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30 DAYS TO A MORE POWERFUL VOCABULARY BY DAN STRUTZEL

Audiobook

The running length is around 5 hours but it could have been much shorter since this includes a review and revision of all the words discussed in each section.

The book also comes with an accompanying PDF which is a summary of the words which you can very well use for revision of all the words.

Of course since it is an english book the words are not one which you have not heard or do not know but these are the words which you may not use in your regular vocabulary or conversation!

This is the exercise the author wants you to know and do!

The book is divided into sections and each section has a summary in the end and a review. The author tells you to listen to the review just before you sleep or get up and try to use the words as much as possible in your vocabulary.

After introduction and why people with a dynamic vocabulary are smarter and wealthier and in turn happier the author tells about the myths of vocabulary building. This is preceded by how this programme is better for building your vocabulary.

The sections are; Money and finance, Persuading others, Interpersonal relationships, Nature and ecology, The art of conversation proper, Nature and ecology, religion and spirituality, Health and nutrition, Science, Computers and technology, philosophy, parenting and finally Politics and History.

The author also tells you to make it in to a routine so that it becomes a habit! He also talks about how a new routine becomes automatic if you repeat or be consistent for at least 30 days and then it becomes fixed routine!

Unfortunately there can be no summary since the author has named and discussed over 600 words!

These are some of the words in no particular order to give you an idea!

Esoteric is intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest.
while Eclectic is deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources.

Other words include an alternate of Big like Humongous!

Assume is not Ass of you and me!

Quantifiable like Money can be quantifiable

Other words used are Symbolic, Capital, Income, Return of investment
Interest, Debtor, Borrower, Issuer, Bond, Credit which is Borrowing capacity of a person, The one who gives is Creditor!

Some different words can be
Compensation is payment and may not necessarily be only money!
Fine fettle and Validation
Persuade and Name dropping

Others are Imminence, Deadline, Paucity, Platitude, ecclesiastical and Nuptial!

Then the three ‘p’! Pliancy, Plasticity and Pliability!

Hope you got the idea!
The accompanying PDF also has a list and since the audiobook is divided into sections you can jump to that when you want!

The chief idea is to keep on repeating the words and use them in your day to day life!

It does work to a certain extent! Of course for those lucky convent educated people with amazing vocabulary will find this just like a revision while others like me would find it interesting! Nevertheless, it is always nice to learn new words or replace words with better ones so that your vocabulary is interesting to read and listen!

“The giant leaped in the air to charge!
Only to stop and get fear like no other!
Protecting the little kid was no amateur!
The strong and the very determined; mother!”

Like it has often been told; even if no one loves you, your mother would always love you! If you are lucky that holds true for your daughter also! No wonder in Bengali which is the language of my dear sister, the daughter is called MA! One of the first words spoken by a kid and the words spoken when you are in trouble at least when you were young (er!) would definitely have been mother!

Now though I miss my mother very much, I can heartily say that she was happy and proud till the last moment and there was no complains!

The mother is a special category not only among humans but also animals where anthropologists, psychologists and zoologists would constantly correct themselves or be amazed at the behaviour!

Like if you take the Penguins! Now do not literally take one! So after laying an egg, the mother emperor penguin leaves it with a male who protects the fragile hard shell from the elements! The mother then travels up to 50 miles to reach the ocean and fish! She later returns to the hatching site to regurgitate the food to the newly hatched chicks. Using the warmth of her own brood pouch, the mother keeps the chick warm and safe! That is a 50 mile walk every time!

Then you have elephants, where a new mom is not alone in guiding her young! The Elephants live in a matriarchal society, so other females in the social group help a calf to its feet after birth and show the baby how to nurse. The older elephants adjust the pace of the herd so the calf can keep stride. By watching the adults, the calf learns which plants to eat and how to access them. The females regularly make affectionate contact with the calf!

There are so many amazing examples in the wild but the one closest to the Homo Sapiens is the bond between an orangutan mother and her young! During the first two years of life, the young rely entirely on their mothers for both food and transportation!
The moms stay with their young for six to seven years, teaching them where to find food, what and how to eat and the technique for building a sleeping nest (Sounds familiar!?)
Female orangutans are known to “visit” their mothers until they reach the age of 15 or 16. The most unbelievable thing is that the mother orangutan builds a new nest for their young every single night. Making up to 30,000 homes in her lifetime, the female orangutan is able to do all this while never putting her baby down!

