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

The 87th mistake of my life

Dear All,
Yesterday, in this column, we'd talked about my 86th mistake - the story of the air hostess who I tried to kiss without success. Today we move on to February of the same year, February 14th 2017.
As is the routine in this column, I begin with an apology to the person concerned, persons in this case because I was quite prolific on that date. To keep the overall tally lower, am combining the 3 stories of that date into one, to be known as the 87th.
It began with breakfast. The lady who brought my food to the room asked me to enjoy my breakfast. We all know what that means. But strangely enough, she ran away when I tried to take the initiative. Women can be quite moody, I wrote in my journal.
I was scheduled to give an interview with an online magazine. I had set a calendar reminder to ask them to send me a photo of the interviewer before the interview. The photo came in and seemed of reasonable quality and one cannot be very picky if it's Valentine's day and you don't have a date with anyone other than your own wife.
She came in and I felt a sudden and electric connection, something I hadn't felt in hours - ever since the in room dining lady brought in breakfast that morning.
I gave her copies of my book in the right sequence - half girlfriend (would she be one?), one night at a call centre (what say?), what young india wants (obvious), the girl in room 105 (well, 503 in this case). She brushed off my moves and continued to persist with her irritating line of questioning about my new book. I spoke about the sex in my books and where I got ideas from to write that material. She seemed visibly uncomfortable and I was forced to try to massage her to make her feel better. She got up abruptly and left me alone in the room. She was married. she'd said, but then so was I. I saw this as a fundamental problem of inequality in the country where a man is ready to act on a connection he feels, but a woman is not. So much for women's liberation, I wrote in my journal.
Now when I think back on that day, I guess I was going through a phase in my life. One where I was feeling very attractive but somehow there were no results to show for the same. I continued to go through this phase till around 7 pm, just idly downloading stuff on the hotel wifi while waiting for the special connection to reappear.
The 3rd special connection was over dinner where I tried my luck with the hotel guests at the restaurant, especially two Israeli students who were in India on a holiday. But to no avail, got turned down even by the foreign women. Women really had a long way to go the world over - so much inhibition coming in the way of their progress.
As with my other columns, I again end this with the same plea to the anonymous women featured in today's column - you know who you are - feel free to reach out to me even now if interested (wink) - I have always believed connections last a lifetime.
As usual, I'm running this column past Anisha and the 86 women featured earlier just to make sure they are ok with it.
Till tomorrow then,
~C

It's ok to not have a TED talk

How many of you here have seen a blue monkey? That's 3...4...I see 5 hands. That's at least 3 people. What if I tell you that I first saw a blue monkey when I was 8 years old? Hard to believe, right? It's true.
Anyway, moving on. I come from one of those orthodox families, y'now (snickers from the crowd)...When I was 12, my dad told me something that I still recall vividly. Can't share it though, is a little private. But things got interesting when I turned 13, which was last year. Having been through what has been an absolute rollercoaster of a life, if there is one thing I have learnt, it is this. There are no hardware stores open past midnight in the village. (Hushed whispering)
So...I hailed a taxi last week, and somehow this memory has remained etched in my head. I hailed a taxi and the taxiwala refused. No warning, no pleasantries. Just a shake of the head (smiles). I'm sure this has happened to you as well (loud laughter). I had to take a bus but then that is another story. Little did I know then that this taxi refusal would change the course of my life altogether.
It is little things like this that make up one's weekday, isn't it? And then before you know it, it is the next day and I have to go to school yet again. Unless it is Friday, in which case the next two days would be off. Am sure anyone who has a weekend kinda schedule here would be able to relate to this, right? (Nods all around)
So today, I think back to that day, to that innocent young 13 year old, uncertain about his future, waiting at the bus stop and I would like to tell him just one thing. It can be anything as long as the overall set of things amounts to one - more than that would just confuse him I feel, he's just 13 after all.
And today, I tell you all the same one thing. Live life, look for blue monkeys, die, relive, love, burp, brush, quit your job, dance like no one is listening, get your heart broken, get your liver transplanted on a priority basis. And one day, when all is done, when the storm settles, you just might have your own Ted talk. Thank you all (applause and standing ovation)

