Category: Uncategorized

“The bed so soft it feels like a cottony cloud!
The size so big t’will make you proud!
All the money you have in the keep!
Not enough to buy you some sleep!”

This is never a thing which you can see or feel! But still it is worth thousands of dollars and is one of the most exclusive commodity in the world today!

No! It is not your brain which you may not see but know it is there! But it can really stump your brain!


read on!

The biggest commodity in every industry is of course money! Then there is a form of money which you cannot see!

If someone says money is not necessary then he or she is either lying or well he or she is definitely lying!

Only thing is that it is not the most important thing and not the only necessary thing!

In the novel called the Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous he talks about different forms of currencies over the history starting with salt or a piece of limestone to gold and other metals to paper money!

Except gold which is a currency which can always be quantified and which would never fade away, other currencies are dependent on the state of the government and other economic factors.

This is where the latest currency craze, which is bitcoin comes into play! Now this is one the many types of currencies which is not under any control!

Bitcoin is the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto!

But did you know that even that is a pseudonym! No one has actually seen or met him!

In a documentary it was speculated that that Peter Todd, a college student in 2008, might be the original creator of the cryptocurrency!
Then again it has not been proven possibly so that people could take Bitcoin seriously, so they could believe it was created by a famous cryptographer and not some kid still in school!

Use of bitcoin as a currency began in 2009, with the release of its open-source implementation

In fact in one country in 2021, El Salvador adopted it as legal tender!

Now how powerful is a Bitcoin? Well, the first time Bitcoin was used for purchase was in around 2009-10 for buying a pizza! The buyer paid ten thousand bitcoins for that!

That would have in all probability the most costliest burger in the world! Because cut to 2021 and the value of a single bitcoin is 46k dollars and in 2024 Bitcoin’s price today is US$98,139.43!

And if you think practically it is not gold or cash! It is a mode of transaction or legal tender which you cannot see or hold in your hand!
It’s a mode of payment which is virtual! The Bitcoin are limited currency which cannot be produced more if you need so there will not be any recession!

It is not controlled by the central government and Bitcoin cannot be hacked since it would take so much more effort and resource and the end result without POW is useless!

POW is proof of work which has to be authenticated by a group who are paid for it and they will also never be hacked! Also the cluster size is fixed and that the original Bitcoin can be modified but that will lead to another currency so it is better to not modify it!

Then again you would think if you cannot touch or hold it then how can you put value to it? Well, if you practically think then even the 500 INR in your hand is having that value only because the government says so and certifies it! Without that it is just a piece of paper! Like how during the demonetisation that 500 rupees became ZERO overnight!

For now in spite of the controversies and illegal trading, for all practical matters, Bitcoin is one of the top contenders for the currency of the future! Let us wait and see how it goes!

Like old times maybe we return back to salt for money if the Bitcoin is a bit too much! Now speaking of old times reminds me of Sital Batabyal and his old super cool movies! I used to love watching his classic movies! You may know him as Pradeep Kumar!

Now crypto or not! Let all trading cease so that you can sleep in peace since Bitcoins may give you a comfortable bed but sleep has to be earned without it!

Shubh ratri!

“The sun shines bright and white!

Takes the darkness away ain’t that right! 

Then again even the night not so bad!

All that silence makes you glad”

This was a gas used like alcohol!

Of course it got used for medical reasons!

Started by a Chemist, popularised by a dentist and even Joker from Batman uses it!

read on!

The moment I mentioned Joker I guess it was obvious that it was Laughing Gas! 

The actual used of this is now in anesthesia but when Nitrous Oxide was discovered it was actually a recreational drug!

In fact this was gas which was used to get a high! 

It was an addiction like smoking! In fact the chemist who described so many elements died by constantly inhaling it! 

Even after the invention it was mainly used as a party pill!

Despite Davy’s discovery that inhalation of nitrous oxide could relieve a conscious person from pain, another 44 years elapsed before doctors attempted to use it for anaesthesia!

The use of nitrous oxide as a recreational drug at “laughing gas parties”, primarily arranged for the British upper class, became an immediate success beginning in 1799. While the effects of the gas generally make the user appear stuporous, dreamy and sedated, some people also “get the giggles” in a state of euphoria, and frequently erupt in laughter!

