Testing The Waters

There are two things currently trending in social media. Beep song and Sagayam for CM. Thanks for our short-term memories that we have already moved away from recent floods, let alone protest against liquor. In my understanding, these two incidents seems to be testing the waters before a full fledged public "coming out". It is safer for the parties involved.

The song was written, sung, recorded with music and vulgar words beeped-out. Perfectly ready for posting in Youtube or Soundcloud. Then suddenly someone "leaked" it. If the public reaction was positive, then we might have seen people claiming that "Simbu alone didn't do the song." "It is my music." "My recording theater!" etc. But as the reaction is negative everyone else had forsaken Simbu to fight the legal battles alone and face the angry crowd of people. But as the song is not "published" in proper sense, Simbu can claim that the song is "leaked" without his knowledge and it is none of his fault. Perfect example for the benefit of "testing the water"!

Now take the another case: Sagayam for CM. He may be a good IAS officer. And the idea of Sagaym for CM is not that bad. But the way this idea is brought to public is what strikes a nerve for me. Sagayam can resign his post and start a political party or join any existing party if he wants to run for CM. Else he can just openly give a statement that he is not interested in politics and no one should use his name in that way in social media or public gatherings. But his "silence" is deafening as he just sits like it is somebody else's problem. If there is enough support, he may come out as a candidate in coming elections. Else he may just downplay this entire episode as a social media sensation created by some over enthusiastic fans. A Goundamani comedy scene comes to mind!

Even Dr. Kalam tried his hand at this trick, when he said that he was willing to be the president for second term if there is "certainty".  (http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi/kalam-surprises-third-front/story-YxWB2XRUrveu8aCHigxvBJ.html)

So the lesson for us is, if this method works even for public figures, why not we utilize the same? You can tell your wife that there is a good offer on pizzas in nearby shop. If she shows some interest, you can go ahead and order pizzas and escape from upma. Else you can silently glue your mouth shut with upma without further "consequences". Practical isn't it?

Beep Song

"Yes... I am a Simbu fan and I am going to support him blindly..."

"I respect women and such songs should be banned."

"They are spoiling our culture and Simbu should be hanged."

"Simbu should shut the f*** up."

"Clearly this is a government conspiracy to divert people from Chennai floods!"

These are some of the opinions I heard from my friends on the so called "Beep song". I feel almost all of these arguments are outright stupid and harmful. To start with the ritual disclaimer, I am no fan of Simbu and I am considered feminists by some and male chauvinist by others while my own "self-respect" says that I am a neutral person. So please don't take my opinions so seriously!

Now let us discuss some hard facts.  You know that a single Google search can land you in a hardcore porn movie right? If not, just don't tell me that I am the one who spoiled your innocence and made you to "sin".  Ok, now let us assume that all online porn is banned, and you couldn't circumvent it with proxy servers or VPNs. You know that you can get a porn DVD for 30 bucks right? Again, don't tell me that you never heard of it! Leave it. You know where they show adult movies? If we ban all these things, we can only expect an increase in number of headlines like "Youth beaten for peeping in to bathroom", "Juvenile arrested in brothel", "Massage parlor sealed for mischievous activities" etc. Again it is a public secret that at some or other point of time everyone of us seek such vices in our life. People who deny this are those who live in outright denial (and themselves doing everything secretly) or those who are psychologically abnormal.

So, saying that what Simbu has sung is going to cause problem is society is outright stupid. All the people who are protesting on this issue are getting political mileage or publicity through this. Nothing more. They all know existence of above said vices and they themselves would (must) have consumed such materials in their lives. This applies to Communist Party Comrades fighting Simbu here to ISIS retards who are raping minor girls. We all know how moral you (we) are. Why you people like to preach others on things which you yourselves indulge in secret?

Let us discuss some points:

1. The song beeps out the offensive word. Many such songs are out there. Many such movie dialogs are also there. If they just guess the beeped out words and take it to streets, sorry, you have to go to Pakistan or Nepal, as Indian streets will be overflowing.

2. The song blames women for love failure. This is factually wrong. There are many men who cheat women too. But this song is not supposed to be a documentary poem highlighting the statistics of men/women affected by love failure and the root causes. This is just an emotional outburst of a spoiled youth. That's it. If songs with such meaning are to be taken seriously, banned and the writer punished, then we can even interpret Thirukural in such ways and demand for Thiruvalluvar's arrest.

