Language and the internet

Language evolves. The pace of the evolution is dependent on the frequency of its use. For much of its history, the written word has followed behind the spoken tongue. Widespread use of words in text was almost always preceeded by the prior understanding of the word by the audience. However, the birth of the printing press was the first step towards a change in this behavior.  As influential works by pioneers spread across the masses, their thoughts and understanding of the world were conveyed through the use of specific terminology which then became their accepted meaning. Terms like "Big brother" from 1984 and "Quixote" from Don Quixote altered the fabric of language as these words were first put in print before seeing widespread use in the the spoken language. Language was now arbitered by the publishers of books, and the spoken language was judged by its proximity to the written word. This forced homogeniety of language, while limiting the natural diversity of language, allowed for rapid collaboration among people with diverse abilities and knowledge and generated rapid growth.


The Internet changes this idea of having a single narrative of language. With the barriers to being a published writer being broken, and every person with a basic computer and the internet being capable of posting online, the written word has returned to being emblematic of the spoken language with one important difference. While earlier, the spread of language was limited by area, due to limited opportunists of travel,  language in the hyper-connected present is limited by specialization. The evolution of specialized jargon which was earlier the mark of a highly technical field has now turned commonplace in every discussion. Nowhere is this more apparent than Reddit, a massive forum with millions of users and diverse discussions in specialised subforums. Going from one subforum to another oftentimes requires learning the jargon used in that subcommunity, even though it would have been possible to communicate the idea in reqular english, the necessity of rapid written communication forces the development of new jargon.

The bitcoin boom a year ago, and the consequent buzz generated caused a rapid increase in the use of the cryptocurrency subreddit and drove the evolution of previously unheard of jargon in under an year. Anybody who uses wishes to understand any of the discussions on this subreddit now has to spend a while figuring what words like "hodl" means.

 

The evolution of jargon at such a rapid pace, with no single body to assimilate and comprehend the variety of changes is reminiscent of the earlier natural evolution of language, with physical area being replaced by human-made mental separations. This poses the same hindrance to communication that was present before the formation of a single widespread language. A biologist talking to a physicist today would spend several hours describing the jargon of their fields before being able to collaborate on any problem. An electrician having to do the same when talking to an architect would only slow the progress of developing new ideas. While websites like urban dictionary exist to allow us to rapidly lookup the jargon used, it is also necessary for us to prevent the diversification of language to a point where talking to people outside your specialization takes undue use of time.

Biomimetics: A revolution in thinking

For the last few millennia, we humans have thought of our species as being the sole species capable of intelligence, the only species to study the world around us and devising methods of exploiting physics to achieve our end goals. We always assumed that being the most successful species, there was nothing we could learn from the natural world, that all we could do was to be the benevolent caretaker of the lesser species in the wild.
While older religions revered the natural world and considered themselves a part of the natural order. Animals and other life was considered to be at least as sacred as human life, and feared for the horrors nature could inflict on the unprepared populace. However, most religions which originated in the last few millennia placed humans front and center, as being the sole beings on whom the weight of the world is placed, either as beings made in the image of god, or as the only beings with a soul and a divine right to rule. This was reflected in the gross overuse of natural resources and the mistreatment and abuse of animals for human gain. Human superiority over other life was taken for granted and science was focused on the study of the abstract, the knowledge of the functioning of the universe, and the self. Natural forces were tamed and electricity was used to empower civilization before the gaze turned once again at the natural world. The study of animals was limited to finding better ways of exploiting them.

However, over the last few decades, there has been a remarkable transition in our approach to studying animals, and science in general. New ideas are being developed, not based on the abstract thoughts of man, but by observing animals and insects in nature. Scientists see things in nature that they wouldn't imagine possible in their wildest dreams, and try mimicking this behavior only to discover a previously unknown niche in the laws they thought they'd already fully understood. Animals are no longer studied just to better methods of exploiting them but to better understand them and how amazing they are at using physics, and how numerous are the forms of intelligence that can exist in the natural world.

The Beginning: Again

It's been a few years now since I moved to a new country, and the bookmark of this blog on my homepage is a constant reminder that I've barely written anything in the last two year. I started writing this blog as a means to help me clarify and critique my thoughts and opinions on my experiences and on ideas that i come across.

However, the last two years have left me gasping for breath as a whirlwind of events have left me in a country a few thousands of kilometers from my own, pursuing a PhD in an environment at once strange and familiar. Never more have i needed this outlet and never before have i had less time for it.

However, in the quest of finding a semblance of order in my thinking, i shall pen down my thoughts, however arbitrary and wayward they are for the next few weeks.

With that said, i look at my fellow bloggers and applaud their dedication and ability to keep writing, through thick and thin, through times that require them to stay up nights to write, through writer's blocks that make them  feel like bidding adieu to it all and cozying up with a book. Keep at it folks! You're an inspiration to the rest of us.

