Not my social network

Wanted to add to the clutter of debates on social networking and here is my point of view.

I have limited experience with social networking sites save a little bit of Orkut and a little more of facebook. But overall I realize that what they have is totally in adequate. What I have on both these websites no reflection of what my social network really is (don't be surprised that we had social networks even before these websites showed up). This is again not limited by the folks hooked up to the iternet but the way the elements in the network interact.

Most of these sites represent the network like a traditional filesystem, with me at the root node and everybody I know as a first level of "friend". Now if I add somone my "friend" knows to my friend list (this is how we typically make new accquaintances) and they become peers. This not what happens in reality. There is a distance element to the relationship which seems to be completely missing from all these websites.

In the Indian context, there is extra complications of relatives. There are relatives who are a part of the network, but not all relatives are friends. Again all relatives are not at the same distance.

All these fact greatly determine how we interact with the nodes in the network and what we share. In the current format, as a lowest common denominator you interact with only the most impersonal information, resulting in the experience being very impersonal, of the type like forwarding junk mails on mailing lists just to remind each other we exist. All the intimate information is still close to to my heart, for that phone call. So call me :-)

The intruder in your back yard

I never realized the scale of the problem until recently some of my close relatives were found to be carrying Tubercolosis Infection. So thought I will spread the word around just in case you may not know.

The Basic stuff: Can be found at Wikipedia

The Scary Stuff:

• India has the largest number of infections, with over 1.8 million cases.
• It is an air-borne disease, which means it is pretty easy to get infected. Easier than HIV
• It multiplies slowly and can take upto 20 years to show any symptoms, so the bacteria is slowly spreading without you knowing.
• I am sure you would have come in contact with at least a few carriers with an average of 1-2 people out of 1000 carrying the infection.
• If you have the infection imagine the number of people you could have passed it on to before you know/find out, I am sure you meet a lot of people in 20 years
• Once the symptoms show up they are a lot like common cold, cough/fever which means you would keep ignoring it until a significant part of the lungs is infected and the fever does not come down.

What you can do:
The kids nowdays get vacinated with BCG which takes care of their immunity against TB. But for the adults, it can still infect you, sometimes even if you have been vaccinated for BCG. So, the best thing to do is to get a TB test done. It is a pretty easy procedure, results are visible in 2-3 days (The Wiki above describes it) and should be easily available at your nearest hospital.

Don't wait until it becomes a problem:
You would think (and I did that too) that TB happens to poor people who do not get proper diet, smoke a or use tobacco. But all the folks I know are totally healthy, very well off and take good care of themselves. You could just be a carrier with an infection and never develop any symptoms, so you are better off controlling it before it damages any part of your body.

If you think other people will benefit from this information, pass the word around.