3. The song, as per their claim, was not released to public and was "leaked". It may be a way to test the waters before going public. But even if they have released it, who is forcing you to hear it? I remember a song from the movie "Mahalir Mattum". In that there are lyrics like "Men's genital should be cut". Where were the people protesting against the lyricist against this? What about this "progressive" magazine publishing an explicit poem about male genital by a transgender? http://www.unmaionline.com/new/1754-kalki-subramaniam.html

4. In most movies, men are shown as villains, drug dealers, human traffickers, smugglers, rapist etc. So can we take it as attack against men?

5. How may of you heard the colorful language women use when they fight each other in water pumps? What about drivers who are frustrated with traffic? We all freely use such words daily. In an average, by the age of 10, most of us start to use filthy language.

6. Is the problem is only with usage of the word for female genital? What would happen if he release an uncut version with the word replaced with a word for male genital?

7. If the problem is only about talking bad about women, will they accept such explicit words in songs in any other context?

8. How different are you from the Pakistanis who are demanding capital punishment for people whom they accuse of insulting their holy scripture or their prophet? If it is holy for you don't force it down my throat!

9. Usually the conservatives do these type of protests in developed nations. Here, the left-leaning parties are also doing this. This clearly shows that we don't have a "true left" in India!

10. You all are not fighting for dowry or honor killing or marital rape or female infanticide with the same vigor. These all caused and are causing real deaths and physical harm to thousands. But your problem is with a song and to censor it. This itself shows how bad you are than how bad the song is!

So my suggestion to such people is not to listen to what they feel offensive. Just don't visit the song link. If you accidentally click the link, click back button or close the browser tab or close the browser itself. You can even shutdown your PC or disconnect your Internet to keep your mind safe.

In between YG Mahendra's holy anger against this song can really be taken serious if he has voiced the same about "Why this Kolaveri" or "Adi daa avala" songs.

What is the advantage an English speaking yuppie has over a person who only knows Tamil? He can enjoy 50 Cents and Eminem without a problem while the Tamil only guy need to wait for such songs another 500 centuries. And do you think that, those who rape children and murder for inter-caste marriages are all from this tiny minority of people who are fans of rap music? It is exactly the opposite. More women are dying in the hands of  so called "morally superior people" than in the hands of people who listen to "beep songs".

Long Live Freedom of Speech!

Merry Christmas!

Sorry! No crib this year!

 As Chennai is limping back to normalcy, Churches have asked people to tone down Christmas celebrations and spend the money on something meaningful. So no crib, no cakes, not much decoration and no crackers (crackers have no place in Christmas! Do you want to shake up the sleeping baby Jesus?). Some people even gave up new clothes and donated towards flood relief. Good move indeed. But why don't we do this every year? I think this is a good starting point and expect at least some of the Churches will follow the suit in coming years. After all what those decorations have to do in celebrating the birth of a humble child 2000 years ago? So if anything we can please Jesus with that money is to help out our fellow humans in need. Fine... Let us move on. The intention of this post is to bring out some factual truths about Christmas. Now-a-days many Christians know about what I am going to write. But this is just to put things according to my understanding.

1. Christmas is not Jesus' birthday!

Even though the Church has celebrated December 25th as birthday of Jesus, Bible or any reliable historic sources don't give us the date of birth of Jesus. The possibility of Jesus born on cold winter night is slim as the Biblical account says that the sheperds were out in the fields (Luke 2:8). So there is nothing that points to the date December 25th. There are some theories that a Pagan festival to celebrate winter solicate has been converted by Roman Catholic Church in to Christmas. Whatever! I see no harm in celebrating Christmas on 25th December. But we should be aware that it is not Jesus' birthday but Jesus' birth rememberence day. Another point, December 25th is Isaac Newton's birthday and you can also include the GravMass day in your list of celebrations :)

2. The Wise-men

There are no record that the wise-men visited the manger nor there were any records saying 3 of them were there. So the usual crib scene with the three wise-men is not factually correct. Actually Bible records that the wise-men visited Jesus at his house.

3. Lack of Space! Not Poverty!

There is a common misconception that Jesus' family was so poor that they couldn't afford a lodge and took refuge in manger. There are some people like Paulo Coelho who are comparing Jesus' family with refugee crisis. And this link(thepoke.co.uk) that says that they are squatters who are wasting taxpayers' money.

 

But Joseph seems to be a law abiding citizen who was obeying orders given by government and moved to his native place for sake of registering his census records. Too much for a squatter right? There is a good chance that Joseph paid his taxes as Jesus himself did so and advised his followers to do so. Third, it is not poverty that forced Joseph to take shelter in the manger but lack of space in the inn. It may be correct that Jesus is not so rich but he is not that poor as Joseph had a profession (carpenter) to care for his family. It can be argued that they went to Egypt as refugees. Again, that is only a movement within the then Roman Empire and not illegal immigration.