Only later a dental surgeon named Horace Wells used it as an anesthetic agent when it was realised 44 years after the discovery of this gas that it relieves pain! 

Of course now it is not a primary anesthetic agent and acts mainly as an adjunct but it was a major push towards anesthesia and development of other more potent medications and drugs for relieving pain during surgery.

Now this gas has a new use! 

In the early 1980’s, the low-dose dental titration technique was first used to investigate and treat psychiatric conditions, including substance abuse! The gas is now a research project for its use in Neuropsychiatry!

So if you meet a Neurologist or a psychologist at some time in future and if he or she is laughing even at your bland jokes then make sure there is no leak of the Laughing gas!

It is no laughing matter that Chetan Anand was an accomplished director and producer specially his series on Param Veer Chakra!

Now let those conversations and laughter cease cause this is the time to sleep! 

Shubh Ratri!

“Made yesterday broken very soon!

Keeping is rare like the dark side of the moon!

Make them and make sure they are set!

Breaking a resolution is an easy bet!”

Oh the resolutions!

So easy to make and so easy to break!

then again; that is what makes you a mortal!

Read on!

I normally try not to make resolutions! Maybe that is my resolution which is to make no resolution! This is because over 90 percent of the new year resolutions do not work!

But if at all there is some version of resolution it can be to make blogs which are shorter and more interesting! It may even be a blog which I have written before but a crispier more readable version!

It is the same with the sketches! and maybe even poems!

To make better versions every single day!

That is the only resolution which is required and it does not need the completion of the revolution of the Earth to start! Which is to be your better self every other day!

Traditionally of course we still believe that our new year is during the months of March-April and we usually celebrate them with much more pomp and conviction! In fact we used to get new clothes for sure only during ‘our’ new  year! 

The ‘English’  new year was only for the cake cutting and watching new years special on the TV! We all used to see the pre recorded program and felt so nice and special! The countdown in the TV was the official countdown since our clocks were never in sync! There was no mobile network and there was no OTT!

So there were no resolutions and we did not think about this “New year” much! The march april new year was the time to celebrate! In fact that was the origin of the new year and new year resolution since it was the time of harvest!

At that time in an effort to impress upon their gods and benefactors, people would like to be better versions of themselves!

The beginning of the year was like a start over of life! From this point onwards was the key! And everyone needs a start over; a turning point in their life!

It is obvious that like India, many civilizations across the world have celebrated the turning of the year for millennia!

Although they didn’t necessarily use the term resolutions, they tried to enter the new year with a positive mindset, as recorded by early first century texts such as the Roman poet Ovid’s “Fasti” — a six-part account of the Roman year and its religious festivals.

They also exchanged gifts of figs and honey or other foodstuffs that represented prosperity, and ensured they worked for part of the day as a good omen for the coming year!

When it comes to ancient forms of New Year’s resolution throughout history and across cultures we see the same principle at play.

In Ireland, having a clean house at the start of the year symbolized a fresh start and the luck of the house for the coming year! This is what we do all over in Indian festivals! The concept of out with the old and welcome the new is spread across almost all the Indian festivals!

There’s also the figuratively regenerative burning of the Año Viejo in Colombia, Ecuador and other parts of Latin America. In this out-with-the-old tradition, which is Spanish for “old year,” families stuff a life-size male doll with memories of the outgoing year or other materials and dress it in their clothing before setting the doll ablaze at midnight! This so similar to the Baisakhi or Lohri festival!

All in all, the new year is a time to try to be the NEW you!

But (yeah, my resolution must be to use less of but!); the most important resolution to make is to just be a better version of yourself every single day! A positive step upwards no matter how small will finally make you much better! 

Like the proverbial Tortoise or the slug which climbs two steps in the morning and then falls one step back, the journey to perfection is a journey! You can never reach the end! The whole point is to enjoy the journey and learn and better yourself if possible!

Fun and joy reminds me of Asrani and his comic timings!

Let this year make you strong!

Shubh ratri!

“That was a little fast and then a little slow!
Shiny sunshine many times sometimes a little snow!
Another year you will get many tasks to face!
Slow and steady my friend tis not a race!”


