Boss or leader me lords!

The one who is one of the best and smart and intelligent is usually the leader! While the one who is none of the above is usually… the BOSS!

The leader leads the way and shows how to do it! While the boss would stand back and complain while talented people are forced to act like chimps for bad ideas developed by him or her!

The leader does not need your praise while the Boss survives in them and your servitude! The first thing anyone must do after joining any work is to define whether his supervisor is a leader or a boss!

Then you must read these two stories!

The first law in the book 48 laws of power is that you must always treat your master (or boss!) as superior! Never show him or her that you are better than him or her! These are the two stories which demonstrate just that!

Nicolas Fouquet, marquis de Belle-Île, vicomte de Melun et Vaux was the finance in charge to King Louis XXIV. He once threw an extravagant party for his King with a lavish buffet and performances to show that he wants to pamper his King at the opening of his new home and castle!
The pomp and grandeur would have made anyone glow! However it had the opposite effect! The next day he was arrested on charges of financial misappropriation and sentenced to life imprisonment!

Peering through his newly-improved 20-power homemade telescope at the planet Jupiter on Jan. 7, 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei noticed three other points of light near the planet, at first believing them to be distant stars.  Galileo correctly concluded that they were not stars at all but moons orbiting around Jupiter. He published his discoveries in a book titled Siderius Nuncius (The Starry Messenger). He proposed to name them after his patrons the Medicis which made him an instant hit among his patrons and assured their support! So even though he was much cleverer than his master and patrons; he knew how to lift them!

The king may not be the cleverest person but he or she must be the centre of attention! Galileo had called them the Medicean moons in honour of his patrons (the Medici family),

The king of the yesteryears have been replaced by the Boss of today while the great advisors and saints may become leader! Sometimes (it is usually all the time!) it’s better to act dumb in front of your boss or master so that he or she gets his or her way!

Make sure to nod along and laugh the most at his or her bad jokes! Speaking of laughter reminds me of the laughing face of Dinesh Hingoo!

Now practice the Dinesh Laugh and sleep!

SHubh Ratri!

IP rating

Do you know what is an Ingress Protection rating?

Sometimes you get confused when you are presented with the full form when you actually know the short one!

It was an early problem in Google Maps when it normally tells the full form of a road or street while we always knew the short form! Like Sadar Patrappa road! That sounds like a confusing road in Bangalore while the fact is that everyone knows the short form SP road!

When I was asked a question in a interview, Who is Inder Kumar G? I was really confused! The interviewer understood! He then mischievously asked, “Don’t you know I K Gujral!?”

Now coming to the Ingress Protection rating! It is simply IP rating which we all know! Of course the minute details may not be known to all but the term IP rating is almost general knowledge in the era of Mobile Phones!

Everyone knows how electric and electronic equipment deteriorate or malfunction when water or dust enters the device. The older mobile phones falling on a puddle of water was a death sentence! To know how much dust and water your phone can ‘tolerate’ the

The IEC or International Electrotechnical Commission has developed the ingress protection (IP) ratings, which grade the resistance of an enclosure against the intrusion of dust or liquids.

The first edition of IEC 60529 was published in 1976 with the aim of creating a single document to bring together all requirements regarding protection by enclosures.

The IP code is composed of two numerals:
The first numeral refers to the protection against solid objects and is rated on a scale from 0 (no protection) to 6 (no ingress of dust).

The second numeral rates the enclosure’s protection against liquids and uses a scale from 0 (no protection) to 9 (high-pressure hot water from different angles).


There are also levels of protection against immersion at varying depth and levels of drops protection in the solid category

While the top most liquid protection is  9 which is the Protection against high-pressure, high-temperature jet sprays, washdowns or steam-cleaning procedures!

A typical  rating for solid objects like say IP 6, means it lets in very little dust and dirt, and a water-R rating of 8 indicates it can be submerged in water for minutes at a time.

A phone with those specs would earn an IP68 rating!

Now, high IP rating  actually indicates that when dust and water does make its way through a phone’s seams, it won’t enter in quantities to cause malfunction!

However, the rating system was not designed to be mutually inclusive, meaning an IP67 certification does not automatically equate to certificates for grades 1-6!

