Missed connection, and Turkish treats...

I was on only my second ınternatıonal flıght yesterday, flyıng wıth Turkısh Aırlınes, from London to Istanbul to Mumbaı. The fırst one got delayed, and here I am, usıng a Turkısh keyboard to type thıs post, tryıng to get used to the bunch of addıtıonal alphabet and the Turkısh key posıtıonıng... They have thıs letter: ı, whıch ıs located where i ıs supposed to be, and I decıded ıt´s too much of a paın to try to go for the i.

Anyways, I´m quıte jobless at the hotel, so here´s an account of how I ended up here...

So I booked a tıcket wıth Turkısh Aırlınes- London to Istanbul to Mumbaı. I was supposed to land ın Istanbul yesterday at 6 35 PM, and then take another flıght at 7 35 PM to Mumbaı. I was quıte aware that just an hour for the connectıon ıs pushıng ıt a bıt too much, but the aırlınes gave me that tıcket and they run both flıghts, so I fıgured they´d hold the second flıght ıf the fırst got delayed (but apparently not).

I was ın the fırst flıght, at Gatwıck aırport, London. Everythıng was goıng nıce and smooth, ıt was all on tıme. Plane´s loaded, pılots goıng through all the checks. When I thought they´d turn on the engınes and start to taxı, the cabın crew announced that they´d have to waıt to check all our luggages- because someone apparently lost somethıng. And just lıke that, ıt went from everythıng beıng on schedule to a 40-mınute delay at take-off, because someone couldn´t manage handlıng a couple of bags. As one can ımagıne, I was quıte pıssed off. Holdıng a plane for 40 mınutes for a bag of stuff- that´s completely unreasonable. And ıt wasn´t lıke ıt was the aırlıne´s fault eıther, just some schmuck who dıdn´t gıve a shıt about other people´s tıme.

The flıght eventually took-off. Beıng run by Turkısh Aırlınes, all announcements were repeated ın Englısh and Turkısh. I can´t understand Turkısh, so I don´t know what they saıd, but ıt seemed lıke the crew dıdn´t even bother to make an effort for the Englısh announcements- except for a few keywords, I never understood what they saıd and had to guess what they were sayıng based on the sıtuatıon.

Other than that, ıt was all pretty smooth- they served a regular Turkısh meal- whıch felt a bıt weırd sınce ıt was totally dry wıth no sauces at all. It was boıled rıce wıth grılled chıcken, somethıng that tasted lıke a mınced steak fıllet, grılled peppers, grılled brınjals, and cheese. As I saıd, no sauce at all. But ıt was stıll a good meal. And the programmıng ın those tıny screens on the back of the seats also ın Turkısh and Englısh, but the optıons for Englısh were quıte lımıted and I had to watch one of the few Englısh movıes.

The flıght landed ın Istanbul, 30 mınutes late. That meant I stıll had 15 mınutes before the boardıng closed on the flıght to Mumbaı. And thıs tıme ıt was a woman who decıded she´d take her own sweet tıme to play wıth her kıds ınstead of gettıng on the shuttles that took the passengers to the termınal. I understand ıt´s not easy handlıng kıds, but the lady dıdn´t even ask for the crew´s help. A bus fılled wıth passengers watched her and her kıds (there were 2 of them) take 4 mınutes (yes, someone dıd check the tıme) to clımb down the staırs, after already havıng waıted about 10 mınutes for them to get to the exıt. There were about of couple dozen others who had to make the same connectıon as mıne, and all of them were pıssed.

The shuttle dropped us off at the termınal and we all rushed to the gate (gate ınfo was provıded on the prevıous flıght). The ınfo boards ın the termınal already showed that the gates were closed for our flıght, but I hoped they would let us on sınce the connectıng flıght was delayed, or at the very least, to talk to the staff about what flıght they would put us on. But when we dıd get to the gate, the staff had already left. And then the weırdest thıng happened. Everyone was just sıttıng at the gate- as ıf someone would magıcally turn up ıf they waıted long enough. And no one dıd. Gıven that there were a couple dozen people wıth the same story, I wasn´t sure ıf ıt would be best for me to go talk to the aırlınes by myself. But after waıtıng for about 5 mınutes, I left to fınd the aırlınes´help desk. I wasn´t very effıcıent wıth the search and took quıte a long tıme to fınd the rıght desk. And when I dıd, I was ıssued a boardıng pass for a flıght for the next day rıght away, no questıons asked.

