Shunya's Notes

The Boxer on the Flight

Amitava Kumar relates a simultaneously amusing and sad encounter that took place on a flight to India: 

The India boxer was returning from the London Olympics. He was standing in the aisle of the plane I was on, coming from London to Delhi, and he was going to sit next to me. He had an attractive face, vaguely slanting eyes, and a moustache over pouty lips. The person who was with him was wearing an India blazer with an Olympic logo — I thought he was a wrestler whose picture I had seen in the newspapers. I was wrong, he was only the coach. The boxer had a slightly swollen eye, not dark enough to qualify as a black eye. When he sat down next to me, the boxer asked the flight attendant if he could be moved to business class. On the way to London, he told her, the captain had “adjusted” them. I thought it good to inform the attendant that the man had represented India in the Olympics. She asked, in a good natured way, “Oh yeah! How was London for you?” He shrugged and then said, “Thank you for seating me next to a pretty girl.”

He didn’t mean me, of course. It was a young German woman on the other side, who had a seat next to the window.

Ecce Homo of Zaragoza

Ecce Homo, a fresco painting on a wall of a Roman Catholic church in Zaragoza, Spain, is in the news lately. It is being called "the worst art restoration projects of all time", done by an elderly woman of the flock (the "restored" version is on the right). I have to disagree though! I mean, think about what Ecce Homo means. It means "behold the man". Had you visited the church, you would have walked right past the peeling fresco of Jesus. The "restored" version however captures your attention; you behold the man indeed, even if it is accompanied by a shaking of the head and the thought, "What happened?! How can someone screw it up so badly?" The bottom line though is that she was super successful in making the painting live up to its name. We are compelled to behold the man!

The "restored" image also prompted this thought for me: what if Jesus did actually look like that? Would anyone have listened to him? :)

The "Busy" Trap

Here is a perceptive essay by Tim Kreider on an aspect of modern life and work: being "busy".

If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “So busy.” “Crazy busy.” It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.”

Notice it isn’t generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the I.C.U. or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs  who tell you how busy they are; what those people are is not busy but tired. Exhausted. Dead on their feet. It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence.

Read more.

"Like this only India will progress"

Satire may well be the best way of dealing with this latest absurdity in a culture obsessed with fair skin. This piece by Suchi Govindarajan in Himal is brilliantly funny!

I am very much connected to Internetworks these days. My friends are sending me every day new new links, and I am expanding my world too much. But yesterday one shocking video I saw. One married girl is thinking about those shame-shame areas of her body, that too while having coffee with her husband! Some animation is coming when she is bathing, showing all brown parts shining and becoming like snow-white, and then she is gallivanting like anything with the husband wearing chaddis. I was shocked. But my friend Kiccha is saying, "So what, there are so many fairness creams these days, and that too for different-different parts of your body: underarms, ears, elbows, teeth, brain, etc."

See, I am very much in favour of fairness and just society. Fairness is very much important even to break caste, creed and religion. You are knowing Ramaswamy's daughter? She went off and married American Christian boy. Aiyyo, it was big scandal, and parents completely cut her off. They didn't even say that she is married. But within one year, the couple were blessed with fair-skinned issue. Seeing such a white baby (blue eyes also), their hearts and all melted. Now they are even wheeling the baby in a pram on famous Besantnagar beach in Madras. All are envying them now. This is the real power of fairness.

But why you want to marry Americans? You can even solve this problem with age-old wisdom! If pregnant ladies are taking saffron with milk, it will be reducing melanin production in the baby and it will come out like a ball of maida flour. This saffron science is all proven and published on email. If you want, I can forward.

More here.

Tyler Cowen on Stories

In this amusing TED talk, Tyler Cowen explores how stories work in our lives—how we receive them, how we tell them to ourselves and to others, and what we should be wary of—even as he is conscious that what he is talking about is also just a story!

56 Worst Similes

Ok, having revisited the Bhagavad Gita, it's time for some comic relief. Check out these similes:

1. Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.
2. He was as tall as a 6′3″ tree.
3. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
4. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
5. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
6. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
7. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
8. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
9. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
10. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

More here (via 3QD).

