When Commonsense was found dead

Dear departed Mr.Commonsense

           An investigation team recently found Mr.Commonsense dead in his apartment, raising speculations about what could have caused this. It has also launched a cascade of incrimination among his acquaintances. We have launched an investigation of our own (given every tom,dick and harry news network channel does so).  Our sources, pathetic and indolent as ever have actually not come up with anything till now so i will conjure up imaginary facts about the case and the ensuing investigation.

      It has been reported that Mr.Commonsense had become increasingly disenchanted by the news networks here in India. When he switched on the television network he would see some pathetic self-titled 'special' shows at 9:30 pm. He couldn't bear the 'voice of India' et al. Even I was on odd terms with the dear departed. There hasn't been much public outrage either regarding the mournful incident as police chief explicates. "People found him very dour and so they were not interested in his skills either". Accusations have been flying around, which includes many folks on the social network platform as well, many of whom you see everyday.
    Fabian .B. Meme, hereby addressed as FB Meme, has also been a prominent suspect for the incident. It is said that his fallacy-ridden, gender biased apocryphal didn't go down well with Mr.Commonsense. However, the fame which FB Meme achieved meant that our dear Commonsense had to sit back and sulk at the prospect of been undone. It should be noted that Commonsense maintained that he had never sought fame, his rough ways meant that people didn't like him much either. He too had spurned most of his acquaintances in his final days. Our intention is to see justice get delivered so that Commonsense can finally prevail. We as a team will be covering the story relentlessly at our leisure.
    

An unassuming manual to a hefty hotel

              You know who is the protagonist, and let the locale remain disclosed. Now, lets see what the my experiential evidence helped me conclude.

1. I have often balked at the idea of ordering a starter for a lunch/dinner. After all, almost everyone leaves half of its nutritional value as it is on the platter.

Take One, get one free

2. A mysterious attribute of the tissue paper box is that when you pull one tissue out another follows closely on its heels. I don't know whether this was intended by its inventor. A more logical explanation is that i am an awful puller.

Are you ready for it?

3. What happens when a pointed force meets a rounded object? Fork vs Pea, Precision vs Tenacity, a duel played in under the roof of any hefty hotel. Table manners permitting, it is one of the most awe inspiring sights at any dinner/lunch table.

4. Lemon hand wash

Earlier, I had ordered something similar to drink

An intriguing concept, it took me a while to finger out whether I had to sup it or use it for washing my hands. Once the quandary is resolved you realize that was not worth it, as you make your way to the cleaning room to wash your hands anyway.

5. And as we are heading our way to the washroom I saw another badge of the civilized world, the ultimate hand dryer. After a warm and breezy interaction you wipe your hands anyway with your handkerchief.

6. The menu order has a direct bearing on your wallet's disorder.

Safe and Clean Diwali

Festival of Lights, not crackers

                  First and foremost I wish a very happy Diwali to all the readers on my behalf. Plus i also hope that this Diwali will be prosperous for everyone. I now move onto my earnest appeal to keep the festival of lights a tad safe and as far as possible pollution free. It is a kind of appeal which is palatable for most of the folks in hospitals and also to blokes who have some aversion to loud noises. I however had a pretty awful experience of it myself.
                    My aversion to brusque noises has had a long history and I remember on Diwali evenings during my childhood that i would simply lie down with my hands warped around my ears to form a watertight fence for any undesirable noise that had lost its way. It was an embarrassing thing to do by the looks of it but i guess it had a message concealed in it somewhere. As an upshot of such reactions, i never really engaged in any form of crackers. That is nothing compared to what happens to some senior folks who are no longer tuned to bask in such a cracker show. Recently there have been incidents where many a makeshift shops have actually caught fire and the cascade of crackers had an inevitable chain reaction. A cracker shop, is usually an invitation to a combustible complex. More so, because of the expedient nature of the shops, rather, their owners, cracker shops don't adhere to safety practices which would be a norm of any similar locale, like a Petrol station et al.
                 This adds to a lose channel of danger waiting to be opened. And then there are the animals, the stray dogs,cats and what not. They are the ones who are found under a two-wheeler or a four-wheeler, usually cowering because of the events around them. PETA's stand is noteworthy few years back and pretty much backs up what i want to express. And not to mention the cracker smoke which would beset the members of all species, animals and humans alike. So my appeal is to relish the Diwali season but at the same time be considerate of others and their comfort zone. Be joyous and don't let the festival not descend into flashes and noises of a fraught note. Diwali is the festival of lights and hopes, long it may continue like that. Be safe, Be happy.