The questıon came from me though- I had a day to spare and I needed the place to say. Agaın, the aırlıne saıd they would accommodate ın theır hotel. The problem was that theır hotel was outsıde the aırport and I dıd not have a vısa. They asked us to get a tourıst vısa (valıd for a month), whıch cost USD 43, and told us they´d refund us for the vısa after arrıval at Mumbaı.

And then started my journey across the entıre termınal- I´m not kıddıng, I dıd go through the entıre termınal. For the vısa, we had to pay ın cash, but only ın USD or Euros (or Turkısh Lıra), and I only had UK pound sterlıng. I kept askıng people for dırectıons to an exchange counter, but I kept gettıng lost and ended up goıng to all of the gates, everywhere except the lounge. I fınally decıded to just use an ATM machıne next to the vısa offıce, whıch I avoıded because the exchange rates are bad and commıssıons are hıgh. And then I had to run back and forth between passport control and vısa counters, and fınally got my Turkısh vısa after about an hour and a half of runnıng around.

After I got the vısa, I realızed I forgot to ask where I needed to go to get to the aırlıne´s hotel. And agaın, I vısıted several desks of the aırlıne before I ended up at the rıght one. In the process, I met a bunch of Pakıstanı guys who thought I was from Pakıstan too- these guys were ıllegal ımmıgrants and they dıd not know much about aırport procedures. They were beıng deported, wıth tıckets arranged by theır embassy. After a brıef chat about Indıa and Pakıstan and how people ın Pakıstan thınk of Indıans as theır brothers and all that, I told them I had to fınd the help desk ASAP and took my leave. When I dıd fınd the rıght desk, the aırlıne´s staff took a look at my boardıng pass and arranged a shuttle to take me to a hotel ın about 15 mınutes, and I ended up at thıs hotel called ``Radısson Blu´´. The hotel looks pretty good, although there are a few thıngs they could ımprove upon. And the aırlınes- although I would have apprecıated ıf they had sent a representatıve to meet us rıght after we came to the termınal- ınstead of us havıng to fınd theır desk, they have done quıte well. When they heard the connectıng flıght was delayed, they ıssued us boardıng passes for the next flıght and they arranged for a hotel rıght away. Some of theır staff had trouble communıcatıng ın Englısh, but they were stıll quıte polıte. And now I waıt for theır shuttle to come pıck me up from the hotel.

And about the Turkısh treats I mentıon ın the tıtle- that has to do wıth the breakfast they serve at the hotel- lots of kınds of cheese, olıves, pastrıes, fruıts, and nuts- probably the best breakfast I´ve ever had.

The duty of the privileged

I have been on Quora regularly for about an year now. And I got into some interesting discussions, one of which has motivated the current post.

First, I must say that I'm not religious. I do not believe in any deities, and I do not believe that people have been created and assigned a specific role that they need to serve. I also do not believe that humans are "special" compared to other life forms. We are born with improved mental faculties, and physical abilities compared to some, and that's it.

So, the world's not fair. A hen that's hatched in a cage, with no option but to get killed by these huge monstrous species called humans, definitely has circumstances much worse than a lot of people. The hen didn't choose to be born like that, that's just how it is. The world is not fair.

And even among humans, a prince in a monarchy has a life that is much better than that of a unwanted child in a backward country. Or even in the same neighbourhood, a kid with caring parents has it much better than one with ill-tempered ones. I don't even have to talk about how hard life is for women. The world is not fair.

But people did not think like this in earlier times. Small groups of people came up with schemes to control larger groups of people. A king living in a castle, surrounded by knights in armour, told the people that it was God's will that the king rule the people. And opposers were executed by the king's soldiers.

The priest living in a mansion, funded by the kind and guarded by his soldiers, told the people that what the king said was true. There indeed was an invisible man in the sky who was all-powerful, who knew every little thing that everyone did. And he was going to torture them in hell, unless they followed all the rules that the priest had set. And it was God's will that some people were born into unfortunate circumstances, because they had sinned in a previous life, or their ancestors had sinned, or it was all a test and the best performers would be rewarded. And disbelievers were stoned and burnt by the believers.

And there were nobles, favored by the king, who got away with whatever they did. And feudal lords, favored by the nobles, who owned lands where workers slaved. And they got away with whatever they did. Then there were merchants, who owned trades and manipulated markets. And law enforcers, who cared only for their own gain.

So these small groups of people controlled much larger ones, with cunning schemes of tempting rewards and horrible pains. And what did the large groups do? Well, they believed in all that shit. That there was an invisible man in the sky. That he communicated exclusively with a bunch of priests. That some wimpy kid was chosen by the invisible man in the sky. That lands belonged to someone for no apparent reason. That there are rules that must be followed, which are arbitrarily set and always seem to favor the merchants. That some people are born to rule, and some are born to slave. That women had no role but to serve her man. That the stars hold their future and cats can cause their death.

