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!

Media Players for GNU/Linux

People often think that GNU/Linux lack support for video/audio playback. With Distros like Linux Mint having out of the box support for most video/audio formats and almost all Android phones work seamlessly with almost all media types, it is still a common myth that GNU/Linux won't play MP3 or MP4. So I am just listing few media players that can do the job for you.

VLC

Surprisingly many people running Microsoft Windows use VLC doesn't know that it is part of Free Software. But VLC (Video LAN Client) is the most widely used media player among Windows users. It plays everything from FLV to FLAC told one of my friend who runs Windows and a Microsoft fanboy. He challenged me to show an equivalent or alternate for VLC in GNU/Linux. When he visited my house next time, I showed him my PC having the same VLC (latest version). So VLC is one of the most commonly used media player that GNU/Linux users can make use of.

Link: https://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Kaffeine

Kaffeine is a very good media player that has a whole set of features to give you a full fledged media center experience. It is a KDE based player (you can still run it in other DEs.) It has support for scrambled and copy protected DVDs (you may need libdvdcss) and it is easy to use too. It is the default player for most of my DVD viewings.

Link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/kaffeine/

SMPlayer

This humble yet powerful player is not known outside the GNU/Linux world much. But if someone tries SMPlayer, they will make it as their default player for sure. It has very nice sound output and it has lot of settings that will allow you to tweak every aspect of your audio/video. The excellent keyboard shortcuts will come handy while watching videos. I am so addicted to the shortcut configurations of this player as I wonder how other players got them so wrong.

Link: http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/

So, if you are running GNU/Linux, just search for these packages in your software repositories. Sometimes you may need to add some other sources or to build from source (that is not the case usually as all major distributions have these media players in their repositories). Please share about your favorite media players in GNU/Linux systems in the comment section.

Note: Personally I strongly suggest you to stay away from non-free media formats. For list of clean and free media formats check the below link.

Link: https://www.defectivebydesign.org/so_youve_got_some_questions_do_you#formats

3D (Anaglyph) Image With GIMP

What You Need:

1. A mobile/digital camera
2. A PC with GIMP (preferably running GNU/Linux)
3. Glass papers (red, blue and green colors)
4. Carton box (like the one comes with corn flakes, health drinks etc)
5. A pair of scissors
6. Glue

3D - An Introduction:

What ever we see with TWO eyes is 3D. Yes. It needs two eyes to resolve 3 dimensional visual. The same is true for hearing. How this happens? We have two eyes. But they are placed slightly apart on our face. This small distance between the eyes does the trick. Both our eyes send a two dimensional visual to our brain. and our brain merges them to resolve 3 dimensional vision. Closer the object, higher the difference between the images and farther the image lesser the difference between images created by right and left eyes. Using this, our brain creates a 3 dimensional vision.

Clicking The Photo(s!):

As we have seen in the introduction, we need two slightly different images of same object to create a 3D anaglyph. So take a photo with your digital/mobile camera and slightly move the camera few centimetres to left/right and click another image. Extreme care must be taken to avoid change in lighting, shakes and zoom levels. Try your best to keep the change in horizontal plane as much as possible (like our eyes which are horizontally separated). I have clicked first photo of this tiger doll and slightly moved the camera horizontally to left and clicked the second photo.

Right eye view

Left eye view

GIMP Work:

1. First open your right eye view image with GIMP

2. Go to Colors -> Desaturate and choose whatever shade of grey base you like. I have chosen Luminosity.

3. In color picker dialog choose red as foreground color. Make sure the values in Blue and Green fields are 0 and Red field is 255

4. Now go to Layers -> New Layer and choose foreground color. A red layer will be placed on your image! Don't panic!

5. Go to File -> Open as Layer and choose the left eye view image

6. Go to Colors -> Desaturate and choose exactly same shade of grey base as you chose in right eye view image.

7. A quick look in to your layer dialog will be like this!

8. In color picker dialog choose cyan as foreground color. Make sure the values in Blue and Green fields are 255 and Red field is 0

9. Now go to Layers -> New Layer and choose foreground color. A cyan layer will be placed on your image! Again, don't panic!

