Train-ing days

 

No, this is not about the latest training classes I am attending. I have been in Sydney for a few months now, and have been enjoying my time on Sydney’s excellent suburban train network. Get it ? Train-ing ? Sydney is a biig city, much more larger than I had expected. And the rail network is the fastest way to get from point to point. The average speed of the trains is still slow, but they are always on time. So if you factor in time to walk to and from the station, you will always be on time. Sydney’s bus system, though, is another story altogether. They are frequently late, the drivers are rough, and the major lines are always crowded. Its only good for last mile connectivity, you really should not use it to show up for an important meeting or interview at some distant place.

But back to the trains. In the field of urban transport, Melbourne beats Sydney by far. The Melbourne system appears much more modern and fast, despite the numerous level crossings. While Melbourne's overall coverage is better, the suburban rail system there is complemented by a huge network of trams, a type of transport almost absent in Sydney.  Ashamed to say, its only after coming here that I saw the double decker carriages. Never had the chance to get on one in India. It is an smart design, two levels of seatings in the space for one ! The coaches are mostly air conditioned, but some of the older coaches are still without them. At least in the mornings, the coaches are spank clean. They have used an innovative seating system, the back support of all seats can be flipped so that you can always sit in the direction of travel.

There are led displays , and regular announcements before all the stops. If you are new in the country, all you need is google maps to navigate your way through the complex network.

Here is something missing on the trains, which really stood out for me. There are no sockets or plug points on any carriage. You know, to charge you cellphone or something. Sockets are now a standard feature on every Indian train. This stands out because for some reason, every on the train is carrying an iPhone ! Also there are only limited seating for people with disabilities or special needs. The standing area is confined near the entrance, that is usually where everyone with big bags end up.

However, the network still holds up to the challenge of daily commuting. Inside, there are no sounds, no jerks. Rides are smooth. I have already fallen asleep twice on the trains and missed my stop. I honestly don’t know why they get so much flak in the media. The new Opal cards for tickets can be used for all buses and trains, just tap on and tap off. Transfers within 60 minutes is considered a single journey. But sometimes I have seen the smallest trips attracting larger charges. It works out cheaper if you travel long distances every day.  The train network also eaves many areas of the metropolitan area without coverage, notably, the entire northwest, the northeast, as well as many parts of the southeast.

I have been a fan of public transport since my younger days. Even after I learned to drive, I tried to take the bus or train as much as possible, except if the place has bad connectivity. That option shutdown in Bangalore where accessible public transport has essentially failed. So its nice to come back to my train-ing roots.

Good show

 

Good show, India. Nice going at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Our school children will have no problems if these questions are asked to them.

By the way, do you know who was the first Indian at the Winter Olympics ? It was Jeremy Bujakowski.

Black Panther

 

Another weekend. Lots of time. And nothing to do. It bothers me that all shops and malls in Australian cities close down sharp at 6pm, even on weekends. And only late night bars are open afterwards. There is nowhere to go in the 6pm - 9pm sweet spot, something we used to enjoy back in India.

A quick search showed that some movies were still open. Okay. So lets go there. And then we found there was hardly any choice of movies. Having read the rave reviews of Marve's Black Panther, we decided to catch it at the Crown in Melbourne.

The movie ? Meh. So-so. Things have come to a point nowadays that the only way to really enjoy a hollywood movie is to leave your brain at home. Marvel's cinematic universe is now larger than all the other sci-fi-fantasy stuff put together. And now they were moving towards secondary heroes, building up mythology in parts of the world other than..you know, cities in the US.

So as long as you not question logic, the movie is good. Though I still don't understand how people are comparing Killmonger to The Dark Knight's joker. Naah, not even close. Whereas Killmonger fights with force upfront, the Joker was all about brains. And for me the revenge story didn't make sense.

Wait wait, I got carried away. That was the kid in me talking.

I also found it really really wierd that everyone in Wakanda talks in English ! In that slow, clearly pronounced accent. Jordan's killmonger is the only one with his american accent, which made sense. But it sounded like everyone in Wakanda had a honors degree in English.

And what was Bilbo baggins doing in all of this ? And gollum was there too. Gollum and Baggins in a movie out of middle earth. That interrogation scene, I half expected Andy Serkis to go..."my precious !!" there.

But I liked the story of the reluctant king, hesitant to do the right thing, because it conflicts with his own conscience. There are some profound scenes of reflection and dialogue there. "You are a good man. Its hard for a good man to be a good king.". You know, absolute power and everything.

But the reason people are excited  about Black Panther is because the demand for media that centers minorities is far greater than the available supply.

 

 

PS: I think this is the first superhero movie I have watched in a theatre ! And maybe the last.