Degree of Intelligence - II

Beethoven didn't know much about gravity..
does it matter?...He was a genius

                  Now we begin with the Part-II and the final installment of this thread. Now, I mentioned that our modern day outlook is scientific, in terms of academics i reckon that it is too scientific. That is where of course, the success of your everyday student should lie, which of course is deemed "accepted".  One thing that i have observed about most great,(okay eccentric) minds is their ability to dwell into the unknown. As sometimes i like to call, 'revel in the ridiculous'. So it would seem appropriate, let me start off with the Creme de la creme in the world of science.
                      There was nothing really which quantified the intelligence quotient of Isaac Newton, at least not until he followed his passion. At his time, he seemed to have unlocked an extra dimension of thought. Physics,Calculus and a dozen and a half more disciplines. Now, Beethoven is no less a genius. Composing the symphony which resonated with the human mind, he did the unthinkable without being about bound by the rigidity of physics or the frigidity of Maths. There are no rules, apart from breaking the one which hold the human expression back. Einstein was the quintessential  scientist, renowned  for thought experiments. What you need to put into perspective is that virtually every eminent artist or composer dwells into thought experiments in the everyday work life. A continuum of trail and error which is by no means is a lesser laboratory.
                      Michael Jackson was voted the 'most foolish American' for 4 year running, well given his hurtling downfall during the 2000s it seemed apt. But, he was a perfectionist of his art. Not a Mozart or a Beethoven, he kept a meticulous mechanism in his songs and albums which went right down to the most trivial tune. More of a manager cum performer. It took a astounding perspective to plot the most successful artist, and yes he was eccentric and later on a doleful figure. That sounds familiar, the fate that seems to come down on most fame struck folks. The crux of my argument lies in the simple conclusion that intelligence is more than science and physics. Art is also science, an unbounded science. You explore without any real rules and try to ascertain a conclusion which isn't really there. Creativity is like drawing a line when where you don't know your Point A,B....it needs intelligence, arduous given that you don't have a lab manual to follow.

Degree of Intelligence - I

Don't get it?...don't worry you can still be deemed intelligent

            I have often thought that the appellation of 'genius' has been stored for the folks which belong to the scientific field. Well, this is what the notion of intelligence states, at least in the conventional manner. But I think that intelligence is a spectrum whose certain shades seem to glimmer more than the others, as they are closer to you. However, doesn't mean that rest of the bands lack lustre of any sort. So, that brings me to the topic under consideration. Are you intelligent? How good is your IQ? Is the IQ itself flawed? I may be the right person to answer these question, at least my IQ doesn't suggest so.
           So where can I begin, lets pick up from the last paragraph. I am asking a question about IQ (if you find it absurd enough then you can blame me for the same thing). I have seen IQ tests trying to gauge your analytic and mathematical skills,  but never seen one where you have to write a poetry or come up or paint a canvas of imagination. Can an IQ test actually do this? After all these entities cannot be quantified. It leaves that X-factor of the human mind and tries to mould solid statistics to draw conclusions. Perfectly right in its regard, but i guess that leaves a lot to imagination(pun intended). Now, I do think that there is merit in the number under consideration. You can analyze and calculate faster than others, that is impressive. Emotional intelligence of course, is more about your poise and soundness of mind.
          I do have a half-decent IQ,around 128, in case you were thinking about sour grapes. What really got me writing this post was the perception of the word 'genius'. You, apparently could do or think about something which a good number of others couldn't. That, seems to be the prevailing thought. But i reckon that there has been a kind of bias in the recognition,rather reception, of intelligence through the ages. And nope, i don't mean the dark ages, but our own modern age. Our modern age is scientific, How scientific? we will discuss that later. The preceding paragraph was the kind of preview which I wanted to give, later I give some illustrations about how the all time genius may not necessarily be the same person that you and I know. This was the part-I in this two part series, kind of curtain raiser. In part-II we will see why exploring the unknown should needs to be put into context of a person't true potential.
         
           

Oddities : Women in Men's shaving ads and much more

Thin end of the razor/wedge, as we dwell into female objectification

             A bloke cleans his chin clean and in the very next instant, a seemingly attractive lady walks up to caress the cheek of the person in consideration. None of the aforementioned things have happened to me, well not yet. So i wrote this piece as i was puzzled about the popular adverts of men's shaving razors. Its no secret that women feature far more in adverts than men.
              It doesn't come as a surprise that men don't feature in adverts of female cosmetics, so i find it quite unusual when it happens the other way around. So, why does it happen? I guess it is the way the popular television works. But it doesn't end there, if you tune into many of the perfume commercials it is more of the same and even in the liquor ads. As if the makers of the product want to overtly state that their products entail female affection. Even if there is no need to slot in any character, leave alone the gender, there seems to be some feminine presence. And then comes the holy grail of all that and more, Bollywood, the movie industry of India.
             A few days back i  read an article which made an astute observation on Bollywood movies. I swear i have forgotten the source of it so apologies for that. What the crux of it was that if you pore over the background characters in any Bollywood movie, whether home shot or away, you will notice that most of the people are women and only women who would deemed "attractive". You never notice the everyday women in any of the movie backgrounds. I guess this explains where it all emanates from, but i guess it tells us more about the audience and the viewers as well.
           So i thought is there any change coming or is it possible to change anything? Well, I didn't want to broach this subject actually. As we know, judgement come down to 'to each their own' and whats ethical and whats not, after all, it is a question of principle. Plus, the media industry pans out based on the people itself like i mentioned before. Since people don't seek much logic and perspective in their views, the showbiz folks are willing to prescind those lines of thinking. So i guess that things are unlikely to change. Now then, next time i see an advert or a movie passage objectifying women, i will just sulk and thank the laws of evolution in the media industry.

