'Fartie' wins Whitcap.jr global challenge

The much awaited results of the 'Global app contest' Whitecap.jr ran in over a hundred countries were finally announced yesterday. The app contest, publicised widely on television, posed three challenges for kids under 10 to solve through apps - global hunger, climate change and the energy crisis. Over a lakh entries were received and a jury comprising an elite panel of experts across disciplines took over a month to pick the winner. 

In what came as a surprise to many, Fartie, an app that makes fart noises everytime you click, picked from a databank of over 5 such noises - the brainchild of Rithik, an 8 year old coding prodigy from Mumbai, received the top honour. The top ten entries (all variants of Fartie, in what was an unexpected coincidence), get seed funding to develop their respective fartie apps and work towards a mid-year market launch. 

Spontaneity

CEO deposition

Interviewer : We are here to discuss the termination of Mr. Suresh from the position of CFO at the company. He has raised a grievance both on the act itself and the way it was undertaken. We will ask you some questions now and are recording this conversation.

CEO : Please go ahead

I : You are on video in the company's AGM and several other meetings and events saying "We need a new CFO, someone who is more senior". Doesn't that mean you wanted the incumbent to be terminated?

C : No, where did I say that? I just said we need a new guy.

I : Did you have two CFO positions in mind?

C : No

I : So just the one. And you said you wanted a new guy for the role. That implies the current role-holder would have to go, doesn't it?

C : That is your interpretation.

I : Did you have another role in mind for the current CFO incumbent?

C : No, I did not like the guy

I : So you wanted him out of the company?

C : He was a misfit to our culture. He was too young and not able to perform his function.

I : But that was being looked into by the Board. They had explicitly instructed that he not be terminated while they were looking into your complaint that he was a culture misfit.

C : Yes

I : You still advised HR to terminate him?

C : No, I just advised HR to hire a new guy in his place

I : You knew they would have to fire the incumbent in order to hire a new guy

C : You're just putting words into my mouth. Let me say this once again - I just advised that a new CFO be hired. I'm deeply saddened that Mr. Suresh got terminated in the process - I had no idea he would be terminated - I had no control over this aspect.

HR Head deposition

I : Did you issue the termination letter to Mr. Suresh?

H : No, it was issued by our automated system. We have automated all communications relating to payroll

I : But you would have fed the input and programmed it to send out the letter

H : Yes, I did. I fed in the text and set the date and time for it to be sent to Mr. Suresh

I : So you sent the letter

H : No, the system sent it. You can see the email - it is from the HR system email id, not from me. You would have to catch the software people to trace exactly who was responsible for my instruction being carried out.

- - - - - - 

The enquiry concluded that while it is true that the hiring of a new guy was a conscious act by management, the termination of the incumbent was a spontaneous system-driven act and cannot be traced back to a singular directive or instruction from any of the CXOs

Mari Condo Season 3 opens on Netflx to lukewarm reviews

The cleaning lady is back!
After a well received Season 1 where Condo helps people declutter and Season 2 where she helps them acquire things that spark joy (from her online store Con-Maadi.com), she now helps them declutter again in Season 3 - titled 'Tidying up, again'
In the first episode, she visits Peter and Carol, the couple that she helped tidy up and fill their home with joy-sparking objects from Con-Maadi. Condo soon discovers she has a challenge on her hands - not only does the couple seem distressed, but she finds they are unable to afford basic necessities for their home after their online purchase spree.
Unfazed at the turn of events, Condo dishes out a lesson in the impermanence of things, including joy and helps them not only declutter the Con-Maadi junk but also sell these in black to other Condo fans online in a bid to get their power connection back and buy some sandwiches.
"One should only buy things suitable for the person he is becoming, not for the person he was" Condo says, towards the end."If you are on your way to becoming a poorer person, for example, you should buy cheaper junk from Con-Maadi, not like these folks"
Con-maadi.com meanwhile, has launched a new line of unnecessary premium objects called 'if you've just been condo'ed' meant to fill homes recently decluttered by Condo.