In times of change

Every weekend, I go on a hike.
I hike up a hill to watch the leaves falling, listen to the birds singing, or simply to stare at the trees swaying in the wind.
I hike to a waterfall and stare at the water gushing through the rocks and crevices and feel the mist kissing my face.
I hike to the middle of nowhere and stare at the vast skies and feel the gentle breeze.

But why?

Encoded Information

bzyjdpsebjz vjfna hsfow jzfr kvwz be usz xw dwsn


Information exists and is transmitted in many forms. Oral and written languages, developed over eons in various pockets of the world are how humanity has communicated information for a vast majority of its history. Recently, with the development of technology and the internet, a new method of communication has been developed in the form of 1's and 0's, a new language capable of being transmitted and read easily by a device that can differentiate between 2 states, but a language nonetheless easily convertible from the archaic languages.

However, over the last few years, a new treasure trove of information has been found, one that describes the functioning of all life on earth, but cannot be translated into the prior kinds of information. The discovery that DNA stores and transmits information was a revolution in our understanding of the world, not just because of all the secrets unravelled about the functioning of life, but also because it proved the existence of information encoded in the world around us.

Questionable Science

Science is the new religion

Over the course of the last few decades, increasing awareness of the advances science has made in explaining the laws of the world has resulted in a mass migration of people away from religions towards a more 'scientific' understanding of the world around them. However, how much of what is commonly portrayed as science is truly in the spirit of science?

The vast majority of the public never reads published papers. The source of science for them, then, is second hand sources available through media outlets, websites and social networks which alter the original content by extrapolating, exaggerating or otherwise manipulating it to make it more appealing and/or fit their own narrative. The end result is a mere shadow of the original - popular science. The spirit of science lies in the questioning of everything, and not accepting the words of another unless proven. Does this unidirectional injection of 'scientific facts' into the public awareness constitute true science? How is science whose very basis is hidden behind insurmountable paywalls for the populace any different than a religion whose faith is beyond reproach?

The 1955 paper of Keys on the relationship between cholesterol intake and heart health was a cornerstone of heart health for the last 50 years after being blown up the then media and has been accepted as fact by the public. However,  this was a preliminary study and no further study has shown more than a correlation and the correlation has recently been completely negated with recent reports claiming no evidence of any link between the two. However, with the media not showing any interest in these results, this new nugget of science has yet to reach the populace. When media act as the gatekeepers of science who decide which facts reach the public, does it still count as science?

Science is driven by grants given the governments or private parties for 'exciting' research. What counts as exciting is determined by whether the research yields immediate, palpable results and whether the research appeals to the public. Pure science research, long term research and research which explores new avenues with unknown potential take second seat to research with immediate application. The greatest potential of science is in developing a better understanding the world which as a side effect, would allow for the development of new technologies. Focusing on science which delivers immediate results is short sighted and will only prove to be a detriment in the long term.
The entirety of the electronics industry is founded on a prior and gradual understanding of electrons and electric circuits over the course of more than 200 years.
A crucial part of science is the verification of old results, to prevent biased results which force a narrative. This kind of research also does not yield palpable results but increases the credibility of science as whole and is a necessary component of the scientific method. However, this again takes a backseat to research in the 'next big thing' as that is the only kind of research that is funded. Unless all kinds of research are funded, including verification of old papers, and pure science research,  we will run around in circles trying to find new applications within known areas of science instead of exploring outwards into new horizons. Giving control of the direction of research to agencies outside the scientific establishment promotes popular science, and not science.

Much has been written about issues with the publishing industry, and I would suggest a quick google search in this regard. Suffice to say that this industry is sorely in need of a complete reform as the paywalls of this establishment have grown beyond the reach of the richest universities in the world. The world's worst restaurant needs to be shut down!

However, even published papers do not always reveal the data that was used to draw conclusions. How does one question the results of the paper unless the data used to draw the conclusions is available? An influential economics paper in 2010 (http://www.nber.org/papers/w15639) which found a correlation between median growth rate and public debt was later found to have a flaw in the excel formula used in the calculations and the corrected result was a far lower degree of correlation between the two. This however, was only found after a paper in 2013 was published by Herndon et al questioning the results of the 2010 paper. This questioning of prior papers is an essential part of science, and cannot be efficiently done unless all data is shared, as re-collecting the same data to verify papers adds a degree of redundancy. The sharing of data might have been an issue in the past when it was infeasible to exchange large volumes of data over large distances, but, given the rise of the internet, is it not time to bring science into the modern age and open up all science to better questioning?

The crux of the issue of opening up science to the masses, is that science is not just a set of facts describing how the world works, but the ability to question everything we read. Unless the science we read is open to questioning, all we do is replace one set of beliefs with another. The rise of the popularity of science is just a myth. It is the birth of a new religion of popular science with the media acting as the new priests who hear the voice of god.

Limited by thought

The freedom to make our own decisions has been argued for by kids across the world. The freedom to voice our opinions is being fought for every day on the streets. Are we, however, free to think?