These large groups of people who gave in to those unfair schemes, a lot of people call them victims, but I disagree. A grown man or woman has no excuse for being ignorant, for blindly believing in whatever someone else says. Each person is responsible for their own decisions.

But what of the generations that follow, the kin of this man and woman who submitted to others of their own will? Who agreed that they would slave their life away for promise of imaginary protection from the wrath of imaginary beings? What can a kid born into a backward family in a messed up society do?

The world is unfair.

Gullibility, ignorance, desire, and insecurities of people who lived decades and centuries ago have screwed up the lives of those that live today. A kid is born in the powerful nation with every resource he/she can want. A kid is born in a place where water cannot be found. There are some who are highly privileged, and others with none.

Do the privileged owe something to the under-privileged? Should they give it out to them? Or should the under-privileged fight for it themselves? And what about animals? Should we recognize that they were unfortunate to be born the way the are, and extend them the same care that we may owe to the less-privileged of humans?

Is there a duty that the privileged must dispense? Or should we all simply accept that the world is not fair and let the less-privileged fight their own battles?

Suppose God does not exist- Part 2

Please read part 1 of the article before you read this one.

In part 1, I talk about a world without God or Morals. A world where a lot of people are irrational. This world is influenced by a few smart people who realize that people must work in teams, and these teams must have some rules. To give weight to the rules, we say they are given by an all-knowing, all-powerful, invisible man in the sky.
Now, suppose this world IS OUR WORLD.

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Think about what that means. The implications. There is no God. There are no morals. There are just a few rational people surrounded by a sea of irrational people.

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Do you feel like you have lost something? What do you lose when you assume that there is no God and there are no morals?


You lose everything you have learnt from religions and morals. Or do you? When you understand morals as rules that we need so that our society can work properly, and religion as a way to make people strongly believe in these morals, what else do you lose?

You lose answers to the big questions, such as
1) Who am I?
2) What is the reason for my existence?
3) What is right, and what is wrong?
4) How does the universe work? How and when did it start, and when will it end?
5) What happens to me after I die?
6? What is the most important thing in my life?

The answers to these big questions are lost when you discard religion. But is that really a bad thing?

If you do not have these answers, you can set out to find our own answers- try to comprehend your own existence, understand your purpose in life. Isn't that more exciting than listening to some stories?

I have asked these questions, and I have arrived at answers to some of them. The answers I have are not complete, and they are not the same as the ones I had 5 years ago. The interesting thing that I have figured out is, I had to define some of those answers.

If you can figure out some of those answers, ask yourself if what you are doing is in line with that answer. If the answer to "Who am I?" is, " I'm a super-hero who can fly", then what are you doing sitting in front of a computer for most of the day (or whatever else you may be doing)? Shouldn't you be trying to fly? (Please don't jump off a building and hope to fly, the super-hero thing was just an example)

What is holding you back from doing what you want to?




Or, you can always be happy with the answers given by your religion or your community. But what fun is it to be content with answers given millennia ago by someone you never knew?

Suppose God does not exist- Part 1

Suppose God does not exist, just for the sake of argument. To be more accurate, suppose that all the major religions are just playing a guessing game, and everything they say about 'God' is just a fairy tale and none of it is true.
Taking a step further, suppose that there are no morals either. Suppose that there is nothing inherently wrong in killing another person.
Going into more improbable territory, suppose that human beings are not completely stupid. That is to say, assume that some people are capable of being smart, some of the time. Suppose that some people can be rational.

It must be quite clear that I say that a lot of people are irrational. I do not mean it as disrespect to anyone, but look around and you know that people are not rational. I subscribe to evolution, and I think human beings have not evolved enough for the entire population to be as rational as we usually think we are.

Imagine the world that we have just supposed: There is no God, there are no morals, and some people are smart. Would this world be different from the one we currently live in? How different would it be?


Think about a game of football. Suppose you're playing the game. Your aim is to score as many goals as you can, and also make sure the other team does not score any goals. Suppose you hate all your teammates and you don't want to work with them, and it's the same story with the rest of the people on the team. You don't pass the ball to your teammates, and you tackle them whenever you get the chance. Now, suppose the other team is not like yours, and they are all good friends and they co-ordinate well amongst each other.
Assuming that all the players in both the teams are at the same skill level, the other team will easily win the game.