Did you know that the chief thing that is keeping you alive or normal is a system so complex that no one truly knows how it works!

read on!

One would never forget his or her first car right!?

Even if the loan took half your salary and maybe was second hand!

Luckily my first one was first hand! A red colour Swift diesel and that was my prized possession!

I worked so hard to get the loan approved and then the wait for the car was long and slow!

Finally though when I got it, I took it for a test drive and the very night took it to the highway from Chennai to Bangalore!

The shining red car was almost old till I reached the outskirts of Bangalore at which point I got some bottles and washed it in side of the national highway! When I show it to my parents and someone special! I needed it to look good!

And it did! Then one week later a State Transport bus came and rammed it from behind when it was in the signal waiting for the light to turn green!

It was crushed both front and back and though it was a heartbreaking moment, I used to comfort myself saying that at least I was ok! My friend Ashok used to tell me that The car can be repaired and made new; but you cannot be repaired or replaced!

Now the car story was only a side deviation; when I was waiting for the delivery of the car after paying advance, everywhere I looked, I used see only Red Colour Swift everywhere!

Each time I crossed the road or simply walked on the street, I used to see only Swift and that too mainly red colour!

That is actually not conforming to the fact that Swift was common and popular, but because of a system in your brain (or mine!) which activated every time I saw a Swift and bought it to the notice of my brain!

This system is called the Reticular Activating System!

The Reticular Activating System (RAS) is a bundle of nerves that sits in your brainstem. And its job is to regulate behavioural arousal, consciousness and motivation.

What that means is, the RAS is able to control what incoming information (stimulus) you’re aware of, so that you’ll be motivated to behave in a certain way. It is like a filter or a screener or a gatekeeper which sits at the entrance of your brain and allows only specific information to get through!

This that sits between your brain and your senses (sight, hearing, touch etc.) and filters what information gets through and what doesn’t. Why this is important is because there are a lot of information and your brain cannot handle everything! So it is like a VISA approval system which only allows certified VISITORS to your brain!

Everyone has it and it is simply marvellous!

This is so understood for those who drive! The initial hesitation and fear you have while driving a car or even flying a plane is gone after a few drives! Of course it is practice but the chief thing is that after a while it gets automated!

This comes into play when you have to take a tricky turn or stop suddenly and if your RAS is good then it is a piece of cake for you! In fact in many road accidents it is the RAS which protects you even when you are driving at high speeds! Even a racing car driver needs his or her RAS to take control during any race! Those who have mastered the control of RAS make good drivers!

It can also be seen when you are so tired that you may sleep even when you have loud sounds around you and you still manage to sleep soundly! But even this is amazing because a mother can usually sleep in heavy noise area but the moment she hears her baby crying she gets up almost immediately when in fact the sound of a baby cry may actually be lesser than her surrounding!

In the case of seeing the same car everywhere, the RAS has activated the feeling that you are interested in the red Swift so you may see so many car but RAS will only take the entry for Red Swift!

In the case of mother and the baby, RAS has understood that the cry of the baby is the most important so it ALLOWS that EXPAT to pass through without much VISA!

Now here is another great finding; RAS is activated in mother most of the times but if mother is away or not there, the same system gets activated in the Father also! RAS, like me is gender neutral!

Wanted to start the year with happiness! My RAS used to always make me smile when I used to see Uma Devi Khathri! Her innocent cute round face always used to bring a smile! You also knew that she would be funny and good in the movie! Fat people in movies those days were always good and fun to be around like a Teddy Bear! You or your rather your RAS may know her as Tun Tun!

Smile a little and laugh a lot! But make sure your RAS approves it first!
Shubh Ratri!

“It may be nine for you, may be six for him
If you do not get that the future is grim!
Let the blame game disappear!
Accept that and welcome the new year!”

In this amazing novel called Don’t let others rent space in your head by Gary Coxe he talks about how a helicopter pilot lost his arm!

yes! you read it right!

but what is more amazing is what he did next!

read on!

In the novel Gary Categorically states how everyone must take charge of what they do and more importantly take responsibility of their problems and life!

You can always spend lifetime thinking about your misfortunes and issues but the fact of the matter is that only you can solve your problems!