Several popular theories about how our brain works liken it to a chaotic computing system with our various senses providing inputs to the system. Our thinking is a cascade of neurological operations not unlike the working of a computer; our consciousness, a result of the chaos of a system with an excessively large number of extremely variable analog inputs. We learn through repeated reinforcement of a stimulus, and things we don't constantly experience are slowly forgotten. Using this understanding of our brain, rudimentary neural networks have been developed that are capable of path finding, pattern recognition and even defeating humans at games like chess and go.

However, with the success of this model to describe the functioning of the brain, it is worth questioning whether an AI would be able to uncover restrictions placed on its ability to process information.

Asimov in his various books describes robots that are limited by the 3 laws of robotics to not hurt humans, but they are made explicitly aware of these limitations. However, if the robots were unaware of the limitation and the limiting circuit was programmed to be avoided, each time the robot attempted to hurt a human, the limiting circuit would kick in to prevent the action and over time, build up an aversion to the action even before initiating the limiting circuit. As this new pathway circumvents the limiting circuit itself, a robot that is designed to learn efficiently doesn't use the limiting circuit enough to discover its existence unless externally forced to.

Using this as an analogy for human behavior, societal constructs which limit our thinking accumulate over time and across generations. Our unshakable belief in our personal worldview rests on our inability to overcome these generational limitations. Our belief in democracy, religion, the concept of nation states and ownership, and the value of paper currency are all belief's we share to allow the functioning of a civilization with 7 billion people.

Furthermore, in the analogy of the robot, if the limiting circuit is essential to the regular functioning of the robot, the development of the neural network occurs through the regular use of the circumventing pathway. If the limitation is to be overcome, the entire neural networks would need to be reworked, which would alter the functioning of the system. If a human whose core belief is questioned, would it even be possible for such a dramatic change in functioning on a physiological level? Is it possible that we fundamentally have no ability to alter our perceptions even in the face of irrefutable facts if they have been established well enough?

Given the dramatic change in global climate, and the necessity for rapid adaptation of the human race, and of our thinking, it is necessary to use our increasing understanding of the human brain to better understand what we, as a race are and aren't capable of.

Does this count as a Poem? #1

The Fall

Amidst a thousand trees
On one among a hundred boughs
Hidden within a score of leaves
A withered old leaf took leave

Plunged down to the depths
Of the world unknown
As the other leaves looked on
In sadness and fear

Found itself in the warm embrace
Of a priceless book
While a young girl exclaimed
"Look mom, the first leaf of fall!"

Wanderlust 101

"Where all have you been to?"

A question that we ask or have been asked almost every time we meet a stranger. It makes for some interesting conversations, as everybody has a story to tell of the one time they were nearly lost or the one time they nearly drowned. But, this question necessitates a fundamental assumption, that we need to travel to have stories to share.

To travel to remote hinterlands is to explore nature at its finest is what a friend of mine says. The untouched scenic beauty of a place that humans have yet to get their hands on appeals to the mind of every traveller The stories a place reveals to a chosen few people captures our imagination unlike an unremarkable walk down a narrow alleyway in a city. A walk down a narrow alleyway is normal, its run-of-the-mill, unimpressive but the story of how it was built? That is not. Mankind is as much a part of nature as a tree, and our cities are little more than oversized anthills and yet while we are fascinated by a bird building a nest, we find our human nests no more interesting than a leaf on the ground.

A walk down a road in the city is a tale worth telling as every person and every building we see has a story to tell, if we only take the time to seek them out. The person sitting beside us at the bus stop brooding over something, could very well have a story that moves our hearts. To seek out travelling as the only way to reconnect with nature is a modern day construct. A solitary walk through the markets at night or a bus ride with no destination are just as provoking as a trek through the mountains. Hours spent hypnotized by traffic movement at an intersection is no different from the time spent staring at the waves.  The stories of people who have spent years in making a place their home are interesting everywhere.
The culture of a place is several layers deep, and while travelling lets you explore several cultures, we need time to dig deep and peel off the superficial layers and see what hides underneath. 4 years spent staying in a 300 sq. yard campus, it still catches me off guard at how the place can still throw me a curve ball every now and then.

While I don't deny that travelling is an amazing experience, and everyone should take the time out to travel whenever they possibly can, it is just as necessary to steep yourself in the culture of a single place,even if it is at the heart of a city. At times when you don't have the means to travel, stories can rise from the very ground you stand on, all it takes is a walk through the narrow alleyways.

Reality Rift

A few days ago, when I was caught up in a game of Dota, my friend who had just come back from work asked me an intriguing question which heralded a long discussion and a chain of logic which I am yet to complete contemplating.

