Remembrance Day

Nov 11 was remembrance day. It is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth member states since the end of the First World War to honour armed forces members who have died in the line of duty. Remembrance Day is celebrated with ceremonies, a one-minute silence at 11 a.m. on November 11, and the wearing of a poppy. People gather at memorials and cenotaphs, schools hold commemorations, and many tune into broadcasts of services to remember those who died in service.  

If one looks up the wikipedia page of remembrance day, it can be see that this day is observed by all commonwealth countries, which does include India. But while I was growing up there, I cannot recall this being observed any year. There is no news coverage either. The world's largest democracy is completely clueless to how close the world was to coming to an end the first time, the great war. India's flag day, observed on Dec 7, definitely has more recognition. Our history textbooks have little coverage of why this day needs to be observed too.

I grew up thinking that India did not really have any role in both of those great wars, we were too busy fighting our own battles with the British crown back then. It was only later, much later, that I got some access to books and articles on the role that at least some Indians played in both World Wars, albeit fighting for the Brits in a strange irony. Approximately 1.3 million Indian soldiers - Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims and Christians - served in WW1, and 2.5 million in WW2. Participants from the Indian subcontinent won 13,000 medals, including 12 Victoria Crosses in WW1

By the way, did you know that there were already some Indians living in Australia before the First World War ? In June 1917, Private Nain Singh Sailani and Private Sarn Singh were killed in action on the Western Front. These men were among at least 12 Indian Australians who are known to have enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) during the First World War. They were also the only Indian soldiers known to have been killed in action while serving as members of the AIF. Other men, such as Desanda Singh, made it through the war and returned to Australia. We may never know what motivated these men to enlist, but their stories add to the richness of Australia’s wartime history.

History is a strange subject. It is something that is always growing, as everything happening today will become history tomorrow. But the way the subject is taught in schools , especially in places like India renders it completely boring.  I remember our teachers used to prepare one line questions like : In what year did X attack Y ? Or when did this war start ? They expected the correct , once word answers, and expected students to memorise all those useless years. We are so focussed on the dates and places in history, that we miss out the real learning we should be focussed on: they mistakes people made, and what we can learn from them.

The world today would look drastically different had the wrong side won both those great wars. Anyone want to imagine a fascist planet earth ? What if the central powers had won the first world war ? That would have changed the language makeup completely. 

But the most important thing is this : We owe a un-repayable debt to those brave soldiers who marched bravely to battlegrounds , to fight on behalf of civilians all over the world. And this is why days like 11th November, and 2nd September matter. They died, so that all of us could live. And the world has learnt important lessons ;probably why we haven't had a 3rd World War yet.  

And it breaks my heart that most people alive today are so caught up in social media and news cycles, and have no idea that we can only enjoy our freedom today because many millions paid for it with their lives.

Read up on our history. So we don't have to repeat them.

https://theconversation.com/why-remembrance-of-indian-soldiers-who-fought-for-the-british-in-world-war-ii-is-so-political-86885

https://www.indianlink.com.au/remembrance-day-remembering-the-indian-australian-soldiers/

Time to get the bike out again.

 Aaahh... can you feel that ? Spring is in the air. And about time too, cause winter was behaving like a forgetful grandpa , constantly returning to pick up things they forgot. Overstaying their welcome. Its my favourite time of the year.. just warm enough to be outdoors, but cool enough to still have a light jacket on. Goes nicely with coffee.

And bikes ! Spring is undoubtedly the best time of year to get riding again. The humble bicycle should be mankind's finest inventions. It solves problems, is fun to use, and needs close to zero maintenance, and no charging (looking at you e-bike users). Bikes are virtually free, and require no insurance, registration, license, parking spaces, or any other hassle. They are so easy to own, and so incredibly useful and beneficial, with absolutely no drawbacks whatsoever to ownership. And yet somehow, there are adults out there – millions of them, ..... – who don’t even have a bike.I have been riding one since.. I turned.. 5 , I think  ? Can't remember. And it surprises me that most people still don't have a bike.  

Bikes are virtually free, and require no insurance, registration, license, parking spaces, or any other hassle. They are so easy to own, and so incredibly useful and beneficial, with absolutely no drawbacks whatsoever to ownership. And yet somehow, there are adults out there – millions of them, ......... who don’t even have a bike.

