Duh!!

I'm going to be the umpteenth person to voice his opinion on this topic. But since you are already here to read, and since I've already started to write, why not go ahead and discuss "Artifical Intelligence".

But don't worry. I'm not going to bore you with a technical discourse on fuzzy logic, control theory and mathematical modelling - because I'm confident of my abilities to bore you without resorting to technical stuff. :P

As with almost all of the topics that are covered here, this too came out of a situation that stumped me at first. We were watching TV the other night, when the show we were watching introduced this actress as the special guest for the day.

She had acted only in a few Malayalam films till now, but what made her popular was this show on the channel "Mazhavil Manorama". Like I said, no one was able to remember the name of that show. By instinct, my hand went to unlock the screen of my smartphone, so that I could google my answer. It was at this point that a friend of mine asked me a disturbingly valid question,

"What is the need for googling all the answers? We used to watch that show every week. Can't we at least try and remember it by ourselves?"

I couldn't find any plausible reason to not do what he said. And that thought process is what spawned this post. With the plethora of intelligence enabled devices available to us, it is no surprise that we are being slowly converted into their slaves. The usage of Artificial intelligence is harming the natural one.

With the advent of affordable smartphones and inexpensive mobile internet, information about the world is literally at everyone's fingertips. So, if I had to find a word to describe the mobile internet as "cheap" in the last sentence, all I had to do was to google "cheap synonym", so that I'll get to know that "inexpensive" can be used in its place. If I had opted not to access that portal, I would have had to spend a significant amount of time thinking about it.

But, the fact that you can successfully search for an answer in your smartphone prohibits you from using your own intellect. The mind of humans are like light in that respect - always going for the shortest path. And knowing that the chance of finding the answer on the web is 100%, makes it an all too enticing option to pass on.

When I was introduced officially to a calculator in my eleventh grade, my father told me that it was a bad idea. I had to use a calculator as I had to tackle bigger "problems" in lesser time. But my father was right in saying that it'll diminish my own calculating capabilities. The more I leaned on using calculators, the more I found it hard to calculate simple arithmetic operations by myself.

It's in plain sight, to anyone willing to observe, that using such devices makes us dumber. But I am not going to go around advocating a ban on the usage of smartphones. Let me give you an example of why it is good too.

This happened when we were watching a Tamil movie on TV - "Mankatha". There was song sequence, where the protagonists were driving around in the vehicle shown above. I liked that van very much, and said so too. A friend of mine had this to say to that,

"That is the Volkswagen Camper. It is one of their more famous brands. Now, only one factory produces it in the whole world - in Brazil. This is because Camper doesn't meet the safety regulations imposed by many countries. The Brazil factory will also stop production by the end of this year."

Now, at first, everyone was amused to find him giving so many "facts" about a scene we saw for about five seconds. I, being me, challenged him to prove that he was right. I said, "I'll believe everything you say from now on, if all of this is true?"

A quick google search ended up with me accepting defeat. He was right about the Volkswagen Camper.

So this tool can be used to verify facts. But it can do more than that. It can help us learn new facts. This friend of mine was similarly attracted to the vehicle when he saw it at first. So he did a google search and learnt more about it.

And with the advent of affordable smartphones and inexpensive mobile internet, information about the world is literally at everyone's fingertips. You can learn as much as you want.

***

And to come back to that actress and that show. Ten minutes after I had laid down to sleep that night, I had my EUREKA!! moment. I flew down the stairs and into the room of my friend who had inspired me to find the answer by myself. And I said, "Marimayam. It's Marimayam."

And then I danced around the room like a kid who was promised a toffee if he could add 2 and 2 correctly.

I could leave you with that image in your mind. But I ain't that cruel. I'll bid adieu with this quote.

"I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots." - Albert Einstein

Leap of Faith (5 things - Week 34)

We are in the best years of our lives right now. The years between the ages of 20-30 (give or take a few years at the boundaries) has to be the only time in our entire life, when our mind is willingly open to any, all ideas; and our body is right now rugged enough to handle the implications of trying out those crazy ideas.