10. A quick look in to your layer dialog will be like this!

11. Select Cyan layer and choose the mode to "Screen"

12. Click on the eye icon in the layers to toggle visibility. If the eye icon is displayed, the layer is visible. Now make cyan layer and left eye image layer alone visible

13. Now your image will be like this. Go to Image -> Merge Visible Layers...

14. A quick look in to your layer dialog will be like this!

15. Select Red layer and choose the mode to "Screen"

16. Make red layer and right eye image layer alone visible


17. Now your image will be like this. Go to Image -> Merge Visible Layers...

18. A quick look in to your layer dialog will be like this!

19. Make both layers visible and select the cyan layer. Select mode as "Multiply"

20. If done correctly, your image will be like this. Export it as JPEG or PNG as you wish.

21. Fine tune your anaglyph by adjusting the layers while wearing the 3D red-cyan glasses (see below to know how to make it!)

Here is the anaglyph I have made!

The Glasses:

To make the glasses, you need red, blue and green glass papers. Cut two rectangles of red glass paper and one rectangle each of blue and green papers. Cut the frame of the glass from the carton box. Glue the red paper on one eye and blue and green on the other (to create cyan). I have made one within 15 minutes. The glass papers (large sheet) cost Rs. 5 each. You can make at least 10 glasses with a single purchase of glass papers.

Viewing:

Place the cyan side on your right eye and red side on your left eye. If you see ghost image, then move farther from screen or just zoom out the image. Outdoor images with farther backgrounds work better with this trick.

Conclusion:

So we have seen how to create an anaglyph with easy steps using GIMP. Also we have seen how to create 3D glasses at home cheap and easy! So enjoy your weekend with kids. If possible, kindly share your anaglyphs here!

Online Offers or Outright Scams?

Recently I bought some instant pasta and got some gift coupons with it. It said that there is 500/- off on purchases above 1200/- in a popular online store. As my running shoes were wearing off, I thought I can use it to buy a pair of shoes. I checked the price of some shoe models and compared it with another online store's prices. There was almost 600 to 700/- difference. So, they just give 500/- off while pricing things 600/- more. Is this an offer?

Again, one day everyone around me at office were panicking. They said that some online shops are giving unbelievable discounts. But again, when checked against some other online stores, people realized that it is just a publicity stunt and the so called offer prices are higher than other sites.

Some other companies give you "free" talktime offers with purchase of things like noodles and dishwash bars. But that requires you to "register" yourself with some sites. This is the catch. They get your email id, mobile number etc. And as usual we never read the "terms and conditions" but just click "I Agree". So this information can be misused. I am not saying that all such offers are threat to your privacy but you can not trust all such offers. Nothing in the world comes for free from "businesses". They themselves say that they are not charities!

So am I against all online purchases? Definitely not! I myself purchase lot of things online. But what I am saying is, clever marketing gimmicks and enticing offers should not mislead us to waste our money on something that is not worth. Now let me list out how these online stores are serving us better as well as how they are spoiling us!

The Good Side:

1. They don't need to rent a large showroom, air-condition it, pay hefty electricity and water bills and employ staffs. All they need is a website and a warehouse. That's why they can offer cheaper prices.

2. They offer more choices. For example, they provide option to buy phones and laptops of brands that are seldom available in conventional market.

3. They allow you to shop at your convenience. More payment choices and offers.

4. There are some tax differences between states. As these products are shipped from various locations across India, you can get a cheaper deal in that way too!

The Bad Side:

1. Things like shoes, dress etc can have mismatch against your expectations.

2. Purchasing lesser known brands may look like steal deals. But in some cases, there can be poor after sales service that will make you regret the purchase!

3. Delay in shipments are possible. Also some damaged products may need lengthy follow-ups to get rectified or refunded. Some times that even won't happen.