Arthur Benjamin's Mathemagic

Many Indians surely remember Shakuntala Devi from their school years, whose books their parents bought in the hope that she would inspire in their progeny a love of mathematics. How often it did so, or had the opposite effect, is hard to say. But there is no doubt that some people are born with a freakish capacity for rapid calculation. For instance, Shakuntala Devi is on record for multiplying in a mere 28 seconds two 13-digit numbers (7,686,369,774,870 x 2,465,099,745,779) picked at random. I can't even enter the two numbers in a spreadsheet that fast! And I say this as an Indian, which, as we all know, means that I am a naturally gifted mathematician.

I came across this video in which another mathemagician, Arthur Benjamin, does a few tricks before a TED audience.

Who is an Asshole?

I recently attended a lecture at Stanford CASBS by philosopher Aaron James in which he ably demonstrated the philosophical method by applying it to the following pressing question: what is it for someone to be an asshole?

James began with a working definition of an asshole, its differences with definitions of other related but distinct personality types (like jerk, bully), exemplars, nature of one's experience with an asshole, some necessary but not sufficient characteristics, cross-cultural and gender specific variations (he proposed that nearly all assholes are men), whether assholes are born or made (if the former, are they responsible for their condition?), their impact on society, how to deal with them, and even whether it is possible to love an asshole. I didn't agree with him on every front but I was impressed with his overall approach to the question.

The talk is hard for me to summarize and the questions from the audience were fascinating. But James is writing a book on the topic, so wait for it! I will provide below only his working definition of an asshole (from a handout) and some of the exemplars he proposed (feel free to add your own exemplars!). The second major bullet is the first bullet broken down into sub-components.

What is it for someone to be an asshole?

• A person counts as an asshole when, and only when, he systematically allows himself to enjoy special advantages in interpersonal relations, out of an entrenched sense of entitlement which immunizes him against the complaints of other people. 

• In interpersonal or cooperative relations, the asshole:

• allows himself to enjoy special advantages, and does so systematically.
• he does this out of an entrenched sense of entitlement; and
• his sense of entitlement immunizes him against the complaints of other people. 

Exemplars: Silvio Berlusconi, Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Stanley McChrystal, Douglas MacArthur, Jerry Falwell, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Pete Rose, Mel Gibson, Ralph Nader, John Edwards, Julian Assange.

Status Anxiety

Last night I saw Status Anxiety, an intelligent and entertaining two-hour British documentary (2004) written by Swiss author Alain de Botton. It looks at our ideas of success and failure, the anxiety we feel over our careers, the envy our peers evoke in us, and why it's harder now to feel calm than ever before. Is success always earned? Is failure? What role does snobbery and envy play in our lives? What is the flip side of equality, individualism, and meritocracy? Where do our goals and ambitions really come from? And finally, how to get beyond all this. It's based on the book by Botton with the same name, Status Anxiety. If you only have time for a condensed TED talk, see it here.

An Arab Bearing Gifts?

Here are two interesting articles about Steve Jobs. The first introduces his biological father who is from Syria, and the circumstances that led his biological parents to put him up for adoption in the U.S. (via 3QD).

Steve Jobs, arguably the most influential CEO in the world, is the biological son of an Arab American who was born in Homs, Syria, and studied [in] Beirut. ... Abdul Fattah “John” Jandali emigrated to the United States in the early 1950s to pursue his university studies. Most media outlets have published little about Jandali, other than to say he was an outstanding professor of political science, that he married his girlfriend (Steve’s mother) and by whom he also had a daughter, and that he slipped from view following his separation from his wife ... The 79-year-old Jandali has deliberately kept his distance from the media [until now].

The second is a view into the mind of the amazing inventor he later became. It comes from an ex-colleague and the former CEO of Apple, John Sculley. Below is a random excerpt:

What makes Steve’s methodology different from everyone else’s is that he always believed the most important decisions you make are not the things you do – but the things that you decide not to do. He’s a minimalist ... The thing that separated Steve Jobs from other people like Bill Gates — Bill was brilliant too — but Bill was never interested in great taste. He was always interested in being able to dominate a market. He would put out whatever he had to put out there to own that space. Steve would never do that. Steve believed in perfection. Steve was willing to take extraordinary chances in trying new product areas but it was always from the vantage point of being a designer. So when I think about different kinds of CEOs — CEOs who are great leaders, CEOs who are great turnaround artists, great deal negotiators, great people motivators — but the great skill that Steve has is he’s a great designer. Everything at Apple can be best understood through the lens of designing.