Of course the ratings are only one assessment for buying the phone! Many do take these into consideration but with the advent of Flip and Fold phones; there are some adjustments!

For now just make sure that whatever be the rating; water and dust is not a good friend of your phone!

If that’s over your head then head over to read about the one who took the Britishers in their own turf! Chettur Sankaran Nair !

One of the many freedom fighters forgotten and almost lost from memory! Do read about him…

Shubh ratri…

Time wait for me

In a book called 48 laws of power by Robert Greene it is understood that there are at least 48 laws of power! Many of the laws are actually complimentary while many contradict each other!

Each law is presented with a story or a context and it is a really good book to read! Then again you will get impatient to move on to the next law as soon as possible!

In this context Robert states how impatience is human while patience is godly! 

He says how whatever be the situation, if you are patient then the problem or issue will settle! Like God who has lots of time and can literally watch the person perish or flourish! 

Time also has been the focus of study for everyone! Often, we think of time as simply a number assigned to a specific event. However, time is also thought to always “flow” forwards, so could it therefore be considered as a vector!

From a modern physics viewpoint, time is not a vector neither a scalar, it is a coordinate!

This is because time is relative depending on the observer, so it cannot be defined as a scalar or a vector. 

In Newtonian physics, however, time has a universal meaning and is usually thought of as a scalar! 

My English professor explanation of theory of relativity also was related to time! He used to tell that when you are sitting on a hot stove, every second feels like an hour! While if you are sitting on your partner’s lap then every hour feels like a second! That is the theory of relativity!

Then you have the whole going back to time! Can you actually do time travel!? From the begining of time as such, people have been trying to do time travel! Then again you have the issue of parallel time lines in case you do have a succesful time travel! Which means that if you go back in time and change something then you have actually created a new timeline! The old timeline is no longer the one in which you are there! 

Finally at the end of it all; everyone simply wants time! If you have time then you can have anything if you try hard enough. But if you do not have time then you have the short end of the stick. You would most of the time see young kids would always be in a rush to do or tell something but old people would try to tell or do stuff as slow as possible! Irony is that the young have loads of time while the old have less of it! Then it may actually be a subconcious attempt by the old timers to try to slow down the time! Maybe if you talk or do stuff slowly you may reduce the speed of the time! Of it may just be the fact that they know time is the precious commodity so they want to experience it as slowly and carefully as possible! 

Watch out for a future where you will get time for sale! And no prime deal since you would be ready to pay anything to even get a additional second!

For now though it’s time to listen to Jaipur Gharana Kishori Amonkar and sleep!

Shubh ratri!

Cooking hair loss

The loss of these ‘hair’ causes you to not hear people properly!

Of course even if you do hear then sometime you do not listen! Starting with your parents and then possibly you ‘friend’ or your partner and finally your children may tell you at some point that ‘you do not listen!’

There is nothing you can do to change that though!

Now the hair on top of your head may also make you not listen or hear properly if they are a lot! Then again the hair I am telling about are much inside your head!

They are deep inside a bone which is shaped like a conch shell! Surprisingly you use a conch shell to make a loud noise and wake up the divine ‘ears’!

These hair cells are in two different places called the outer and the inner hair cells and the loss of these cells makes your hearing go down! The former makes your not discriminate speech while the latter makes your perception to reduce! Unlike the other hair on top of your head, you cannot suggest a hair transplant for these!

Also did you know that your ears also keep you in balance!?

Without your ears, you would lose your balance! Luckily like an automatic machine, ears, ears are self-cleaning!

Also when you sleep, ears are always awake! The sensors of ears are like the microphones of Alexa or Siri which are always listening for the wake up call!
Unfortunately now though Alexa and Siri simply listen to everything! But our ears still follow some protocols!

It takes time during sleep not because ears are not working but the brain has gone into the screen saver or power saver mode! Which is why they respond to the most important wake up call to ‘wake up’!

Like how someone mentioned that your name is simply the noise someone makes to get your attention! The wake up call is your name told a little boldly and loudly in increased intensity depending on the depth of your sleep!

Of course a kick or a spray of ice cold water also helps!
The structure and function of our ears are so complex that we still get to know new things every day! The average ears have to filter out so many noise including the loud environment of our own body to give you a pure DOLBY SURROUND experience!