Now if you feel that mothers are weak then you are so wrong! Even if you have not heard of the Movie Sophie’s choice; there have been recorded incidents of Mothers fighting even with a grizzly bear or a lion to save her child! I know of a close relative who protected her child from hot boiling oil by putting herself as a shield! Oh the things a mother can do would make even Rajnikanth proud!

All our life we strive to make our Father proud of us knowing fully well that mother does not need anything from us! Just a concerned ear and some decent words! A praise of her delicacy and you are sure to get a fresh batch soon! Even now my kids swear by my Mother’s famous Sabudana Vada and Aloo Bonda! With that secret passed on to me, I am hoping they will not miss at least that…

Wishing all those beautiful mothers a very happy Mother’s day!
Miss you Mom…Shubh Ratri!

Mother’s day!!

It was the days of doordarshan and the buzz was a Mithun Da movie called Rukshat and there was a scene which was considered adult at that time!.

All the guys in my class especially Sapan the craziest fan of Mithun and Nilofer the second craziest fan had narrated the scene with vivid and different discription (read spicy!!) Every other time!

Those were the days when a movie used to be screened only on Sunday evenings and of course everyone would watch that only and have an extensive discussion on Monday!!

Any such scene would of course never be there!
Everything was left to imagination and we would see two flowers coming together in close embrace prudently disregarding every law of nature and wind direction!!!

So this was a big thing and the scene was set!
We even knew when the scene would come and myself and my brother were ready!
He of course had a book which he would read and watch movie in between (though rarely would I see a page turn!!)!

So the time came and we were keen with anticipation and at that moment my mom suddenly asked me to get a glass of water!!
I was both shocked and surprised but there was no escaping that command!
My brother just then turned the page so he was safe!
I ran towards the fridge to get water, fill a glass and ran back just to see to my dismay that the scene was over!!
And I could swear that mom had an all knowing smile on her face!
The next day I was dreading to go to school since I would know that everyone would be discussing the scene Especially Sapan and I would be either forced to keep quiet lie!

I was this surprised to see a quiet class the next day!
The most silent was Sapan!
I asked him what happened and did he watch the scene!??
He said with remorse that he could’nt watch it!
I asked him why? To which he replied that, He went to get a glass of water for his mom!!!

Only Nilofer was smiling and we were all amazed how he could survive mom’s safety attack!

He replied with a wink and twinkle, “I was reading a book!!”

That’s when I realized the work of mom’s in this world who like super heroes protect their kids against the attack of the idiot box!
Am sure that just like the justice league and avengers even Moms will have a meet before any such problem and discuss the counter measures!
One would suggest coin under the table or bed or hide the face under sheet though most would use the easiest and best attack; glass of water!!!

Other special super power includes getting money out of the sugar jar and from dad!
That special prayer before exams and blessing of the exam board which was the single most important reason why anyone would pass!.
and that special food when we were not well which would drive the cold away!!


The other day I had taken the whole family to Bahubali and I had prepared my kids for all possible attacks!
The loud noise, the killing and those animals but there was a scene when Bahu gets too close to comfort to Devasena and I was too stunned to react!
I had only a few seconds to make my move!!
So I called both my kids who were glued to the screen and asked them if they want a glass of water!!

The scene was tackled successfully and my mom looked at me and gave that same smile!!

You can pray and pray but in the end a glass of water will save the day!!

Here’s wishing my mom the best mom in the whole world a very happy mothers day!!!
Miss you…

“When the gates open you have to jump!

For now let the water slowly pump!

Just watch out for the wind and just bend!

Conversation of a sock and his friend!”

One of the greatest struggles in my life is finding the perfect second of a pair of socks! Apparently in some country they sell three socks in a set since they know that we will be losing one soon! 

In the Middle Ages, trousers and stockings were a single item of clothing. Later, stockings were substituted for pants and stockings gradually emerged as a separate item of clothing! Stocking and shocking! 

The worst things we used to suffer from when we were young (er!) was how these socks especially the ones of the school uniforms used to get loose only at the top and slowly fall down so much so that only a part was seen peeping out of the shoes! 

We then used to put rubber on the sock and fold it and that used to solve the problem for the time being but then the rubber band either used to snap or cause deep cut on the leg which used to be painful!