Also check out his Stanford commencement speech from 2005. And finally, from The Simpsons show, come satirical clips on Steve Mobs of Mapple (below), on thinking differently, and on a Mapple Store.

Marketing the Military

Check out these military recruitment ads from around the world: Russia, Taiwan, Ukraine, Estonia, Japan, Sweden, France, Australia, England, Lebanon, Singpore, and the US. They pack in so many clues to national character and the state of society.

Consider, for instance, the ad below from India, where recruits largely come from the lower middle class — from, say, the 40% of the population beneath the top 20%. In a society riven by class, how does the Indian military market itself? — as a ticket to a higher class, where people follow "the best traditions", strive to "be the best", dress smartly, speak Hinglish, attend garden parties, sail, play golf, ride horses, and frequent swimming pools. Indeed, borrowing a page from Bollywood fantasies, it almost makes the military seem like an exciting vacation package! Be sure to check out the other ads, no less fascinating! (Via Leanne Ogasawara)

The Majestic Plastic Bag

(The Majestic Plastic Bag: A Mockumentary, via The Browser)

Rajiv Nema Learns Chatting

It's time for a comedy break with Rajiv Nema, an actor and comedian originally from Indore, MP, the state I grew up in as well. I've seen him in a couple of Naatak productions in the SF Bay Area. In this video, Nema plays a provincial chap from Indore explaining to his wife the power of the computer, or should I say Kumpootar? Watch it, it's quite hilarious (Hindi comprehension required).

He has many more on his youtube channel but here are six to check out next: a typical conversation in Indore,  Indori GPS,  gift planning, Indore style,  asking for directions in Indore,  a shopping experience in Indore, and Nema goes to the Oscars.

Corporations Are People Too!

Earlier this year, the US Supreme Court pronounced that corporate speech was no different from human speech and so deserved First Amendment protection for free speech. And since political spending, as we all know, is a form of free speech, the government had no business regulating corporate spending in support of political candidates. In effect, "the Supreme Court threw out regulations that prohibited corporations from buying campaign commercials that explicitly advocate the election or defeat of candidates." I am inclined to see this as a fundamentalist interpretation of the constitution, not an allegorical one attuned to the realities of our age. A victory of Word over telos.

Thankfully, we have satire to leaven this stupidity. A corporation called Murray Hill Inc. is taking the logical next step in the evolution of the oldest democracy: it is fighting for the right to run for Congress. Why? Because in legal terms, a corporation is a person too! It can finally bypass the pesky individual politician who is a mere middleman. Watch their campaign ad below and listen to this funny interview on NPR.

Seafaring Hominids?

Archaeology seems to be undergoing an explosion of new finds in the past decade or so. More and more, new information is completely scrambling old assumptions about human evolution and early modern human and hominid culture.

The latest amazing find was written up yesterday in the New York Times:

Early humans, possibly even prehuman ancestors, appear to have been going to sea much longer than anyone had ever suspected.

That is the startling implication of discoveries made the last two summers on the Greek island of Crete. Stone tools found there, archaeologists say, are at least 130,000 years old, which is considered strong evidence for the earliest known seafaring in the Mediterranean and cause for rethinking the maritime capabilities of prehuman cultures.

Crete has been an island for more than five million years, meaning that the toolmakers must have arrived by boat. So this seems to push the history of Mediterranean voyaging back more than 100,000 years, specialists in Stone Age archaeology say. Previous artifact discoveries had shown people reaching Cyprus, a few other Greek islands and possibly Sardinia no earlier than 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.

The oldest established early marine travel anywhere was the sea-crossing migration of anatomically modern Homo sapiens to Australia, beginning about 60,000 years ago. There is also a suggestive trickle of evidence, notably the skeletons and artifacts on the Indonesian island of Flores, of more ancient hominids making their way by water to new habitats.

This is part of what I love about archaeology: Just when you think you've got it all figured out, new evidence comes to light, which overturns our ideas, and deepens them too. Whether or not it turns out to be the case that Neanderthals were ancient mariners, I, for one, have a strong suspicion that we substantially underestimate what our ancestors were capable of and just what was going on 50K, 100K, or 200K years ago. After all, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Econ 101 Rap

John Maynard Keynes and F.A. Hayek explain the markets, yo!

The Hubris of Humble Oil

In 1962, Humble Oil and Refining Co., which later merged with Standard Oil to become Exxon, ran the following ad in Life Magazine:

EACH DAY HUMBLE SUPPLIES ENOUGH ENERGY TO MELT 7 MILLION TONS OF GLACIER!