4. The Santa Claus 

Saint Nicholas was a 4th Century Christian Saint who gave up his wealth and helped poor people. Also some accounts record that he used to place surprise gifts for the needy. This somehow got mixed up with the Pagan Germanic Yuletide celebrations and the Santa Claus legend hence came to life. But this has been cleverly exploited by market forces and there is so much Santa in Christmas that Jesus could not even surface for the entire month of December! Even if it is not for the "Son of God" people should realize, it is Jesus and Saint Nicholas who can influence children in the right direction.

So it is easy to get carried away from the real meaning of Christmas and actual facts behind the festival as well as better way of observing it. In this consumerist world, everything is marketed. We should draw a fine line between acceptable spending on celebrations and excess. By that we can do more good to everyone (including us)! The flood has reinforced our love for fellow humans across stupid barriers like caste and religion. So Christmas this year has become more of celebrating the spirit of giving than filling our bellies with biriyani. Hope this Christmas sets itself as a starting point for coming years of more such resonable Christmas celebrations (of course without floods)! Happy Christmas!

Pyramid Schemes?

Recently I heard from a friend that there is an easy, legal and moral way to earn money - lot of money - so that you can just quit your job and sit at home while your bank balance swells with time. He perfectly sounded like a tele-marketing agency trying to sell me a lucky stone. So I asked him how it works and he took me to a place on a weekend.

There were some 20 to 30 persons who are just like me brought there by their friends. We were quickly introduced to some one who came in a costly car with latest mobile and dressed like a VJ.  He is an elder member of the scheme they said. They started with how marketing works and how much is spent on advertising blah blah... Then they said that if that much amount spent on advertising is diverted to people who introduce their friends or family to the product, then the introducing person can get good deal of money. And as the people who he introduced in turn introduce more and more people, he will get money endlessly as more and more people join the scheme.

Next they showed us some sort of binary tree. Each person must introduce two persons and they in turn will introduce two persons and so on. So if you have two persons below, when they bring two persons each, then you will have 2 + (2 + 2) = 6 persons below you. According to them, you can fully get your money back apart from taxes if there are some 10 to 16 persons below you. Someone asked what will happen if the person whom I introduce didn't bring new joiners. For that they said "Even if you don't bring new customers, we won't allow the tree to grow asymmetrically. We will ensure that the tree grows in a proper binary tree pattern!"

Suddenly Something came in to my mind. It may be linked to the binary tree they have discussed or the racing flag key chain at the hands of the person sitting next to me. That "Wheat and Chessboard Problem". I remembered my dad saying that story when he first bought me a chessboard. Nothing which doubles in every next step can go indefinitely. This is what we call exponential growth. Here the growth will be limited by the population who can participate in this scheme.

Consider India. We have more than 1 billion strong population. But how many of them are earning members who can buy this? Can we take it is approximately 750 million (this is gross exaggeration as most people won't spend thousands of rupees in questionable schemes)?  So it means that almost all the person including children and bed-ridden senior citizens are joining the scheme. So it all starts with one person. He will have 2 persons below. Let us say this is first level. So at any point of time, the total number of persons in a proper binary tree will be 2^(n+1) - 1, where n is the number of levels from the first person who starts this scheme.

So this tree can grow up to 28 levels in India (when the total number of members will be 536,870,911 or approximately 536 million). Even if all of the existing members hunt for new joiners from the dense forests of Andaman to the dusty deserts of Thar, they won't get enough members to fill the next level of the tree, which will cross the 1 billion mark. So all the people at the bottom most level can not register any profit and turn to their introducer for a refund.

And the beauty of a proper binary tree is that in every level it will have 1 more person than the total number of persons in all previous levels. Mind you! This is not just the immediate previous level but ALL previous levels. For example, in level 4, there will be 31 persons in total. But on level 5, there will be 63 persons in total. That means, 32 new people have joined in level 5. The number of new joiners is greater than the TOTAL of existing members in the scheme! So, there will be more people who will be demanding for a refund than the people who can offer a refund.

Another point to note is, unless you get 2 or 3 levels below you, you will suffer loss. So let us assume that people in level 28 and 27 are after all other people in the scheme for a refund. That is 402,653,184 people who lost their money are chasing 134,217,727 people who introduced them to the scheme for a refund. Hmm... Don't worry! Such doomsday events won't happen in real life. Because the tree won't grow that large in first place. In my opinion, the tree can grow safely up to 10 to 20 levels after which, no matter how hard people try, it will stop growing. At this point you can see in news that thousands are protesting outside police station to punish the people who run the scheme and get their money back.