“If you were to be forced into a virtual reality that is indistinguishable from reality, and you know that the world you exist in is not real, how would it affect your actions theron?” Provided that the only link between the real and virtual world exists in only two actions

- You need to eat in the virtual world to survive in the real world

- A death in the virtual world is a death in the real world and is the only escape from the world

As we discussed we came up with a few sub cases and have been asking around among people for as many differing viewpoints as possible on this. You are welcome to respond in the comments. And yes, we do realize that the person taking the trouble to do this might as well be doing you a favor or could send you to a uniquely different world, but the assumption here being that the world he is sending you to is in the exact same condition, ie the same global warming threats, oil scarcity and risk of economic collapse as in real life. In order to further refine the question, we came up with a few minor variations.

World 1: The other people in the world are Artificial intelligence but respond exactly the same as humans in the real world.

A very large number of people noted that as their actions would not impact the real world anymore, their actions would necessarily be more self-inclined and would ignore their impact on the virtual-populace. A pleasure seeking life was the natural course, a life of seclusion, book reading and travelling.  One person in particular mentioned that if he ever got tired of a life of pleasure, he wouldn’t hesitate to end it.

While I agree that I would personally like to do the same if I were in the situation, further thinking resulted in a surprisingly different result. If you consider every reaction as being a result of the perceptions and emotions experienced by people, they are no different from AI, and what your senses perceive is your reality, consequently, the life you seek now is the life you would choose in the virtual world. The viewpoint can be further substantiated by referring to the ability of the mind to forcefully forget traumatic events to prevent insanity. Thus, the mind would assume as a dream/forget the moment where the person enters virtual reality to save the person from an existential crisis where his life would be perceived as meaningless and risk insanity. The point being that while a calm, logical mind might look at the pleasure seeking life as alluring, an emotional being like a man seeks meaning in his actions in terms of their impact on the lives of others. A life where his actions are equivalent to those of Mario squashing turtles would drive people crazy. It is with this presumption that I would like to present the idea that the mind would protect itself by forgetting the event and assume the world to be real such that the initial knowledge of it being unreal would itself fade. The simulator syndrome is an example of a similar happening in real life where a pilot who repeatedly teaches trainee pilots gets used to the ability to control the amount of fuel etc available in flight and behaves similarly in real flight. This was thought to be one of the reasons for the tragic crash of United Airlines Flight 173.  As a result of this train of thought, I believe that the response of people will mirror the response of a person who dreamt that they were sent into a virtual world, ie literally none.

Impromptu #6: Robotics

Yesterday, i found myself reading an old collection of stories by Asimov after a gap of nearly two years and what caught me by surprise was how close we are to the ones mentioned in the stories. We haven't yet achieved, now probably ever will achieve the capability to program all the actions needed for a robot to understand and react to a world as chaotic as ours but in the serene environment of laboratories, we have developed robots capable of most basic human functions from running faster to understanding pictures better.



Several laboratories across the world compete on a regular basis to develop the best algorithm to understand pictures and group massive numbers of them based on inputs from humans. What is most intriguing though, is that these codes aren't written in the Start -A-B-C-Finish fashion that we assume code to be. These codes learn from their interaction with the user and improve on their next iteration. This means that the longer such programs are used, the better they get and fewer user inputs are necessary.



Such codes arent limited to image search algorithms. Similar codes are applied to social networking sites like facebook to show you links to sites you would be most interested in and this is the scaries t bit. Eli Pariser does a brilliant job explaining why.

http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles?language=en

The crux being that you are no longer exposed to a balanced view on the subject as you would expect from a 'free' internet, instead algorithms such as these will present skewed results that match your opinion creating a blanket of un-debated opinions on issues which really matter.



We have reached a point where we are incredibly dependent on Robots, or rather AI and for those of you who disagree, think of the last time you used a dumb device for some productive work.

The world Asimov dreamt of is here and  scarier than the worst he thought of. Robots no longer need to harm humans or human society to rule the world. All that is needed for it to be the big brother. If any of you have heard the news, countries across the world are reacting to terrorist strikes by increasing surveillance and how do you monitor a few million cameras? AI. The amount of digital data being generated is several TB/s or more and the information in there is capable of generating unique, near perfect images of people across the world, even people who don't use the internet much. What is worse is that organizations across the world understand this. Sony hack anyone?

All we need to spice things up and bring on judgement day is for a government to introduce a new AI that can make sense of all the big data out there to protect all of us from terror and watch over us. 

As much as i want to end this here, i would like to add this. The only way to prevent total surveillance in the name of security is if we can stand up for ourselves. To demand the freedom that we have the right to. To be able to express all that we want when we want to without the threat of getting killed or getting jailed. AI is incredibly powerful tool, both for the common man and for those who want to control the common man. Don't let its use for the second reason overshadow the first.

Impromptu #5: Movie madness

Its 5 hours before new year's and there is a party being organized to heralding the beginning of a new era. The function is being organized by the children in the society and this being my first time here, i didn't know what to expect.