The only reason why we never used to like to wear socks with sandals or chappals is that mostly all would have windows! The big toe and the second toe which are like naughty kids trying to peep out of the moving car or train window; they always get out of the sock and cause the hole! Of course the fact that they have big nails may be addendum! When you know that the socks have reached their known life time only then you can wear them and run! This is because you know that they would tear! No one can run with socks and not cause a hole! Unless you have those woolen thick ones which have another bigger problem! They stink!

The combination of an active kid with a thick sock can even make a hyposmia suffering patient faint! One of the chief reasons why we never dare remove our shoes in the class or a closed space! 

For all the clean white socks we had, the soles would always be dirty! It may indicate your dirty soul by the way! But then everyone had it! 

Presently I have an obsession with socks! At any given point in time of the day, you may not find me without one! Now of course you cannot wear them in the Operation theatre while operating but other times I like to sock up!

One small tear and I get a new pair! The house is over run with socks of all kind and texture! 

That makes you think; how did the Naked ape sock up?! 

Apparently the first pair of sock was grassy! 

When Otzi the iceman was discovered frozen in a glacier on the Austria-Italy border in 1991, scientists had a rare chance to examine what life was like over 5,000 years ago!

That included the remnants of footwear, leading to the recreation of Otzi’s deer and bear skin boots, which were lined with grass.

The first actual knitwear found in Jutland dates back to 1500 BC. While the first actual socks were found in Egyptian tombs in Antinoe and date back to 500 AD!

Before industrialization, socks and stockings were knitted! For a long time, stockings were a privilege of the rich, as their manufacture was a secret and knitting was an occupation for noble ladies!

The Englishman William Lee invented the hand knitting loom, which made knitting easier. Queen Elizabeth I of England received black stockings as a gift in 1561, but refused to grant him a patent for this invention, so Lee moved to France in 1589 and set up a hosiery factory there, financed by King Henry V! 

With industrialization, socks became easier and easier to produce and therefore cheaper. Accordingly, they became more and more widespread. Most socks back then were made of wool. In comparison, today you have a much wider choice of materials. From cashmere to merino and pima to mercerized cotton!

As they evolved, improved techniques for creating socks also eventually created a shift in view from socks being essential to socks being an ADORED accessory. Colorful and crazy socks softer than ever before became a killer trend. 

While socks have borne many different names throughout history, it wasn’t until the 17th century that the name as we know it stuck. Derived from the Old English word socc (meaning “light slipper”) the socks were born anew!

“Stockings” have been a popular name for a big chunk of their history as well, and the term is still used today, but socks as the title does rock and how! Rocking and multifaceted and a good support also is birthday celebrity Sadashiv Dattaray Amrapurkar!

Now sock up to feel warm and sleep!

Shubh ratri!

“The hot red blood flowing like sauce
That Nick on the finger tip so deep!
Squeeze it more and it will not stop!
Just cover it with a band aid you dweep!”

My mother never encouraged us to buy this and keep in the house since she used to say that if it is there in the house, we would get hurt!
Yes the band aids!

More than getting a cut or a nick and the thrill of seeing blood ooze (after the initial horror and fear and a good cry of course!); the best part was putting those cool brown band aids! The cooler kids would get the spot band aids which were a tad costlier while the coolest of them would show off their washproof ones! Those were so transparent and thin that could put many models to shame!

And to think that the invention was due to a good husband who listened to his wife! Read on!

These band aids were more better if they were seen! So hands and face were the best places to stick them!
What is the point of band aid if you cannot show them! There were times when we would have a big cut or wound in the shin and of course the knee was never without a wound! But even though these are the places where you need to cover, we would not waste our precious band aids on them!
But a small nick on the face or hand and the brown ornament is shown with full pride! Unfortunately most of the band aids in the medical kit would have lost its glue or the inferior butter paper would have got stuck too tight and then there will not be any Band aud to show! What is the point of having a cut and not having a band aid to put over it!?

Sometimes they would becomes stinky and black but we would still hold on to it till the last vestiges of “My Precious” would be over!

So how did this amazing invention find its place on your medical kit?

Now coming to the story, it all started with the wife Josephine Knight Dickson was always getting minor nicks and burns while working in the kitchen. And while this may seem like no big deal these days, back when Knight Dickson was prepping her family’s meals in 1920, there were no good options for bandaging such small injuries hygienically and on top of that this was before antibiotics, so infections posed a serious risk!

