The Mitr

On Design

Design is both the disruptor and being disrupted. It’s disrupting markets, organizations, and relationships, and forcing us to rethink how we live. The discipline of design is also experiencing tremendous growth and change, largely influenced by economic and technology factors. No longer an afterthought, design is now an essential part of a product, and it may even be the most important part of a product’s value.
Source: Experience design is shaping our future – O’Reilly Radar

The Mitr

Dissent Is Treason

dissent-is-treason
The year Nineteen Eighty Four is long past us, in fact next year it will exactly 30 years in the past. But if we consider the dystopic vision of George Orwell from the novel, seems with each passing day we are approaching it with ever increasing pace. As if prophetically the Orwell thought about in the middle of last century are coming true. It is as if those in power are taking cues from Orwell’s books.Some famous lines from Nineteen Eighty Four  included the following:

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

And

Big Brother is Watching You

Two more individuals also told us something similar. One is a comic book writer and other is a paranoid hacker in the true sense of the word. Alan Moore in V for Vendetta tells us a story of not so distant future, which is very Orwellian. He says in an interview, it was idea in V, that there should be cameras on streets, which is what is implemented in London now. This is like an unintentional self-fulfiling prophecy. Though Alan Moore makes his case, it is after all a fictional story. Given that it might happen, but it is fiction. As is the case with Orwell’s works though fictional it has some real and frightening take home points, so is also with Alan Moore’s V for...
I will now come to the hacker. Richard M. Stallman, aka RMS aka Father of Free Software movement. Some of you might be surprised when I am making this claim. What does software have to do with dissent, or for that matter treason? But there are good reasons to make and substantiate this connection.
 
About the poster:
The idea behind this poster comes from Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell and current affairs in the world. Across the world it seems that any dissent against the government or those in power is seen as treason. Hence “Dissent Is Treason”This rhymes thematically very well with other in Orwells book which include “War is Peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
Similarly no matter how wrong the government is doing, however brutal they may be acting any voice of concern is treated as one would treat treason. The questioning of government and its actions which is essential in a healthy democracy is itself under attack.
In this poster the deer has one of its horns twisted in a way which is not normal. This “abnormal horn” metaphorically represents the view point which majority does not see or share. This can be concern for environment or disadvantaged groups, or against nexus of corporates and politicians. The list is endless. But any deer  with such a horn, will be shunned in deer society. Similarly in our society usually people who have points of view which conflict with powers to be are treated as traitors. Their acts of exposing the guilty as that of treason. But in fact such individuals are people with extraordinary courage. They include people like Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and countless others whom wedo not know but are thankful.
The deer image is from an old issue (c. 1870) of Journal Of Bombay Natural History Society.

The Mitr

Antilibrary of Umberto Eco

The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?” and the others — a very small minority — who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allow you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.
Black Swan – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I have had a similar experience about myown book collection. People expect that if you have books then you must have read them. But this is exactly what I hold the books for, a reference tool for further knowledge. And then they have a beautiful word in Japanese which describes the spirit in which you buy more unread books.

Tsundoku:buying books and not reading them; letting books pile up on shelves floors or nightstands

The Mitr

Faking Feedback

How to score brownie points over one’s opponents?
Or
How much lower can one stoop academically?
Disclaimer: This story has a no particular names, feel free to fill in what you like. This is not a work of fiction.
This is a story that I heard recently. Though the events mentioned in the story are almost 2 decades old. The story is set circa 1996. The
story is an esteemed academic institution in the state of UP.
In this institute in a particular department, among many other faculties there were two protagonists of our story. For the sake of keeping a track of their activities let us call them X and Y. Now as it happens in many academic institutes, and in between many academics, X and Y did not go along very well. Added to that they say that X was a bit eccentric to put it mildly and a crackpot to put it okayishly. Less said about Y is better. It would be rather revealed by actions. They would fight bitterly and did not see each other in a good light. Now, it so happens that in this institute at end of the semester the students are given feedback forms for each of the courses that they take. For this purpose another faculty member distributes the forms on the last day of the course. These forms are collected, sealed and given to the HoD for evaluation. Based on the feedback the HoD calls the faculty member to discuss issues worth discussing. This entire process is supposedly confidential and the discussion happens after the exams are over.
Now it so happened that in this fateful year, Y went on the last day of X’s class to give the feedback form to the students. The forms were duly collected, sealed and given to the HoD. Now comes the interesting part of the story. When the HoD started to read the feedback forms, he noticed that a few of them were a bit too harsh and nasty. Now it so turns out that though X was a bit eccentric, but was quite popular with the students. So this naturally created a doubt in the HoDs mind. Why only this year the students have given a bad review of X?
So the HoD glanced through the feedback forms which were a bit too negative. And guess what! He discovered that the handwriting in all of them was uncannily similar. How can different students writing negative feedback have all the same handwriting? Well one explanation is that they all conspired to do so. Practicing for hours on end to make sure all of their handwriting are similar! But an easier one is that a single person must have written all these negative reviews! Keeping this in mind the HoD compared these negative feedback forms with the handwriting of people he knew. And then guess what it matched the handwriting of someone from his department!
Now you will get 10/10 points if you have already guessed what happened next. It so turned out that the handwriting on the negative feedback sheets matched that of Y.  After this Y was summoned by the HoD to explain this uncanny resemblance between the handwritings. Well Y did not have much of an answer, even if any answer was given, it is not known to us. Perhaps Y will remember this episode for life. So after this Y was punished for faking student feedback form. This perhaps would be unique charge against a faculty in a premier institute. The punishment was of banishment from the department for one full semester. When he came back he was super embarrassed due to this. Or as they would put in Hindi किसी को मु़ह दिखाने लायक नही राहा
And it so happened that this episode was followed by exit of Y from this institute a few years later. It is said that in the new institute that Y joined he continued with his old ways of deceit and treachery, and of cheap tactics. The only difference being that there was no one here to challenge Y and his cheap ways. The sad part is that this continued for over a decade and Y was able to form an empire at the new institute. But then the Indian academia has many such people.
Reflecting on this I think how much lower can one fall academically to score brownie points over one’s opponents? On another hand I feel like laughing at botched up attempts to do this, reminds me of Rowan Atkinson’s Black Adder.
What kind of person would indulge in this behavior? Is such a person fit for any confidential work? And why should any academic institute harbour such a person?
 