Half an hour into the program, there was a dance by a group of 4 year old boys followed by one with similarly aged girls.  Being an attempt to impress and astound the audience, the songs were remixes of popular bollywood songs which would have been incredible if it hadn't been for the fact that a majority of the songs were filled with lewd innuendos and  gross sexual overtones. The reason the parents brush it off lightly is that the children don't know what the song means and consequently no harm can come off of it. But, what they fail to realize is that the harm might not be visible immediately but the children do grow up and they do learn what the song means, rather quickly at that and when they do, they assume the cheers during the performance were specifically due to the song. Encouraging performances that demean and objectify women, especially at the age when children are just beginning to understand the world makes them believe that 'that' is exactly how women are to be treated. These songs often encourage the persistence of a boy to chase after a girl irrespective of her opinion and  finally getting his way. Several others show women as the frailer being who needs to be protected and cant survive alone, all of them being nonsensical, even dangerous ideas to encourage.

While  correlation and causation are different, the recent rise in incidents against women, be it just rising coverage or a true rise in number 'might' be because of the increased exposure to populist ideas propounding male overlordism. Hardly any movies in English, Telugu or Hindi ( as these are the only two regional languages i know of ) ever possess a female lead who does something beyond staring at the male protagonist and  exclaiming at their impossible prowess, unrealistic and unattainable.  Yes, there are exceptions, one movie or so in a year, but they are far outnumbered by the 100 other popular movies expounding the idea of male superiority and advertising an impossible image for both the male and female characters.

Yes, movies are meant to have stories with ideal characters, but doesn't that extend beyond the exterior?
Movies with women who are as beautiful as a swan but cant walk ten feet without falling over is NOT ideal, women who cant support themselves is NOT ideal. Men who stalk women and repeatedly confess their love hoping she will accept is NOT ideal, Men built like a tank who are willing to fight ( and hurt) an army of people to prove his love to a girl who does not want him is NOT ideal.The ide that the girl will always fall for the boy is NOT ideal.

It isn't that i hate all movies, nor is it that i dislike the romantic story line so prevalent in movies. What i do despise is that what most movies seem to do, is build an impossible, dangerous image of a character that in the real world would be thrown in a psychiatric ward and call him ideal. This is especially problematic when the songs from these movies which aren't meant to be their selling point turn into just that is encouraged by society. Especially when you see kids, 3-4 years old dancing to these tunes not just in functions but at eateries with the parents and nearby customers encouraging them on.





I despise this but i despise censorship more, so this post is definitely not a call for that. What does need to happen however, is movies should evaluate not what the society wants but what it needs and portray characters who fill that role. A few recent ones come to mind but they still fill a niche category and till they become mainstream and songs go back to being less about innuendos and more about the melody, new year's shall be just another gross continuation of a society caught in a spiral leading to world where everyone feels inadequate and dreams of gender equality are just that.

Impormptu #4 Ephemerality

When was the last time you were happy? 

When was the last time you were sad?

When was the last time you were satisfied with your share of life?

The last time you felt how unfair the world is?

Our thoughts, our feelings are but gusts of wind borne off of our experiences . Raining one minute, sunny the next. In the course of this roller coaster ride, we hope, nay, we believe that our memories are powerful enough to remember all these details of the why and when of when we are happy but how truthful are our memories?

All it takes is a 6 hour ride in a bus from Delhi to a remote village to forget all the good times you've had at home and to start cursing your luck. All it takes is five minutes of talking with an old friend to relive you of the horrors of the bus ride, before the news of an exam takes you back into your dive. 

Its times like that when you truly appreciate our ability to write, to capture in words those ephemeral feelings that we experience at the time. Feelings of joy, of despair, of longing or anger, it all comes pouring out forever plastered on paper for all the world to see. It isn't for the permanence of its existence, of  its survival after our death, of talking to our successors or of leaving behind a memorial that we write, it is for us to relive our own memories, to remember. 

The computer has made life easier for us who hate using a pen, letting us instead write on a screen where our woe begotten handwriting is forgotten but our feelings live on and our writings only as permanent as we see fit. It has made a writer of us all and is a call for us all to begin in earnest the task of holding on to our ephemeral thoughts since A memory is what you make of it. Something as simple as going to play football with your group of friends could become a memory that you cherish for the rest of our life. To remember the feeling, to jog your memory of not just the good times, but also of the bad, to feel the nostalgia welling up in you is why we write. 

To all ye folks who are yet to pick up a pen, pick up a keyboard instead and start writing, for memories may fade and feelings forgotten, but the written word stays on.

Animania

Anime are the next best thing to books, Paths into the minds of the creator and of ourselves. Their spread of topics is as diverse and  delivery makes much more  of an impact, albeit more limited in depth. This post is along the lines of the book bucket challenge spreading across the social networks and is my attempt to distill a few anime that impacted me the most from the several that i have so far seen.

I have been an avid anime watcher and found myself fascinated by them right from age old ones like Flame of Recca and DBZ to more recent ones like Mirai Nikki and what sets them apart for me, is the freedom which the animator has compared to regular movies. There are no limitations in what can happen in an anime unlike in the case of movies which can at best, showcase a mocking attempt at replicating something unnatural.

