Deadly vanishes into thin air

Sometimes bad luck hits you like an ancient Greek tragedy and it is not your own making. The catastrophe that strikes are so inconceivable.

The three heart-wrenching crashes are yet to be fully explained while there are many conspiracy theories being explained. Two Malaysian Air Boeing Co. 777s, out of which one has been suspected to have disappeared in the Indian Ocean and the other MH17 posits that it has been shot down. Also there lies an unexplained AirAsia tragedy which slaughtered 665 passengers, accounting for 75 percent of annual toll of 884, according to safety consultant Ascend Worldwide.

The mystery crashes began with Malaysian flight MH370 which vanished on March 8^th, MH17 on July 17^th and ended up with the demise of AirAsia QZ8501 on a routine trip from Java to Singapore on December 28^th of 2014. This proves that 2014 has been one of the deadliest years ever since 2005. Paul Hayes, head of safety at Ascend, one who has tracked trends in air crashes since 1974 quoted that, “Planes are becoming so big that the loss of even one wide-body can have a major impact on the data”. He also quoted that, “Planes seating more than 14 people suffered 10 events that killed passengers last year, the same number as in 2013, when 220 travelers died, and 2012, when 416 perished”.

All three jets were reported to be flying at a cruising altitude, with MH370 having leveled out at 35,000 feet after departing Kuala Lumpur for Beijing before doubling back over the Malay peninsula for unexplained reasons which carried 227 passengers including 12 crew leading to unknown evidences of 239 people. MH17 was operating at 33,000 feet when it plunged to the ground and it carried 283 passengers including crew of 15 leading to fatality of all 298 people, and AirAsia QZ8501 was at 32,000 feet when its pilots asked to go higher in stormy weather carrying 155 passengers, 7 crew leading to fatality of all 162 people out of which 48 bodies have been found and 25 bodies have been identified. Aviation experts believe that what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 may never be proved - but that hasn't stopped a vocal global community of conspiracy theorists from trying.

There have been many conspiracy theories regarding MH370 explained by many of those theorists as, “it could have been shot down during a joint military exercise between the United States and Thailand in the South China Sea, Terrorist hijacking, or probably an Island landing”.

Despite all those theories, the reality is certainly more mundane. To my perception  whatever happened to the plane was "a deliberate act by someone on board, a perfectly planned suicide or a revenge attack. Until we realize the dead pains, peace and harmony will be the words only in the pages of dictionary". But will we ever be able to prove that? No.

The Cessation or Resurrection- Google Glasses

The wearable technology having an optical head-mounted display that was developed by Google with the mission of producing a mass-market ubiquitous computer was Google glass.

Reasons to write about the topic?  The once approbated Google glass now comes to a blin. Google officially announced on January 15, 2015 that it would stop producing Google glass in its current form but would be committed to the development of the product and now it has been tagged as “Some revolutions fizzle and thus the fate of Google glasses” to our astonishment.

Google started selling Google glass in the US to qualified Glass explorers on April 15, 2013 for $1,500 before it came available to the public for the same price on May 15, 2014. The main feature of Google glass is that wearers communicate with the internet via natural language voice commands, touch pads, camera and display. The most exciting fact was that Google entered in a partnership with the Italian eyewear company Luxottica, owners of the Ray-Ban, Oakley and other brands to offer additional frame designs.

Now, however, Nest's Tony Fadell will be in charge of the project , with a new version of Glass expected later this year. The official line from Google is that the team learned what it could from the Explorer Program and is now working on the next version of Glass, which will launch whenever it’s ready. And we could tell Google does what it says. The main reason for this decision is that when Google opened Glass sales to everybody there was barely any reaction from people, it’s software update stopped and also the hardware was outdated.

It is patently obvious that Google released this product before it should have. People spent a lot of money to get hold of the Explorer version, but when they actually did, there wasn’t much they can do with it. The biggest disappointment is the lack of apps for it, said Nicky Danino, a senior lecturer in computing at the University of Central Lancashire.

Google should have kept this project under wraps for longer and waited to release it when it was more reliable and had other uses. It was also blamed for having no security. The more that Glass-wearers protested that they were the advanced party of the enlightened, the more they became Glassholes.

Whatever might be the development let us wish it is never an encumbrance to the society who will always wish for a cheaper better technology. Cessation or the resurrection- lens of our life- sooner or later.

The Credit Crunch

The Credit crunch officially began on 9th August 2007. It was supposed to have been the day the world changed. An economic situation where banks are nervous to lend money to businesses and as a result-shrinking credit supply. The most apposite definition would be that, “It is a reduction in general availability of loans, an economic condition where investment capital is difficult to obtain or it can be considered to be an extension of recessions”. To be precise it occurs when there is lack of funds available in the credit market. It occurs when lenders have too little to lend or have increased the cost of borrowing to a rate unaffordable by most borrowers.

If banks discern about the greater menace, they raise their lending rates to counterpoise this risk. This increases the cost of borrowing and makes it more difficult for borrowers to access financing. There are a number of reasons why banks might suddenly stop or slow their lending activity. It might be due to the exogenous change in monetary conditions, new regulatory constraints on lending being imposed, the government imposing direct credit controls on the banking system or even due to an increased perception of risk regarding the solvency of other banks within the banking system.

How does it affect our economy? Financial institutions may fail, economic growth may slow, unemployment may rise, and social unrest may increase. A Credit Crunch can do a hell lot damage to the economy curbing our economic growth through decreased capital liquidity, thereby leading to the reduced ability to borrow. This might cut-down our ability to extend the company for the better or do financing. When coupled with a recession, a credit crunch can often lead to many corporate bankruptcies. This increases the crunch's economic impact by stifling the economy's ability to recover. 

But why does this matter? Well, cheap debt has been the greatest phenomenon of the financial markets in recent years. Central banks lowered interest rates to help the global economy recover from 9/11 and the dotcom crash. Since then, private equity firms have borrowed cheaply to buy well-known British companies. But now it is getting harder for big corporate to secure financing but it’s not yet impossible. As investors attempted to sell in a market with no buyers, prices fell further. Soon, most risky assets were dropping rapidly in price and panic began to creep into the marketplace.It is also important not to underestimate the economic difference between this period and the previous ones. But it is clear that the financial positions have got increasingly serious since the original crisis in 2007. A series of bank failures, mergers and bailouts across the globe means that the governments across the world are individually and collectively attempting to restore confidence in their national and global banking systems. Various reports urge banks to cut their dividends to preserve their existing capital. Central banks and governments should encourage this action across the globe so that there is no competitive demerit or blemish from the reduction. But the better question is not about when the last financial crisis began, but when the next one will. At the moment it is difficult to tell whether the Crunch crisis is the beginning, the end - or just a temporary blip. But we knew it’s our “Time to trim”.