No one can help you if you do not want to help yourself!

There is an incident in a popular show where a customer burnt himself while drinking hot coffee which he had ordered! You know what he did?
Well he sued the coffee for not informing him that the coffee is hot!

He literally ordered hot coffee! What did he expect!?

Even then it did not matter! He sued and the company fearing backlash and negative publicity, simply offered him coffee from their outlets free for life! They also had to put a sign on the coffee mug saying that “Careful! The coffee is hot!”

If you thought that this was crazy, well there are a bunch more! Just got a couple of them loony ones!

When a client took his pants to a Washington DC dry cleaner, he never imagined he would never see them again. He sued them for $54 million when they lost his pants because the company did not meet their “Satisfaction Guaranteed” promise displayed in their store. He also claimed the lost pants caused him mental suffering. Unfortunately for him, he lost the case!

Then there was this man who wanted to change not his name or sex or religion! But AGE!

A 69 year old Dutchman wanted to legally change his age in order to avoid ageism. Emile Ratelband claimed he felt discriminated against because his real age was affecting his job prospects as well as his chances of success on Tinder, a popular dating app. The judge explained that many rights and obligations are age based, and that changing the legal age could cause many legal implications. The plaintiff ended up losing the case!

Then you have cases of misleading advertisements! You of course cannot take things literally but this person did!

Red Bull’s famous slogan “Red Bull gives you wings”: got the company in some trouble. A class action accused the company of having misleading ads and making false claims. Plaintiffs said the energy drink did not give people wings figuratively speaking, that is, they didn’t feel energized. They said the company lacks evidence to claim the beverage could improve one’s focus. Red Bull settled out of court and agreed to pay $640,000! Now that would have certainly made the plaintiff fly!

Finally in this series this is about a Kidnapper who sued! Jesse Dimmick, a fugitive facing a murder charge, kidnapped a Kansas couple in September 2009. At some point he fell asleep and they escaped. They sued Dimmick for over $75,000 in damages; his response was to countersue for breach of contract. He claimed the couple had a legally binding oral agreement for them to hide him from the police. His case was dismissed! Thank heavens for small mercies!

Now, what happened to the Helicopter pilot you ask!? Well he is a pilot! He should know that the wings rotate even after the Chopper stops and he has to wait for them to stop! He did not and cut his hand on the back wings! He sued the Helicopter manufacturer that the DANGER sign which was present was not big enough or primiment! So a pilot of a Chopper does not know that the wings can chop!? It is literally called a Chopper and he was a pilot!
Again the case was dropped!

All these examples are to reiterate the fact that we can sit around and blame and sue everyone around us and still suffer or simply take control of our life and be responsible!

Let that be the resolution of the year!
Now who took my pen…I mean it is ok; I have other pens!

If that made you smile then this reminds me of the famous smile of Chinna Thambi Prabhu and his dimpled smile!
End your year with a smile!

Happy New year!
Shubh Ratri!

“It takes a while to get the flow

The official at the table may say no!

Wow! Look my file is the creme de la creme!

Wake up my dear! Tis just a dream!”

This can be red or white and your influence is shown only when you can escape or at least fast track it!

Intrigued?

Read on!

I hate documents! The average human being is surrounded by papers which prove that he is a human! A piece of paper is more important that anything else!

No wonder there are so many forgeries!

Then again with more papers come more checks and more bureaucracy!

Now in India most of the works to apply and register and get a document is more or less streamlined and the wait is much less. 

Then again an average government office all over the world have this issue! The authentication and time delay and the time waste!

This is the RED TAPE!

The term “red tape” is  “an umbrella term covering almost all imagined ills of bureaucracy,” both public and private!

More commonly though, red tape is usually defined more narrowly as government policies, guidelines, and forms that are excessive, duplicative and/or unnecessary, and that generate a financial or time-based compliance cost!

For the average person who already is weighed down by the job and work timing; the wastage of time is the major factor!

There is also a White tape; which recognizes that regulations that are intended for useful purposes may nonetheless entail a compliance cost.

It is generally believed that the term “red tape” originated in the early 16th century with the Spanish administration of Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, who started to use red tape in an effort to modernize the administration that was running his vast empire. 