The giant glacier has remained unmelted for centuries. Yet the petroleum energy Humble supplies—if converted into heat—could melt it at the rate of 80 tons each second. To meet the nation's growing energy needs for energy, Humble has applied science to nature's resources to become America's Leading Energy Company. Working wonders with oil through research Humble provides energy in many forms—to help heat our homes, power our transportation, and to furnish industry with a great variety of versatile chemicals. Stop at a Humble station for new Enco Extra gasoline, and see why the "Happy Motoring" Sign is the World's First Choice!

ExxonMobil today produces about 3% of the global oil; in case you are wondering how many tons of glacier ExxonMobil can potentially melt today, the numbers are 79 million tons each day and 914 tons per second (source). Enjoy while such boasts make sense.

Friday Cartoons

Shilling for Apples

Friday Cartoons

    

Alan de Botton on Success

Here is a breezy talk in which Alain de Botton looks at our ideas of success and failure, the anxiety we feel over our careers, why it's harder now to feel calm than ever before. Is success always earned? Is failure? What role does snobbery and envy play in our lives? What is the flip side of equality, individualism, and meritocracy? Where do our goals and ambitions really come from? And more (via 3QD).

Where the Hell in KGP?

As many readers of this blog know, I went to the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur (IIT, KGP) in West Bengal. Years later I visited my alma mater again and wrote about it here. Guess what I found today? Those familiar with Matt Harding's heartwarming dance videos from around the world (Where the Hell is Matt?) will likely relate to what it has inspired the students of IIT KGP to do. (via Pran)

The soundtrack is the same as in Matt's video — a Bengali poem written by Tagore (Praan, or "Stream of Life") and turned into song by composer Garry Schyman and Bangladeshi-American Palbasha Siddique.

The Modern Stop Sign

Imagine the STOP sign didn't exist and a major corporation tried to create one today. Here is what the creative process might look like:

http://view.break.com/542649 - Watch more free videos

On Corporate Art

Corporations are like wild beasts. Both are driven by blind, unthinking appetites. The only authentic instinct of a corporation is to sustain itself; its drive and creativity have one objective: shareholder return. All its talk about serving the community, building dreams, and saving lives is propaganda for its employees and customers. That said, corporations can be downright amusing, especially when they collide with the world of art. I've identified three kinds of art that corporations display in their offices and which never fail to amuse me:

(1) Abstract art: This is all the brain-dead stuff that cannot possibly offend anyone, such as bright geometric patterns, twisted metal, funky designs, etc.

( 2) Faux Rebel art: Former anti-establishment art—long defanged, decontextualized, made chic—is now the art of the "edgy" establishment. For example, a large woodcarving of Ché Guevara’s shaggy face in the board room (yes, I saw one in downtown San Francisco); a copy of a Diego Rivera mural in the lobby, etc.

(3) Motivational art: the most common kind, with framed posters of, say, a lone bald eagle in flight, muscular rowers in a longboat, lean people scaling mountain peaks. "Inspirational" words appear beneath: only those who see the invisible can do the impossible; true leaders don’t strive to be first but are the first to strive; dream more than others think is practical, expect more than others think is possible.

At last, a fitting response to (3) has emerged with Despair, Inc., a company built on selling demotivating art!

"AT DESPAIR, INC., we believe motivational products create unrealistic expectations, raising hopes only to dash them. That's why we created our soul-crushingly depressing Demotivators® designs, so you can skip the delusions that motivational products induce and head straight for the disappointments that follow!"

Check out some of their framed posters and the messages on them. My favorites include:

- Goals: It's best to avoid standing directly between a competitive jerk and his goals.
- Challenges: I expected times like this - but I never thought they'd be so bad, so long, and so frequent.
- Consulting: If you're not a part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem.
- Defeat: For every winner, there are dozens of losers. Odds are you're one of them.
- Adversity: That which does not kill me postpones the inevitable.
- Apathy: If we don't take care of the customer, maybe they'll stop bugging us.
- Leaders: Leaders are like eagles. We don't have either of them here.
- Mistakes: It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.
- Risks: If you never try anything new, you'll miss out on many of life's great disappointments.
- Teamwork: A few harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction.

Meat Porn

Does it get any more human-headed than this?