I was just doing some math in my mobile's calculator when I was awaken by my friend, with a typical toothpaste ad grin, from my numeric trance. He was holding some forms with a pen and asking me to sign it! He was telling that he will pay the joining fee and I can repay it later. I just refused to sign as I had lot of negative feelings about the scheme. But I was surrounded by people who were frantically running for ATMs and signing the forms. I just walked out while he was running behind me begging please. I might have lost a good friendship. But I just saved myself from loosing many other good friends who I might have introduced to this scheme if I had become a victim myself.

So, when things like this come to you by any means, just say "NO!". It may be selling some soap oil or buying a gold coin or marketing lunch boxes. Say no! If you want to invest your money, invest in gold, FD, RD, insurance, mutual funds, SIP, ULIPs, shares, land etc. But don't think that there are shortcuts to earn and multiply wealth. There is no way like that to be rich. Pyramid schemes are banned in many countries. I seriously doubt whether these schemes are legal in India. If more and more people start talking about them openly, sooner or later government will ban them. By joining these schemes you may endanger your hard earned money, reputation among friends and family, job and peace of mind just because you allowed someone to fool you.

Book Review: Reignited – Scientific Pathways to A Brighter Future

Disclaimer:  

First let me make it clear that I am an admirer of Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. As a human, as an Indian, as a president, as a scientist, and as a Tamilian, he gave his best. No question on that. This review is solely on the book and not about the person. So Dr. Kalam's fans/followers please don't mistake this review for some anti-Kalam slander and bombard me with comments. If you wish to counter this review, just counter the points I have mentioned about the book. Thanks.

Introduction:

Shortly after the unexpected demise of Dr. Kalam, I was looking at the list of books he had authored. As most of the books are of self-development or motivational types (either in personal or national or global scales), one autobiography, one about his spiritual experience, one text book on fluid machanics and one book which talked about “scientific pathways”. What a wonder? From a scientist, it is the only book that seems to bring science for masses. Compare this with Dr. Hawking or Dr. Dawkins! You may understand why I feel sad about the numbers.

I ordered the book on an online store hoping that the book will introduce science to young people as well as have some good deal of information for a scientific novice like me. The book came in few days. It is around 250 pages and in two sittings I finished it off. I felt that “The book is kind of OK”, when I started to read and “Why this book is like this?” when I finished. I will list down the reasons why I am upset with the book. With all humility, I again say, I am not so good in science or language or anything. But whatever I express here are what made me unhappy about the book.

1. Book Organization

The book has an “Introduction”. The section doesn't introduce us to the content or intent of the book instead talks about an incident in the authors' life and moves on to talk about some incidents in Einstein's life. Then with a subtitle for each, it talks about Sir C. V. Raman, Michael Faraday and Alexander Graham Bell. Nothing much about the science behind their inventions but the “self-development” kind of “inspiring stories”. OK, forgiven for the introduction!

Then comes a Prologue. This is some kind of a science fiction short story mainly about Robots. As the first topic is Robotics, I thought that every topic will have such story. But this prologue without any reason appears only once and only for Robotics. I couldn't consider this as a prologue to the entire book as it is not talking about Pathology or Paleontology. So I still can't get the point of having a sci-fi short story as a prologue. OK. Lets move on!

The book has 7 different scientific topics, spread across 225 pages, apart from Introduction, Prologue, Acknowledgments. It has eight unnumbered pages of color photographs mostly from Getty Images. Don't look for some scientific diagrams or charts. You can expect few photos of Marie Curie, Galileo, robots, virus etc. The are some monochromatic pictures/diagrams sprinkled here and there. Some of them are informational while others are “Faraday sitting on his desk” or “Raman standing on a ship”.

Each section has something about the topic for 2 to 5 pages, another 2 to 5 pages about the future of the topic. Then a Q&A section titled “Conversation With A Science Teacher” and another Q&A with an Expert (Expert for 3 out of 7 topics is none other than Dr. Kalam himself). This is followed by “Note To Parents”, a section that ensures that the topic will surely land their kids in a good job and there are foreign opportunities for study and work. There is an “Oath” section for the kids to write down their oath. And some topics have an “Exercise” section while some topics lack the same.

