Blog Post #110 - Equity and Equality, Maps ,Big Data and God

I have been reading a lot of books lately. I will quote 2 today.

MapHead- http://www.amazon.com/Maphead-Charting-Weird-World-Geography/dp/1439167184

this book has made me think a lot of Maps and Geography.

The usual understanding - Geography = maps + country/capitals is not correct according to this book.

Cartography  is the art of making maps. I didn't know that! ( you did . .I know .I know..)

The olden hand- drawn maps sells for Thousands for $$ while the Google Maps and Waze( I love this app - Google owns them now!) helps us navigate the complex world -made complicated by  us and our greed/need.

There are some weird folks who visit all tallest points in the country which are not man-made and other crazy folks who visit every starbucks and every McDonalds. I am not kidding.

The last time I had a $10 coupon to spend in Kohls - buy $50 and get $10 off on your next visit kind of stuff.. my car was in more than 5 kohls in the next few hours trying to find the 'right' item to buy other than socks.



Who said spending money is easy?

If Geography is not maps then is it country,state name and countries? May be..

When you are in the mall you are using geography imagining you at the star - you are here  and the rest room is in the far right corner.. atleast 15min away..yes you are never close to what you are looking for - atleast in a mall!

Every interesting fiction movie and books worth their salt(salt = salary!) must contain a map. The protagonist(Why not say the word Hero which is more simpler!) pulls the map and is looking for the next place to go...finally landing in a place in the map where he needs to go (remember - she was already taken by bad guys and kept in the jail or in the bad guy's palace refusing to eat..and crying) ...

In the 16th or 17th century people looked at maps and filled it ..named it.. Today our kids color it.. we need to go to Mars fast..

Now lets go to the social theme of Equity and Equality.

The ships that sailed from Spain and all colonist powers were going after 'plundering' the resources of the people they colonized.

Should everyone in the ship take the wealth equally or in proportion to  their  rank?

This is the basic question that is raised even today. Walmart makes millions in profit. The CEO  must get the largest share and the cashier in Walmart the lowest share of profit. This is Equity in proportion to contribution.


When we are kids - all kids must get the same number of candies must once we grow up one kid should get more than the other based on talent.

Candies are substituted by Money and we believe money should be shared based on the contribution in a capitalistic society.

In a communist society according to Karl Marx everyone has to have the same wealth - I don't know any communist nation that exists today.I will leave it at that.. cos most of them are ruled by a single person and that person gets more than everyone else.Is it then equally shared?

This topic was discussed in detail in the book 'I havent written it' yet - just kidding... once I write a book I will include this.

Let's continue with my favorite economist (other than Daniel Kahneman) Dan Ariely. to digress..




Dan Ariely discusses about how we perceive locksmith and their job. Unless you are in America or one of those high end countries (notice I defer from using the work Developed ,Developing and UnderDeveloped) you may not know the locksmith typically can charge upto $200 to open your locked door(and ofcourse when you lost your keys .. otherwise it may be considered theft or breakin!)

Assume for a minute you lost your home keys and wait for a locksmith. A young locksmith comes and struggles for 110 mins(close to 2 hours!) and finally opens the door, Most people will give him his $200 and sometimes a small tip of $5 or $10 as they feel he worked hard to earn this.

Now assume there is another locksmith who comes to your house and opens the door in 5min.
How will you feel to pay him his $200?

Hard work is important. Smart working is more important. You have to be smart to show off to other people that you are working hard.

Understood?

Next time when you hear someone in office complaining how hard they work do understand that they might be playing this part of experienced locksmith who wants to justify his/her $200. (So don't be fooled and if you are one complaining use swearing words to make it sound realistic!)



Now to Vantage points..


Take a piece of paper and draw a coffee cup/mug


I know you are lazy and in your mind you mind have drawn one of these without your artistic ability (which I know will be bad and that is why you didnt draw.. most of us are ashamed of our drawing )







I went to son's school and since I am involved in starting a new chess club I asked 2nd graders to do this experiment except that I asked them to draw a bucket!

What's the point?

The point being- Why didn't you draw  any of the following? Did you draw any of the following?





The Vantage point that we look at for coffee mug is always the side way image - the one we face and not the top or bottoms



Now lets move to the basic measure of life - money and power.

'How will you measure your life' - by Clay Christensen is a must Read book for people who like Analytics and Big Data.