It knows which sounds to amplify and which to reduce! It can also give you form which direction the noise comes from! Which is why in people who have limited vision, the ears locate! Many can even train the ears to ‘see’ like a bat!

In fact echo location; the technique used by many people with visual disability uses the full function of the ears!

Which is why when the ears have issues, you not only cannot hear properly, you also have difficulty in concentrating and maintaining balance. Some also start ‘listening’ to sounds which cause more problems and the treatment of these is a big challenge!

Another wonderful thing about the ears is that it is the source of information for speech! All the words you say are the ones you have heard someone speak! This even includes your name! If the ear does not tell you what the sound is of a particular word then you will not be able to say that properly!

Which is why if a kid can’t listen he or she can’t speak which is why in spite of having vocalizing capability, kids who are born deaf if not treated, also cannot speak! In the original movie of the Planet of the apes; The researcher ‘Chimp’ tells this very thing! You see a monkey speak is amazing but that was the direction of evolution in that movie! She says that these ‘creatures’ called the ‘humans’ actually have a fully developed vocal cords but they do not know how to use them! Which is why they do not speak!

This is exactly the reason why a child with limited hearing must be ‘treated’ as soon as possible so that he or she will have a normal speech and not have any reduced ability in the future.

My father always asks why we have two ears but only one mouth!
Of course it is to speak less and listen more! Also eat less! Then again if it’s made by celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor then you can eat a little more!

Now have a light dinner and protect your inner hair cells by keeping ears closed and safe from loud noise and sleep!

Shubh ratri!

What if!?

What if? Well, that is not a question; well, actually it is but that is not the point! That is the name of a very popular book currently at its 10th edition with updates every year written by Randall Munroe!

The book seeks to answer questions which may be considered absurd or silly or may even initiate a psychiatric evaluation!

Now although the questions may be absurd, the author has made every possible attempt to answer the questions as scientifically as possible!

Growing up you might have asked questions to your parents like where does the rain come from or why it becomes dark in the night or where does the sun disappear!

And many times your elders like your parents or your grandparents would either tell you a fact which may seem scientific or some times simply give you an answer so that you would stop annoying them!

I have had answers like rain comes when someone opens the taps in the sky!

Of course when you were young (er!); you used to take the answers as they were given and even narrate the same to your friend with so much confidence that even Newton would be proud!

You would also think that the elders are so wise! Till you grow up and find the correct answer! What you think after that is up to your maturity!

With the advent of Mr Google and the net; children do not waste time asking such questions to you! Even if they do ask, more often than not, rest assured they would counter check your answer so do not give the ‘tap in the sky’ answers!

Luckily though there is so much information on the net that your role of giving a specific answer is still valid!

With that in mind; Have you ever wondered that well, for now the sun is so hot! But how long would it take for it to cool down so much that you could literally touch it!? If you were alive of course!

The answer in the book was there as an answer to another question and unfortunately is not very comforting!

Lets see what is the timeline of what is ‘theoretically’ (because this is only a theory! No one is going to be there to validate it you see! Or at least you and me may not be there to confirm the findings!)

Now in about 10 billion years, the Andromeda galaxy will have merged with the Milky Way. The Sun will be gone and its debris will be spread across new star systems but still the parts would be hot!

100 billion years in the future: The accelerating expansion of the universe is now carrying other galaxies away from us so fast that their light becomes too stretched out for us to detect, rendering the universe outside our galaxy effectively invisible! Now the sun is cooling but still not very cool! Literally!

Finally at about 1 trillion years from now, the long-lived white dwarf stars start to burn out! The good news though is that the remnant of the sun cools to the point where you could finally touch it! It may still be a little warm though!

Oh yeah I know you do not like cliffhangers! So in around 1000 trillion years from now, any remaining planets orbiting the remnant of the Sun will have been ejected into the void or crashed into it! The stars are dark and the sky is empty! You may of course get to say, “I told you so!”


You can tell that or maybe sing! Though it may not be like the sweet voice of Hariharan!

Shubh Ratri!

Black hole and Purana!

If you had seen the movie interstellar then you are brave! If you have understood it after viewing it once then you are either lying or being pseudo brave!

