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When you are free do search for REUBEN NSEMOH or DEREK AMATO!

No! They are not professional football players!

Do you remember last time you bumped your head and had a severe headache! Well! Everyone does once in a while! Of course if the headache or the bump was severe do consult your doctor!

In the case of REUBEN though the bump was magical!

Have you heard how someone met with an accident or head trauma and had memory loss? Well, that is usual!

What’s unusual is how some people got bumped and became super intelligent!

It is not fiction! It is the truth!

Apparently there exists an extraordinary phenomenon that proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that our traditional views of consciousness are entirely wrong.

It’s called sudden savant syndrome, and the clinical definition is as follows: ‘The abrupt manifestation in a human mind of a unique skill or knowledge that previously was nonexistent!

In other words, you get conked on the head and you wake up a virtuoso violinist, or fluent in Portuguese, or a genius at math-where you previously possessed none of these skills!

In the literature, some articles associate the language switch with “foreign language syndrome” (FLS), also known as “transient post-anesthetic foreign language fixation” and formerly known as “non-native language syndrome” In FLS, patients switch from their native language and fixate on a second language for a period!

Three examples were mention in the novel Secrets of secrets by Dan Brown!

REUBEN NSEMOH—a sixteen-year-old American who was kicked in the head during a soccer game, fell into a coma, and woke up speaking perfect Spanish.

DEREK AMATO-a middle-aged man who dove into a pool, hit his head, and woke up a musical genius and virtuoso pianist.

ORLANDO L. SERRELL—a ten-year-old boy struck by a baseball who found he suddenly had the ability to do astonishingly complicated calendrical calculations.

In fact if you do a diligent search you may find more such examples!

Then again these are exceptions! Probably proving that event those with mega brains and high levels of IQ do not understand what this amazing creation called the HUMAN BRAIN can do!

Now now, just because it works does not mean that the next time you want to understand Quantum Physics you have a look at the book and bang your head  against the wall! You may end up forgetting the alphabets too!

But NEVER forget those heroes who lay down their lives for their country!
One such legend is Param Veer Chakra Major Ramaswamy Parameswaran!

One night in Sri Lanka, his column was ambushed by a group of militants. With cool presence of mind, he encircled the militants from the rear and charged into them, taking them completely surprise. During the hand-to-hand combat, a militant shot him in the chest. Undaunted, he snatched the rifle from the militant and shot him dead. Gravely wounded, he continued to give orders and inspired his command till he breathed his last. Five militants were killed and three rifles and two rocket launchers were recovered and the ambush was cleared!

That is legendary!

Jai HInd!

Do you know what’s a Carapace!? 

Well it is not a car which it needs its own space!

To know that you must know about this animal who doesn’t exercise, is fat and lazy but lives a long slow life!

These are the most coolest animals in the world! All they do is walk so slow without the time passing by them!

They simply eat and walk slowly, resting in between! With their thick shell they are resistant to your taunts! Mental or physical but inside they have a soft body and heart!

Yes, the humble Tortoise and the turtle! Now what’s the difference? Well, Tortoises have more rounded and domed shells where as turtles have thinner, more water-dynamic shells. Turtle shells are more streamlined to aid in swimming. One major key difference is that tortoises spend most of their time on land and turtles are adapted for life spent in water. 

Which means you will land on a tortoise but you can swim with a turtle! 

Did you know that once turtles were so huge that 10 million years ago, turtles could eat you with a single bite!

The world’s largest turtle that roamed South America 10 million years ago – the Stupendemys Geographicus

Stupendemys  is the fancy name for an extinct genus of freshwater side-necked turtle. It is the largest freshwater turtle known to have existed, with a shell over 2 meters long! 

That brings us to the answer! Carapace is the hard upper shell of a tortoise, crustacean, or arachnid! 

Hard also is to be fit and memorable in some great roles! Just like Puneet Issar!

Well now its time to be soft and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!

The Secret of Secrets is the latest novel by Dan Brown in which Robert tells about the Barnum effect!

This effect is the reason behind a section of the newspaper called the Horoscope!

Those who seemingly predict future or know about you or tell things about you or someone else use this method to actually make you believe what they say is true! They actually do that by making statements which are more or less neutral with some positivity thrown around!

The Barnum effect is manifested in response to statements that are called “Barnum statements”, meaning that general characterizations attributed to an individual are perceived to be true for them, even though the statements are such generalizations that they could apply to almost anyone!

Confused! Well let me tell you about this experiment which was actually done and also mentioned as being conducted by Robert in the novel!

