What the Duck?

The grass is always greener on the other side, and it’s about time somebody blamed Monsanto and genetic modification for it.

Or the Japanese.

Wherever highly advanced technology is used in pursuit of the absurd, expect the Japanese to be there. Back when I was a kid, I’d seen a picture of square watermelons in the newspapers, and it turned out it was a Japanese thing. Since that day, I’d always been suspicious of the Japanese when it came to technology. If a country with the latest, greatest, state-of-the-art, cutting edge technology at its disposal could use it to come up with square watermelons, you wouldn’t put anything past them. Over the years, the Japanese have gone on to repeatedly demonstrate beyond a shadow of doubt that my fears were well founded. A vending machine that dispenses underwear? Check. A toilet with controls more complicated than an airline cockpit? Check. A robotic pet with all the trouble of a real pet but without the fun? Check. A device worn around your face that makes you look like a cartoon lion, to prevent your hair from falling into your bowl of soupy ramen? Check. While corporations use technology in pursuit of profit and Governments use it to make bombs, the Japanese use technology to create ridiculous vending machines.

While it can deliver dubious benefits when in the wrong hands, there is a lot of good that technology has done – it’s cured a lot of diseases, given us access to so much information and allowed us to watch Game of Thrones on the same day as it’s released in the US. Not being Amish, I’m by and large pro technology – I use smart phones, order groceries online and, thanks to Google Maps, am finally not in the embarrassing position of refusing to ask for directions and getting lost. I think Google Maps has done a great favour to all men – we finally don’t need to ask for directions, something that we hated doing in the first place.

Another example of good technology is predictive texting, although that’s probably the wrong term for it. Whatever it’s called officially, I’m impressed that my phone is able to predict the word I’m trying to form in the middle of typing, and suggesting options that would save me time. Of course, sometimes it’ll lead to massive gaffes, with auto correct deciding, in its infinite wisdom, that large bosoms are a more plausible reason for disconnecting a client’s call than being busy, and therefore changing “I’m busy” to “I’m busty”. Still, I can live with the occasional faux pas in exchange for the overall benefit this technology provides. What has utterly baffled me, though, is that the same predictive technology can also detect when you’re trying to use swear words, and then simply refuse to type them out. Ever. It’s as if there is some technological moral police coded into that software that’s decided that swearing is bad for you. I could understand if they had a child mode that enabled the phone to do this – but why have it on all phones? We’re swearing all the time anyway, so why does the phone have to step in and decide it’s not right? We get enough lessons in morality from religion, the censor board, assorted busybodies and the government. To compound the issue, the phone refuses to save any swear word even after I’ve used it repeatedly. Fuck is always changed to duck, bastard is changed to batter, bitch is changed to botch and asshole is changed to the mystifying ‘Anole’. Why?

But coming back to good technology, while I don’t care much for drones delivering pizzas or any other packages, I am excited about driverless cars. But while driverless cars are perfect for those Western countries where traffic rules are taken seriously and good driving skills are enough to get by on the roads, what happens in a country like India where you’ll often land up in trouble or cause a traffic jam if you’re following traffic rules? More crucially, what happens when a driverless car gets into an accident with a human-driven car on a busy Delhi road? Can the car start abusing in chaste Hindi, to create the right aura of menace and intimidation? Will the driverless car be able to threaten the guy in the other car by claiming to know the police commissioner or a local politician? And what about the human in the other car – how does he go about hurling abuses at a car or beating up a car?

It’s the sort of oversight that could result in driverless cars failing in India. Just like it happened with vending machines – I think the reason they didn’t succeed in India is that they don’t allow you to bargain. In a country that boasts a proud tradition of bargaining, that’s suicide. It deprives one of the sweet satisfaction of a well-earned bargain, that proud glow of vanquishing the shopkeeper in his own game and getting a deal that someone of a weaker disposition would not have obtained, which makes the purchase worth savouring. Perhaps with the advent of artificial intelligence, they could come up with a vending machine that could bargain – it would be just the sort of vending machine that would work in India.