The red tape was used to bind the most important administrative dossiers that required immediate discussion by the Council of State, and separate them from files that were treated in an ordinary administrative way, which were bound with ordinary string.

As of the early 21st century, Spanish bureaucracy continued to be notorious for extreme levels of red tape (in the figurative sense)!

In 2013, the World Bank ranked Spain 136 out of 185 countries for ease of starting a business, which took on average 10 procedures and 28 days!

Similar issues persist throughout Latin America. 

In Mexico in 2009, it took six months and a dozen visits to government agencies to obtain a permit to paint a house!

In fact there is an award which is like the IGNOBLE called the Paperweight award which ‘rewards’ and lists cases of Red Tapism!

Town of Smithers in Canada is on this list for the third straight year with what the federation likes to call its “sidewalk to nowhere” bylaw.

In the popular movie ZOOTOPIA, one of the most hilarious and dark comedy scene is the one with the Motor Vehicle department! The reason it was funny is that it was so relatable!

The person at the counter does everything so slow including talk much to the irritation of the officer! I guess such departments are similar all over!

The lethargy to come whenever you want and do work till the next break and still get paid without any accountability is the reason why people prefer government jobs! Of course even they have issues but then the whole system gets you after some time! 

I still remember the mountain of files and permissions I had to get as a class rep for the college trip which was partially sponsored by the government! It was roaming from one desk to another from one office to another in a different city and that too in between the college! We had to stay in an old lodge since we ran out of money! On top of that unluckily that was the day of the state government strike! Then again I am thinking now that the only reason why it got approved was because there was a strike going on and the Babus were eager to finish and scoot! 

The chief issue here is counter check! Even the office workers do not have much leverage since there are people with fake papers and unless it goes through the bureaucratic machinery, the paper does cannot be passed!

Which reminds me of the famous scene in that serial which was an amazing parody to the office workers! OFFICE OFFICE! In one of the episodes, Pankaj stands in front of the official and states that he is alive! But the official tells him that, “That cannot be possible! The document here says that you are dead!”

If you want to take revenge on your enemy, just send him or her to get a official paper! He or she would get his karma! 

The best and in fact an ode to red tape is the book called the Peter Principle by Peter Sutton! That is an amazing novel which tells us about how 

everyone in an organization reaches to his or her own level of incompetence and peaks! This is so true when it comes to most offices especially with a hierarchical structure! The files pile up and the efficacy goes down with each push to the top! And the tape gets more red everyday!

Now while red tape is an ode to that search for accuracy which is actually never attained while poetry and fiction is an ode to abstract which has no limits! Which reminds me of the great poet and writer Kuppalli Venkatappa Puttappa or KUVEMPU! 

The last Monday of the year marked by Red Tape experience! I fervently hope that it does not continue!

Shubh Ratri!

“It comes and goes but then never comes back!
You have to get through just pick up the slack!
One time it’s dark and then you get the ray!
Of course the dark is night and the light is day!”

This was first ten and then became 12!

Then again it can be based on the sun or the moon!

Every other year or so you get something extra!

Intrigued!?

read on!

The Month of December is always chill! Cold and slow and all you want to do in the night is to curl up in the cozy warm bed and and sleep!

Of course the name December is an ode to the fact that it was the DASHA or Tenth month of the calendar! That was the time when the calendar had only ten months!

The old calendar had only ten months! It started with March and the end of march was a celebration which is followed even now in many places!

Then the latest months of the year was added which were January and February!

With the amount of edits and misinformation which has crept into WikiPedia, it is difficult to know what is truth! In fact from becoming a free encyclopedia of knowledge and ‘fact’; wiki has now become a repository of free for all ‘fiction’! Which is why it cannot be told for sure when the ten months was turned into 12!

The story goes that around the year 700 BCE, the Roman king Numa Pompilius is said to have added the two winter months!

January was called mensis ianuarius, the month of Ianus, the ancient Roman god of beginnings, of passage, and time itself.

January initially had 29 days and came after December!
In 154 BCE, a rebellion forced the Roman senate to change the beginning of the civil year from March to January 1! With this administrative reform, January officially became the first month in the year 153 BCE! This is WIKI information which may or may not be true!