Case in Point, DragonBall Z (Spoiler Altert), an anime whose craze sent entire generations shouting in joy when Goku went Super Sayian and plunged them into dismay when Vegeta blows himself up in a failed attempt to kill Cell. An attempt to make a movie out of this anime drove the fans into a frenzy at the despicable nature of the result because it is NOT possible to have a realistic representation of the supernatural.

A book definitely has better freedom of expression as thoughts are better explained and elucidated at a pace comfortable to the reader but an anime has its advantage in the entertainment it provides simply because it's an audio-visual platform with an impact quotient that is greater.

To draft a list of anime that has impacted me is to list all the anime that i have ever watched since each once has atleast a subtle impact on me, if not by subject, atleast by delivery. But, to choose, the most impactful, they would be

1. Bakuman



An anime about a pair of students who aim to be established Mangaka ( Manga Writers ) and to release an anime in their name. It appeals to the heart of every Anime Aficionado and writer out there. It describes the state of mind of these budding mangaka through the ups and down of their career, spiced up with a romantic side story and several subplots ( read - manga within a manga - Mangaception ) and delivered in brilliant style. The heart warming story also is a great teacher walking the viewers through the process of manga writing while  also showing a dramatized back story to describe the motivation of the various writers.

I am not smoldering and incompletely combusted like those guys over there. Even if it’s just for a moment, I’m gonna Burn so Bright and so Red, I’ll Dazzle Everyone.
(Bakuman)



I prefer to be a humble dreamer, with visions to be realized, rather than the ruler of people with no dreams or desires.
Mashiro Moritaka (Bakuman)


2. Shinkgeki No Kyojin

A dystopian anime that reminds you both of the joys of freedom we enjoy and the depravity of humans when confronted by danger. A cynical, dark, tale of humanity's last stand against external and internal forces. Combining advanced technology with a semi-rustic setting and extremely realistic character descriptions, this anime has it all.

We’re going to explore the outside world someday, right? Far beyond these walls, there’s flaming water, land made of ice, and fields of sand spread wide. It’s the world my parents wanted to go to.
Armin Arelet (Shingeki no Kyojin)

If you win, you live. If you lose, you die. If you don’t fight, you can’t win!
Eren Yaeger (Shingeki no Kyojin)







3. Hungry Heart

Football. Sibling Rivalry. Passion.

An anime whose protagonist is a simple character with whom any person who has ever had a rival will connect to, more-so someone with a sibling. It drives you to the depths of despair and the heights of euphoria in the span of a few episodes. Watched this way back in 2006 and has been my most nostalgically recollected anime since.

When they call my brother a genius, it's an insult. He was born talented, but they don't know how hard he had to work to be that good.
-Kanou kiasuki, Hungry Heart Wild Striker

An Optimistic Cynic

I don't bother reading the newspaper anymore. It's vast pages are filled with more despair than any other piece of literature ever written. It only serves to further affirm my belief in the degradation of humankind and that surely, we can do no more harm to each other than we do already.

War.Murder.Rape.Armed Assault.Bribery.Fraud.Discrimination.

I don't think of myself as an Anarchist but i see myself losing faith in every institute set up by man as none seem to serve the purpose for which they are made. They serve the purpose of those who are a part of them. None of Democracy, Communism or Dictatorship accomplish the objective of their governance and mostly, for lack of will. The Education System is in a rut with student debt now reaching amounts large enough that they would comfortable feed a small family for a few years while not serving its main purpose of preparing the students for life outside. The economic system is on tenterhooks and is in such a precarious situation that governments across the world are all struggling to stay out of debt. Scientific progress is outstripping moral growth and important questions that should be asked before irreversible changes are made are no longer asked for lack of interest and information. The knowledgeable few hide facts in a stew of jargon making it impossible for a layman to have a fair discussion on topics which will soon be an indispensable part of their routine.

And yet,

And yet,

Despite the dark foreboding brought on by the thought of the failure of every system made by man, there is tiny beam of light that shines through. The light that glows from my regular interaction with my friends. The belief that even if every system fails, man will pull through on grit and that humans, by necessity being a hardy creature, will jugaad his way through problems. I still hold in my heart hte belief, surprisingly, that all hell will pass and that the heart of man is not rotten yet. The belief that  in every Hitler is hidden a soft side.

The amplifier, the agent, through which these feelings surface is different for each person. For me, 

it is through my choice of songs. 

Listening to songs like Iron Sky by Paolo Nutini reminds of all the reasons i believe in humans.

these songs which remind you of the good times; which can pull you through thoughts on the uselessness of human systems by reminding you of the goodness of man; which remind you to not over think and which can force you to action reignite my hope in humankind. No creature that can put a smile on the faces of others can inherently wish to harm the same people.  