The way it tells about Black hole and the passage of time is really super cool though! Then again this has been mentioned in a book written thousands of years back!

Hope you know Balarama!

The plough wielder!
The mighty mace warrior!
Guru to Bhima and Duryodhana
In Bhagwath Puranas he is known as the ninth Avatar of Vishnu

we will come to the link later!

Let us go back to Interstellar!

In movie interstellar, Coop’s (now do not ask me, Coop who!? The name is not important but the essence of the message is!) team decide to land on Dr. Miller’s (?? again not important!) ocean planet.

This planet is orbiting Gargantua, the massive glowing black hole that exists in the foreign galaxy. Due to Gargantua’s massive gravitational pull, “every hour on that planet is seven years on Earth”!

A massive tidal wave hits the spacecraft and delays their exit! When they finally go back to the space, by their calculation only three hours had gone! But for the person waiting for them in the dock and for people on the Earth; they find to their shock that 23 years have passed!

This is because Gargantua warps space-time; its gravitational strength bends Miller’s planet, stretching and squeezing it toward and away from the black hole. Einstein’s theory of relativity is key to all this. His revolutionary 1915 theory proposed that the larger the object, the more spacetime is warped and twisted.

One hour for someone maybe a lifetime for someone else! Coop’s daughter who was hardly 8 years old, three hours back is now close to 32 years! She has not been in touch with her father for so long! In fact when he goes to another planet and revisits his daughter on Earth station; his daughter is now an old lady over 90 years! While he was still 30 odd years old!

Emotional but so much science and physics which only Nolan being an engineer himself could have imagined!

Now for the interesting part (finally! I know reading this blog feels like being close to the black hole!!)

In Bhagwat Puran there is a story where the King of Mathura or Revata left to Brahma Lok to find a groom for his daughter REVATHY!
They will go and meet Brahma who was let’s just say a little busy so they waited for a while, then they met Brahma and were blessed that Revathy would marry a great warrior who wields a plough!

What they did not realise is that though it was only one year since they left Earth and went to meet Brahma; when they returned thousands of years had passed! Since one year for one year of Brahma and Brahma loka is many years for mankind and when they returned thousands of years had passed!

So much so that even humans who were apparently huge when Revata was king were the size you see today! Now of course all did end well in his case since Revathy did end up marrying Balarama! 

But the warping of time and the passage of time close to the black hole and the Brahma loka would definitely make you wonder for a while or eternity depending on how close you are to the black hole!

Now if that is making your brain spin and dance then please do! As Remo D’Souza says! ABCD! Any body can dance!

Shubh Ratri!

Manoj kumar the deshbhakt…

There is a singer who performs and sings continuously all through the night!
Without missing a single line and without referring to notes!
What is more surprising and amazing is that he does not know how to read a single letter!

William Dalrymple’s seventh book is about the lives of nine Indians, a Buddhist monk, a Jain nun, a lady from a middle-class family in Calcutta, a prison warden from Kerala and a devadasi among others, as seen during his Indian travels.

If you chance upon the audible version narrated by the author himself you can feel the passion and intent! You can understand how he is completely in awe of the culture and traditions! It is like a person roaming in the desert all his life and then given a taste of the best drink in the whole universe! Water!

You of course have to ignore his pretty abysmal pronounciation of Indian words and his really poor understanding of many things which are happening! Even some basic stories he gets so wrong but the point here is not the fact but the message!

I have always stated this that in the quest of correctness, do not miss the intent behind the message!

Another puzzling thing is how in spite of his limited knowledge of language or culture he knows so many things with pride while we run away from tradition!

He talks about the Bhopas!

The Bhopa people are the priest-singers of the folk deities in the state of Rajasthan. They perform in front of a scroll, known as phad (par in the Rajasthani language) that depicts the episodes of the narrative of the folk deity and functions as a portable temple.

William Dalrymple narrates in his book about the most famous Bhopa artist called Mohan Bhopa who used to perform continuously and even over night!

He used to remember his lines when in fact he was illiterate!

You would think why he had to be illiterate! But sometimes the mind has to be empty before you fill it!