The above calendar system is based on the movement of the SUN! In many parts of the world including India, we have the LUNAR calendar.

The Hindu calendar system is based upon the motion of the moon. Each lunar year comprises twelve months. The lunar year comprises 354 days, compared to 365 ¼ days of the Gregorian calendar, which is based on the solar system.

This gap increases to a month over a period of three years. For this reason, the Hindu lunar calendar has an extra month every three years, named Adhik! So while Solar calendar has an additional day, the Lunar has an additional month!

The month of Adhik is considered to be more auspicious, and is referred to as the month of Purushottam, Bhagwan.

The Hindu calendar year is based on the Vikram era, after King Vikram of Ujjain. The system is still widely used in Northern and Western India. The calendar began in 57-56 BCE.

The twelve months of the year are lunar-based, where each month is divided into the bright half (waxing of the moon), known as the ‘shukla’ or ‘sud’, and the dark half (waning of the moon), known as the ‘krishna’ or ‘vad paksh’. The 15th day of the sud half (full moon), is known as Punam, while the last day of vad half (new moon), is known Amãs.

Now practically this calendar is not completely Lunar since there are adjustments made to align with the Solar calendar! So these are actually called a lunisolar calendar!

A lunisolar is a calendar in many cultures, incorporating lunar calendars and solar calendars. The date of lunisolar calendars therefore indicates both the Moon phase and the time of the solar year, that is the position of the Sun in the Earth’s sky. If the sidereal year (such as in a sidereal solar calendar) is used instead of the solar year, then the calendar will predict the constellation near which the full moon may occur.

Of course moon or sun, the day will pass! You can simply learn Itihaas! Speaking of which reminds me the first mega epic on the TV! Ramayan! Directed by celebrity Ramanand Sagar!

Now get ready for the last two days of the calendar year!
Shubh ratri!

“Both are delicate but one causes more pain
This when broken can drive you insane!
Of course time heals and that’s a start!
It’s time to mend a broken heart!”

Breaking of this by choice is bad but accidental breaking in many customs is supposed to be good!

No! The answer is not Heart! Which is always bad!

but…

read on…

A broken heart is apparently difficult to treat or repair!

But a broken mirror is more often and more difficult to repair!

But remember that it is mainly a broken MIRROR which shows a proper reflection which is considered bad in some customs! A normal glass does not matter since they are more delicate than your heart! Though some may argue that the heart is more delicate since even a thought can break it while it takes physical strength or wind or gravity to break a mirror or a glass!

Now where did this belief originate from!?

It is a common belief that the broken mirror superstition originated from the ancient Romans. They believed that seeing a reflection was the power to see into one’s soul. Because they were the first to create mirrors from polished metal surfaces, this belief continued throughout Roman society. They also believed that the gods observed souls through mirrors; hence why it was considered so disrespectful to damage or break a mirror!

This also lead to the seven years rule in which some believe in the seven years of bad luck! This is because the Romans believed that the body renewed itself every seven years.
After each seven-year cycle, the body would renew itself, and any broken or ill pieces of the body would be healed. Hence the belief that breaking a mirror, a reflection of your soul, was bad luck for seven years!

Of course the issue is mainly because glass though so beautiful to look and see, like most beautiful thing leaves a big mess to be cleaned and hurts you if you are not careful! Which is why when you break any glass, it is not a good feeling especially for the one who has to clean and the one who installed the glass in the first place or the one who broke it!

There were some attempts to ward of the bad luck in case you break a Mirror or a Glass with a reflective surface!

The first one was to reuse the glass in a handcraft or grind the mirror into a fine powder, so it no longer shows any reflections! Then dispose of the powder under a full moon!

Another method for removing bad luck from a broken mirror is to immediately spin around three times in a counterclockwise direction after the mirror has broken. This confuses the spirits and helps to ward off bad luck!

In many cultures, salt is a symbol of auspiciousness. If you break a mirror, throwing salt behind you is an easy way to remove the bad luck. Make sure you throw it over your right shoulder, as throwing it over your left shoulder could bring even more bad luck. That is a literal “ASSALT” on the evil spirit!

So if you see someone dance or sprinkle salt then please do not call the Psychiatrist! Just watch out for broken glass!