Read this article first - http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/7007.html

which explains the concept of 100 Percent Of The Time Is Easier Than 98 Percent Of The Time

It is important that in life we follow certain values and stand by them all the time. Anytime we find ourselves giving an excuse - that is a bad starting point for a lot of stuff.

Here is the key takeaway .. about Big Data and God

According to Clay (once you read a book you can call the author as though you know him on a first name basis.. try it.. when you refer this blog to someone mention Siva said that Clay said...) God will not aggregate at the individual achievement level but at the individual level .

God is always a He.in most of my books so stay with me..( I dont want to be politically correct cos I am not in Politics!)

God will ask you about not much you made (  an aggregate of data about your wealth), not what was your position (A Board member, President,CEO ,VP ,Director are aggregate data of your achievement in terms of your work sucess ) but he will ask you this

" I put you in such and such situation.  What did you do with the talent I gave you to help another human or make that situation better'

Why did I use Big data - Because everyone wants to talk about Big Data , IoT - Internet of Things.. so why not use the same analogy to bring god's infinite memory in context of Big Data. God doesn't have storage or memory problems as far as I can image... so  You better have a good answer when  you meet him about what you did with your talents cos that might determine where you land - not on your job but in Heaven or Hell.. Hope to see you in heaven.

Keep Helping
Sivakumar Manikanteswaran

Blog Post #109 - Life ,Death and everything in between - Happy birthday to me - 40+ club here I come!

Wow

40

I remember 40 is important for the following reasons - 

Jesus fasted for 40 days (Lent), 
Moses stayed with god for 40 days, 
Women carry new born in womb for 40weeks , 
Noah's Arc story talks about 40 days rain, 
Muhammad praying and fasting in the cave for 40 days
In Hinduism a Mandalam is 40 days including Ayappa Viradam which consists of 40days (which I practiced last year)

and

 40 is the only number whose letters are in alphabetical order.(FORTY!)


So there you go - Order, religion and all things pointing to old age.

Siva (me) officially becomes Uncle Siva (not uncle Sam!)

I thought I will write this post to talk about Life,Death and everything in between(at least till 40 years)

This is an intellectual post and lots of philosophy and spirituality which people with heart conditions,pregnant women  , young kids and all light hearted people should not read.   As usual close this browser go find some other entertaining stuff (and don't forge to wish me happy birthday)

If you are still reading let's start.

4 Times in my life I was in the verge of death and we will start with those 3. Before that - let me thank everyone who  wished me in WhatsApp,Facebook,Outlook,Linked In and in iphone messages. I didnt get any tweets,phone calls and in person visit yet (as of May 22 2015 11:14am!)

4 Times - Once when I was a little boy(5-6 years old), when I was 10-, once when I was 24 years old and once when I was 26 years old.


I will start with the first one 



When I was very young - 6-8 year old we traveled in a hired car  from TVS group . We met with an accident.

 My sisters and everyone was hurt and I do recall the hospital where we went. My mom kept telling me between the time we met the accident and we went to the hospital I was literally thrown out  of the car and was in the riverbanks lying closer to the water. 




I wasn't thrown into the river which might have got me drowned and dead which didn't happen. Neither was I hit by another car or on to a tree. Another bus or car stopped and people in that car/bus helped all of us to get to the hospital.
So I know I was saved once.




I was 10-11 and was walking from my school to my sisters school and it was raining heavily.  There was a man hole open and I fell into in holding an umbrella like this





and I ended up like this man




Luckily the wind was pushing the umbrella up and 10-11 year old is not heavy.
My life was spared and my parents decided to move me out of the school . Did you know I moved to 6 schools in 15 years  - roughly 2 years in each school except in one school Vivekanda where I studied 4 years.

1. In trichy - K
2. In ETPS(Ennore Thermal Power Station) - 1-2
3. In Hold Trinity (where I feel in manhole) - 3-4
4. In Nehru Nursery (when it rained the school was closed - 5-6
5. Vivenkanda Vidyala Tiruvottiyur  - 7-10
6. Santhome Higher Secondary School - 11-12

It was the 1998 and I was 5-6 months old to this country (USA) . I had arrived from India and was looking forward to meeting my cousin in Houston. After waking up early 5 or 6 am when I usually wake up only at 10am on weekends, I make a mistake of driving (which I was new and was driving only for 6-7 days ) . While on my way, I remember taking an exit and the next thing I see is a gas pump. I hit a gas pump




I saw the pump and not anything else. The next thing I realized was the airbags and my glass had flown away from my eyes . (I was still wearing glasses till I changed to contacts to 2004). I was worried about glasses and my passport which was in the glove box. I have been wearing glasses from the time I was in my 7th standard(grade) - 11-12 years old. I had low power (close to 3.25  in both my years) but never removed my glasses. So the feeling of not having glasses was more devastating than the accident. 