What can you take away from that game of football? When you share a common goal with others, you improve your chance of achieving it if you co-operate with the others. This is what happens with any regular football team- all of them want to win the match, and they help each other. But they don't all run after the ball. One guy has to be the goal-keeper, some of them have to be defenders. Even the attackers don't always get a shot to score, they usually pass to the striker. While each player would want the glory of scoring, they sacrifice that desire, because they realize that they will definitely lose if all 11 players just run after the ball. They all stick to their roles and take pride in the team's victory, rather than think about how many goals each of them scored.

In the world without God and morals, there are still some smart people who can realize that if they want to survive, it is better to team up with the others. If you are stranded with 10 other people on a deserted island, you can fight with the rest of them till there's only one person left alive. But after this happens, how long will that single person be able to survive?
If the group of stranded people had a few smart ones, they could persuade the others to work together- to help each other to survive, just like in the game of football. Except that it is not about winning, it's about surviving. It's not against another team, but against nature, or may be a tribe that lives on the island that doesn't like outsiders.

You can see this kind of living anywhere you look. Team sports- everyone in the team takes up a role so that the team wins. War- each soldier protects the others, sticks to his orders, and carries his mission out. Lions - they hunt together, defend each other, and protect their territory. Bees- some go looking for nectar, one lays eggs, some look after the infants, and if there is a disturbance, all of them attack the invader. Ants- same as bees.

Working together means that the members of the team must support each other. Over time, they grow to have faith in each other. A lion knows that the other members in the pride will support it when it attacks a bigger animal, like a buffalo. A soldier knows that if he tries to advance to the enemy lines, others will cover him. The striker in a football game knows that the other attackers will pass the ball to him when he is in good position to score.

But the whole team thing comes with a price. Some rules need to be set up, roles need to be assigned. In a football game, the players are assigned roles (based on their skills, unless the captain or the manager is corrupt). Each of them may want to score as many goals as he can, but he does not do that, because then the team breaks down.

The rules in the football game are quite straight-forward. Goal-keeper saves, defenders and attackers pass, striker scores. But with the people stranded on the island, it is not so simple. They need a more elaborate set of rules. First, they need to get food. Some of them may not be as good as the others in hunting. Should these people be left to starve, or should the others share their food with them? Suppose there are 3 women and 8 men, and each of the men wants to have one (or more) of the women to be their partner? How do they decide who gets who and who is left without a partner? Should the men fight to the death? Play a sophisticated version of rock-paper-scissors? Have a hunting contest? Or should the women be allowed to choose? Will the men without a partner respect that decision? Suppose they finally managed to gather enough material to build a canoe to escape the island, but it can only carry 8 out of the 11 people. Which 8 should be allowed to use it?

These and a lot of other difficult situations tend to arise when people team up. Each person has desires that cannot be met with the available resources. They could settle these things with a fight to the death. Or, they can all agree on a set of rules that they will all stick to. Let's call these rules, 'Morals'. People can always decide not to follow the rules, and even if a few of them stop following the rules, the team can easily break down. So, make up another rule- If someone does not follow the Morals, the rest of them beat the crap out of him.

Suppose that this group of 11, stranded on the island, managed to survive and reproduce. A 100 years later, when the original 11 have passed away, there's a larger population that doesn't really appreciate all the rules. What if someone is not happy with the rules? Or if he is too strong or fast for the others to beat him up? If he's secretly breaking the rules? Or, if he's not breaking any of the rules and someone else accuses him of breaking the rules? What if one of them is not scared of the others anymore and decides to do whatever he wants- starting with stealing their food and forcing the women? And just beating him doesn't work.

Here's an idea- Tell them that there is an invisible man in the sky who watches everything you do. And the 'Morals' were actually rules that the invisible man had given to the people. And there is a special place called hell,  far away from the island and in the depths of the earth, for anyone who breaks the rules. And people who break the rules go to hell and will be tortured for eternity.

The people don't buy it? Make it more appealing. The invisible man is not all evil. If you stick to the rules, he takes you to another place where you can enjoy in any way you want to. And as a side note, tell them that the invisible man talks to you and everything you say is true. They still don't buy it? Make a deal with some of the others- tell them you will help them if they spread the rumor that there really is an invisible man who is all-knowing and all-powerful, and he talks to you. How do you help these guys who spread the rumors? Simple- tell the people that the invisible man told you that your supporters must be allowed to rule the rest of the people- The divine right to rule.