Knight Dickson likely resorted to what many did at the time: winding a strip of fabric around her wound and tying a knot on the end to secure it—a hack that was neither sterile nor likely to withstand hand-washing but then you make do with what you can!

A frustrated Josephine shared her plight with her husband, Earle Dickson, who happened to be a cotton buyer for Johnson & Johnson! Normally though he may not listen to his wife (!!) but that day he did! So he thought what if he could create an easy-to-apply, sanitary covering for his wife’s wounds that would stay on while she went about her work?

Dickson brought home a cache of antiseptic cotton gauze and surgical adhesive tape, which were made by Johnson & Johnson as part of the company’s suite of sterile surgical products. He took a strip of tape that was 18 inches long by 3 inches wide, and laid a slightly narrower piece of gauze lengthwise down the middle. He then covered the surface with a crinoline fabric to keep it from sticking to itself, and folded up the whole thing into a neat roll that his wife could keep at the ready!

All Knight Dickson would need to do is unfold the roll, and use scissors to snip off as much adhesive bandage as needed to quickly cover her kitchen mishapsand help keep them clean!

The product worked so well for his wife that Dickson decided to share the invention with his boss, who quickly recognized its potential.
Soon afterward, Johnson & Johnson manufactured a small test batch of what it dubbed BAND-AID Brand adhesive bandages, and sold them to pharmacists!

And in case you thought it was an instant success! Well, it was Sholay! Meaning having a slow start but later on becoming a block buster!

After some efforts like tapping the company’s traveling salesmen to help demonstrate the product to doctors (yes, even doctors do not know everything !!) and retail pharmacists (in spite of the pharmacists thinking that they know everything!!) across the country, the product just took off and how!

In 1924, Johnson & Johnson began selling them in the form we know today: precut and individually wrapped, thanks to machinery the company created to mass-produce the bandages. That my friends is how you got the Band to aid your wound! Sounds like a great story!? So does the Birthday celebrity Rabindranath Tagore ji and his stories and poems!

Now make sure you do not have any cuts which need Band aids and sleep!
Shubh ratri!

“Can’t swim like a fish even if you wish!

Can’t fly like a bird, the wish was in vain!

Can’t hunt with arms alone but even then,

The homo sapien is the top of the chain!”

Do you know the an odd difference between a carnivore and a Primate? 

The answer is as small as a fly! read on!

In his best selling book called The Naked Ape: A Zoologist’s Study of the Human Animal by English zoologist and ethologist Desmond Morris that looks at humans as a species. The author makes so many claims without sounding very serious but the logic is strong!

The book is actually a grand daddy of sorts of the very famous Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari! The classic has sold over 20 million copies and is still considered a great book! Among the many things he discusses in the book, the central point of course is about that the one species of the ape which is Naked! The human! An average human may have some hair but he or she is more or less hairless and having no external coating! The explanations given by the author are logical sometimes and funny other times! 

Among the many difference he says about the Naked Ape, he states how they never get fleas but at least here the Naked Ape is like other ! And that was primarily due to two things apparently! 

Now we do get the occasional flea bite which form rare diagnosis but those are accidental fleas! 

The basic point, is that carnivores have fleas but primates do not. 

So Monkeys and apes are plagued by lice and certain other external parasites but, contrary to popular opinion, they are completely flealess, hope you read that right! It says Flealess and not FEARless!!

To understand this, it is necessary to examine the life-cycle of the flea. 

This insect lays its eggs, not on the body of its host, but amongst the detritus  (waste or debris of any kind) of its victim’s sleeping quarters!

The eggs take three days to hatch into small, crawling maggots. 

These larvae do not feed on blood, but on the waste matter that has accumulated in the dirt of the den or lair!

After a couple of weeks they spin a cocoon and pupate and remain in this dormant condition for approximately two more weeks before emerging as adults, ready to hop on to a suitable host body! This means that they like some specific people of some specific species who take so much time to get ready! 

So for at least the first month of its life a flea is cut off from its host species!

It is clear from this why a nomadic mammal, such as a monkey or ape, is not troubled by fleas! Even if a few stray fleas do happen on to one and mate successfully, their eggs will be left behind as the primate group moves on, and when the pupae hatch there will be no host ‘at home’ to continue the relationship. Fleas are therefore parasites only of animals with a fixed home base, such as the typical carnivores!