Happy Birthday, Sir Charles Darwin

 

Today is Charles Darwin's 209th birthday. Next year, 2010. Amazing ! The man was clearly ahead of his time. He is actually head of our time. Because two centuries later, there are still people who are not convinced by his ideas. They want to teach and learn evolution as simply a theory. Its a case of reverse Darwinism, survival of the dumbest.

I was expecting a few science articles , and a Google doodle in his honor today. But the current winter Olympics currently underway in South Korea has hijacked the media attention. More for political reasons than sporting. History’s most famous biologist will have to wait, maybe one more year.  He is celebrated as one the greatest British scientists who ever lived, but in his time his radical theories brought him into conflict with members of the Church of England. But right now, he is facing criticism from Indian politicians, of all places. 

But scientists, true scientists, are not giving up. The February 12 to 18 'Darwin Week' is being organised by The India March for Science Organising Committee and the Breakthrough Science Society. To this day the theory of evolution by natural selection is accepted by the scientific community as the best evidence-based explanation for the diversity and complexity of life on Earth. The human race has, by and large, embraced Darwin’s postulate and we have had no reason to question its soundness. No rebel has come forward with an equivalent of the laughable Flat Earth Society to refute Darwin’s views. Even at the most basic level of thinking, monkeys look like us (more or less), and pretty much behave like us, and are only handicapped by not being biped like us, and not gifted with the power of speech — thank goodness !

Something else I came across recently. Darwin documented his findings on the HMS Beagle journey in his notebooks. He was astounded by the colors of these forms of life in the Galapagos islands. But two hundred years ago, he did not have the simple smartphone or even a portable camera to capture a form. All he could do was write, and so he described the colors of the creatures and plants meticulously in his books. During the voyage he drew many of his words from a slim volume called “Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours,” published in 1814 by the Scottish artist Patrick Syme.

“I had been struck by the beautiful colour of the sea when seen through the chinks of a straw hat,” Charles Darwin wrote, in late March, 1832, as H.M.S. Beagle threaded its way through the Abrolhos Shoals, off the Brazilian coast. The water, he wrote, was “Indigo with a little Azure blue,” while the sky above was “Berlin with [a] little Ultra marine.”

Read about how a little known book served as the basis of color description in Darwin’s notes.

Other trivia: There is a place here in Australia, named after Charles Darwin. I plan on visiting it some day. The city was named Darwin by an explorer who had travelled with Darwin on the HMS Beagle. And heres another. Abraham Lincoln was born on this exact same day and year, in 1809. Two different pioneers in such vastly different fields, born on the same day in history.

The reason we can’t see evolution at work is because our human lives take up only the tiniest fraction on the scale of cosmic time We are but one iteration in billions of years of evolution.

That gives us a point to contemplate: wether we believe in god or science we are fortunate to be alive and self aware.

Our comfort is ruining the planet

 

We keep reading about how humans are slowly destroying the planet. We also keep reading about how a few try to do some good and negate the effect. Turns out, the amount of bad greatly outnumbers the good being done. The more we try to live comfortably on earth, the more we ruin the planet. There are now so many of us on Earth that the planet just doesn't have enough resources for us all to live comfortably, which means we require a radical rethink of how we could start living within our means.

A new study by researchers at University of Leeds looked at 151 nations and found not a single one was running itself in a sustainable way – ensuring a decent life for its inhabitants without taking more than it gives back in terms of natural resources. Even the most developed countries are using up natural resources at rates unheard of before, to maintain their high standard of living. While the other countries score far worse on both scales. As can be seen in this graph, the sweet spot quadrant, the top left, is wide empty.

The researchers used 11 different indicators to measure the quality of life in a country: life satisfaction, healthy life expectancy, nutrition, sanitation, income, access to energy, education, social support, democratic quality, equality, and employment.

That was then measured against 7 biophysical indicators, including the ones we've already mentioned, along with material footprint, nitrogen use, and blue water use. Each country's allotted share of these resources was based on its global population.

No country performed well on both scales. In general, the more social thresholds a country achieves, the more planetary boundaries it exceeds, and vice versa.

Although wealthy nations like the US and UK satisfy the basic needs of their citizens, they do so at a level of resource use that is far beyond what is globally sustainable. In contrast, countries that are using resources at a sustainable level, such as Sri Lanka, fail to meet the basic needs of their people.

Among the countries doing the best job are Vietnam, with 6 social thresholds achieved and only 1 biophysical boundary transgressed, and Germany, which hits all 11 social thresholds but has exceeded 5 of the 7 biophysical boundaries.

So thats the future for us, we are slowly eating into the planet. Developing nations, like India, languishing in the bottom, follow the blueprint set forth already by developed nations, with neither the funds or the inclination for alternatives. Almost everything we do, from having dinner to surfing the internet, uses resources in some way, but the connections between resource use and human well-being are not always visible to us.