The story of the 11 people on the deserted island, this could very well be the story of the world without God and Morals, with a few smart people. And if you can imagine this world- where smart people realize that it is easier to work as a team, and that teams need rules, and that these rules can be made more appealing to the people if you say that they come from an all-knowing, all-powerful invisible man in the sky who will give them all kinds of pleasures if they stick to the rules, and all kinds of pain if they break the rules; how different will this world be from the world we live in today?

TV Series I've watched

This post doesn't go with the tone of the blog, but still.... I thought I'd make a list of all the TV series I've watched, and then rank them. This is my ranking of the 40+ TV series I have watched in the last 3 years.
If you plan to watch any of the anime on the list, watch the Japanese version with English subs. The English dubbed versions are not nearly as good as the subbed ones.

48. Californication
Tried watching about 6-7 episodes, didn't like it at all.



46. Breaking Bad
A chemistry teacher who starts cooking meth. Too slow. Too many annoying characters. People say it's the greatest show ever made, so I put up with it. But it sucks. After 4 seasons, I had to give up.


45. Kuroko no Basuke (Kuroko's Basketball) (Anime)
There are these freakishly good high school basketball players, and then there's this guy called Kuroko who prefers to play with a team with his own style. Wasn't too bad, but was slow and failed to take-off.



44. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (Anime)
Huge robots. Fighting. With special powers. There were some moments when it was a bit exciting, but on the whole, it's quite boring.


43. Boondocks
About a couple of black kids (and their racist uncle). The first few seasons were awesome, but got boring later.



42. Spiral: bonds of reasoning (Anime)
About a genius kid, whose elder brother was also freakishly smart. But the elder brother leaves the house for some reason and the younger one tries to figure out why. The first 5-10 episodes were good, but they just lost it after that.



41. Gantz (Anime)
When people die, they are recruited into a game. And these people have to complete missions. The plot was good and I felt it had great potential. But the anime was filled with stupidity and the ending really sucked. 


40. Naruto (Anime)
It's based in the Japanese ninja tradition, and the ninjas have these awesome techniques. And there's a kid who was very lonely once and doesn't want anyone else to go through the same. It was okay in the beginning, but got really annoying after a while. The lead character is annoying, and the mangaka seemed to not care about consistency at all.


39.5. The Simpsons
People say it's awesome. I didn't find it to be funny enough.



39. Fairy Tail (Anime)
It's about people who can do magic, who form guilds, and then fight for their guilds. Some people like this anime, but I just can't seem to get into it. Too repetitive, boring battles, too much sentimental stuff (which is also pretty repetitive).


38. Bleach (Anime)
So there's three worlds, the regular one we know, and a couple for souls. And there are people in both soul worlds that try to either mess things up or save the world. It was pretty decent, but battles stretched on for too long. Becomes a bit too repetitive after a while. The characters don't seem to have any depth.



37.  D. Grayman (Anime)
A world where souls are turned into machines by something like the devil, and there's a group of people trying to free these souls.. I thought the series had a lot of potential. I haven't read the manga, so I don't know if it was the mangaka who messed up or if it was the animators. The plot was pretty well thought-out, but the implementation couldn't keep up.



36. VEEP
A sitcom that wasn't funny at all. Although I'm all up for commedy, the show shows some of the top politicians (and their staff) of the US to be stupid, petty, and incompetent- which starts getting a bit annoying at times.

35.5  Sayonara zetsubou sensei  (Anime)
It's about a high school teacher who's too pessimistic, and his class filled with weirdos. It's as unpredictable as a show can get. Seriously. It's the weirdest show I have ever watched. The first season was good, but then it got boring.

35. Only fools and horses
A British sitcom. It's alright, but again, not funny enough.



34. Avatar
A cartoon about a monk-kid with special powers based in a fantasy world. It was okay, felt like it was stretched a bit too much. The characters had no depth. But it was still funny enough to make me watch 3 seasons. And the spin-off that came after, which followed the next avatar, sucked (that's what I felt after 4-5 episodes and gave up).


33.5 Prince of tennis (Anime)
It's just as the title says, a new kid appears in high school tennis. It was good in the beginning, had some humour, seemed to have a decent plot. But it's the same thing going on and on.. And the sport itself is very poorly represented.


33. How I met your mother
A sitcom. Has its moments. But there's too much of nothing between funny scenes.


32. South Park
A cartoon with lots of gross scenes, but it's hilarious. At least it used to be. The new seasons suck.



31. Seinfeld
It's a sitcom. I liked it, but not as much as Friends or TBBT. And it does get boring quite often.


30. Dexter
A serial killer who only kills bad guys (with some exceptions). The story was well-paced, but has too many stupid characters in it.