Another point mentioned in a nature journal is that the Naked Ape has very fine hair wherever he or she has hair! These are not good breeding grounds for the flea! So one of the advantages of being a nomad in the early life and being hairless now means that the Fleas do not choose you! Being Hairless or Bare or Naked is the right choice for this ape! The right choice reminds me of the slogan, Yehi hai right choice, Baby! Made famous by birthday celebrity Luís Remo de Maria Bernardo Fernandes known professionally as Remo Fernandes! 

Now that does not mean you cannot get lice! So be nice!

Shubh ratri!

The piglet ran to his mother in tears

Mother asked, “why are you sad, my cutie!

“I just saw the owlet baby so brown!

Mother, why can’t it be as beautiful as me!”

One of the biggest comfort half lie half truth we all have said either to ourselves or someone else or our children is, “Beauty lies in the eyes of the Beholder!”. This is one of the most commonly used saying in different ways especially in the soap operas or tear jerker movies! There was one poster I still remember which was hung in a Pub (The teetotaler in me went for the music and mocktails!); which said, “Beauty is in the eyes of the Beer Holder!!” This version or ‘meme’ is now known as the Beer Goggles! Which is when you find someone attractive when you are drunk!

Even in the famous scene from the original Planet of the Apes when Chalten Heston request the ape for a kiss! The ape says, “But you are so ugly!”

Imagine how the situation is changed there! Like how we say that even the mother of a monkey would find her child to be beautiful! Then again those are the Maternal Eyes! 

But I am sure that the most ugly creature according to the human may actually find a human ugly! So the Phrase is very true after all!

Coming back to the original phrase, when you look into history this and similar saying has been used for ages!

It has often been attributed to Shakespeare and yes! the phrase was not used by him or in any of his plays though a similar sentiment was used in “Love’s Labours Lost” which read, “Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye.” 

Which roughly translates of course to the same thing!

The concept that each individual has a different inclination of what is beautiful first appeared in the 3rd century BC in Greek. According to Plato, the sense of beauty is itself transient in nature. So, a thing beautiful for one might not be beautiful for the other!

Only philosophers take this path of inner beauty and this has been going on especially in plays and books! 

In 1588, the English dramatist John Lyly, in his Euphues and his England, wrote:

“…as neere is Fancie to Beautie, as the pricke to the Rose, as the stalke to the rynde, as the earth to the roote.” (Now frankly even I did not understand this very well but it has been said that this is close to the phrase!)

Benjamin Franklin paralleled the sentiment in Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1741, writing:

“Beauty, like supreme dominion

Is but supported by opinion”

Then another version penned by David Hume;

“Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.”

Now these are the versions! But who was the person who coined the proper phrase we use now!? well, the the modern-day version of the expression is believed to have first appeared in English in the 19th century. 

Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (née Hamilton) is widely credited with coining the saying in its current form. Hungerford wrote many books, often under the pseudonym of ‘The Duchess’. In the 1878 novel Molly Bawn, there’s the line “It is an old axiom, and well said, that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.

The phrase has stood the test of time which reminds me of another famous quote by birthday celebrity Balakrishna Menon aka Swami Chinmayananda Saraswati, ““The tragedy of human history is decreasing happiness in the midst of increasing comforts”! The Bhagavad Geeta authored by him is an inspiration! 

Now get your Beauty sleep!

Shubh ratri!

“He was a monster a tyrant a giant!

That was the call, the scream, the rant!

That is true! scream the owl and the bat!

Then asks the monkey, “but who will tell him that!?”

The best discussions of students and workers is about their teachers and bosses! The discussion is either how the homework is more but marks given is less which is similar to how the work is more but the salary is less! Then every other day it will be agreed that something must be done about it and every day they would reach a point when everyone will stare at everyone else thinking or saying, “All that is good but who will bell the cat!?”

From the time there have been two humans interacting, one would always think that he or she is getting a better deal but; Who will bell the cat!?

Do you remember the original story of the Bell and the Cat? It is often attributed to Aesop’s fables! 

Yes…the bubble bursting needle arrives!

The two things we have realized now is that the story is not how we have read it and second is that it is actually not a part of Aesop’s fables!

Now, Belling the Cat is a fable also known under the titles The Bell and the Cat and The Mice in Council! 

In the popular story which we all have heard or read, a group of mice are constantly tormented by a cat! So much so that one fine day they have a meeting and unanimously decide that the best solution would be to tie a bell around the cat so that they can hear the cat and be warned! Everyone agrees that it is the best solution ever! They even arrange for the bell! But then the Crore rupees question remains; “Who will bell the cat or which mouse would tie the bell to the neck of the cat?” 