If you ask me what is the latest crazy idea I've gone ahead with, I would say it was resigning from my job two weeks ago. Not just a job, but the job I've put three of my best years into, so that I can make a career of it. And I was finally beginning to get the rewards that were due to me at work.

I have the confidence of my seniors; I am being handsomely compensated financially for my efforts; I know the place and its workings inside out, so that I can confidently walk in their with my head held high. I had made the safe, secure and successful career that I had set out to, when I came to this city 40 months ago.

Through all this, I was successfully carrying out the motto of being "Better safe than sorry" - something which I was taught from a very early age. To say that I was always afraid to take a risk would be putting it mildly. People who have played any kind of game with me would know that even though I can be competitive, I would never take a risk that I feel is unnecessary.

But then comes a moment in your life, when you have to question even the basic foundations on which it is built. And so, due to one unforeseen circumstance which I had rather not discuss here, I found myself at a cross road. I had to choose between my career and my personal satisfaction. I could keep continuing like I've been doing till now - trying to further my career. It would have been enormously easy to do so.

But now, I'm re-thinking my life in terms of what I want from it, rather than what I'm supposed to get out of it. Society has this habit of letting you know that you are not following the conventional path. It sends out its doomsayers to remind you that you'll end up a failure - that whatever you have done in your life till now will be wasted because you are going to do what it says you shouldn't do. They don't say that, maybe, just maybe, that you are right - that what you've been doing till now was wasting your life, and this decision might make you better.

Now, I'm re-thinking my life. I've had enough of being safe and being in my comfort zone. I'm ready to make decisions that seem plain stupid - heck, they might actually be stupid. I'm willing to put myself and my new found ideas and ideals against the objections of society. I fear no one, but myself. Because the moment I regret my decision, I would lose this battle.

This decision to resign was partly forced upon me by circumstances, but being the eternal optimist that I am, I have found the silver lining in these dark clouds. I am being more spontaneous that I've ever been - making up plans as I go along.

But I can't see where these plans would lead me to in the future. Society has defined a meaning for the word 'successful'. I know pretty well that my probability of being 'successful' in those terms are very low now after this decision.

But I'll happier. No matter what happens, I'll be content with the fact that I bought this onto myself. I'll be safe in the knowledge that it was not an act of destiny or fate, but an act of man - a whimsical act. An act which currently has opened up a world of possibilities to him.

My predecessors have termed such acts as taking the 'leap of faith'. It takes a lot of energy, courage and convincing to make the leap. But once you are in the air, you'll know that taking the leap was the easy part. The hard part is to land safely.

***

I hope that you noticed that I changed the title sequence again. This series has gone from "5 things I learned this week" to "5 things for this week" to just "<Title of blog> (5 things - Week <no>)". Don't ask me why. I haven't thought it through.

Anyways, as for the five things for this week, we'll have a few songs that are currently at the top of my playlist. They are all English. So if you are not into hearing them, sorry. But give it a try. There are a lot of things to enjoy in these musics - the music itself, the voice, the lyrics, the video, the artists. ;)

So, here we go.

1. "Time of your life" - Greenday

2. Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows - Lesley Gore

3. "Good Life" - One Republic

4. "Wake me up" - Avicii

5. "Counting stars" - One Republic

In the last song, there is a line which holds true for me now.

"....Said no more counting dollars

We'll be, we'll be counting stars..."

***

In other news, I finally got to writing out my mind weekly post. "Right next to her". I think you can guess what happens in that, but do read it if you haven't.

And that's all for this week. Don't forget to rate this blog at the bottom of this post.

You guys and gals have a great weekend!!

'til next week.

Right next to her

It must be the effect of watching all those movies, that the first thing I do when I go on a journey alone is to check who my neighbour is - my neighbour as in the person with whom I'm to spent the next few hours with. And everytime, I would wish that the said person would be of the female variety, of an appropriate age, so that I can work my "flirting" skills on her.

In the past three years, the only place I had to go to was home, and since it is quite far away, I had to use the air transport to get there. And in flights, you are placed in a row of 6, split in the middle by an aisle- like you would find in any normal bus. But alas, I had the worst luck in flights, when it came to having a neighbour of my preference. Let me give you an instance depicting my luck in one such journey.