The fact is that the bicycle is still the world's most efficient way to travel, 52 years after it was first proven. Back in 1973, Scientific American magazine published an article written by S S Wilson, then a lecturer in engineering at Oxford University, in which he argued  that the bicycle’s purpose was to “make it easier for an individual to move about, and this the bicycle achieves in a way that quite outdoes natural evolution.” 

And along with that article was a graph, which charted the weight vs efficiency of most things that move on this green planet. The classic graph, reproduced countless times by engineers and cycling enthusiasts, has inspired figures as diverse as Steve Jobs, who famously compared the personal computer to “the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.”  In the latest edition, the magazine have now updated that for modern times. This graph : 

There are few things more nerdy that hearing an engineer waxing on the benefits of riding a bicycle: and Wilson does an excellent job staying true to form. He explained that while an unaided walking human consumes a fair amount of energy per distance traveled, a cyclist using a bicycle reduces energy consumption to roughly a fifth. In Wilson’s words: the cyclist “improves his efficiency rating to No. 1 among moving creatures and machines.”

Wilson also outlined practical ways to encourage cycling in cities: cycleways to reduce conflicts with automobiles, bicycle parking stations, transport of bikes by rail and bus, and public bicycles for “park and pedal” services. “Already bicycling is often the best way to get around quickly in city centers,” he noted.

His prescription for global challenges of transportation, health, and resource efficiency? “Cycle and recycle.” Wilson even applied his ideas practically, helping develop the Oxtrike cargo tricycle for developing countries.

The bicycle, as both Wilson and modern science attest, remains a triumph of efficiency and human ingenuity—one pedal stroke at a time.

But the biggest benefit of cycling ? Its just fun.

Ill see you down the road.

What is the end game of this AI race ?

This is more of an open question, than a rant, though it might read more like the latter.

30 November 2022. According to Google, that is when Open- AI launched their flagship AI model : Chat-Gpt. We all know what happened next, the initial versions were full of bugs, and problematic, but eventually it improved. In the coming months, other competing tech companies release their own versions of AI models and applications. 

So, By the end of 2025, humanity would have lived and coexisted with generative AI for three years. And the landscape has been permanently changed. 

But how ? Well, lets see, there is still a lot of AI slop, incorrrect data and biases in the answers generate by AI, but things have slowly improved maybe ? But the real impact can be seen in the real world now, and some of the people most impacted are the folks who helped build AI in the first place.

Unemployment has grown. The first impacted were artists of all kind: painters, musicians, singers.. and even actors. The abundance of art available online was used to (sometimes illegally) to train AI models, which can now efficiently recreate original works, but heavily influenced by human artists. Work which was traditionally given to artists, everything from posters on the street, ads online to vfx and entire movies, are now delivered by AI. This resulted in a big strike in hollywood in 2023. After 5 months, an agreement was reached in hollywood on how to use AI, without replacing the human artist. 

The next impacted seem to be everyone else: more and more office/desk work can now be automated via AI bots/agents, which can easily be trained to take over from a human. And the folks in technology seem to be hit pretty hard. The problem can be seen amplified in countries that do not have labour laws protecting the employees in place. Earlier this year, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) axed 12,000 employees in its largest-ever layoff round. Rival Infosys is touting AI bots it says can slash manpower needs by up to 35 per cent. 

As of now, it is the youngest employees joining the workforce that are most impacted; and how ! They were keen on gaming the system by using AI, but seem to be losing at the final level. At first, students were excited about using AI to complete their course homework. Then the professors caught on: they started using AI to assign tasks , create new challenges, and even grade students work. But in the endgame, new graduates from universities are unable to land their first jobs. The reason: companies are now using AI to automate those entry level jobs, which were done by fresh graduates upto a few years ago.

This pattern , and problem, is now being reported from about every country in the world, and there does not seem to be an fix anytime soon. The reason probably is that companies do not see it as a problem in the first place, they are happy with the lower costs of running things, without the added 'baggage' of human resources. But eventually , the problem is going to overflow from fresh graduates, to even experienced working professionals.