Picture this – there’s a vending machine that lists the price of a Coke can as Rs 30. A man enters a ten-rupee note and presses the button to dispense the coke.

Vending Machine: Rupees ten? Are you kidding me? That wont even cover the cost of electricity I’m using up in this transaction.

Man: It’s water and sugar, pretty much. I can get the same thing for 20 elsewhere. 30 is too much. I could give you 15, but not a paisa more than that.

Vending Machine: Oh come on, have a heart. I know I don’t, but that’s because I’m a vending machine. Still, everyone has to make a living…you think I’ll be allowed to operate here if I don’t earn money? It’ll be the junkyard for me – rotting away in obscurity alongside old TVs and refrigerators, valued only as scrap metal. Make it 25 at least.

Man: No way, I know all your tricks; I wont fall for that sob story. 20 is the best I can do – I know you’ll still make a neat little profit out of that. Otherwise I’ll walk away.

Man starts walking away.

Vending machine: Fine – see if you can get the Coke for lesser anywhere else. I promise you my Coke is the cheapest.

(Secretly hoping that man will turn around and come back. But man continues to walk away, secretly hoping that vending machine will call out after him.)

Vending machine: All right, all right, 20 rupees it is! Here, come back and take it.

Man walks away glugging the can of Coke, refreshed more by the sweet satisfaction of a perfectly executed bargain than the Coke itself.

Scientific Progress Goes Boink

A couple of months ago, the scientific community, the community of people that get excited about everything, and the larger community in general, were falling over themselves in excitement at the discovery of gravitational waves. It was hailed as the next big scientific discovery, the biggest thing to have happened to science since quantum mechanics. Of course, with the advent of social media, everything seems like the biggest thing since sliced bread, the iPhone & the season finale of Game of Thrones put together, so it’s sometimes hard to distinguish between real news and something trivial that just happens to be trending on social media. Still, it all seemed like a terribly big deal and made me curious enough to know what gravitational waves were, and how it would make a difference to my life. While every news article seemed supremely thrilled about gravitational waves and kept stressing that it was a huge, game-changing discovery, most descriptions of gravitational waves made absolutely no sense to me, no matter how hard I tried to pay attention. Then I came across one site that claimed to explain it in layman’s terms, promising that it was so simple that even a 5 year old, or a person with the IQ of Donald Trump, would understand it. It promptly proceeded to use big words like space-time continuum (I know 5-year-olds these days are a lot smarter than I was as 5, but which 5 year old will understand space time continuum?) that perplexed me even further. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not complaining that I couldn’t understand what gravitational waves were – in fact it was quite the opposite. I was satisfied that here, at last, was some legitimate science.

I’ve always had a strange equation with science – from afar, it’s been fascinating, but when science gets really serious, I don’t understand a thing. When science is watered down and made into popular science with books like The Brief History of Nearly Everything, I’m utterly fascinated and captivated by it. Sometimes I even think that if this is how science was taught in school, I’d perhaps not have been so hopeless at it. But deep in my heart, I know that this is rubbish. Sure, one may enjoy Bill Bryson’s fascinating stories about science or Carl Sagan talking about the Pale Blue Dot or Morgan Freeman narrating about the Cosmos (somehow, since the Shawshank Redemption, Morgan Freeman has emerged as a universal narrator for all manner of movies and shows, so much so that most people will listen in awestruck fascination even if Morgan Freeman narrated about watching paint dry). But serious science still involves solving complex equations on projectile motion or mastering calculus and all manner of complex formulae – something I never got the hang of when I was 16, and that’s certainly not going to change now.