Naturally they would keep pondering on this and suddenly the cat would appear out of nowhere and the council of mice run away! 

The term has become an idiom describing a group agreeing to perform an impossibly difficult task! The story provides a moral lesson about the fundamental difference between ideas and their feasibility!

The first irregularity is that this is not the original story!

The Greek version of the fable concerns a cat that pretends to be a sack hanging from a peg in order to deceive the chickens, but his disguise is seen through by a rooster! Later on the Rooster is replaced by mice and undergoes the modifications as the popular version! 

Then there are actually man variations with many animals with the story! You can have you pick! 

Now who is Aesop and what are these fables which actually are very similar to our Panchatantra and Jataka tales! 

Aesop’s Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of varied and unclear origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to modern times through a number of sources and continue to be reinterpreted in different media! 

The fables originally belonged to oral tradition and were not collected for some three centuries after Aesop’s death!

By that time, a variety of other stories, jokes and proverbs were being ascribed to him, although some of that material was from sources earlier than him or came from beyond the Greek cultural sphere. The process of inclusion has continued until the present, with some of the fables unrecorded before the Late Middle Ages and others arriving from outside Europe.

So the cat and mice story although attributed to Aesop, was not recorded before the Middle Ages! Which means that it is recent and historically not a part of the ‘Official Aesopica!’ or Official Aesop’s fables! Nevertheless, a story is good not because of who told or wrote the story but because the message it conveys is good! In that context the WHO WILL BELL THE CAT is a fabulous fable! Fabulous also was birthday celebrity Chalapathi Rao famous for his tiger personality and cat eyes!

Now BELL the alarm and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!

“It was a sight to be remembered for ages!

Right from Gurus to the clever sages!

He had found the clue for the crown!

Full of joy he ran bare all over the town!”

Have you ever made a monumental discovery or thought of making one and immediately said EUREKA!?

Yes! I know that happened to Archimedes and he uttered these words and after that such monumental discoveries are known as EUREKA moments! 

Having read my blogs before I know you can almost feel the ‘factual’ needle bursting the enthusiasm bubble! Actually Archimedes did not say EUREKA (since he was Greek and not Shashi Tharoor’s great grand father!) and also some say that he did not say the words entirely! 

Read on! 

Let us first recap the original (??) story! After gaining the royal power, King Hieron II of Syracuse in Sicily gave a goldsmith a bar of gold to make it into a crown. After goldsmith delivered the pure gold crown to the king, he was suspicious. The king suspected that the goldsmith had cheated him. The king thought the goldsmith had mixed some of the gold for the cheaper silver, while keeping the leftover gold. However, the king had no way of proving his suspicions, so he asked Archimedes to find out whether the crown was made from pure gold, without damaging the crown! 

So Archimedes accepts the challenge and, during a subsequent trip to the public baths, realizes that the more his body sinks into the water, the more water is displaced–making the displaced water an exact measure of his volume. Because gold weighs more than silver, he reasons that a crown mixed with silver would have to be bulkier to reach the same weight as one composed only of gold; therefore it would displace more water than its pure gold counterpart. Realizing he has hit upon a solution, the young Greek math whiz leaps out of the bath and rushes home naked crying “Eureka! Eureka!” Or, translated: “I’ve found it! I’ve found it!”! 

The first thing is that if he did utter those words then he would have said, “heúrēka”! meaning “I have found (it)”, which is the first person singular perfect indicative active of the verb εὑρίσκω heurískō “I find”.

It is closely related to heuristic, which refers to experience-based techniques for problem-solving, learning, and discovery! In fact I had written about Heuristic and Bias some days back! 

Furthermore apparently Archimedes himself never wrote about this episode, although he spent plenty of time detailing the laws of buoyancy and the lever (prompting him to reputedly pronounce: “Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth”), calculating the ratio of circles we know as pi, and starting along the path to the integral calculus that would not be invented for another 2,000 years, among other mathematical, engineering and physical feats! 

The oldest authority for the naked-Archimedes eureka story is Vitruvius, a Roman writer, who included the tale in his introduction to his ninth book of architecture some time in the first century B.C. Because this was nearly 200 years after the event is presumed to have taken place, the story may have been improved in the telling. He could have taken some creative liberties like making the clothes disappear and these words appear! 

