What to write about?

 

Bangalore to Sultan Bathery

Education and logic

All this while the world has been telling that education is what is going to save the world from illogical conclusions. Yes, education has been successful on many accounts. It has been instrumental in telling the people about their past follies. It has been instrumental in making the people to read what is being presented to them. Is education the know-how of reading? Is education the imbibing of logical thought? Is education the know-how of writing a language. Is the result of education to read? What is education. In India there are night classes for the under-privileged and the senior people. The stress is on learning the alphabet, framing words and understand the dictionary meaning of the words. So once they can read a newspaper, they are educated. Now, what after the person can read a newspaper? Is education not bothered about how he should interpret it? Or should education not bother about the interpretation. Should the interpretation be forced on to the reader like in some countries? Should the interpretation be allowed to run free in all directions like in some countries. What is really the purpose of education? Is it to create a more radical consumer of goods/services/information?

Majority of our educational tools rely on "laws". We are told that we are not to question them. If this is not accepted by the child then the future of his education is a mess. Because all the future information he will get will be based on these laws. If the basic premise is not accepted then the kid will have a hard time to come to terms with the present world. If he accepts, it is smooth travel. He will come out a brick in the wall. Now, the thing is if given an option of accepting or not accepting, if the child chooses non-acceptance of the present laws of physics, of moral sciences, of mathematics, of logic, he has to make some of his own and he does make them as he progresses over his journey of life. This will be made based on his experiences, his interactions, his feedback, his successes, his failures,....The resultant human might become a brick in the wall, a special brick in the wall, a hammer which breaks and disturbs the wall, a builder who brings more brick into the wall. So the result can be pro-system and anti-system. Now, again, the meaning of system and anti-system might be different for different people based on their education.

So how should the educational system work? Should the system put only the questions and extract answers for all the questions from the student? Where does the student search for the answers? If he searches it within the present system, he will agree or disagree. If he disagrees will the educational system allow it and allow him to continue to the next question or try to play logic with his answers? Once the kid comes out with his answers how will he be able to cross-check his results? How is he going to cross-reference his conclusion. How is he going to validate his conclusion. Normally conclusions related to politics/society happens immediately. Either you like it or dont or you are not concerned/affected by the conclusions. Drawing a conclusion is one thing but pushing it down the throat of others is another. There are plenty of people in the "not concerned" sphere. These people can be very easily converted to the other side with a slight nudge normally through emotion altering strategies. The happiness of making people agree on your ideals is un-parallelled and this is exactly what is happening with f^&*b*&* and other walled social networks. All these networks are feeding on exactly this aspect of human education. Either they re-inforce the previous education or try to negate it emotionally. All this is again happening for identity. So, is the job of education to give identity, The general syllabus for all the students point to the fact that we want all kids to grow up in the same "particular" way, the same identity.

Will education save the world? Will education give the superpower of reading what is offered and analyze it, fact check it, prove it right or wrong. Will education make all people logicians? Will all the people of the world be logicians? Will logic rule the world and beat out all the ready to eat "isms"?Will.....?

P. G. Wodehouse's Very Good, Jeeves

The past fortnight has been very productive w.r.t me starting to take up my hobby of reading books to the good old days. Having started with Franz Kafka's "The trial" you would expect me to maybe read the next novel of Kafka. No that didnt happen. I lightened up and started to read Very good, jeeves by P. G . Wodehouse. Yes, I can see that look on your face. I can see the look from here. I can understand the look especially if you are Kafka fan or also a Wodehouse fan.

 I am special. I am a fan of both these amazing writers. While Kafka saw what is wrong with the societal setup, Wodehouse gave a damn about what is wrong and used the same wrong to bring out that Right Ho! or the What Ho! spirit with lots of mirth and happiness. You felt bad while reading a Kafka work, bring yourself around with a Wodehouse short. What an amazing set of writers and such a different views on life. 

The short stories in the collection were so beautifully written with poetry in just words. I could listen the lyrics as well as music as i read throughout the sentences. I dont know the poetic prowess of Wodehouse but his music sense I think was excellent. And I dont have any rights on any sort of comments as to the vocabulary of this man. Yes, you may not know much of the words used. But, heed me if you dont strive to know the meaning you will not hear the music. Yes you can get where the story is going in context without caring a damn about the meaning of that specific word, I request and beg you not to do so. In all the stories, nobody works, which is exactly my argument of work. Why should anybody work. Why cant we just live? No, forgive me here..... Yes, back in the Wodehouse world, nobody works. They just live. The situations/plot lines are masterfully crafted. Every character is beautifully etched. So, if a character is told to do something, it will do so. Why? Well he was created to do just that. 