So my thrill when I couldn’t understand gravitational waves was derived from the satisfaction that it was actual science, as opposed to what you mostly come across as science in the papers these days, with headlines like “Teenage Boys Most Likely To Watch Porn”. Most of these scientific studies feel like science that’s not just watered down, but also positively dumbed down to remove any shred of intelligence. They’ll often be backed by august universities or institutions, but that doesn’t make them any less daft. That’s why most of what passes off as science in the newspapers looks like this:

“Staying Alone Can Make You Lonely”

Scientists at the Institute for Blindingly Obvious Research Studies have discovered that staying on your own can sometimes make you feel lonely, thereby inducing pangs of longing and enhancing the need for company. In a study conducted across 2000 people, it was concluded that people staying alone were 26% more likely to feel lonely every once in while than people who were staying with flat mates or a spouse.

“Eating Cheese Could Lead to Longer Life”

Scientists at the Institute that Does a New Food Research Everyday to Confuse You on What’s Good and What’s Bad have discovered that eating cheese could lead to a longer lifespan. In a completely bonkers study conducted over five decades across two groups – one that ate cheese regularly and one that rarely ate cheese – it was found that the cheese-eating group lived, on average, five years longer. While the cheese lobby was elated at the findings, scientists cautioned that the longer lifespan could also be because the cheese eating group led a healthier life overall with a daily routine of cycling, circuit training, long-distance running, weight training and yoga, combined with living in the countryside.  However, it could just as well be cheese, so to be safe it’s best to eat cheese anyway, said the Chief Scientist.

“Men More Likely to Stare at Busty Women”

Scientists at the Institute that Specialises in Creepy & Pointless Research have concluded that men are twice as likely to ogle at women with bigger breasts than women with regular breasts. In a controversial study that reeks of sexism and had feminists fuming and men queuing up in eager anticipation, 500 men were asked to sit down and ogle at a bunch of women passing by. Surprise, surprise - it was discovered that the men were twice more likely to ogle at women with larger breasts.

I'm sure there is real science going on all the time - maybe it just doesn't make it to the news. The last time real science was in the news was when the God particle was discovered, although, much like God Himself, it disappeared after a week of frenzied activity. Whatever happened of the Large Hadron Collider once the God particle was found? It’s probably lying unused, gathering cobwebs and dust, to the extent that something can gather dust when it’s located along the pristine alpine-ness of the Franco-Swiss border. My guess is they're trying to flog it off to some Elon Musk/Bruce Wayne type playboy tech millionaire:

LHC Salesman: Good evening, sir. We’re calling from CERN, and we were wondering if you’d be interested in purchasing the Large Hadron Collider?

Playboy Tech Millionaire: A large hadron collider? What on earth for?

LHC Salesman: It’s great for splitting atoms at very high speeds. In fact, it’s the best particle accelerator ever built – far better than your run-of-the-mill, everyday cyclotron.

Millionaire: But I’m not really in the habit of splitting atoms in my spare time. 

LHC: You should, then! There's nothing quite like the thrill of a high speed collision between subatomic particles. It’s also a chance to own a piece of scientific history. Plus it’s a 14 km long tunnel – you could use it as an escape route, for rave parties, or your kids could use it to play hide and seek, or…

(Line disconnected)