A man with Tattoo and Bike ( you guessed it Tattoo man always accompany bikes) yelled at me in all the bad words that came to his mind. I already had an issue understanding American accent now I have a south weekend warrior with Tattoo yelling at the top of his voice filled with profanity  . Now why should he yell at me? Wasn't I the one involved in the accident ? 

Later did I find that he skipped the pump I hit and moved to the next one as there was some issue and as soon as he moved (1-2min later ) I hit the exact pump he moved away from. I would have killed him.

Why did I meet with an accident? Sleep deprivation . I am not used to waking up early and didn't have enough rest.

Lesson to be learnt - sleep well .Never compromise on sleep!

I went and spoke to the gas station owner - a Desi(Indian) Patel ( I assume) who promptly used the emergency switch off and called the cop.

This Tattoo man was my savior - by the  time the Police officer showed up (and don't forget I had a problem understanding American accent which included African American , Southern, Tattooed weekend bike warriors and all other accents that were not Indian/Victorian ).

Let's digress - British left India and all its colonies including Egypt with Victorian accent when Queen Victoria ruled us(Long live the Queen!)

The British went back and retained/created an accent better known as British accent.  British accent is not Victorian Colonial accent.

When I went to London I realized colonial people cannot communicate with British colonial rulers even though they all speak English! Gordon Brown doesn't talk like Sivakumar Manikanteswaran!

Let's back to the accident. Now the Tattoo warrior explained/clarified and helped me communicate to the officer and ensured that officer understand that I wasn't drunk but sleep deprived.  All clear I went and got another rental car and met my cousin later the same day. I was alive one more time not yet dead.

If you have listened to me talk about my NY story when I was 26 years old  then you know it was Sep 11 2001 and I was one of the first few to get out of New York city in the second ship/boat towards Weehawken NJ and we witnessed the second building collapse from Weehawken. We ran towards Pier 11 when first building collapsed!






We were there in the path station in Oneworld Trade center at 8:45am on sep 11 2001 . If you don't know the world trade center was also train station for people commuting to NJ and it was also a subway station connecting NY transit trains. You could also take LIRR trains to go to Long Island. This meant you can take subway( to travel inside NY city),PATH (to go to NJ) or LIRR.

There were 3 huge escalators. When we reached at 8:45 the first 2 were clear and the last one after landing to the highest point saw coffee and lot os fhings thrown everywhere and cops .. lots of them yelling 'Get out of this  building now'.

My friend Vaithy picked up an excel sheet and joked.. not realizing it had come from the world trade center. When we were walking closer to stock exchange in wall street  there was a man talking to someone explaining about earth quake. We didn't understand he has misunderstood the impact of the airplane and the loud noises as earth quake.

We heard a lady use the word FBI asking a taxi to go towards World Trade Center. We went away from World Trade center towards 125 broad street. A Jewish man explained to us in the elevator that there was an airplane inside the World Trade center and we thought it was a good joke. 







Least did we realize he was right. When we went to the 14th floor we saw the cop boats, cop cars, Fire trucks and all flashy stuff near Pier 11. I didn't realize I will be there in the next 30min running for my life towards water and not knowing swimming.

For now ,I went to get coffee with friends and talked to stepped out to see the commotion.  After watching all the vehicles this time from the ground floor we discussed to Desi Patel and we went up to check cnn.com.

We heard an announcement - this is FBI and we have taken control of this building. Please get to the first floor and wait for further instructions. Least did we know we will not go back again to the 14th floor on that day.

We got coffee and bagel for $1 from the Bangladeshi in the mobile stall. We decided to walk to 42nd street(Times Square) or to 34th street (Penn station).

Once we were near a parking garage we heard in the radio in a vehicle parked there talking about more airplanes coming towards NYC(New York City)

We were facing the direction of World Trade Center (which was completely covered with smoke) and we heard a lady scream Oh my god'  .

When we saw the smoke screen comes towards us we started running towards water - Pier 11 . That is what we saw everyone do.. run towards water. The smoke screen was the result of the first world trade center building fall down and collapse which we didn't know at that time. Some people yelled - chemical attacks. It was close to 9:40 and we heard loud airplane sounds which was F16s from Florida which we thought were more rogue airplanes attacking NY.