If anybody wants a lesson in character building,he should start and end right here in Wodehouse world. You read it while going to work, it will keep your mood uplifted because you know that while coming back to work also you will take yourself to that world. So to do that, you can work. When you are returning from work and reading him, you think you deserved this after doing things which were required to get this opportunity to read him. I was blown away by the preface for this collection written by the man himself. The simplicity of the man and what you would be expecting is on display from page one. I would love to be any of his characters. I dont have any problem being any of his characters. 

The situations are rummy/chirpy/exciting. They are not sad. Being written at times wherein the bad effects of tobacco were still not widely publicized they are thoroughly romanticized. You also get recipes for plenty of cocktails especially if you are a fan of whiskies and brandies. Intelligence as well as stupids are celebrated with equal aplomb. The bourgeoisie and the proletariat are treated the same without the complications associated with them. Most of the writing is "that is that" 

 I have thoroughly enjoyed the journey through the dark alleys of Kafka as well as bright and never say die spirit of the Wodehouse worlds. Thank you, gentlemen for your great and d endeavoring works.

On Newspapers

         I remember as a kid, whenever and wherever a newspaper was in my hand, I would turn first to the last page which talked about news that can be easily digested. Normally it would be sports new and told who won or lost with scores. There were times which I had seen the sports event and I already knew the result and had my own review of the event. Reading about it in the newspaper was to see whether I was right or wrong. Now, Why was I turning only to those pages? I remember my father never reading those pages. But he never tried to force his hand in the way I was reading the newspaper. He was happy that I was reading the newspaper, at the least.

        Compare this to the other extreme of one of my friends. His father was so serious , he had his son write down the entire headline article everyday during his summer holidays. This happened in his house everyday, while I played away at his gaming console. I never knew the intention of his father but for me it was a punishment. The punishment was a result of his anger towards the school for giving us vacation. Later I thought that this he forced his son to do this to improve his vocabulary. This idea of his was not working since we were not having any conversation in the English language. We conversed in our local language and we never discussed the topic which he had written for an hour. During the same time I had access to all the comics and magazines his father had subscribed.

        They were instrumental in me knowing about some broader aspects of those days. I think the writing in the magazines was a little special. It somehow grabbed my attention. Maybe it was a combination of visual aids and writing which would combine historical facts and extrapolation to the future. Comics took me to another world. A world devoid of all the perfect sciences and mathematics of my school. The law of least resistance of nature was at play. I had chosen to read things which required the least effort from me to understand what is being read. Now the thing is should we read based on the law of nature or your interests or read it in a sense it is intended to be read.

        What is the newspaper intended for. How is it to be read. In what mental state should the newspaper be read. I believe that the newspaper should be read in a holistic point of view and be read with an open mind without any preconceived notions. Yeah, i get it, you are telling me that whatever is to be read has to be done with the same attitude. Now there are reading objects which are like textbooks which are written with a specific aim and normally with a very narrow and specialized subject. This has to be read in depth. A newspaper on the other hand has to be read holistically and then if interested in a specific subject you can drill down with Wikipedia and then on to textbooks. Can newspapers do some job of Wikipedia and text books. What i meant was a little ahead than "informing" the reader.

        This is where weeklies, monthlies and fortnightlies enter. But there is a chance for newspapers also to do the same thing with their weekend specials. Very few newspapers have nailed the weekend specials. Reading sports news is so easy on the mind. There is no post-processing on the individual except for siding with a specific sides and then reasoning out why one side lost or won. The same goes for movie related articles. They are easy to digest. Newspaper was my window to international movies. This was the next section I used to read after the sports section. I waited for my opportunity to watch the movies I had read about and my god, did i watch them once i got an opportunity. And i love the way newspapers cover international movies. They dont go in depth. They just state the facts and leave the imagination to the user. In depth revies happened only for movies released in our country. And all movies never really made it, particularly ones with "critical" acclaim. This is exactly that moment where I thought that newspapers have to be read in their entirety.

         The act of choosing the newspaper to start doing it and continue to read the same was more difficult than I thought. But I did zero in on "The Hindu". It had impeccable engish and broad coverage and "plenty" of articles to read. The reason for the choice is very interesting. This particular newspaper had a very interesting way of giving out sports news. They mixed it up with other serious ones and the last page didnt have a single sports news. This was a winner in all the things I thought was wrong with newspapers. And then all of a sudden something happened they wanted to reduce the size of the newspaper. I think it was the increase in pulp prices which was forced upon readers with a reduced size. But the newspapers advertised it to tell that they were adjusting to the "millenial" generation. The size is better to hold and read.

        One more thing happened. A few pages went color. An excellent opportunity to increase the prices. So now we had the newspapers adjust the price increase of pulp and at the same time increase the prices showing readers colors. And then something else happened the quality of articles in the Sunday magazine reduced and the most important thing, sports started arriving at the last page, again. But, the present newspaper is back to its glory age with the last page having other articles interspersed with little sports. The biggest change which prompted me to write this post is that the Sunday magazine has changed, a lot. It is now a booklet size, a bigger magazine size and very near to my favorite fortnightly, "The illustrated weekly".