So being illiterate is apparently a requisite since then you would just repeat what you heard without your own ‘literate’ mind! Of course the talent is natural and made better with practice! The song and the words has already been written and perfected and those who have to carry on the tradition must be expected to do so without any ‘remixes’ or new thoughts and modifications which may hamper the sanctity of the original!

Of course many may not accept this ‘condition’ which is why there are only a few singers and maybe even some of the last ones.

There are also very few actors of the calibre of
Manoj Kumar! Even now the scene where he played Bhagat Singh is forever frozen in our memories.

He literally invented the hand over face style! Can’t sketch him without that!

You will be missed

Jai Hind…

Jai Sri Ram!

If you happen to read Nexus or Twenty Lessons or Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari, you will be shocked that there are jobs which are soon going to be taken over by the AI!

The top three shockers in his estimates were Taxi drivers, postal workers and Pilots!
Yes! Pilots in the list is pretty shocking! We will come to that soon!

In a recent list by the Forbes though, Pilots are safe! For now at least!

They have included jobs which are going to be taken over by AI which actually have higher probability to be gone by 2025!

According to their ‘expert’ analysis which of course was done by a human (with help from the AI!) states that there are areas which could be better handled by the AI or by automation! These are manufacturing jobs (machine operation, product handling, testing, packaging, testing, etc.) and retail and commerce roles (customer service, inventory management, fraud analysis)!

Not to forget the Basic data entry, analysis, and visualization jobs
Financial analysis and projection roles and also travel agents and itinerary providers and Translators!

When you go through the list you would realise that most of the above list is already true! Even when I get stuck with a patient who speaks a different Arabic than routine, I used to call the translator some years back! Now all we both do (the patient and me!) is whip up our phones and get the Google translate!

The shocker ( at least for me!) in the list was the fact that human drivers are being replaced through autonomous vehicles, such as what we’re already seeing with Waymo!

Driverless cars will soon be the norm while mails will be completely automated!

You would think that your job or talent is something which a bot can never get then well, you may soon be proven wrong!

Like in Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot; the lead (Will Smith in the movie version!) asks the rogue Robot if it can write a symphony or paint a masterpiece!
The intelligent and more evolved robot fires back much to the shock of will “can you?”! It is not easy to make Will speechless!

If you are then planning to make your son or daughter a pilot then do it soon! Yuval states in the books that apparently pilots use the autopilot in the plane most of the time!

The onboard computer takes into note of the weather, altitude and distance and does the rest! In fact the only chief time when pilots are really needed is landing and take off! That’s the reason why they announce and do it I guess! But many automated machines are being taught to do even that!

Talking about Drivers and Pilot reminds me of this scene from amazing work of Goswamy Tulsi das, the Ram Charit Manas; When the driver of the Boat refused money from Bhagwan Ram he said that; “People belonging to the same profession do not charge each other for the same service!”

Sri Ram asked him, “How can we have the same profession?”

The boatman said, “We are similar Sri Ram! I am the guide of this small boat and river, while you are the guide of the whole universe!”

Luckily the AI can never understand the emotions behind those lines!

Wish you all a very Happy Ram Navami!

Jai Sri Ram!

Shah

Animals see colours differently than we do!

Even with all the colours in front of our eyes we see only what we want to see! This is because our eyes are not that developed but our brain is!

We actually have some of the weakest eyes! (Mental and physical!)

Even an average Octopus has eyes larger than its brains!

Go small! Take the Horsefly! They have massive eyeballs that join at the top of the head, and the horsefly males have two different sized ommatidia (the photoreceptor units that form insects’ compound eyes).

The larger ommatidia at the top of the eye are more sensitive to UV light, and help him spot the fast-flying female flies, while the smaller ommatidia help him hone in on details! Wish an average man had that and he would notice the new hair cut done by his wife!

Then you also have the California purple sea urchin which is so packed with photoreceptors on its surface that its body has been described as a single functional eye! Because nearly the entire sea urchin is sensitive to light, it can ‘see’ in every direction. Researchers have suggested the sea urchin uses its spines to block out some of the light hitting it, to help focus the light for better vision!

Or you can look at the average Chameleons who have some of the strangest eyes on the planet, which are able to move independently of each other. This results in almost 360-degree vision! The next time you have been instructed to watch the gas and as well as the kids, you may need this!