I had been given the middle seat in row 10. As I approached what would be that row, I viewed in disbelief the two women (of European descent!!!) sitting on both sides of that seat. I was so convinced of my bad luck, that I went ahead and sat in the row behind them, thinking that there is no way they were sitting in row 10. After five minutes, the real occupant of the middle seat in row 11 came and evicted me from that seat. And as you can expect, I went and sat in the middle seat of row 10, in between two gorgeous ladies. I couldn't believe my luck.

And by the time, I started believing in my luck, we had landed.

You see, in the 25 odd flights that I've taken  in a period of 3 years, I never ever had the company of a lady. That's the reason why I had so much trouble in believing my good luck

The only other instance of such a situation was when I was on my way back here to Delhi two weeks before. I was waiting in line to check in at the airport, when my ken fell on this beautiful entity. Without speaking a word, heck without even sharing a glance, I knew she had it. She wouldn't make many heads turn, but she had this character that I love in a woman. And at that moment, there was only one wish in my heart.

"God!! Please let her sit right next to me."

And an hour after I started making that wish, you would find me entering the aircraft, making my way to the window seat in row 12. But this time, my eyes were not scanning for the seat numbers, but for her. And I saw her seated at the middle seat, right about at the place where row 12 should be. I couldn't believe my luck, and thanked GOD for doing this for me.

I reached row 12, I kept my bag in the overhead cabin, went past my neighbour in the middle seat, and placed myself in the window seat - with a big frown on my face.

She was in row 11. And by the time the flight took off, she moved to the window seat in that row - right in front of me.

I guess, I should have been more explicit in my prayer. The one above and the lady luck had used the loophole in my earlier prayer to place me right next to her, without actually giving any chance of making contact. I should have wished, "God!! Please let her sit right next to me, in the same row."

Considering that, in that prayer, he could place us in the same row at the seats either side of the aisle, I should have been more specific.

"GOD!! Please let me sit in Seat 12A and she in 12B in the flight no. 6E-316."

I'm pretty sure that, with my luck, there could be a loophole in that statement too.

The last I saw of her was she walking away with the trolley bag, into the night in this capital city. I don't know her name, I don't remember her face; but more importantly, and most probably, she doesn't even know that I exist.

5 things for this week (Part 33)

So, someone among you gave me a 'wtf' rating for the last post. Considering that it was regarding the Indian Space program and its unseen effects on the world, I was expecting only the 'interesting' ratings, like I got for the post no.31.

But I can't blame you. I knew perfectly well that I was only copy pasting the actual letter written by Mr.Ernst. I knew that the most effort that I had to make was splitting that letter into five points. To make up for my laziness in the previous week, I'm coming up with a personal post for this week. You can't say that this has been plagiarized, because no one has yet taken the effort to etch these memories in written words.

I've this friend of mine. He's a pretty decent guy, with a good job, a great life, a wonderful girlfriend and a decent control over the English language. But he has this knack of getting his 'English' all wrong once he is under the influence of alcohol. The following five goof ups are part of some his real life incidents, which mostly happened while he was under the influence of alcohol.

Let's give this friend of mine a bogus name for our convenience. We shall call him, Peter. If it weren't for the drinks Peter had, our gang would have been left short of these wonderful memories. So, here's to his good health.

And I do hope he doesn't do that thing he said he would do if I posted these things here.

So, with that prayer, shall we begin??

Did you know...

1. ...that Peter asked someone why that person was being sad?

Once, during a weekend gettogether, Peter saw this other friend of ours, sitting all alone, in a corner, looking sad. Being the compassionate being that he is, Peter inquired why the friend was being so sad. But his choice of words to express the same were poor.

"Why are you being a SADIST?"

Enough to say, that was enough to lift the spirits of the friend who was being sad.

*There has also been reports, or rather rumors that Peter called Michael Schumacher a RACIST. We all know what he meant though, right?

2. ...that Peter claims that a bookmark is useless thing?