Many long list of scientists, including Galileo, have read the account and thought “That can’t be right.”!

Much like Newton’s apple (Yes! Even that did not exist! now that is another day! another bubble to burst!), the exclamation persists because of the enduring power of the story! A king! a crafty merchant!, golden crown, a life in the balance and finally a naked Geek or Greek running screaming EUREKA!

 Now our thirst for such stories makes it impossible to get away from the drama! Whether there was a EUREKA moment or not, the fact of the matter is that Archimedes was a font of both mathematical insight and smart quotes as well as the hero of some really great stories and he was super intelligent! 

Finally, he did get the solution in either way! Now whether he got it in a public bath naked or in a private lab (fully clothed!); it all is up to you and your imagination! The font of both imagination and many loud moments like EUREKA is also the birthday celebrity Thesingu Rajendar or T Rajendar! 

Now take a warm bath before you sleep! You may also get a EUREKA moment or good sleep! Good result either way!

Shubh Ratri!

“He had no reluctance, he had no qualms!

If you’d call him he will rush into your arms!

All he knew is to cry in pain or laugh with joy!

‘Cause he was not a big anxious man! Just a little boy!”

Have you seen how kids or toddlers simply walk to the edge of the bed or the floor and keep walking! They do not care that they fall! All they want to do is explore! Ever since we have got some sense, that is the core thing for every human!

The inbuilt first tendency of many human being is to explore! No wonder tourism is a big industry! So when we were young toddlers, that was our greatest motivation. As we get older, our biggest motivation is this!

We have this motivation to go to work or read or follow rules or even be decent! Of course we must do these things without any though but then Humans will be humans!

In the book by Daniel Kahneman, he describes an office experiment;

In a cafeteria of a office where you get coffee and some light snack, it was 

 when a picture of flowers is kept on top the employees who have to pay by their own choice! That means you can choose to pay what you want! 

Just before the place where you place your money, there was a provision of placing a large photo! The photos used to change everyday and one day it was just the photo or painting of eyes! and the other day it was some random inanimate object like flowers or houses! 

The interesting thing is that the days which had the photos of the eye, the employees ended up paying more than the days with no eyes! Now remember that there is no camera and no one to actually see or judge!

But the eyes raise some emotion or concern which makes them more oriented to pay! For some it could be guilt but finally it is the motivator we talked about earlier!

In fact, even in most traffic signals, people have been seen to follow the traffic rules more faithfully when there is a CCTV nearby! Now, here also no one knows whether those cameras work or not! But the motivation is strong!

The same thing is when you see a police person nearby is akin to a student who sees his or her teacher or Principal nearby and starts acting nice or decent!

Though ideally it should not be the biggest motivation, unfortunately, from getting up in the morning to sleeping in the night and sometimes when it does not allow you to sleep, this is the greatest motivator! 

A simple four letter word called, FEAR!

Now if you like FPS games like me there is an amazing FPS game called FEAR but this blog is about the literal fear and not the acronym!

Not only in real life, there is also a type of software which uses fear to make you do something or buy something! Just when you thought AI cannot be that Human (though in some cases they may be more humane than most!); there is a malware which uses social engineering to cause shock, anxiety, or the perception of a threat in order to manipulate users into buying unwanted software.

Deservedly and aptly the software is called SCAREWARE! 

Scareware is actually a big group which includes rogue security software, ransomware and other scam software that tricks users into believing their computer is infected with a virus, then suggests that they download and pay for fake antivirus software to remove it!

The “scareware” label can also apply to any application or virus which pranks users with intent to cause anxiety or panic! 

Of course the fear may be unreal but if acted upon the impact is more malicious. Scareware that installs intentionally malicious software on a victim’s device cloud can spy on users; steal personally identifiable information; steal credit card or bank account details; deploy more financial fraud or identity theft software; lock up the user’s computer and demand a ransom, destroying the files if not paid and even offer fake tech support to con more money out of the victim! Gone are the days of making songs and taking your money! Nowadays they scare you and make you pay for your own money without shedding a tear or singing a song! Songs reminds me of the dear Birthday Celebrity of the day Gulshan Kumar Dua! I used to love his cute smiling face on the TV when he used to do the guest appearance in his songs! He was gone to soon; guess he did not give in to the fear. He will be missed, his role in bringing some of the greatest hindi music is incomparable!

Now listen to some soft songs of Gulshan’s movies like Sadak or Ashiqui and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!