4. Unlike in case of conventional shopping which happens once in a while, people can constantly waste their time by looking in to online stores. Some tempting offers and targeted ads create an unwanted urges to spend on things that people seldom need.

So, to summarize, online stores are inevitable effect of the IT revolution. There is no point in protesting against it. Resistance is futile! These stores provide us more options and choices. But be careful! Don't purchase anything in a hurry. Compare price in other online stores and conventional shops. (Recently I bought a helmet of same brand/model/size for a much lesser price than in any online store from a conventional shop!) Before buying anything ask yourself if you really need it and will use it for sure and it is worth the money you are going to spend on it. Once again! Beware of online offers. Be extra cautious before buying anything (not only online but also in normal shops).

Top 5 Bon Jovi Songs

There are lot of top 5 or top 10 of everything, and I think there is no harm in adding one more to the list. This is a list of my favorite Bon Jovi songs! Enjoy and post your favorite songs too!

5. Dead or Alive

This song is kind of iconic! I talks about Bon Jovi's life and his stardom. If you are a guitarist and a biker, then you will feel the lyrics touching some unexplored areas in your heart. I used to hear this song while riding my "steel horse".


4. Thank You for Loving Me

What else we can say to the person who means everything in our life? Can anything compensate the unconditional love? I sometimes wonder whether this song also talks about the divine love too! Over all a rock tribute to timeless love.

3. Always

This song also talks about love. But a bit twitchy love. Love that is too hard to hold on but too good to lose, and the after thoughts about the missed chances. Over all a very long but fulfilling musical treat spiced with great guitar riffs, drums and keyboards. A true rock ballad!


2. Two Story Town

Nothing to do with "The Tale of Two Cities". This song is all about the good and bad faces of each of us. We live our life hiding our dark desires inside and pretending that we are yet another face in the crowd (which is no one!). The lyrics seems to be a casual sub-urban rock, but if you give it a thought, you know it is about you!



1. Bed of Roses

This is bit the reverse of "Thank You for Loving Me". This song talks about the love of self to the other person. Even if it goes unnoticed, ignored or insulted, love remains. When you take all the blame to make the other person feel comfortable, this song will heal your wounds.

Ubuntu 14.10 - Utopic Unicorn Review

If you have 14.04 LTS installed and upgrading to 14.10, there is not much to notice except the performance and power management improvements which are under the hood. Ubuntu 14.10's blueprint has only 35 items while 14.04's blueprint had 117 items. It seems Ubuntu didn't want to leave a bad taste in the minds of users on its 10th birthday. It has become a new norm in GNU/Linux community to militantly oppose any major change.

Things that are new include, improved support for hardware, power management, SSD optimization using TRIM, better Btrfs support, all of which are due to the Linux kernel update to version 3.16. 

Now let us see what Ubuntu 14.10 - Utopic Unicorn can deliver to end users against other OSes.

Ubuntu is a trusted name among GNU/Linux users. It is well known for its ease of use, good support and stability. Also even after 10 years, the release cycles of Ubuntu went like clock works and the users are provided with latest and greatest software!

Compared with proprietary operating systems, Ubuntu stands top in addressing security issues. It supports most of the latest hardware components like sound card, USB devices, laptop hot keys etc. Most of the proprietary OSes require you to install drives separately.

The centralized software management (which is common to all GNU/Linux platforms) is also a key in maintaining the system. Everything from your core operating system to browser will be updated in one shot!

So this is not a compelling update for 14.10 LTS users. But if you think there can be any thing new in 15.04 or 15.10 or even 16.04, you need to upgrade to 14.10 now. Else you have to wait till 16.10 to get any thing new that may come in between like GNOME 3.14 or Unity 8 or Mir.

But for users of other proprietary OSes, this is a compelling release. People are waiting for a newer version of windows just for a start menu button lately! But with Ubuntu you have various choices of desktop environments which can meet our taste. Also you don't have any attached guilt of pirating the OS or wasting your money on a disk of 0s and 1s :)