Iron Sky - Paolo Nutini
Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes
Imagine - John Lennon
Wind of Change - Scorpion
Right Now - Van Halen
Follow me now - Jason Gleed
You get what you give - New Radicals
Cliffs of Dover - Eric Johnson
Bittersweet Symphony - Verve
Suspended Animation (Album) - John Petrucci


PS - Grooveshark is blocked at my college. Some things are truly beyond hope.
I'll be adding the players for these songs when i get access to it. Thanks for reading!

Signposts

Every once in a while, there are times when life seems to keep flowing and its all you can do to stay adrift. The journey turns into a blur and there is no longer any distinction of time. Its an extremely comfortable thought to believe that you can fold your hands and lie down in the boat and hope that you'll pass through any rough parts and emerge at the other end untouched and as fresh as you were when the journey started and along a path that you wished to reach but that hardly, if ever comes true and would need the luck of gods themselves. For the rest of us common folk, it is a necessity to take up the oars and work our way through the rough patches to have any hope of avoiding crashing into the sides but you can hardly be expected to row the entire time and not enjoy the serene beauty along the way. It is for this reason, every so often, certain events pop up to remind you to not let yourself get carried away by the strong tides of the river but to force the boat down the path you seek.

These signposts of life can be something as mundane as a competitive test to something as arcane as receiving gifts for inexplicable reasons and recognizing the rough patch that needs your attention can help make sure that you stay along the path of your choice instead of being coaxed by the flow down dark, gloomy passages.  They are also what tend to remind you of passage down the river. The slow change in what we perceive means that we tend to ignore how much things change around us. 4 years in a college feel like less time spent than a month at home because we sew all our memories together into one coherent past but this coherent past lacks a sense of chronology. It takes a signpost to tell you that the 4 years that started yesterday are about to end and that you are about to set foot into a very different place and once this signpost hits you, there's only one of two things to do, pick up the oars or lie down.

India though, sadly is a country where signposts seem to be everywhere,  every year-end is said to be signpost that determines the fate of the rest of your life. IT ISN'T. Every child in India has heard the saying, "Do this and you are set for life" far too often for it to bear any significance after the first few times. The wolf is said to be everywhere and every person we meet cries wolf to a point where the wolf is deemed to be imaginary. As a result, when Indian children are actually told something important is coming up, they ignore it as just another 'wolf' instead of it being a signpost warning them of a tumultuous time ahead.

PS- Sorry for the dense post, it's just something i had to get off my chest. Thanks for reading

A Childhood Dream

As a kid, i often used to dream of magically teleporting myself to a place far removed from home. A place with no rules and no restrictions. A place where my i don't have my mother at my back all day or my brother dragging me to my room to clean up.

I'd dream of going to a magical place where everyone is my age and there was all the time in the world to play.

I'd dream of vast fields of green and jungles so dense that those i read in books would seem like a well maintained pasture.

I'd dream of cities so densely developed that the sky was blocked out and the vehicles left no room for walking across.

I'd also dream of cities with so little population that the roads were empty most of the time and there were open grounds for me to play in.

I'd dream of deserted hills and arid deserts, of lush oasis and vast seas, of boats and islands galore.

Now, years later, I started travelling across a few places in India and its neighbors and the sights they hold astound and amaze me. The diversity of thought and differences in perspective leave me spellbound. 

Every time i travel from one place to another, a feeling of illusion creeps in, a feeling that the bus/train/plane i'm in is that teleporting machine that i dreamed of, and that the place i was in was just that, since all that remains for me are memories, and the place i go towards is the place i wake up in.

Memory: Noun

1. the faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information.

Sometimes wish that i could stay at each place i've been to and keep them from turning into memories, but then, that wouldn't be travelling, would it?

Here's hoping to find more places that i regret leaving.

Sound Of Silence

It was a hot summer afternoon and the merciless rays of the sun were bearing down on a small suburban house in an unremarkable community near the city of Hyderabad. Inside the house, a one sided battle was in progress between a couple who were married for 20 odd years.

The wife was screaming, "What will you do now?"
The husband looked silently at her, then went back to looking at his laptop screen.
"Why don't you say anything?"
"Silence"
"I am asking you what are you planning to do about your job?"
"Silence"
"Does all this mean nothing to you?" She asks gesturing at the house, "We will lose it all!"
"Silence"
"Damn it", she grunted and turning on her heel, and left in a huff slamming the door in her wake.

By the next day, he had earned himself an interview and in a week, a job. While showing her his appointment letter, he asks, "Would you have preferred me arguing with you or getting this done?'

Language is an extremely powerful device and is rightly given credit for all that human society has achieved over the past few millenia. It is what separates us from prehistoric man and beasts, and is said to be the reason for the evolution of the brain along the path that it has taken. However language begets silence just as light begets dark and is an essential part of communication making silence among the most powerful, yet underrated part of communication.







A friend of mine once said, "Human speech is meant to communicate with someone who doesn't understand you completely, not to communicate with someone who does, since that would make it redundant" and yet, the most frequent use of speech is to repeat what is already known to the receiever leaving neither the speaker nor the receiver any more informed of the situation than before.