Govt moots NPR bill, receives lukewarm response

The last ray of hope for rioters across the country may have just dimmed a little - the infamous Neo-Penile Review Act (NPR) was mooted by the government today and met with serious opposition among both the parliament and the people at large.
The Act legalises a test for religion which is now considered obsolete in most countries - examination of the penis for marks of circumcision. Though not legal, it has been widely used in India by the major religions to ascertain who are members belonging to their community. The test came in for criticism periodically because of excessive use by communal rioters who proceeded to take violent action on the owner of the penis based on the test results.
In 2021, after sustained protests by some men's activist groups, the penile review test was banned retrospectively - a move that was criticised as regressive and draconian. This was because this effectively criminalised thousands of rioters who had been using the test.
The government, in what is seen as a softening of its stance, has now mooted a Neo-Penile Review bill, which states that a penis exam is a valid test of religion, only if it is used in conjunction with another piece of documentary proof - such as passport form. A penile review by itself is not to be taken as confirmatory. While the bill is silent on the legality aspect, experts have inferred that the test is now legal.
The MP who mooted the bill is optimistic it will be passed. "We will layer some health applications. For example, rioters can screen for prostatitis and other infections - it is just a question of training. They need to be taught to use gloves"
When asked about the plight of the unwilling participants on whom the test would be forced upon, the MP said this was just 'fear psychosis'. "We have kept the documentary proof as a requirement only for this - to protect people against violence - no rioter will conclude just on the basis of this test now". This enthusiasm is not shared by the Opposition parties which have termed this 'one more bureaucratic hassle' which will affect the poorest the most. "Do you know how many people have no documentary proof of religion? What happens to them? Rioters will just decide arbitrarily and innocent people from the rioter's own religion may be harmed", one of the Opposition MPs remarked.

EC refuses to watch Mody biopic

In what may be seen as contempt of SC, EC reiterated its stand that it will not watch the controversial Mody biopic.
"We saw about 10 minutes and had to walk out. Worst film ever" EC Arura said to the press today. "Terrible casting, horrendous acting and I'm only talking about the opening shot. We will appeal to Human Rights if forced to watch this film", he added. Rumours are EC is proposing a complete ban on the film, not just when the model code of conduct is in force, on the grounds that the film does not deserve a release at all. Marquee idol Akshai Kumar is planning a film about the release of this film where he would star in a dual role as Bibek Oberoi and the real Mody.
"Mody is not worried about the Mody biopic. Mody is bigger than that - he does not have the time. Mody asked me once - how are you able to keep up your energy levels at this age and Mody answered that his secret is vandemataram" PM Mody quoted himself as saying. 

Secular trending

We have the following question from an avid reader of this blog
- Shiv Seina Member Sanjai Rawt recently issued a statement as follows - we took 17 minutes to demolish Baburi Masgid - what needed to be done was done in half hour, how long does it take the ruling party to bring the Raam Temple law? 
Any extrapolation technique that would help us answer? - a concerned citizen
Excellent question there. Several assumptions are to be made in this interesting extrapolation problem. We know about 1 lakh folks were there at the site - discounting the free-riders using a general 80-20 principle, 20k folks took 23.5 minutes (taking the average of the two estimates put up by Mr. Rawt) to accomplish the destruction i.e. 470000 man minutes or 7833 man-hours or 325 man-days.
Now armed with this information, we need an estimate for man days needed to bring a temple law as a new legislation. It is well known that breaking a strong mud and stone structure is roughly 60 times as intense as typing, printing, filing and reading i.e. 130 man hours. However, we assume here realistically that the "man" in these "man hours" are the same who performed the earlier activity 26 years back - productivity has to be discounted with age by a 10% factor year on year raising the man hours to 2000. Assuming every single one of these men are by now free 24 by 7 by 365, and let's say about 100 of them are as driven by this new mission as the one 26 years back, we have a final answer of 20 hours which is about 2.5 work days.
The second method of estimating this approximates this as monkeys trying to type out Shakespeare where the answer is known - 3.3 raised to 2 trillion days. It would be prudent to take the mean of these two estimates which leaves us with 3.3 raised to 2 trillion days.
There Mr. Rawt and citizen, we have a rough estimate. Hope this is useful for you to make progress.

Yowgi govt renames conversion as dharmantaran, announces new scheme

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yowgi Nath on Tuesday announced that religious conversion activities will now be known as 'Dharmantaran', while speaking at ‘Deepotsav’, a special event hosted on Diwali eve in the pilgrim town of Ayodhya. The move came three weeks after the BJP-led government changed the name of Allahabad to Prayagraj

'Conversion is an alien term and does not fit into our culture or parampara. The term should be a symbol of our aan aur shaan', he said. He announced a new scheme by which anyone can change his or her name online and download a new aadhaar card. 'I have 3 cards myself as Yama, Niyama and Trishanku', he roared amidst loud cheering