29. True detective
Its about a couple of cops trying to solve some cases. There's one guy who's religious, and another who thinks religion and morality is all a load of crap. It can get interesting sometimes, but has too much drama with not much happening with the plot. 

28.  Magi (Anime)
In its universe, there are wizards who are supposed to choose someone worthy of being a king, and then help them become one. There's a lot of magic involved, and some battles. It has its moments, but on the whole, it's far from being a great show.

27. Prison Break
Sometimes too good, sometimes boring.The first season was especially good.



26. Two and a half men
First 5-6 seasons were awesome.


25. House
Liked it when House wasn't involved with the other doc. It had some humour, some satire, and a hint of philosophy. But then all of that was gone and there was just drama left, which I don't care for.


24. The Big Bang Theory
The geeky version of "Friends".But it went downhill after about 3 seasons.


23. Detective Conan (Anime)
It's quite a childish anime (it was made for kids). It's sometimes funny, and it never gets boring. Although the cases that the detective solves can get monotonous, there's still not boring. I have watched about 220 episodes now, and it has 500 more to go. Good for me.

22. House of Cards
There's nothing special about it, but it never got boring.


21. Sherlock
Need I say more?


20. Code Geass (Anime)
A bit boring some times, but awesome most of the time.
There are huge human-controlled robots, and some of the characters have superpowers. 


19. Game of Thrones
 Again, need I say more?


18. Samurai Champloo (Anime)
Short and awesome.
The story follows two swordsmen with conflicting personalities, who promise to help a girl find her father. 


17. Dragon Ball Z (Anime)
Follows a guy who wants to be the strongest fighter in the universe. And while he's trying to do that, he saves the earth and a bunch of other planets from bad guys. It got a bit too serious, with too many battles and power-ups. But it's still way better than a lot of TV series out there.


16. Gin no saji (Silver spoon)  (Anime)
It is what is called a "slice of life" anime. Set in a school of agriculture, it follows a kid from a city as he adapts to life as a farmer. It flows smoothly, has good humour, has no annoying characters, and could be a bit philosophical for some people.

15. Hunter x Hunter (Anime)
There are these professional people who are called hunters, because they have a range of skills and do all kinds of stuff. A kid, whose father was apparently a famous hunter, sets out to become one. Except for some episodes where it just stretched on without much happening, particularly the Chimera ant arc, the series was pretty damn good. I'm not really sure why I'm not putting this in the top 10 series, but I'd definitely recommend it for anyone who likes anime. Personally, I was more interested in the kid's friend's story.


14. Spartacus
Set in ancient Rome, where people owned slaves. And a bunch of slaves, who were also gladiators, fight for their freedom. The battles were awesome.


13. Steins; Gate (Anime)
Sci-fi. Based on time-travel. An amazing plot, beautifully animated. Especially episode 13. It was so awesome that I watched it over and over. I rarely re-watch episodes that aren't hilarious, but I couldn't stop watching this particular episode.


12. Eyeshield 21 (Anime)
A sports anime- about American football. The lead character's a wimpy kid, who I didn't care for at all. But the characters around the kid are interesting, the humour is good, and despite the length (125 episodes), it didn't get boring. I hated the way it ended though.


11. Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime)
Alchemists can make things out of raw materials, or break stuff, based on what they call "the principal of equivalent exchange". But things are screwed up when a kid tries to bring his dead mother back to life. It's a beautifully made anime. It has an amazing plot (you can't predict what's coming), the characters are well made, their back stories make sense, and the soundtrack is also very good.


10. Shingeki no kyojin (Attack on titan) (Anime)
Out of nowhere, giants appear and start eating humans. Humans build concentric walls, and live inside them. After a hundred years, the giants manage to break through the walls, and that's where the anime starts. Battles aside, human nature is so wonderfully explored in the anime- If one wants to understand morality or religion or fear or courage, forget books and discourses; watch this anime


9. Hajime no Ippo (The first step?) (Anime)
Follows a high school kid who takes up boxing, because he thinks boxers are really strong and he wants to understand what it means to be strong. The first season (76 episodes) was brilliant, on par with the best series on this list. But it went downhill afterwards. The second season was decent, and the third was a total let-down.



8. shijou saikyou no deshi: Kenichi (History's strongest disciple: Kenichi) (Anime)
A bunch of expert martial artists of different styles take in a disciple, and train him like shit. And this disciple is challenged by other people, usually bullies in school or gangs, but later by strong disciples of other teachers. It's quite entertaining- got good battles, a fine story, and tons of funny scenes. But it lacks a soul- the anime ranked better than this are all captivating, this anime isn't...


