote a culture of this kind of unsafe behavior. Maybe not openly but more subtly by making consumption of alcohol and drugs seem like the cool macho thing to do. Despite publicly professing a responsible position, forum signatures like “A real rider should have no blood in his alcohol stream” (or something to that effect) and organizing night-rides/drives where the consumption of alcohol and drugs seems to be the raison-de-etre of the ride make the claims of being responsible rather hollow sounding. The typical “night-ride” goes something like this: ride out towards Tamhini Ghat after 9 pm, sit at a chosen location with some fantastic views and then… pull out the booze and polish off a large quantity of alcohol before riding back the 65 odd kms in the wee hours of the morning. I have been on some
rides like these and have been deeply uncomfortable about the situation. A night-ride to Tamhini is a lot of fun, especially on a full moon night. But do we need to add alcohol and hash to the mix to make it enjoyable? Is this responsible? The first gift i received on my birthday from the club was a hip-flask! And atleast one such bike club actually has a separate thread running on its yahoo-group on arranging for alcohol before the “Independence Day ride” which happens to be a dry day! Without going into naming and shaming, there was this bunch of RX riders, some of them members of this forum, going out for a round of rubber burning near Bandra-Kurla complex after a drinks session. I can never forget being cornered on a TV show (NDTV) while trying to unsuccessfully defend the biker community after this shameful incident. I mean where are we getting to people? What is this culture we are promoting?
But its not just bikers on “big bikes” being irresponsible. It applies to many 4-wheeler drivers as well. I have earlier posted about an experience where a Silver colored Scorpio with TBHP stickers swerving to the extreme left on the expressway and throwing out an empty beer bottle! The dudes inside were clearly drinking but by throwing an empty beer bottle they put others at risk as well. It could have hit the vehicle coming from behind!
Then again, I have been on so many OTR’s where after a hard days work on Saturday evening, we head out for an OTR session. The idea behind leaving on Sat is to maximise the amount of time available for the OTR on Sunday. Instead we find people drinking through the night getting little or no sleep whatsoever, and then heading out for a punishing OTR session in the morning! Consider the situation: Heading out for a physically and mentally challenging OTR session having had little or no rest in the past 24 hours and having consumed alcohol barely 3 hours before! I have seen some people, while heading back from one such OTR swerving wildly from side to side on the expressway trying to fight off fatigue and alcohol induced sleep! Is
this safe?
Like everything else in life, alcohol is best enjoyed in moderation. There is nothing “macho” about drinking and driving/riding or punishing our bodies by sleep denial. On this Independence Day, let us resolve as a forum to desist from promoting such irresponsible behavior and instead promote a culture of safe driving/riding. Let us resolve to keep needless references to alcohol out of our trip logs. While on OTR’s/Rides, let us actively promote safe riding/driving practices.
Regards
Roy Skaria
Cougar Rides
Live to Ride – Ride to Live
LEAVE THE ROAD 