When Kim-Jong-un broke Lioned Messi's Record

          For the uninitiated audiences Lionel Messi's heroics could be a part of history now, as FIFA grapples with the idea that the Argentinian's record may have been eclipsed in the Asian backyard.

Messi's first reaction when the news broke out.

        Our sources have reported that the North Korean great successor Kim Jong-un has broken the Argentinian wizards's record by a fair distance. Playing for the Pyongyang Great Leader's XI the 'dear leader' is claimed to have scored a gawking 142 goals in one calendar year. The team has finished at top of the table with a comfortable cushion of 37 points(it was reported that they got an extra 15 points because Kim-Jong-Un was playing for them). Kim-Jong is also reported to have cleared prevailing inclement weather into a sunny day for many of his team's matches to commence and even officiated in some of the matches and took infallible line-out calls as well even while his head was turned.
          KCNA, the North Korean state owned media center had earlier stated in the week that "Dear Leader had worked very hard for the team and fully deserved his record". So sublime was his form during the season that the goalkeepers were transfixed by his aura as he entered the penalty box.  Further adding to it they claimed that "European imperialism in Football will not be tolerated, let this be a slap for the unchecked imperialist expansion of the United States and Japan". Sources in the country have said that has been the reason for the absence of the dear leader,"He was exhausted after the season" .
        FIFA has taken an official stand over the event, one of their spokesperson seemed to have claimed that "level of competition cannot be established in the North Korean league". Since no official members are in North Korea, FIFA has no way to validate the record. However Pyongyang has responded to FIFA's stand "Most of our players are very fit as their diet is controlled by the democratic republic's manual, which has been a marvellous health-care initiative by the Dear Leader himself". Another intriguing feature was the well known trait of the Kim-Jong family that played a handy part as KCNA further explained "As our dear leaders don't urinate and defaecate, the half-time break gave him an extra 15 minutes to plot the downfall of the opposition defense while the rest of the team was supping health drinks and discharging the same". Plus they added that "Dear Leader's actions cannot be impugned, questioning Kim-Jong-Un's integrity is like questioning Kim-Ii-Sung's integrity". Messi hasn't reacted yet, but  his manager has said that "Its unfair, but he is undaunted by the aura of the dear leader and will work 200% in the training"                                                          
       

Charges filed against Pitbull, A Parody

        Charges have been filed against alleged rapper Pitbull, the gamut of charges that we could get our hands are are as follows:

1. Spoiling his music videos.
2. Spoiling the songs in his music videos.
3. Plummeting viewership of music channels.
4. Plummeting viewership of adult channels as they turn to music channels.
(Disproportion means that music channels are losing more viewers)
5. Wrecking the FIFA world cup opening ceremony.
6. Wrecking Brazil's campaign in the FIFA world cup.
7. Colluding with Justin Bieber to release an album titled, "Just, Bull $h!t"

        CIA man on the case,agent Johnson, who carried out the arrest at a dubious party, gave a statement to the media after going about his task, "He looked like a man resigned to his fate". Brazilian police have welcomed the move and sought extradition of Pitbull, "We wanted on him on trail for the 7-1 debacle. We paid a price for the world cup, our consolation we will to see justice get delivered". The rapper community has also welcomed the move with a view to bring back old school rap. In other news, Justin Bieber has been summoned for interrogation for his youtube views fraud, a case were Pitbull was also summoned earlier in the year.

* All characters appearing in this interview are fictitious, though any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, would be awesome!!! :-)

7 reasons to love The Netherlands

Bit Lurid, but still good? eh?

1. Netherlands is arguably the most liberal country in the world with peripheral rules on many subjects which would be painted as "taboo" in most parts of the world.

2. Windmills! , there are more than 1200 windmills as per wikipedia data. Think of a location where you want a cup of coffee (or you can pick your beverage, don't expect something exquisite of a teetotaler like me). You can always think of it as primitive, but i guess no agrarian sight is complete without one.

3. Over the last century Netherlands has almost doubled in terms of the surface area by reclaiming land from the sea with the virtue of dams and dykes. Remarkable?, given that your country has doubled its size without invading any other country.