2. Too Much for Too Little

This is something subjective. But still, the book gives too much importance, space and coverage to things of little importance. I like to highlight few of such cases below.

a) The book has 7 pages on Michael Faraday's personal struggles. It seems like a perfect plot for a self-motivation short-film. The introduction section itself is 16 pages long out of which Faraday takes a good share of 7 pages. The reason seems to me, is to create a mind-set among the young that they should not question the existing system or status quo. Just they have to work hard, should not complain and will become what they want one day. Sadly that is not true for many and I am not a fan of such new-age motivational stories. Ultimately, page 15 has something like what you hear from Deepak Chopra or Rhonda Byrne “...in face of their determination the universe came together to enable them to succeed”. Yuk!

b) In Space Science topic, 5 pages document about the Galileo Affair. It is good to point out the friction between science and religion in Medieval Europe. But those 5 pages can be utilized to cover from Plato to Aryabhatta of the old and from Galileo to Hawking of our very own time covering various stages and progresses in the field. First manned mission, journey to moon, developments in Mars etc are left to footnote propotions.

c) In the same topic's (Space Science) expert section, there are only two questions. One is about what inspired Dr. Kalam to take up space science. The second is about the land acquisition made for Thumba Space Research Center. This second question takes up 4 pages and it is all about a Bishop of a Church giving up the land of Church, his house and the houses of the villagers for the space center. OK, what does this story have to do with the “scientific pathway” for space science? Is this for preparing young minds to support land acquisition bill or what? The section ends like this “Professor Vikram Sarabhai and Rev. Peter Bernard Pereira may not be with us anymore, but their work, which has been instrumental in the birth of India's space missions, truly lives on.” giving equal credit to the scientist who worked for the founding of the research center and the Bishop who gave the land which is not his personal property! So the moral seems to be this: "If you give up your land for some project, you will be counted as a person who made a “scientific pathway” along with the scientists who worked on the project!"

So, instead of discussing on actual science of technology, the book deviates largely in to self-help style “experiences” and “stories”, which is nothing else but disappointing.

3. Errors and Typos

Even though the book is on science, there are error and typos which may be quiet misleading. As a novice in science, I myself have found some of them. I am presenting few of them I could remember when I glance back the pages now.

a) The book confuses a computer bug with virus. Bugs are human errors in programming which results in unexpected behavior of the program. Viruses are developed with intention to harm the system. But the book says that bugs can be sorted out just like anti-virus software cleans the computer in page 35. In medical sense you can call a virus as a bug. But not so in computer science.

b) The book mentions that nicotine is a carcinogen (page 101). But the current understanding is that nicotine is not carcinogen (at least in the doses humans consume and that is why nicotine gums are safer) but other chemicals in tobacco or tobacco smoke are. This is a pardonable mistake for non-science books. But for a scientific book? Also the book has some confusion about cancer. The books states that cancer can not be induced by bacteria or virus which is not exactly true. Some viruses increase the risk of cancer like the same way smoking or pollution increases the risk. One example is HPV.

c) On page 240, the book says that the Holocene Epoch started 1.25 mya (million years ago) i.e. 1,250,000 years ago, which is wrong. Holocene epoch had begun just 11,700 years ago. The book has the same error on the same page for the end date of Pleistocene epoch too!

d) On page 96, the size of a Red blood cell is given as 12 micrometer, which is actually 6 to 8 micrometer in diameter or 20 to 25 micrometer in circumference or 2 to 2.5 micrometer of thickness. I don't know what size this 12 micrometer represents.

e) On page 237, it is mentioned that the evolution from single celled prokaryotes to modern life forms like humans took 2000 billion years! It should be 2000 million years or just 2 billion years. Typo? Forgiven! 

f) On Page 142, the distance traveled by light in one year (light year) is given as 95 followed by 11 zeros in words (which is correct) and 9,50,00,00,00,00,000 km in numbers (which is actually 95 followed by 12 zeros and hence wrong. Again in words, it is mentioned as 95 trillion which is wrong. It should be 9.5 trillion kilometers.

These are few of the mistakes/errors I have come across. I may be wrong in some or there may be more such which a knowledgeable person can find out!

4. East vs West?

There is an East vs West problem in the book. No! Not between people. But between the number system. The book in most places use Western names for numbers (millions, billions) in words and use Indian comma system in figures which is quiet confusing. The errors like the one in light year's distance could have been avoided to sticking to any one system properly! I think this will confuse young readers a bit as this problem runs throughout the book.

Not only the numbers, even titles of people are confused between West and East. In Acknowledgments, almost all the people are addressed Mr or Ms but in the last paragraph three persons are addressed with Shri! Though this is irrelevant, there is a striking similarity between numbers and people in the East-West confusion aspect!

Conclusion:

So this book seems to be more of a self-help/motivation book than a popular science book. Actually it is a dangerous mixture of both, as I consider both scientific errors and self-help dangerous, especially for young readers. As I have pointed out in my earlier blog post about MBA, it seems the co-author, who is a person from management stream may be a contributing factor for the sorry state of the book. So, if you are looking at this book as a popular science book for young readers, like me, think again!