We didn't want to hear the air. But we didn't have a choice.  We had to breathe.

Once we came close to Pier 11 we saw a man with a cap which said something like New York Emergency something and there was a boat/ship that was leaving on the right and another one getting ready to leave.

The first boat/ship one was leaving to Brooklyn and even in that crisis I didn't want to go to Brooklyn. 

I keep writing boat/ship as these double Decker boats looked like massive ships to me.

We boarded the boat which was destined to Weehawken NJ.
We discussed why one building was missing and we didn't realize at that time that we run few minutes ago from the rubbles of the first one. One of my friend explained how the two world trade center buildings were constructed in such a way that we can only one from some weird angle which was this angle from the boat. We kind of believed him .. and once we reached weehawken nj there were so many police officers, doctors and fire fighters waiting to help. Someone had already shown us something about attacks in a pager in the boat and now the polive,hospital staff and firefighters were waiting for us were disappointed to find not many real survivors from the building who might need help.


We saw the second building collapse which showed clearly the first one had also collapsed earlier. 

I have survived the third time (please don't count marriage as near death experience!) .

Now that I had survived 3 times I wanted to know why I survived all these near death experience.

The World needed me so here I am.  Even though there are 7  billion people there is no one like me (or you!). There is no one special to my kids and my wife than me. There is no one like me who is a good son,great brother, good uncle and not so good cousin!

I have been working on my ideas to write book, working hard to get a good pay check, reading a lot to write a lot.listening to lots of useful TED talks,coursera courses and youtube videos. I need to start itunesU and podcasts again!

As my son always says - Love you Daddy you are the best. For my kids I am the best.

The first 21 years of my life was spent getting educated so that I can earn a paycheck. Now that I am earning paycheck for the last 19 years I guess I need to continue this till I retire  at 75 where these paychecks would have get me social security and a retirement fund .

Energy,Money and Time - I read in a whatsapp message. 
When you are young you have Energy and Time no Money
When you are in your middle age you have Money and Energy no Time 
When you are old you have Money and Time no Energy

Life is a journey ... keep thinking why you are living. 

Most of us consume natural resource and give back journey. 

What have you produced from using the natural resources? As for myself I write blogs and as long as you read them I feel productive!


After reading the book 'Being Mortal' by 'Aatul Gawande'(same guy who wrote checklist manifesto which i wrote about earlier!) .. this one talks a lot about death!

We used to live a life this 






The old man lived and one day he died all of a sudden! Talk to any one older (like me ) and ask them about their great grand father. 

Modern medicine and public health measures stretched people’s life spans, nearly doubling them so that, Gawande writes, "The curve of life becomes a long, slow fade."

What does this mean - we all have to live much much longer due to the medical advances.  In effect all symptoms will be controlled while the disease or the factor that kills will follow to kill!

I will not write a detailed post about this topic till I am 50 (10 years from now).


Keep learning and living
Sivakumar Manikanteswaran

Blog Post #108 - How many colors are in a rainbow? - Let's revisit Numerals and Zero once again .

In 1984's film "Ghostbusters," there's a comical scene in which a man is being interviewed for the role of the newest member of the "ghost busting" team, and his interviewer asks him the question, "Do you believe in UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis?" He answers, humorously, "If there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll believe anything you say." 

From an amazon review - http://www.amazon.com/The-Magic-Reality-Whats-Really/dp/145167504 

about the book I just completed reading. - The Magic of Reality. 

Most of us think about paycheck and do work for paycheck . Ever wonder we need to ask these questions which are discussed in depth in The Magic of Reality.

1. What is reality? What is magic? , 

2. Who was the first person? , 

3. Why are there so many different kinds of animals? 

4. What are things made of? 

5. Why do we have night and day, winter and summer? 

6. What is the sun? 

7. What is a rainbow? 

8. When and how did everything begin? 

9. Are we alone? 

10. What is an earthquake? 

11. Why do bad things happen? and 

12. What is a miracle?

I learnt quite a bit and some information I already knew were explained more clearly ( Remember I 'know' a lot of stuff or atleast I think I do).

We have been conditioned by our school and society about what we should think and what we should answer to most of the questions that we encounter in life.

Island - what is an Island - if you said 'land covered by water' you have just answered a question from the perspective of 'human' or 'land animals'.

For a fish - an island is land surrounded by water.

When Darwin visited Galapagos island he saw giant tortoise like this

Penguins like these make you wonder one more time that Penguins are not just found in cold regions but even in warm region.
