This story needs to be spread, told and retold for Y is still out there…

The Mitr

Sweet (Potato) Harvest

A couple of years back I shifted to a flat. We did not have a single plant in our house. So we brought a couple of pots in which to put some plants. We started with “money plant” but it seemed it did notlike growing in our window. We tried many other things but none survived. All of them would die, perhaps due to lack of sunlight or some infestation.
It so turned out that the sweet potato is not that sweet after all. It has a low GI (glycemic index). Some of the sweet potatoes that we had brought, and kept in the corner developed some really cool purple coloured shoots. We then thought of planting these and see. And grow they did. The shoots grew at an astounding rate, as if they were on some sort of steroids. Withinn a week they scaled the height of the window (~ 5 ft.). We had to manage them horizontally afterwards. But this was it, the plants became very dense and we planted some more. So we had a nice vine over the window. We never bothered to see if they
had grown any roots that we could eat. It was more used like an ornamental plant.
When we shifted to our current home we brought the pot with us. For travel, we had cut all the branches and left the root intact. But after coming the new house, where we had access to the sunlight. The plant did not grow, it died. That is when we planted some new shoots in the pot, two of them. And then forgot about them. We water them daily but, it was in a rather inaccessible corner of the balcony so, we could not look at it properly.
It so happened one day I noticed something strange. Something (most probably a bird) had dug out the soil in that pot and uncovered what was unmistakably surface of a sweet potato. There were beak like marks on the surface. It was like a treasure was exposed. I promptly covered the exposed area with extra soil. It was then that I noticed that the plant had grown a lot but since its branches were hanging low and at an angle than hid it from us, we had not seen them.
So, this is the background. Yesterday, being a Sunday we decided to take out the potatoes out. So what follows is a picture essay of uncovering the harvest of the sweet potatoes.
The Plant with its leaves.
01-complete-plant
Put a paper on the floor to collect the soil.
 
02-plant-with-newspaper
 
Start the digging. Felt like a forager!
 
03-digging-starts
 
First sweet glimpse!
 
04-first-look
And they are out!
 
05-and-out
With the roots removed.
 
06-roots-removed
 
Washed!
07-washed
 
Portrait shot No. 1
 
08-washed-2
 
Portrait Shot No. 2
 
08-washed-3
 
Nicely cut and washed!
 
09-cut-1
 
Removing the extra water.
 
10-cut-2
In the fry pan!
 
11-in-the-pan
 
And with salt and pepper!
 
12-sweet-pepper-salt
 
That’s it for now folks!

The Mitr

Why I am an Atheist

Beliefs make it easier to go through hardships, even make them pleasant.
You go against popular feelings; you criticise a hero, a great man who is generally believed to be above criticism. What happens? No one will answer your arguments in a rational way; rather you will be considered vainglorious. Its reason is mental insipidity. Merciless criticism and independent thinking are the two necessary traits of revolutionary thinking. As Mahatmaji is great, he is above criticism; as he has risen above, all that he says in the field of politics, religion, Ethics is right. You agree or not, it is binding upon you to take it as truth. This is not constructive thinking. We do not take a leap forward; we go many steps back.
It is necessary for every person who stands for progress to criticise every tenet of old beliefs. Item by item he has to challenge the efficacy of old faith. He has to analyse and understand all the details. If after rigorous reasoning, one is led to believe in any theory of philosophy, his faith is appreciated. His reasoning may be mistaken and even fallacious. But there is chance that he will be corrected because Reason is the guiding principle of his life. But belief, I should say blind belief is disastrous. It deprives a man of his understanding power and makes him reactionary.
Open your eyes and see millions of people dying of hunger in slums and huts dirtier than the grim dungeons of prisons; just see the labourers patiently or say apathetically while the rich vampires suck their blood; bring to mind the wastage of human energy that will make a man with a little common sense shiver in horror. Just observe rich nations throwing their surplus produce into the sea instead of distributing it among the needy and deprived. There are palaces of kings built upon the foundations laid with human bones. Let them see all this and say “All is well in God’s Kingdom.” Why so? This is my question.
One of my friends asked me to pray. When informed of my atheism, he said, “When your last days come, you will begin to believe.” I said, “No, dear sir, Never shall it happen. I consider it to be an act of degradation and demoralisation. For such petty selfish motives, I shall never pray.” Reader and friends, is it vanity? If it is, I stand for it.
via Why I am an Atheist.