The reptile though can also switch between monocular vision – when both eyes are used separately – and binocular vision, when both eyes are used to look at the same scene!

Technically, rods interpret light, and cones interpret colors. These are the receptors in our eyes which ‘detect’ light!

Now Animals that are truly colorblind completely lack cones, and animals that can only see during the day completely lack rods!

But these extremes are uncommon, and most animals have a combination of cones and rods.

Now meet the Mantis Shrimp!

Now compared to humans’ measly three color-receptive cones, the mantis shrimp has 16 color-receptive cones, can detect ten times more color than a human, and probably sees more colors than any other animal on the planet!!

They can see in ultraviolet, infrared, and even polarized light. Not only that, but their eyes are on separate stalks and are able to move independently of each other, meaning they’re able to keep an eye watching out for predators and prey in two different directions at once! They are the only animals known to be able to see circular polarised light! Experiments suggest they may use this to send messages to each other – for instance, ‘this burrow is occupied’.

See the power of the rods and cons!? Though practically speaking the final image is actually ‘seen’ by your brain! Which is why the brain can sometimes be tricked to ‘see’ even objects or person which is not there!

Which is also the reason why the human is so developed in spite of having weak eyes! His or her brain can cook up stuff even if it is not real! Real and reel also is the deal with humans who can make movies for you! Like the producer Vipul Amrutlal Shah!

Now close those eyes and try to shut down the brain or atleast put it to sleep!
Shubh Ratri…

KPR ‘appa’

Think of this and you can imagine a person who wants to have fun and dance!!

The actual meaning was a person who is very rude, loud, or stupid!

Then again it was only an acronym for a much bigger full form!

Then again it was short lived just like the shout!

Enough suspense! It was YAHOO!

You may think that the site was named after a bunch of nerds who were secretly fans of Shammi Kapoor and his dance moves and catchphrase!

Why secretly then since the nerds did actually call Shammi when it was launched in India! This was because the name and the shout was already popular here!

But (then again what is a blog without a single but! with a single t!); the name was actually based on Yahoo as defined in the novel Gulliver’s travels!

There are races of fictional beings in the novel (most beings in that novel except the human were fictional of course!) who were an unsophisticated, rural Southerners! The general definition being bunch of rude rowdies! Like ‘some yahoo cut me off in traffic’ or ‘a bunch of yahoos were making noise outside’!

Then again it was not even called that! The first name when Yahoo! was founded in January 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo, who were electrical engineering graduates at Stanford University was “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web”!

The Guide was a directory of other websites, organized in a hierarchy, as opposed to a searchable index of pages!

In April 1994, Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web was renamed “Yahoo!”.

Finally what did the full form stand for you may ask if you are crazy or gone Yahoo!  Well, it was “Yet Another Hierarchically Organized Oracle” or “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.” Take your pick and say Yahoo!

After that you must read about the inspiring tale of K.P. Ramasamy!

He is known as appa (father) that his employees refer to him!

Today, some 27,000 women have completed their education, even earning an MBA in many cases, while working at the Coimbatore and Tirupur-based KPR Mill. Some have become nurses in nearby hospitals, a few work at IT firms and many have returned to work at KPR Mill!

When factories across the country sent away their labourers during the nationwide lockdown in 2020, KPR Mill gave its workers a choice: If you stay, we will provide you food, shelter, full salary and entertainment. Each of their 12 factories has a cinema hall, sports facilities and an auditorium. “100 per cent of the people said we will stay here only,” says KPR. The company has around 25,000 employees!

Now here’s the staggering numbers – In the last several years over 24536 girls have finished their 10th, 12th, UG, PG courses!

They have their alumni in almost all hospitals where the girls are working as Nurses, school teachers, some have joined the Police force and the list goes on and on!

In a recent convocation over 350 girls received their degrees and out of which 20 of these girls are TN Open University Gold Medalists.
They received their degrees and Gold medals from the TN Governor!

In the Forbes List Of India’s 100 richest people, one of the faces include the now 74-year-old KP Ramasamy. He has secured the 100th position on the list with a net worth of ₹19,133.7 crore!

Now you definitely can say YAHOO! With pride and joy of course!

Shubh ratri…