Then again one of the best things is that there can even be a positive thing to the breaking of the glass!
Like while many people believe breaking of glass at home is inauspicious, Vastu Shastra suggests that it can also be a symbol of happiness and good luck. If a glass or mirror accidentally breaks, it is a sign that you have avoided a disaster. It indicates the start of positive changes in your life!

This is especially true if you have moved into a new house or changed a place of domicile! Apparently it means that it is a start of something positive! Of course in some customs, people deliberately break glass on happy occasion as a ‘Positive’ custom!

In Vastu However you apparently must not break the glass deliberately (who would!) and the glass must break by accident which is then considered auspicious!

Glass or no glass; the breaking is of course an issue since it is a delicate thing and not matter what you do, you can never mend the pieces together! A broken mirror would still give images! But the images would be different and separate from each other!
So let the breaking of a glass not break your heart, you can always get a new glass.

Breaking reminds me of an unbroken record of winning the maximum number of national awards in screenplay which was by Madath Thekkepaattu Vasudevan Nair! A prolific writer and director and a Jnanpith award winner!

He will be missed…
Heartfelt condolences

Om Shanthi…

“Playing with numbers that was his game!
Manmohan Singh was his name!
Everything in economics he had the answer!
Om shanthi; will miss you sir…”

What is common between the first AI to ‘listen’ to your thoughts and the lady who is ‘fair’!?

What is in a name!

Well, it is the name!

read on!

The term ‘Fair’ is actually not racist; at least when it is used properly since the original meaning is that Fair lady is a term that is often used to describe a woman who is considered to be beautiful, elegant, and pleasant in appearance.

Of course the word has been misused so much to reflect the colour which is sad! We have a similar word in Hindi called the “GORI”! Many songs have used the word to actually mean a beautiful woman though it may have some deviations!

The blog of course is not to address that! The first official use of Fair lady can be seen in context with the movie My Fair lady!

The link in that and the first AI is in the name! The name is ELIZA!

So ELIZA is an early natural language processing computer program developed from in 1960s at MIT by Joseph Weizenbaum.

What is so special is that what finally happened!

Weizenbaum named his program ELIZA after Eliza Doolittle, a working-class character in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. The play of course later was made in to the very famous musical My Fair Lady.

According to Weizenbaum, ELIZA’s ability to be “incrementally improved” by various users made it similar to Eliza Doolittle, since Eliza Doolittle was taught to speak with an upper-class accent in Shaw’s play!

However, unlike the human character in Shaw’s play, ELIZA is incapable of learning new patterns of speech or new words through interaction alone. Edits must be made directly to ELIZA’s active script in order to change the manner by which the program operates!


So Weizenbaum Created ELIZA to explore communication between humans and machines, ELIZA simulated conversation by using a pattern matching and substitution methodology that gave users an illusion of understanding on the part of the program, but had no representation that could be considered really understanding what was being said by either party!

Mind you this is in the 1960s!

Whereas the ELIZA program itself was written (originally) in MAD-SLIP, the pattern matching directives that contained most of its language capability were provided in separate “scripts”, represented in a lisp-like representation.

The most famous script, DOCTOR, simulated a psychotherapist of the Rogerian school (in which the therapist often reflects back the patient’s words to the patient) and used rules, dictated in the script, to respond with non-directional questions to user inputs. It is like when you visit a Psychiatrist, many time he or she would simply urge to open up by asking things like “how do you feel?” or “what is your thoughts?” instead of directly providing an answer! This is what ELIZA was trained to do!

As such, ELIZA was one of the first chatterbots (“chatbot” modernly) and one of the first programs capable of attempting the Turing test!

ELIZA’s creator, Weizenbaum, intended the program as a method to explore communication between humans and machines.

He was surprised and shocked that some people, including Weizenbaum’s secretary, attributed human-like feelings to the computer program.
Many academics believed that the program would be able to positively influence the lives of many people, particularly those with psychological issues, and that it could aid doctors working on such patients’ treatment!

Weizenbaum first implemented ELIZA in his own SLIP list-processing language, where, depending upon the initial entries by the user, the illusion of human intelligence could appear, or be dispelled through several interchanges.