This was done originally by psychologist Bertram Forer who called originally called the Barnum effect the “fallacy of personal validation” in 1949!

So in 1948, in what has been described as a “classic experiment”, Forer gave a psychology test – his “Diagnostic Interest Blank” – to 39 of his psychology students, who were told that they would each receive a brief personality vignette based on their test results!

One week later Forer gave each student a purportedly individualized vignette and asked each of them to rate it on how well it applied!

Most of the students were impressed on how much their ‘personalized’ prediction by Forer applied to them! They were amazed at how accurate some of the assessments were!

So far so good!

The biggest SHOCKER was that everyone got the same list in the same order! Nothing personal!

When you read the list you will understand that at some point at least one or more of the points may apply to you and everyone else with rare exceptions!

The points have been reproduced verbatim!

‘You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.
You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.
You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage.
While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them.
Your sexual adjustment has presented problems for you.
Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.
At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.
You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.
You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof.
You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others.
At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved.
Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic.
Security is one of your major goals in life!’


Most  of the writers of the horoscopes section use these or similar lines to impress you or anyone else! That is the Barnum effect!

The effect has been said to confirm the Pollyanna principle, where individuals tend “to use or accept positive words of feedback more frequently than negative words of feedback!

In summary; you and me are mere mortals with feelings which needs validation! Just like everyone else! Also Barnum effect is real! You only hear what you like to hear! Like you may look at the sketch and feel its Anupam but it is actually his equally talented brother Raju Kher!

Now stop reading the horoscope for tomorrow and sleep!

SHubh ratri!

The Secret of Secrets is the latest novel by Dan Brown! Yes! He has released the latest novel!

Robert Langdon returns and how! More fit and more athletic than ever! The last two novels were not made into movies though this one definitely has the premise!

Now without giving any spoilers on the story line the introduction tells about
precognition!

Coming from anyone else the term would have been ridiculed! If Ashwin Sanghi had said it then those with Oxford dictionary in their study would have just made a condescending laugh right about now!

But since it is Dan; well, a secret smile would do!

Two stories told within this tagline was so interesting! The stories are well know to the educated world so no spoilers there but they were shocking to me!

Now precognition is the purported psychic phenomenon of knowing or perceiving future events before they happen. There is no accepted scientific evidence that precognition is real, and the scientific community widely considers it to be pseudoscience!

In simple terms though it essentially means that you can sense the future!

The first story is about the most famous president of US (not current and the tagline here is famous and not infamous!)

Three days before the assassination, Abraham Lincoln had a vivid dream where he wandered into the East Room of the White House, finding his own body on a catafalque with soldiers standing guard!
Apparently the guard told him; “The president was assassinated!”

The dream was remarkably accurate, foretelling the scene of mourning that would follow his death in that very room at Ford’s Theatre!

We all know what happened three days later!

Another more remarkable story was a novel!

In this novel by Morgan Robertson called Futility, the author tells about an ocean liner or a huge ship!

Morgan describes a ship which called the TITAN! It was the largest and most luxurious ships ever built! The ship unfortunately sank after  hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean! The vessel lacked enough lifeboats for everyone on board and many died because of this! The final part; the sinking occurred in April!

We of course remember very well about a similar accident happening to an unsinkable ship which sank due to an iceberg collision in April! Some may remember only Leo and the King of the world meme! Everyone would recognize the name though!

Yes! A name very similar to Titan! The Titanic!

If that did not make you spin, let me mention one more fact! The titanic sank on 1912! The novel futility which was also named the WRECK OF THE TITAN, was written in 1898!

I preconize that precognition is scary!

Working on some precognition and some fear also was the movie Apthamitra starring Ramesh Aravind though the original Manichithrathazhu is the real deal!

Now I predict you will sleep in the night!

SHubh ratri!

If you like K pop then this may be good news! Indians have a cool connection with Korea! One of the Queens maybe from Ayodhya!

Surreal!

Do you know what is the word for mother and father in Korean?

Well, it is ‘amma’ and ‘appa!’ By the way the word for grass is ‘pul’ and do day is ‘nal!’ Rice is called ‘Sooru!’

Where have you heard these words before!?

Well, if you are a South Indian or more accurately Tamilian then it is deja vu!

These are the same words! Tamilians also use the same words! In fact we were watching this Korean/English series called the Kim’s convenience and we were pleasantly surprised when we heard these words!

In his latest Novel called the Ayodhya Alliance by Ashwin Sanghi there is a mention of a queen or a princess who came from Ayodhya!