ER Stack

Patient (P) gestures that he cannot breathe and passes out. Patient attendant (A) shouts for the nurse (N). Nurse calls in the ER doctor (D).
D (rushing in) : Deploy powerful information platform - STAT!
N : Patient identity layer - loading and...active. Patient payment protocol - Go.
D : Hurry, we don't have much time. Patient's vitals are deteriorating.
N : Biometric and consent platforms : Go.
A : Doctor, what is going on? I can't feel my husband breathe. Please do something
N : Doc, all platforms go. We are on
D : Diglock? Disruptive innovation layer?
N : Check
D (to A) : We are good to go now. We've created this powerful platform right here. You have the whole world at your fingertips. The possibilities are endless.
A : What am I supposed to do?
D : There is no fear. Innovate fearlessly. This is the moment the nation has been waiting for, among others.
A : Is he going to die?
D : ...Our platform lets innovations scale rapidly. We don't suffocate the inventive energies of young people like you. It is completely secure, completely interoperable.
A : His heart has stopped beating. Please DO something!
D : The power is in your hands. We are not a service based ER unlike other hospitals, we are an ER platform. The platform architecture is non-traditional, in other words
A : He is gone, I think
D : I think you got too caught up in the legacy approach, that never works.
A : I'll see you in the court
D : Our APIs don't yet allow for legal innovation, but no harm in dreaming as they say.

Relativism

27th April, 2017

Dear sweet daughter

When I proposed the theory of relativity, very few understood me. I will propose something now that will potentially be of much greater impact and perhaps change the world once again in a profound manner.
I must first ask you to protect this blogpost as long as necessary, until society is in a place where my idea will become acceptable. If digital has not been invented yet, please print this out and keep it somewhere safe.
I know I said a lot of things about forces but I think now that there is only one force, the force of love. Love is light. Love is speed. Love is speed of light.
Love is brownian motion, Love is photovoltaic cells, Love is special theory, Love is general theory, Love is unified field...er...perhaps not yet that, but am on it.
In all my equations I made two simple substitutions. I replaced LHS with LOVE and RHS with LOVE. Love begets Love.
There is as much love in a little boy as in a fat man.
When two twins travel at different speeds also love love love.
I love love. Lovelylovely looove.
Love is awesomeness.
Or maybe I have once again had too much to drink tonight

    Your father Albert Einstein

Tanu mails Manu

Congana : Make yourself comfortable. This is going to take a while
Interviewer : (Not again) Oh? I thought scoops were fast.
Congana : I did promise a scoop but I will tell it as a leettil story. I'll use third person so no one knows I'm talking about myself. There was leettil girl in the forest.
Interviewer : (This was a scoop 2 years back. God, please let it be a different story) Do go on
C : And she fell in love. Isneet a great feeling, this love? She used to imagine a knight in shining armour on a horse. And then one day, she got an email.
I : In the forest.
C : from a fakerithik@hotmail.com and he had signed off as jadoo. Her heart fluttered, she knew who this person was! He would be her knight!
I : What were the contents of the mail?
C : The mail asked the girl to download a .exe file and click and run it. Her comp crashed. But lo and behold! Jadoo's next mail was a wonder. About donating a large sum of money to a Nigerian family in need of support. The girl was overwhelmed. She also went on to win a 50000GBP award from Pepsi, forward a pic to 12 people so she did not die immediately, and when she had won over Jadoo with her commitment to his emails, upload pictures on request.
I : Sounds creepy
C : When she asked to meet him, the mails stopped abruptly and broke her heart. And then one day, she saw him in the forest.
I : How did she know what he looked like?
C : Profile pic. And I can't describe what happened then. Cut to 2 months later. The girl finds her emails in the media. She is hurt. Society was shaming her for her comp's security vulnerabilities. As a feminist icon and the sole inspiration to millions of...er...other girls in forests all over the world, the girl stood up for her rights
I : The forest girl was a feminist icon?
C : Yes. As they say, adversity always brings out the icon-ness of people. Heartbroken but still a picture of dignity and courage, the girl started speaking up for herself, and for women across the globe. Society tried to suppress the truth but she would have none of it, she suppressed it herself. Society labelled her but she changed the labels. From the filth of secrets, she emerged pure and iconic and feministic.
I : Are we done here?
C : And yet, somewhere deep inside her, is a lost little girl from the hills...
I : Forest
C : ...who believes in love, though in a more courageous, exemplary and feministic kinda way. Maybe she is naive, but her naivete also has a certain iconicness to it. If there's one thing the girl learnt from the whole thing, it was...
I : spam filters
C : ...to be her own person. Because other persons were clearly not helping.
I : This has been wonderful, am sure 2 or 3 women reading this will still find a way to be inspired.