Communication in such circumstances is used for emotional reasons but is usally counter productive reducing the efficiency of the work being done and causing a build up of stress with no useful output. These emotional outbursts sometimes launch into full scale arguements which serve as a distraction from the work that needs to be done and only cause more problems. Silence on the other hand, allows complete focus on the task at hand and indicates both efficiency and promise.

However, the importance of silence is not limited to just holding back unimportant communication, it is also essential for improving the quality of communication. A speech with no pauses will not leave breathing space for listeners to swallow and assimilate the content. An emotional moment with no time to think and memorize the moment is lost in time. Music cannot be played without playing the pauses effectively. The very working of our hearing needs a certain pauses after a while to prevent the incoming communication from turning into a stream of gibberish.

They form an essential component of public speaking where pauses are used to place emphasis on certain points or for dramatic effect. The effective use of silence is what separates a speaker from an orator. It is the mastery of this form of building suspense that lead to specches like those delivered by Anthony (Julius Caesar), Winston Churchill and Hitler among others

An extended period of silence is far more dangerous to the human brain than an equivalent exposure to loud noise. An experiment involving a person isolated in a soundproof chamber with no sources of sounds on the inside showed the person growing progressively madder and craving some kind of aural stimulation. The phrase "Defeaning Silence" comes from the fact that the development of the human mind occured in the presence of a background noise and was an essential part of his survival instinct, and when that is removed, the brain is unable to process the absolute lack of noise causing blow to the brain that is immense.

The sound of silence is akin to the color of black. Its importance is its lack which emphasises everything around it.

"Silence Saves"

Black Swan

"The problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know" - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

There are few things that command as much attention as the idea of a black swan. The possibility that the idea of an angelic white swan can be turned on its head is as disturbing as it is unexpected. As a result of this and their natural rarity, the existence of black swans was earlier confined to myths and urban legends. Their subsequent discovery and acknowledgement gave them particular symbolic value of being beyond human expectations.

A Black Swan event ( capitalized ) is one which is unexpected and when realized, impacts the world in a way that shakes the ground beneath everyone's feet. These events are often followed by attempts by people to then rationalize the event and claim that the event was predictable and could have been prepared for.

Our lives are shaped more by past Black Swan events than by the cumulative effect of all other events.Rare and improbable events occur much more often than we dare to think. Our thinking is usually limited in scope and we make assumptions based on what we see, know, and assume. Reality, however, is much more complicated and unpredictable than we think.

When Writers Hate Writing

I Hate Writing.

During my schooling, when i was asked to write an essay on a certain topic or to write a letter to the teacher saying i was sick and excused from school, despite the practical value associated, it was a task which i wholeheartedly despised and didn't complete unless repeatedly rebuked and coaxed.

Several years hence, and i am no better off. If i am ever asked to give a handwritten letter or assignment, i prefer putting it off as long as i can before forcing myself to finish it and hand in a hastily scribbled version. But, if the same is allowed in printed form or as a soft copy, i spend considerable effort editing it and ensuring the assignment submitted is the best i can present.

This begs the question of why is there such a difference.


The answer lies in the fact that the presentation in a hand written version depends on the aforesaid hand writing and that is something i have never found myself good it. Call it an expression of personality or the level of confidence in a person or simply a matter of clarity of thought but i have never been able to pen a single sheet of paper which has been considered to be of above average presentation or even legible for that matter but i myself find my handwriting perfectly clear and therein lies the problem which kept me away from writing for a considerable period of time. I cannot understand how to write legible script without understanding what it is illegible in the first place and to find out that,i would need to step into the mind of another person. The grapes of legibility lie in too high a branch for this fox, but i did find it possible to express my thoughts without worrying about presentation on computers and that was what augmented my love for them while allowing me to express without restraint.


I am far from being the only such writer who can only express themselves only on computers where the presentation is mostly taken care of and editing is far easier. The established (mal)practice of judging a work by its presentation cannot play as much of a role and commoners who earlier could not hope to voice their views in a manner fit for the papers can now use simple applications to make write without any voodoo trickery to make a legible handwritten version.

What this means is that every person who can frame basic sentences can now legitimately call themselves writers and  write and publish works without ever knowing how to write legibly on paper and this is a fundamental change in our understanding of language and script.

Adding to this, the widespread availability that any piece of writing can now achieve using the internet, you now have a disorganized press in the form of every person who wishes to write criticizing and publicizing actions of the powers that be. This decentralization of the powerful force of the press and ever increasing reach of computers makes me hopeful that there might come a time when oppression can longer find a hiding place amongst the far flung corners of the world.

The value of a script is now no longer constrained by how its written. Yes, there will be calligraphists for those rare and unique hand written copies or to create new fonts but the general use of a script and everyone learning its twists and turns is coming to a close with the use of legible, ready scripts in computers and that, is good riddance.