The queen was Heo Hwang-ok also known as Empress Boju was a legendary queen mentioned in Samguk yusa, a 13th-century Korean chronicle. According to Samguk Yusa, she became the wife of King Suro of Geumgwan Gaya at the age of 16, after having arrived by boat from a distant kingdom called “Ayuta”!

The India-South Korea connection revolves around the legend of Queen Heo Hwang-ok who is also known as Princess Suriratna! The legend is the she is said to have traveled from the ancient Indian city of Ayodhya to Korea in the 1st century CE to marry King Suro, the founder of the Karak Dynasty of Geumgwan Gaya!

This story, forms the basis for strong cultural and historical ties between the two nations, symbolized by a dedicated memorial park in Ayodhya and shared cultural heritage between millions of descendants in South Korea!

She married King Suro at the age of 16, and together they founded the Geumgwan Gaya kingdom in what is now Gimhae, South Korea! Many Koreans claim genealogical ties to Queen Heo, viewing Ayodhya as their ancestral home!

In fact there are ongoing efforts to develop Ayodhya and Gimhae as sister cities! Morover a memorial park dedicated to Queen Heo Hwang-ok was inaugurated in Ayodhya in 2001 and has been expanded and upgraded since!

As far as the lineage goes; more than six million present-day Koreans, especially from Gimhae Kim, Gimhae Heo and Incheon Yi clans, trace their lineage to the legendary queen as the direct descendants of her 12 children with King Suro! Now SURO sounds like Sriram! Just saying!

Just saying in words or a short song is also the trademark of the wedding singer aka Adam Sandler!

Now stop listening to K Pop and instead listen to your POP and sleep!

Shubh ratri!

Rules make you and me human! Otherwise we are no better than animals! Though some animals behave better than us!

That is the bitter truth!

Places where crime is less are the ones where the punishment for the said crimes are severe! We follow even the basic traffic sense and decency only when we are being watched!

If you realize that no one is monitoring or policing you then you are more likely to break the rules or your integrity!

Have you heard of the Honesty box experiment? It was mentioned by Daniel Kahneman in his book; Thinking; Fast and Slow.


A 2006 study from Newcastle University found that displaying images of watching eyes in a canteen “honesty box” nearly tripled the amount of money contributed by staff. When a poster featuring eyes was alternated with one showing flowers, payments were significantly higher during the weeks with the eye image!

Researchers concluded that the feeling of being observed, even by an image, can trigger unconscious, automatic reactions that promote honest and cooperative behavior!

A university canteen used a long-running “honesty box” system for staff to pay for their drinks. The Intervention was that for 10 weeks, an A5 poster was placed above the box. Now the test was that every other week the poster displayed either a pair of flowers or a pair of eyes looking directly at the observer!

Remember that; in both cases no one is actually looking! There is no camera but only EYES!

But in spite of this; the study found that on the weeks when the eye image was displayed, staff contributed 2.76 times more money than during the weeks with the flower image!

The payments consistently increased when the poster changed to eyes and decreased when it reverted to flowers.

It was finally concluded that the eye images triggered an unconscious, mental reflex, not a conscious thought of being watched!

It was found that human brains are highly attuned to cues indicating potential social consequences, especially cues related to eyes and faces. This suggests that cues of being watched can encourage pro-social and cooperative behaviors, with implications for addressing anti-social behavior in real-world setting!

This means that people behave more civilized or decently when they have a feeling that they are being watched! It is the same with Cameras! Even if the CCTV or other cameras are not working; the mere presence of such devices or even a warning that you are being watched can make humans behave more decently!

Many times offices and firms who actually cannot afford a proper camera have used such ‘dummy’ cameras or signs to give an impression of being watched or monitored! These are enough for making people behave more human in the proper sense! Ironical how an AI (CCTV!) can make you human!
Ironical also how with such amazing ability to act Deepak Dobriyal gets very few roles!

Now imagine that the traffic camera is working and behave!

SHubh ratri!

This invention is so common that you cannot escape them! They hit you when you least expect it and they are so difficult to get rid of!

In fact the inventor of this invention even apologized for creating this nuisance!

In fact now you have a series of inventions which specifically are aimed at tackling this invention! Still many times it finds its way!

Now now; don’t get mad! It is only ad! Or more specifically Pop up ads!

The creator of this very irritating invention is Ethan Zuckerman. So while working as a programmer at Tripod dot com in the mid-1990s, he developed the code to launch a separate browser window for an advertisement!