(According to http://discoverykids.com/articles/do-all-penguins-live-in-cold-climates/) 

Within the penguin family, there are several species. The total number is debatable; some say there are 17 species while others say as many as 19 exist.
All penguins reside in the Southern Hemisphere. 

But most do not live in Antarctica. In fact, only two species actually live on the Antarctic coastline – the Emperor (those seen in “March of the Penguins”) and the Adélie 


Have your ever thought cute penguins can live in hot weather ?

What we see in this world is what we can use our senses to comprehend  - when we go an island like Galapagos you are surprised when you see and hear things that you have never seen or heard.

Have you ever wondered what will happen when you go to Jupiter or a new planet in another galaxy?

Will you ever hear sounds that you have never heard?

The answer is - your senses are limited and according to this book - you have seen all that you can see to be seen and all that you can hear . But..

But....

Your eyes see only what is in visible spectrum and you have seen all colors in earth - so you will not see anything new anywhere even in remote planets or stars. 

A huge spectrum of lights including x-rays and laser cannot be seen  by our eyes. We are very limited in what we see.

A huge range of sounds cannot be heard by us - whales,dolphins,elephants and dogs - can sound these sounds.

Your ears only hear what is in the human 'hearing' spectrum and you have heard every single sound wave you can hear and you will never hear any new sound in any planet or star.

Rainbow - is it real that we have 7 colors. Indians education taught me that the colors in rainbow are 7 - VIBGYOR - Violet Indigo Blue Green Yellow Orange Red. My son learning in American system - ROYGBIV(reverse of VIBGYOR) - Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo and Violet

I honestly don't know Indigo - do you? Mark Zuckerberg is color blind and can only see shades of blue.  - I know that but I don't know Indigo!

No wonder facebook is all blue and shades of blue (May be there is an Indigo there and if you see it ..let me know)

A rainbow has multiple colors. Not 7 colors like you were taught. 

So the next time some one asks you - how many colors are in a rainbow? - you can answer a range of visible and invisible colors with most prominent ones named as ROYGBIV(Be American - eat burgers and sandwich and dump VIBGYOR). 

Let me start with another book that is causing me to think more and more about Numbers and Numerals. Finding Zero: A Mathematician's Odyssey to Uncover the Origins of Numbers by Amir D. Aczel .

We know all Numbers are Arabic numerals and Zero belongs to India. How do we know this? Who proved Indians created Zero?  None of the numbers below except 9 looks like Arabic numerals. We know Romans and Greek could not write numbers without language and some symbols. So where did your numbers come from? This book is very interesting to read. I am half way through!

There is another book that I am reading from the library 

Here's Looking at Euclid: From Counting Ants to Games of Chance - An Awe-Inspiring Journey Through the World of Numbers – by Alex Bellos  (Author)

Difference between 2 and 1 is .. Yes 1.

Difference between 90,000 and 90,001 is ... for anyone who knows math well is 1.But.. here is a problem . Our mind can think lograthamically.. in ratio and not really linear numbers. What do I mean?

Imagine a row is trees. The difference in distance between 2 trees close to you is not the same the distance between 90,000th tree and the one next to it 90,001 is not really 1 .. atleast our the trees will look closer even though in reality they are same distance.  Some tribes and children think this way. Adults and most of us know math dont. Right?

Wrong.

Most of the time , you will use millionaire and billionaire interchangeably 

So what's up with 2 math books?

The World of math continues to fascinate me. Geometry and Algebra  are 2 disconnected fields correct?

See below and ponder!

From 

http://www.mathsrevision.net/gcse-maths-revision/algebra/simultaneous-equations

You need Math and you need language to appreciate knowledge.

I gathered this piece from a website (http://www.makemegenius.com/cool-facts/maths-interesting-and-amazing-facts) to show how we can link both English language and math and it is not this type of math fascination I am talking about

40 when written "forty" is the only number with letters in alphabetical order, while "one" is the only one with letters in reverse order.

I am talking about the questions that come up like this - Zero a number that can act as a reflector , a barrier , a beautiful rift - which gets us into the world of negative positive and zero.

What are negative numbers? 

What are imaginary numbers? 

What are Rational Numbers? 

What are Irrational Numbers?

Why do need these numbers? 

Have your thoughts about numbers lately?

Who came up with all these ?

If Infinity is large and multiples of 5 are infinite then are these 2 infinities the same .. Lots more to come ..keep counting.

Keep learning

Sivakumar Manikanteswaran