Viswanathan K's Thoughts

Every time India asks for the Kohinoor diamond, Britain says No. Was it really “given” to them voluntarily? Or at gun point? The answer to other requests to return such loot lying in European museums is the same No, whether the source is Africa or Aborigines or native Americans or Chinese antiquities. And yet, the same Europeans are all in favour of returning if it was what the Nazis looted. No, the reason’s not because everyone hates the Nazis. Sadly, the reason’s what Erin Thompson says : “The farther we get from Western Europe, the less morally compelling we seem to find the claims of those whose art Europeans looted.” And so she concludes: “Why are the victims of Nazi aggression more deserving than those of colonial violence? At root, I see no reason other than disdain for non-Europeans.” And while no real action is taken to right this historical wrong, the Guardian contents itself with moronic condemnation of (hold your breath) video games that involve “stealing” ...

In their book, Lessons of History , Will and Ariel Durant noted: “History offers some consolation by reminding us that sin flourished in every age.” Of course, that doesn’t change the view of people who insist that ancient times (and people) were better, morally speaking: they just say that the times they refer to were before recorded history. So how do they know about that pre-recorded era? No answer… it’s like religion, it’s faith based. In another part of their book, they say: “Probably every vice was once a virtue… man’s sins may be the relics of his rise rather than the stigmata of his fall.” They cite very interesting examples of such transformations. When man moved from hunting to agriculture, larger units were needed to sustain oneself e.g. on farms. And so marriage was early; children were farm hands and birth control became immoral. Then again, when we moved from agriculture to the industrial age, individuals could sustain themselves and: “The authority of fa...

The other day, one of my colleagues was telling me that her 5 year-old daughter had figured that Alexa, Amazon’s voice based assistant, could help with do her homework: “Alexa, what is 5 + 8?” I took this as exactly the kind of reason why I wouldn’t want Alexa in the home. When I was narrating this to my wife, my 7 yo daughter hung onto the conversation and joined in: She: “Can we get Alexa too? I won’t use it for my homework.” Me: “Then why do you want it?” She: “When my friends come home, I can ask it to play nice songs.” Wow! -           Who wants to use a clunky remote for the music system and then discover you don’t have that song you wanted to hear anyway? -           Searching via YouTube and Google on a computer/phone doesn’t come so easy for 5 and 7 yo’s, but with Alexa, they just ask for what they want! Kids take to Alexa like ducks to water. Like my colleague ...

Everybody wants to rule the world. Duh, this is the Game of Thrones , what else were you expecting?! But it’s key that those who rule know the duties that come with being a ruler. Mediocrity won’t suffice, and greatness? As Ser Barristan tells Daenerys: “Madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born… the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land.” Duties are something that King Stannis had to be reminded: “He reminded me of my duty, when all I could think of was my rights.” Lose track of that, and your external enemies will prevail, laments Stannis: “I was trying to win the throne to save the kingdom, when I should have been trying to save the kingdom to win the throne.” Conquests and reigns are different beasts altogether, as Daenerys realizes. Missandei: “You have bought them freedom as well.” Daenerys: “Freedom to starve? Freedom to die?” Unlike some of the other contend...

Mass surveillance. Back in the 20th century, it was something we associated with the communist regimes of eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. After their collapse, some of those countries threw open the books, writes Neal Ascherson: “For nearly thirty years, hundreds of thousands of people have been reading their secret police files, the records of surveillance, denunciation and manipulation compiled by the spooks of communist Europe.” And the portrait people see of themselves is scary: “These portraits may be the result of years of painstaking, insanely minute watching and eavesdropping by one or several security teams. Almost always, much of their detail comes from informers. Some informers won’t be identifiable. Some may be fictional, invented by idle security officers bumping up their expenses. But some will turn out to be the reader’s intimately trusted friends or lovers.” The amount of information gathered, the sheer “omnipresence of this invisible army of watchers a...

We hear of and see cryonics in the movies: “It’s a technique used to store a person’s body at an extremely low temperature with the hope of one day reviving them.” The technology is in its infancy, but this article by Rachel Nuwer raises interesting questions about the scenario when the person awakens in the future (assuming the technology worked). First off, she says: “They would immediately face the challenge of rebuilding their lives as strangers in a strange land. How that would play out depends on a host of factors, including how long they were gone, what kind of society they returned to, whether they know anyone when they are brought back and in what form they return.” What about money problems when they return? Looks like people have been thinking of a solution for that problem! “The Cryonics Institute invests a fraction of patient fees – currently $28,000 with life insurance – into stocks and bonds. The hope is that future returns can help revived persons get b...

It all started when Bell Labs hired William Shockley to come up with a replacement for the vacuum tube. Following lots of trial and error, blind alleys and false hopes, in 1947, his team of Brattain and Bardeen invented the transistor. Impressive it was, but not quite the transistor we know of today. While Shockley had been part of many attempts and ideas, he wasn’t part of the concept of the Brattain-Bardeen transistor. He was torn by the fact: “My elation with the group’s success was tempered by not being one of the inventors.” Angry and insecure that he hadn’t been part of the idea that worked, he worked secretly trying to improve it. His secretive efforts yielded an improvement to the Brattain-Bardeen transistor resulting in the modern-day transistor. The team had no doubt been successful, but trust had been destroyed. Shockley, the team supervisor, became impossible to work with. The team dissolved. Shockley himself was passed over for promotions given all the bad blood...