His original intentions were far from malicious though! It all started with a genuine client concern and requirement for ads! So a major car company that advertised on Tripod was concerned its ad might appear on a webpage with sexual content!

To avoid this association, Zuckerman created a new window that was not directly tied to the webpage’s main content! The basic idea was to keep the advertising separate from the webpage’s core content, which he believed would be better for both the brand and the user! Unfortunately ad makers quickly caught on to this idea and the pop ups literally became a rage! This was especially if you visit questionable websites! The most difficult part was that these pop ups used to come like shots from a pistol! So many and with the close ad button so small and many times if you click on those, you may open up another site or pop up!

The invention was hated so much since it quickly became a disliked form of online advertising! In a 2014 essay for The Atlantic, he described advertising as “the internet’s original sin” and said of his invention, “I’m sorry. Our intentions were good”!

Now many times pop ups are still used for form filling and getting on to another site using the link and in those cases you need to disable the pop up blockers! By and large though Pop-up ads are widely considered annoying because they interrupt the user experience, cause security concerns, and can slow down devices!

However, pop-ups remain common because, from an advertiser’s perspective, they can be highly effective at grabbing attention and driving conversions. In fact pop ups can actually be useful in capturing leads and building email lists. Many websites use pop-ups to offer a discount code, an e-book, or exclusive content in exchange for your email address. This offers clear value and gives you a reason to subscribe.
They even aid in providing urgent, contextual information and user guidance!
Sometimes a non-intrusive pop-up might ask for quick, valuable feedback on your experience.

The crux of the matter should be that the pop ups must be non intrusive with a clear cancel or close button which gets pressed in the first attempt even with someone with a huge thumb! Then pop ups can be tolerated!

You can also tolerate such gems like Pankaj Tripathi!

Look at the eclipse and the red moon and sleep!

Shubh ratri!

When you see the Facebook or Google memories you are looking at a piece of your past! Every snap and every video would become a part of your past which is frozen in time!

But you do not need these apps to see the past!

You can literally look up the sky in the day or the night to see the past!

Apart from the sky; whatever you see in the sky is the past! Like like a delay telecast; you are seeing what was the sky some time back!

Even the moon you see so clearly is how it was some seconds back and not how it is right now! Of course when I am writing this blog, it is day and I cannot see the moon at all! But even the sun which I see is how it was some minutes back! If the sun is gone; I have around 8 minutes to act till I realize that it is no longer there!


Every time you look at the night sky, you are seeing the past!

This is because it takes time for the light from distant celestial objects to travel across space and reach your eyes. The farther away an object is, the longer its light takes to reach Earth, so the further back in time you are observing.

Everything of course depends on the speed of the light!

Light, which travels at a constant, finite speed of about 300,000 kilometers (186,000 miles) per second, is the fastest thing in the universe for now! Though apparently your mind and thoughts are faster than the light but lets not digress!

Now even though light is fast; the distances between celestial objects are so vast that light can take years, centuries, or even millennia to complete its journey to Earth!

So the sky you see is a Google memory of the past! How far or back into the past you see depends on the object you are observing!

So our closest celestial friend, the  Moon with an average distance of about 384,400 km, its light takes just over 1.3 seconds to reach us. So, you are seeing the Moon as it was a little over a second ago!

Then we have our dear Sun which is about 150 million km away, so its light takes approximately 8.3 minutes to travel to Earth. When you look at the Sun (with proper protection), you see it as it was 8.3 minutes in the past! So when you say it is a sunny day, the correct statement is that it was sunny 8 minutes back!

Then you have the nearest star!

The closest star system to our own, Proxima Centauri, is 4.24 light-years away. This means its light takes 4.24 years to reach Earth, and you see it as it appeared 4.24 years ago! How cool is that!

Still cooler is if you have access to the powerful telescopes like the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes! If you do please allow me to see!

For now just know that astronomers can capture light from galaxies that are billions of light-years away. This allows them to see the universe as it was when it was still very young!

This time delay is very cool since you can study the past!

In fact even the light from a “dead” star takes so long to get here, so it’s possible that a star you see in the sky has already died!

The “light” of its death—a supernova—would not reach us until the appropriate number of years later!

What is thus seen is the cosmic time machine and by studying objects at different distances, astronomers can piece together the history of the universe. The farther they look, the further back in time they see, allowing them to witness the evolution of galaxies and the universe itself!


Then you can see some system with life and say Koi mil Gaya! Which reminds me of Rakesh Roshan!


Now look into the past and sleep!