So that got me thinking: what is the end game of this flow ? The way the world economy is setup, human beings are an necessary part of the whole flow. 

It is the humans that consume goods and services, everything from groceries to 3k smart phones and millon dollar homes. 

It is the humans that travel and spend on things they do and do not need. 

It the humans that pay taxes, and vote in elections, and pay for utilities and services.

If every human being can be replaced by AI, who is going to buy all the goods ? You know, the same products that these AI embracing companies are producing. Banks need people to take out loans, that is what generates its revenue. Hospitality companies need poeple to travel, for work or pleasure, or their whole business will collapse, as was seen during the great COVID lockdowns. And every other private company is trying to sell something to a human a the end of their supply chain.

So eventually there are going to be things to be sold, but no one who can buy. Which is the technical definition of a recession. 

Which is likely where governments are going to wake up to reality. The private companies are definitely going to self-regulate, it is in their best interest to profit off replacing humans. The most likely stop to this mess will likely come from federal governments stepping in to slow, and eventually stop the carnage.  Some political party will have to take a hard stand, and work for the human again. You know ,the folks who actually vote and pay taxes. 

I just hope it does not take that long.

The H1B system is broken. Heres a doco.

 

Here is a doco.

It does a good job of summarizing some of the issues, and the rampant felonies being committed in the program, and even names some of the big felons.

But like most such documentaries, it falls short of providing viable solution to the issues.

But good watch.

Today, the Drishyam plan is in progress

This weekend is August 2, Saturday; and August 3, Sunday. For fans of Malayalam movies, these dates might stir memories from the plot of the 2013 Malayalam hit, Drishyam. In the second half of this trend-setter, the (antagonist) police investigation try to prove that the protagonist family were home on the 2nd during a crime being committed. The family, led by the patriach Georgekutty, consistenly prove that there were not home , and were visiting and stayin the nearby town.

August 2, Saturday. And August 3rd, a Sunday.

Its a fun trivia to remember.

Jurassic Rebirth - they, uhh.. found a way.

So it finally happened.  years later, they made a 6th sequel to the original Jurassic Park movie, trying to steal every dollar from us viewers. I had stopped watching the movies after the massive disappointment of movie 4. And had vowed never to watch another sequel in the theatres again. But you know life..is strange.

Now as I write this, the reviews of this new movie is polarised - 50-50. And that is so spot on. Some of the sequences in this movie are the silliest, and cheesiest of the entire franchise, much worse that the whole weaponizing-the-dinos bit. But some other sequences in this movie are the stuff of horror, easily the scariest bits of all the Jurassic movies so far. Its as if the movie was directed by two completely different people. But the bits I liked the most are parts where they clearly went back to Michael Crichton's original two novels for inspiration, and ..uhh..found a way to bring back that charm.

Like the whole T-Rex river sequence - my favourite part of Rebirth.. That whole plot point is from the first Jurassic Park novel. In the book Alan Grant and the two kids find a way back to the main complex. We are an inflatable boat on a river for hidden tunnels through a waterfall. (Fun fact: in the first novel, Lex is a 4 year old little girl crazy about baseball, and always carries a pitchers glove. Tim is older, an nerdier elder brother, protective of his little sister; they switched it around for the first movie. ) . To make this work in this movie story had to create an entire new family of father and two daughters and a straggler boyfriend.  And they have re-created that sequence exactly as mentioned in the book. And it works, it really works. Then entire theatre watch completely silent for the entire seven minutes sequence.

And the whole supermarket mutadon sequence was clearly a callback to the kitchen sequence of the first movie. 

But right in the opening minutes, they have copied a plot point from the second Jurassic Park novel. The secret facility is shown undone by a chocolate wrapper. In the book "The lost world" a character attracts velociraptors because they dropped candy wrappers.

And cue in the wonder - the inspiring , iconic music of the first movie returns in all its glory. But the sequence on which it is shot is just director Gareth Edwards copying off his first monster movie - two huge creatures embracing each other.

And red flares. Lots and lots of red flares.