4. Welcome the orange brigade! , during any sporting events you get to see the full colour of the Dutch fans, by far the most conspicuous as well. Perfect for any neutral looking to cheer a side.

5. Over the years the Dutch has produced many adept sportsmen and sportswomen, but i guess the non-believer would be convinced by this panoply of Dutch skill .

6. Valerie Van der Graaf.....well, she is only 22 and i'm already a fan....just appreciate, without asking how, what and why....you will always find that to be a truly beautiful moment.

7. Netherlands or Holland...Holland or Netherlands...well, who cares?(I don't), you cant pronounce England as "Nottingham" , you cant pronounce USA as "Florida", but you can pronounce Netherlands as "Holland" and still get away with it, and better, it would still make sense to most the people listening.

Software Engineer Interview - A Parody

Gibberish?....i am afraid not....

Interviewer : Whats worse than finding a bug in the code during development phase?

Interviewee : Finding 2 bugs in the code during development phase.

Interviewer : What??...never mind, which sorting technique is more efficient between selection sort and merge sort.

Interviewee : Hmmm....eh...merge sort??

Interviewer : Can you explain it?...or did you just guess the answer?

Interviewee : Well sir, who am i to comment on God's cycle of seamless coincidences...

Interviewer : So it was guess?

Interviewee : That is open for interpretation.

Interviewer : Tell me the worst case, best case and average case complexities for selection sort.

Interviewee : If i answer that then i may end-up with a closed case....

Interviewer : Its O(n^2) for average case, now tell me the worst case and best case, its simple mathematics.

Interviewee : Mathematics??....sir my math is a bit rusty...haven't used it for 24 years.

Interviewer : Argh.....out of selection sort and insertion sort, Which one will you use for sorting a linked list?...its common sense..

Interviewee : Commonsense?...sir, i don't indulge in such luxuries...

Interviewer : Thank you for your time.

Interviewee : Now where have i heard that before....

* All characters appearing in this interview are fictitious, though any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, would be awesome!!! :-)

ICC suspect actions....never mind the bowling

         I am an old school cricket lover, who can abstain  from 50 or 20 over cricket but never from test cricket. Why would i make such a point at the commencement of this article?...because  i want to make abundantly clear as to which suite of cricketing skills i love watching the most. Now, test cricket does something remarkable, it gives the bowlers the opportunity to act with impunity with respect to wides and the mentality to run-in and make the batsman work for his runs. It addresses the balance between bat and ball more than any other format. In an era where even tail-enders are undaunted and plant the front foot out to smash a quickie for a six.

       I find no whiff of blasphemy in backing Allan Donald's stand where he tried to garner support in legalizing ball-tampering. Given the widening bats, shrinking boundaries, flatter pitches and a plethora of T20 cricket, it seems that the bat has firmly ensconced itself in the driver seat in the suite of cricket. Plus, given the X-factor of the certain mystery bowlers. All spinners by the way, they add the much needed awe element at the other end of the wicket which the game doesn't seem to respect these days. But proscribing them from the game ain't gonna help matters.
      Nurturing and respecting the miscellaneous talent outside the MCC manual will go a long way towards integrating odd, but adept, folks in the hierarchy. The ICC should also try to bridle the batsmen to keep the game in the balance. That will in the interest of the fans and the game, barring ofcourse, if you wish to watch gunslinging batsmen and mudslinging officials.

An attempt to define Gandhi?

    The post's original title was actually 'Who was Gandhi?', being well aware of the answer I realized that it was not the right question. So i though i had found the right title to see if my tailor-made answer does it some justice. So my argument starts with being an Indian, Gandhi was an Indian, you and I acknowledge him as a fellow citizen and by that virtue a father of the nation. But lets go further, what else did Gandhi represent? well, for first he was a lawyer, he wasn't the greatest of all time in that department. He was a powerful person? well, he didn't hold a single official position in the country. So what made him the quintessential peaceful warrior?
    Gandhi, in my opinion at least, was an idea. An idea, which centered on the compassionate shade of the human spirit. Knowing that the person who confronts you is as much a human as you are. A picture is worth a thousand words, Satyagraha hinges on telling the truth, but far more on showing and pointing out the truth. Painting a picture of truth on the canvas of your adversary's heart. Your nonviolence and your obedience to truth is coated with honesty and the intention to bring about a change of heart.
    How valid are his ideas today? Oh, its a dynamic world isn't it? in a sense, people keep looking for new ways to get rid of each other. If you reckon that Gandhi's ideals are outmoded or outdated then i guess you need to see the time period when those ideals were moulded. It was during one of humanity's darkest chapters, circa 1915 - 1945 when the Gandhian ideals came to life. In a way, the world tore itself apart and also witnessed the emergence of the nonviolent movement.Whenever you follow Gandhi's principles, you also carry a glided page of a turbulent chapter from the book of humanity.