7. Death Note (Anime)
So a guy finds a book owned by a death-god. And if he can visualize a person and write the person's name in the book, they die. The first half of the series is just too good.


6. Haikyuu (Anime)
A sports anime, about Volleyball. A couple of guys passionate about the sport join a new school, one's goofy and the other's a genius. It's extremely well made- the matches, characters, back stories. It's funny, got a bit of drama, doesn't get boring- it's just perfect. I watched 25 episodes back-to-back, except for 9 hours of sleep. I would actually rate it as the best anime, except that it's too short to compare with the others.

5. Gintama (Anime)
A lazy, idiotic samurai who takes up minor jobs to earn a living, and has a wimpy kid and a super-strong, stupid girl as his assistants. Humor, parody, battles, emotional stuff- it's got everything. It's got a whole bunch of characters that keep making you laugh. Some episodes are slow, but most of them are brilliant.


4. Friends
Forget reviews. Just go for it. I watched the entire series (about 240 episodes) 6 times.



3. Dragon Ball (Anime)
It's a prequel to DBZ. It's funnier than DBZ, especially kid Goku. Although the animation was pretty bad compared to others, it gets points since it started out way before the rest of the anime on my list.


2. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (Anime)
Upgraded version of Fullmetal Alchemist. The first series did not follow the manga and the plot got a little too simplified. The manga version is absolutely brilliant. But the characters don't get enough time to establish a back-story, and the soundtrack isn't as good.


1. One Piece (Anime)
Follows a kid who wants to be the greatest pirate on the planet. In his crew, one guy wants to be the greatest swordsman, one guy wants to find this place in the ocean where there's fish from everywhere, a girl wants to draw a map of the world from her experience, a wimpy guy wants to be a warrior of the sea, one wants to be the greatest doctor, one wants to build a ship that sails all the oceans, one's an archaeologist trying to figure out some secret history, and finally, there's one a musician who's trying to keep a promise he made to someone 50 years ago.
Best.TV.Series.Ever. If you haven't watched this, you've missed out on loads of fun and tons of epic battles. Zoro and Shanks- Most bad-ass characters in any story, ever. I want to say "TV series can't get better than this", but One Piece has slowed down recently. But that's to be expected when an anime has been running for 15 years. I hear the manga is still as awesome as ever.

Science vs Engineering

I attended a couple of seminars this week- one by a colleague and another by a famous professor. They both talked about models in different fields. One of them gave an accuracy of 75% (work in progress), and was quite well received, while the other had an accuracy of 99.99%, and researchers asked if it was good enough.

People often think of science and engineering as synonyms. They are not. Science is all about understanding nature, or rather, reducing the complexity of nature into a small set of mathematical equations. It deals with 'pure' substances. A scientist's job is to- Look at nature, understand what it's doing, see if we can figure out a mathematical law, and see if this mathematical law is always valid (if there are exceptions, the cycle starts again), and maybe build a new material using this understanding. Engineering is about practical applications. A mathematical law cannot run a car. It is an engineer's job to use these laws 'sensibly', and build things that can be used in our daily life.

Consider this simple question: How long does it take for a ball dropped from a height of 10 metre to reach the ground? A high school student could probably answer this in less than half a minute. But, is it an answer from science, or was engineering included?

First, we assume laws of classical physics- big objects, low speeds: Fair enough. Next, we can use a simple kinematic formula: h = 1/2 *a*t*t, and calculate the time of descent. But, whenever we use this formula, we assume zero air resistance. Or rather, we assume it is negligible. This is an engineering approximation. Scientific accuracy requires that you account for everything, engineering accuracy lets you get away with small approximations.  In fact, this assumption, that air resistance is negligible, is not always valid. If you drop the ball from 500m instead of 10m, air resistance becomes very important.

There are actually even more assumptions. We always neglect the earth's rotation, and the fact that the acceleration due to gravity decreases as one moves away from the earth's surface. We can include them in the calculation, but - engineering accuracy : neglect them. If you are doing this for a satellite, you can't ignore any of these.

Now, this may make engineers look like a bunch of lazy guys who just hate solving everything. Say, we want to account for the air resistance. How do we include it in the equation for time of descent? We can say that the drag force is given by an equation like 1/2*density*velocity*velocity*area*drag coefficient. But then, this equation is also an engineering approximation. The more exact equations to solve are what we call 'Navier-Stokes Equations'. These equations are so hard to handle, that there is a million dollar prize for proving that unique solutions exist to the equations. And we haven't even talked about the elasticity of the material of the ball, or the surface texture.