If this movie works it entirely because they've gone back to their roots. There is something scary about bunch of humans visiting a monster infested island. Like King-kong, like the anaconda movies, even those alien predator movies - a bunch of silly humans in the territory of bad animals is just the recipe of a summer movie. But I am surprised that it took the studio so long to realise this and come to their senses. There is no place for logic in it, and is best enjoyed with that part of your brain turned off. And in a theatre with a huge screen.

Crichton had a genius idea. And Spielberg gave it wings. But everyone else is just making things worse with every sequel.

Rabbit hole

Aha, fun days. Its nice getting some time to yourselves. And what's more fun than  reading ? A bit of writing. 

I went down a long rabbit hole recently. In a good way. I have always enjoyed reading, and comics and cartoons in that order. Earlier this year I read that The Tintin comics entered public domain this year. Not around the world, only the US copyright.

You see ,everything written or published by any author has a copyright, during which that work cannot be copied. The law works different in each country. But here is what google's ai summarized:

In the United States, the copyright on the original Tintin comics expires 95 years after publication. This means that the first versions of Tintin, which debuted in a Belgian newspaper in 1929, entered the public domain on January 1, 2025. Therefore, as of today (May 29, 2025), the US copyright on Tintin has already expired. 

Now does that mean one is now free to copy and use the character as one sees fit ? Beats me, I am not a lawyer.

But reading upon this news brought back memories. And a bit of time travel. You see, the Tintin comics were the first real cartoon/comic books I read. Uptil that point I only ever read the cartoons published in Indian newspapers. Most of which were political, although the Hindu published syndicated cartoons/comics from the West : Tarzan, Spiderman etc.

The school I used to attend to, one day finally decided to get brand new books; and these reignited my  love of reading. The complete works of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, many other thrillers and non-fictions, and the World Encyclopedia (remember those). It was the time before accessible , cheap internet, so folks had to find their stuff offline the hard way.

But among the acquisitions, was the complete color publication of The Tintin comics. This was soon to prove a famous among the school students. The simple, dark lines and many colors, and the humour from 60 years prior just resonated. Tintin , the young 20s something lad always found a way to travel around the world with his little dog, without having to answer questions at passport control, or booking a separate seat for his dog ! The Tintin world was a simplified but still rich snapshot in time.

My favourite book (maybe for most) was of course the Unicorn-Rackham works. Author George Remi, more famously known as Herge, found a way to get some time travel within the storyline. In the first book, the timeline shifts from the 1920s to 1670s, when captain Haddock recounts the travels of his ancestor, who was supposedly a capable captain in King Charles II's navy, the English navy. It features pirates, and wooden ships, and classic cutlass fights. I suppose pirates and sail ships have always stirred the imagination of the young reader. And of course: treasure. Cutting back to current times, the trio (musn't forget Snowy) decide to hunt for pirate Red Rackham's sunken treasure.

I came home and started reading and playing the story to my kid. And the little one got hooked.  There was a plethora of questions about pirates and life at sea at the time ; questions I was not really prepared for. 

"What's the larboard  ?"

"What's the booty?"

"Gunpowder?"

Man of man..the questions kept on coming. I had no choice but to bring in more books & movies on the topic.

We end up watching the live animated movie by Spielberg, after having watched the animations from the 90s.

..fast forward 2 days, we were now watching Treasure Island, the 1990 version starring a young Christian Bale as Hawkins.

The movie was fun but attracted more questions. Hawkins was clearly too young to be serving in a place like that, but times were different. And how does the treasure finding work ? Is it always "finders, keepers" ? Not in the real world, but law is different in adventure fiction.

Coming back to Tintin, it was fascinating reading how teachers were using the comics to teach world history. There is something about the clear drawings, and the colorful and caricaturized characters, the colorful, but still child-safe language, and references to all the cultures and countries depicted: someone actually took time and effort to work on them, and it is clearly visible. There are memes, and ai generated content ..etc..Tintin will live on in imagination and on the internet forever.

And that was quite a rabbit hole.

The biggest reality show begins today

Sometimes, reality is stranger than fiction.  Reality programs had hit television more than two decades ago, captured viewers interest, and have overstayed their welcome. But now, the greatest reality show in the world starts today. Its a joke, there will be thrills, many people will be affected, and relationships are going to get tainted. 

But all we can do is stay home and watch. And hope it ends in 4 years.