Again, at another weekend gettogether, Peter stumbled upon a book that a friend of his was reading. He saw that there was some colorful thing in between the pages. Peter asked his friend what it was called. The friend informed him that it was called a bookmark. Peter was seeing a bookmark for the first time. Peter then looked at the book, then at the bookmark, then at the book again, and commented to his friend,

"This thing is useless. This BOOKMARK has left no mark in the book."

3. ...that Peter loves "orthodox" drinks?

The weekend gettogethers that I've been talking about are the hub of all kinds of discussion on a variety of topics - from the philosophically significant to the absolutely preposterous. Once we were talking about the religion of Christianity - the teachings, the different sects, etc etc.

Peter was telling us about his experiences on being an orthodox christian. At this time, another friend of ours showed up, with a bottle of whiskey. The pegs were drawn for each interested individual. Someone was mixing the same with water/soft drink. As soon as he got to Peter's glass, Peter picked his glass up and said,

"NO!! No water for me. Just ice. I love ORTHODOX drinks."

*he meant "on the rocks", which means the alcohol is served undiluted, with ice cubes in it.

4. ...that Peter would like to have a mobile with ups?

During another weekend gettogether, Peter was asked if he would pick up a car from Delhi, and drive it down to Gurgaon the next day. Peter was asking for someone to co-pilot with him, but no one was available for the same. Being the maze that the roads in Delhi are, Peter was afraid of getting lost while driving back alone. So, he made a simple enough request to perform the task,

"I'll drive back alone from Delhi to Gurgaon. But someone should give me a mobile phone with UPS so that I can know my way back. My phone doesn't have that feature."

5. ...that the metro entry gate didn't read his wallet?

For a change, let me tell you something which happened when he was sober. This happened at a metro station.

As you would likely see if you were to observe closely, most people walk up to the metro entry gate, and swipe his/her wallet over it, and the gate would open by itself. We were a group of five. Four of us did the above trick, and got to the other side, but were surprised to see that Peter hadn't joined us.

Peter was getting irritated by the machine which wouldn't let him enter, no matter how many times he tried to swipe his wallet on it.

What Peter didn't know was that we all had our metro travel cards in our wallet, and it was those cards, which opened the gates for us.

Peter was thinking that the machine worked by reading the ATM card, and deducting money from it directly. Being a newbie in a ultramodern metro city, Peter was oblivious of the way things worked over here.

***

I know I've been withholding on my mid weekly posts for over two months now - mostly because of the state of my health. I know that this "5 things" series is going bland. I try to bring you something new every week, but it is a bit hard to do so at a consistently high standard. But I will post it every week, even if I know what I'm writing is crap, cos the basic target of this series is to make me write regularly.

Being back to better health, I've a 2 part series lined up for you. Hopefully, you'll have read them by this time next week.

So, till then, good bye.
Have a great weekend!!

5 things for this week (Part 32)

The state of my health, both physical and mental, is questionable at best. With our maid picking up Dengue, we are deprived of her culinary services for the next few weeks. The effort you've to expend to cook food is multiplied exponentially by the decrease in the atmospheric temperature from it's normally acceptable levels. As Delhi is set to have an early winter, with it becoming noticeably cold since last week, we are left with the herculean task of preparing our own food, braving cold water from the pipes, and even colder draughts from the elsewhere.

Well, that about sums up the week for me. I know. Pretty boring, right?

Not for our nation though. It was a huge week for India. No. I'm not talking about Sachin's last international performance (yet!!), but about Mangalyaan - India's first mission to Mars. With over half of such ambitious missions in the past failing to achieve it's target (globally), the success of this venture will significantly increase the trust from other nations in our ISRO. It's a tantalizing prospect for them - both commercially as well as a symbol of national pride.

The project was done in less than 18 months at a cost about 250 crore rupees. One smart fellow calculated its cost per km as Rs.12, claiming that it's similar to what you've to pay for an auto ride in India. Smartasses and unconfirmed asset values aside, it begets a question. What good is such advancement for me?

Off the back of my mind, I can roll off  better communication facilities, the ability to forecast weather with more accuracy, the growth of TV and the Internet and all such modern things.