And, did I mention that the Navier-Stokes Equations are also based on an approximation called the continuity hypothesis? This is how hard a very simple problem would be if we do not use engineering approximations. An engineer's job is to figure out what approximations work, and use them to build practical stuff. That does not mean that science is not a big deal, it is. Scientific laws are the basics over which we make approximations. These laws give us confidence in our work. It is just that without approximations, even the simplest of problems become extremely difficult to solve (but not impossible, hopefully). Imagine what it would be like to calculate the thrust of a rocket engine without using any approximations.

Population control- The way forward.

In medieval ages, countries needed armies and man-power to do all kinds of things. But today, we don't. A huge number of people are in the service industry, which is big only because it has to serve a lot of people. If towns A and B have populations of 1,000 and 100,000 each, then town A may have just 1 bank with 3-4 employees, while town B may have 10 banks with 10 employees each. And what are these extra bank employees doing in town B? Serving the people of town B.

There are hardly any labor-intensive tasks these days. Machines are everywhere. The need to have a lot of people in order to develop a country is gone. Another country is invading you? Launch a missile. Send drones. Use tanks. No country is going to send out an army of 100,000 soldiers into a war front. Machines have been invented for this and a lot of other stuff.

I have just read that China, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are the world's 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 8th respectively with respect to population, making up a little over 40% of the world's population. Now, do these countries need so many people? Definitely no. Life would be a whole lot easier if the populations were lower.

Suppose that the population of South Asia is suddenly reduced to half of what it is now. The state of agriculture more or less remain the same, since it is quite industrialized now and there are already too many people farming too little land. Industries won't suffer either, since almost all the work is done by machines. The number of banks and Tech support companies and other service companies will reduce, but that's not a big deal since the loss in jobs is compensated by the reduced population. The unemployment rates will definitely go down. The quality of education will go up.

The social structure may not change and there may be social and economic class divide. But, the quality of life will definitely improve. All we have to do is to reduce the population. So, how can this be done?

The most obvious thing to do is to kill a lot of people. Killing people to give them a more comfortable life is something that crazy dictators and politicians will say, not me.
Next solution? Reduce quality of health care- If someone's going to die, let him die. Again, same as above, not a useful idea.
Ship people to other countries (or planets?)? Nope, the other countries are not stupid (science not that advanced yet).

So, we can't kill people, we can't let diseased people die, and we can't export people. What's the one other option that's left?
Don't let more people be born.

Pretty obvious, isn't it? I had thought of this before, but thought that it's not an easy thing to do. You have to explain it to people, but you can't really reach out to everyone- lots of logistic issues. Or so I thought. Then I saw the demographics of India, and apparently the urban population is now 31%. And in this age of the internet, it's not really that hard to reach out to the urban population. The internet has penetrated into the rural areas too, but even if we focus only on urban areas, and reduce the population by 50% in the next 50 years, that should be a great improvement.

If we just reduce the birth rate, population will go down by itself since people keep dying. Family planning stuff is good, but I have a better idea.

Don't have kids till you are at least 32.

Get married if you have to, but just don't have kids.
Why is this better? Because a lot of people die between the ages of 20 and 32 (I'm assuming that on average, people have kids when the wife is about 20, may not be accurate, but the argument still holds). First, this itself reduces the birth rate. Secondly, If a man or a woman is to be widowed, isn't it better to be widowed before having any kids? Or if the marriage is not working out, and they think a divorce is better, isn't it better for both the couple and the kid if it happened before the couple has a kid? At 32, the parents have matured enough, and are probably more financially secure, to raise a kid.
Also, the next generation will be replenished slower than it is now. This will also reduce the birth rate for a few decades, before it saturates.

In addition to telling people to postpone having kids, what else must be done? Most importantly, contraceptives must get a lot of publicity. But every now and then, there will be accidental pregnancies. In that case, abortion is the only option. I guess parents get too attached to the fetus, but hey, it's a lot better to live with that little pain than to screw up your life, and the kid's. So, abortions- not totally legal in India (unless the pregnancy poses harm to either the mother or the child, or if its the case of a failed contraceptive). This makes absolutely no sense. When it is so clear that population is a problem in the country, how can abortions be illegal? Do people value the life of an unborn baby more than the life of people who are alive?

As always, I just think of stuff, I'm too lazy to act on it. I can only hope that some one who reads my blog gets inspired to actually do something.

Make love, not babies.