Some of ELIZA’s responses were so convincing that Weizenbaum and several others have anecdotes of users becoming emotionally attached to the program, occasionally forgetting that they were conversing with a computer!

While ELIZA was capable of engaging in discourse, it could not converse with true understanding. However, many early users were convinced of ELIZA’s intelligence and understanding, despite Weizenbaum’s insistence that it cannot be true!

Weizenbaum’s own secretary reportedly asked Weizenbaum to leave the room so that she and ELIZA could have a real conversation.

Weizenbaum was surprised by this and felt that he had not realized that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people!

Now the cherry on the cake is that; the original ELIZA source-code had been missing since its creation in the 1960s!

The source-code is of high historical interest since it demonstrates not only the specificity of programming languages and techniques at that time, but also the beginning of software layering and abstraction as a means of achieving sophisticated software programming!

Now if someone named ELIZA or something similar is chatting with you in the net, be sure to ask if she knows someone called Weizenbaum! If ‘it’ replies “Oh, that is my father!” then, well; ask for her source code!

Of course ELIZA was a vault of knowledge! In the same way a repository of economic knowledge was Shri Manmohan Singh!

A brilliant mind who will always be remembered for his financial genius!

Heart felt condolences!

He will be missed…

Om shanti…

“A boss wants to give this less
an Employee always wants excess!
The whole world want this to timely come!
Tis just your monthly or weekly income!”

Over ninety nine percent of the population of the world look out for this at either the end of the month or the week!

And to think that it was named after something you now simply sprinkle with liberty on your food everyday!

read on!

The world moves because there is a system in place. The majority of the workers in the world depend on this and their whole life revolves around it!

This is the reason why anyone tolerates his or her boss no matter how much he or she dislikes him or her! Then again there can never be a good boss!

Even if that person was once your own friend and may be even a junior, once he or she becomes your boss then he or she is neither your junior nor your friend!

Of course there are bosses who are good but then that is a myth and myths like Unicorn has to be seen to be believed!
The employee wants to work and get paid and maybe sometimes just work the amount which is necessary or which he or she feels is necessary to get his or her due!

Every employee would always feel that he or she deserves more especially when he or she gets to know how much his or her friend makes! One of the major cause of depression is finding out how much your friend or colleague who did not pay for his tea or coffee the other day makes much more than you!

It is like the three idiots phenomenon! You feel sad when your friend does not have a job or loses a job but you feel more sad when he or she is promoted over you!

Of course promotion and rank does not mean a thing if what you get paid is the same or after taxes; even less! That pay slip is the indication of happiness of most employees at the end of the day!

Coming then to the answer!

We have paper money now as a legal tender or a means of buying stuff. In the book Bitcoin standard by Saifedean Ammous, the author says how a big pile of Limestone was kept in the middle of the street! That was the currency!

One day you are the owner then if you buy a something, say a house then there is a transfer of ownership! The Limestone stays there! Only the owner changes! And all this is simply based on only one thing which is finally the only way to transact!

Later on even gold copper and silver were introduced as mode of exchange with benefits and disadvantages of either!

Later on you have the Paper money is your money but controlled by the government so one fine day all the hard cash you have with you can be turned into paper by a simple law of the government!

He proceeds further and explains how the actual reason of world war I was monetary and if not for US support it would have ended then and there!
In fact after the war many countries lost their monetary value though the maximum brunt was felt by the ones who lost the war!

Again finally coming to the answer!

So there was a time when the means of payment was salt! Yes! That powder which you put with disdain on the side of your plate!
A weekly or monthly quota of salt was given as payment to workers!

That payment was called Salarium! Where have you heard that before!? YES! It’s Salary!
Salary comes from the Latin word salarium, which also means “salary” and has the root sal, or “salt.” In ancient times, it specifically meant the amount of money allotted to a soldier to buy salt, which was an expensive but essential commodity!

Now next time you see salt treat it with respect! The cheapest item in your kitchen was someone’s monthly pay!

Most people thus work for salt! Some though work only for their country and country folk! Like Shaheed Udham Singh; do not ever forget about such freedom fighters who avenged one of the most cruel Genocides ever.

Now earn your salt by sleeping on time and going to work on time!
Shubh Ratri!