Monumental Madness

One of the reasons I found history interesting was that it always had some truly bizarre, utterly crazy, completely bonkers occurrences that were happening all the time. At the same time, I’d also found history terribly boring because all these absurdly fascinating tales were narrated in a very matter-of-fact way and you were simply expected to remember it as a bunch of facts and figures instead of really getting into the stories. Take the Mughal emperors, for example. All of them were painted as such great rulers, but their stories always began with “Shah Jahan was one of the greatest Mughal emperors known for being a patron of the arts and architecture. He ascended the throne after killing his brothers, and then went on to rule for three decades. He is most famous for building the Taj Mahal, India’s greatest monument of all time.” I mean, isn’t it crazy how the fact that he killed his brothers to ascend to the throne has just been glossed over like it was some humdrum, everyday task that he performed, like waking up and brushing his teeth? Only Aurangzeb, who’d ruthlessly accumulated a staggeringly large portfolio of atrocities that was impossible to ignore, was painted in negative light. It would’ve been so much more interesting, and possibly accurate, if the paragraph on Shah Jahan were changed to “Best known for building the Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan was certifiably crazy. He had no qualms about indulging in a spot of fratricide to ascend to the throne. He then developed an unhealthy, psychotic obsession with his wife Mumtaz, which led to an early onset of senility that manifested itself in devoting 22 years of his life to building the Taj Mahal. As if this wasn’t enough, he proceeded to chop off the hands of the people who’d worked on the Taj Mahal – certainly not the sort of thanks you’d expect for helping someone build a great monument. In this day and age, such a man would be locked away in an asylum or run for the US Presidency, but the 15^th century was a little more lax about such degenerate behaviour”.

The craziness was not just confined to the Mughals – the Vikings had their terrible fashion sense, the English were always fighting with everyone, the Greeks were busy inventing philosophy and triggering off long, pointless arguments on the human condition that continue to this day, and the Mongols spent so much time looting, plundering and pillaging everyone else that they had no culture or cuisine to speak of despite being around for so long. Perhaps the greatest sign that ancient man was just as crazy as modern man, though, was in the monuments. Sure, most of them are magnificent structures that make you gape in awe and marvel at their breathtaking beauty, but once you get past all that, the lingering feeling you’re left behind with is “What on earth were they thinking?”

Take the Great Wall of China, for example. It was built over hundreds of years with the aim of protecting China from regular Mongol invasions. It seems that the ancient Mongols had made it a habit to invade China regularly – probably whenever they were bored, which was pretty often given that there’s nothing much to do in Mongolia. So the Mongols were pretty crazy, but the Chinese were even more so given that they were perfectly happy spending hundreds of years just to build a wall. Surely, while it was getting built, the Mongols must’ve had a great time merrily raiding China from the sides where the wall wasn’t ready – but the Chinese still thought that putting up with periodic pillaging was worth it as long as, eventually, it stopped the Mongols.

To its credit, though, the Great Wall at least had some functional purpose. What are truly baffling, though, are the pyramids.  Sure, ancient man was highly enthusiastic in celebrating the dead and forever building monuments to commemorate them – but even by those standards, the Egyptians took it to an altogether different level. Today, after thousands of years, the pyramids remain truly magnificent structures that stand testament to how bonkers the ancient Egyptians really were. Yes, it’s an engineering marvel and a remarkable architectural feat. You wonder how the Egyptians moved all those huge boulders and created those impossibly big triangular buildings – but the bigger question is – “Why?” Like most civilizations, the Egyptians did slightly nutty things like burying the dead along with their cats and some slightly cool things like inventing paper – but what were they thinking when they decided to build the pyramids? What possessed them to wake up one day and announce – I’m going to spend the next decade building a giant stone triangular building, and then spend the next few hundred years building many more of the same? I'm guessing it set civilization back a few hundred years – the Egyptians could’ve invented a lot more things if they weren’t spending their entire time building pyramid after pyramid.

The Pyramids and the Great Wall provide an insight into why, even today, the Arabs and the Chinese spend so much time building absurd things. I’d recently seen a TV program on a ridiculous elevator being built all the way up a mountain, along the face of a cliff, and was not at all surprised to know that it was in China. It’s the same whenever someone sends you a link about some preposterous new thing that’s built like an underwater complex that’s as big as a city, or a skiing lodge in the middle of a desert, or an entire European-looking village being built in the middle of nowhere – you know it’s either China or the UAE that’s committed the atrocity. Although given that a good chunk of taxpayer money has now been allocated to building a pointlessly gigantic statue of Sardar Patel, India might soon be joining that list.

Perhaps if history had been taught in a more interesting way in school, we would not be repeating the mistakes of the past. But no one was really paying any attention, were they?