Shub ratri!

Born in 371 BC, Chanakya has been traditionally identified as Kautilya or Vishnugupta.

Chanakya’s ‘Arthashastra’ is a treatise of economic research and personality development!
It gives a set of ideas and statements  which give valuable tips on how to lead a good and productive life even in this day and age!

Chanakya helped Chandragupta form a small army, and entered Pataliputra, the capital of the Magadha kingdom and ignited a civil war there, using his intelligence network.

Chandragupta eventually won over the throne in 322 BC, ending the Nanda dynasty and beginning the rule of his Maurya dynasty.

Considering the challenges faced by the rulers of those times, he has included recommendations on law, prisons, taxation, fortification, coinage, manufacturing, trade, administration and spies.

But the best thing about Chanakya and especially on this teacher’s day is that he was only the king maker! He never aimed for the throne, he never had any personal gain apart from the avenging of his insult and the only thing he did was make his student the king!

On this teacher’s day I wish everyone gets a teacher like Chanakya who will protect and guide him or her without any prejudice or greed.

And I hope everyone thinks of herself and himself as a student for life since there is no age to learn something new!

Let no one ever think that he or she knows everything or more than someone else! Since knowledge is relative! Everyone knows something that no one else knows! That is normal! If he or she is willing to teach you then he or she is a teacher!

He or she can be as old as the oldest person you know or a new born baby! All you need to do is learn!

Happy teachers day! Happy Onam! Happy Vamana Jayanthi!

Shubh ratri…

A small ball in one of Enid Blyton’s novels about naughty kids leads to a big accident! That’s geometric progression in the negative direction! But a similar progression has now become the most precious treasure in the country of Spain!

This was a novel I read in my fifth grade called A Book of Naughty Children! Since that was a long (long!) time ago, I remember this story where a kid is told to not play with a ball on the street and he does! That leads to a load of crashes and accidents! It was like a horror story for me!

That is the power of Dominos!

In the novel The ONE THING by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan; the authors tell about the Domino effect!

They say that all great things have small beginnings. Every masterpiece has its first brushstroke, every building its first brick and every life its first breath.

Like every journey begins with a single step!

In a pictorial depiction in the novel it is shown how on its own, a domino isn’t much!
It’s about two inches tall and weighs about as much as a small box of matches. But with the domino comes a force. In fact, one domino has the capability of knocking down another one that is 1.5x its size. This seemingly infinitesimal ability compounds to produce incredible outcomes!

Then it is shown how one domino lying in the front albeit a little bigger can be toppled by the preceding one and the one getting toppled can topple a bigger one and so on! Even if the first domino is simply a two inch one; by progression it can topple much bigger ones! So much so that by the 18th step it can topple a domino which is as tall as the leaning tower of Pisa (it may not need much effort to fall though!) and by 25th it can even topple the Eiffel Tower! In fact by 51 the height of the domino it can topple is taller than the Mt Everest and by 57th it can reach the height so tall that it can reach the moon!


The concept thus is that the path to great achievement is often lined with steps that are aligned with one another. No matter how small the first step is, the power generated from that first activity compounds into something much greater!

So in the year 2004, Robert Weisberg of Temple University put together a case-study of Pablo Picasso’s masterpiece Guernica and found that even the greats don’t rely on “strokes of genius”!

On first inspection, it certainly looks like the result of a sudden flash of inspiration. However, Weisberg’s analysis identified core pieces of his painting in his previous work, suggesting the masterpiece was actually the culmination of long chain of dominos that were knocked over continuously throughout his career~

Instead of coming up with one idea after the other, Picasso began with a simple vision and pursued it from a small starting point. His first sketch began with the end in mind and formed an extremely rough outline of a woman, a horse, and a bull – his first domino. From there he continued to knock over domino after domino, focusing on the outline, each character and object individually and, with few exceptions, sequentially. After 45 sketches and nearly a month’s time, he had more or less created Guernica with no guesswork involved!

Guernica is a masterpiece now! The harrowing scene includes a gored horse, a screaming mother holding her dead baby, a dismembered soldier, a bull, and a terrified woman trapped in a burning building!

The massive oil-on-canvas mural measures 3.49 by 7.76 meters (11 ft 5 in by 25 ft 6 in)!

The painting, which hangs in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, became a universal symbol for peace and a condemnation of the devastation of modern warfare!

To think that it all began with a single domino or sketch! In fact even great actors career like Ananth Nag just began with a single act!

Now begin to lie down and domino to sleep!

Shubh ratri!