Okay. So the work of space age enthusiasts has been good for me. But what good would spending money on a mission to Mars to the hungry children of Africa?

This question was not from me, but from Sister Mary Jucunda, a nun who worked among the starving children of Kabwe, Zambia, in Africa in 1970s. She wrote a letter then, asking the same to Mr.Ernst Stuhlinger, Associate Director for Science, NASA. NASA was at that time working on a similar project to send a probe to MARS. Even though he used to get lots of such mails, he replied to her, considering her line of work. That reply is now a legend. In that reply, he elucidates on the need for space exploration, and why it'll be good for those hungry kids in Africa?

I'll be listing out five major points from his reply as the "5 things" for this week, which will give us a better idea of why space exploration is good for mankind.

And for those of you, who would like to read the letter in its entirety, do visit the link..

http://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-a-1970-letter-to-a-nun-in-africa/

So, let's begin the proceedings, shall we?

Did you know...

1. ...that the fund for space exploration is on a budget - meaning it has very specific, limited means of utilization?

The total budget of a nation is fixed. "This money goes to health, education, welfare, urban renewal, highways, transportation, foreign aid, defense, conservation, science, agriculture and many installations inside and outside the country." Only a small percent (~1%) is spent on the space program. "When the funds are finally appropriated by the Government after stringent screening, they can be spent only for the line items specified and approved in the budget" - that is only for space related missions, and not for giving out aid to poor countries. Moreover, the Government has its own fund to give out as an aid for other countries.

2. ...that space exploration can help in solving poverty issues?

"Basic to the hunger problem are two functions: the production of food and the distribution of food. Food production by agriculture, cattle ranching, ocean fishing and other large-scale operations is efficient in some parts of the world, but drastically deficient in many others. For example, large areas of land could be utilized far better if efficient methods of watershed control, fertilizer use, weather forecasting, fertility assessment, plantation programming, field selection, planting habits, timing of cultivation, crop survey and harvest planning were applied.

The best tool for the improvement of all these functions, undoubtedly, is the artificial Earth satellite."

3. ... that the space program helps in the stimulation of technological development?

"The requirements for high precision and for extreme reliability which must be imposed upon the components of a moon-travelling spacecraft are entirely unprecedented in the history of engineering. The development of systems which meet these severe requirements has provided us a unique opportunity to find new material and methods, to invent better technical systems, to manufacturing procedures, to lengthen the lifetimes of instruments, and even to discover new laws of nature.

All this newly acquired technical knowledge is also available for application to Earth-bound technologies."

4. ...that the space program helps in the generation of scientific knowledge?

"There is a continuing great need for new basic knowledge in the sciences if we wish to improve the conditions of human life on Earth. We need more knowledge in physics and chemistry, in biology and physiology, and very particularly in medicine to cope with all these problems which threaten man’s life: hunger, disease, contamination of food and water, pollution of the environment.

We need more young men and women who choose science as a career and we need better support for those scientists who have the talent and the determination to engage in fruitful research work. Challenging research objectives must be available, and sufficient support for research projects must be provided" - both of which are provided by the space program.

5. ...that Ernst Stuhlinger hoped that the space age would end war, and then, begin it all over again?

"How much human suffering can be avoided if nations, instead of competing with their bomb-dropping fleets of airplanes and rockets, compete with their moon-travelling space ships! This competition is full of promise for brilliant victories, but it leaves no room for the bitter fate of the vanquished, which breeds nothing but revenge and new wars."

He has explained in a few words how the world will first embrace space age for good, and how it might end up like it used to be.

***

Balaji Viswanathan. I don't exactly know who this guy is, but he has written very well about the same topic, but mainly covering the fact that the foreign press has been trying to belittle this huge milestone of the Indian Space Research Organization.

Read what he has to say at the following link...

http://balajiviswanathan.quora.com/Indian-Space-Mission-Poverty-and-Closet-Racism

***

Well, that's it from me for this week. Nothing much else to say.

Oh. Forgot one thing. I resigned.

More on that next week though.

Have a great weekend!!!

'til next week.