       This was one magazine which had one of the best writers of our time as its editor. There are eminent writers who complain on lack of good content and good writers, but when given an opportunity and responsibility to improve the same they sulk. Khuswant singh is an awesome writer and as an editor, I have not seen anybody in my reading period who is even a bit close to him. Everything about the illustrated weekly was different, awesome. The size, the front shiny pages, the layout of the mag, the collection of articles, the heading where all these articles went, the heady mix of national and international news, the wry humor, the language, the movies, the sports, the politics........ I just fell in love with the mag. I never used to miss it and would wait for the next week. In fact i would call it as fandom.

      But, all good things come to an end. The publication was stopped. To this day I dont really know why it stopped. To this day, I dont want to know what happened. I dont want that feel to end. If you know why and all, it would be like it is over and then move on the next case. I like the feel that I dont know much about why it stopped. Yes, you may know. Dont tell me.

         Compare the physical newspaper with the electronic versions. You will never get a holistic view. You will be fed a particular article. In fact you will be fed with articles you would like to read. This is again not decided by human intervention, but, by machines. The spread of a newspaper with various subject articles is a sensory delight. From generic knowledge/news we are moving towards specific list of interests. I am not against it. But more and more of your interests only and nothing of other information which do have bearing on your interests in various ways is bad.

        Withing walled gardens created for us, we further create walls by specifying our interests. Apps love when people do this. You are interested in sports but an app cannot tell you how the polity-economical condition, technological advancements, world order have any say on your subject of interest. Reading a newspaper is a ritual.

        The quintessential coffee cup with in-frequent sips and turning the pages one by one. I salute Mr. Gutenberg for the print medium he created. Newspaper is a journey in print. It is the existing "classic" in the present modern age. It is no big deal to understand why the apps started by these newspapers are not a hit among readers. It is difficult to squeeze the entire universe into one planet. I would always suggest to all the readers to spend some time a fixed time with a cuppa and read the newspaper, you never know which rabbit hole would interest you.........

The evolution of reading

 Disclaimer: All the information provided is to be consumed(if) with no reponsibility attributable to me. Reader discretion is adviced regarding all the issues mentioned in the post.

If there is one hobby which is universal across the world and the most followed hobby, it would be Reading. Now reading is a very broad word. It can mean reading a newspaper from the first word to the last word without much of internal processing. It can be reading a weekly, nonthly or yearly magazine with a little bit of processing. It could be reading a novel visualizing all the characters and the plot so as to stay in that realm for a finite time. It could be reading for gaining new knowledge, upgrading knowledge, assimilating knowledge and maybe for a few create fresh knowledge. The latter one takes the maximum amount of internal processing. Now all this is available to the common man after the gutenberg printing revolution. This revolution has created readers over the continium of minimum processing to max processing of the brain by the readers. Books were everywhere. All the knowledge accumulated till then in varied forms of storage reached the common man on paper. The most cost effective form of sharing and recieiving knowledge. Books had their own charm. The process of buying a book itself is one of the most satisfying excercise of human life. The collection of books in anybody's house speaks volumes about the individual. Again here individuality of hyman race stands out. There are no two similar individuals who read or write books. The fingerprints are vastly different when it comes to consumption and creation of books.

In the intial era of book printing, the contents were normally textual form, augmented by a very few illustrations, if and when requireed. Maybe an illustration for every chapter. This trend was later turned around with text taking the second precedence over the visual content. The creater wants to talk to the reader in a more visual realm and in exact terms of his vision. The textual realm allows for every reader to have his own visual realm, albeit with minor or major differences based on the invlolvement of the reader and the description of the writer. But with visuals taking precedence over text, the reader has to be in the realm of the writer. These books we now call them, comics, graphic novels. I dont find much difference between a comic and a graphic novel(Since this is a pure text post, the readers are welcome to choose their own visual realm for differences between the two).

With technology picking up great pace, computers taking over majority of the mundane human tasks, creating and reading content have also changed over the decade. The big change for content consumption have been mobiles, tablets and most importantly e-readers. Here, when i say e-readers I am talking about devices which work on reflected light. The other classes of devices work on backlight. The human eye is trained for reflected light. It is not designed for long hours staring of light originating. The eyes adore the beauty of te moon than the sun which the former just reflects. We see things through reflected light. We differentiate objects based the amount of light that is reflected, its wavelenghts and intenskty. We tend to look away from direct sources of light. It is no secret that people found it tiring to read on LCD/LED screens powering the phones and tablets. The skim reading or just going through and article augured well for these devices. But continous reading possible with a physical book i impossible with these devices.

Enter the e-reader. The most important innovation in the present digital world for bookworms. The ereaders have all the technologies available on modern computer devices with a reflective display. The human eyes love reflective displays. If you want to read a physical book you need to have a light source somewhere in the room. If your are reading in broad daylight, the physical book is much more easy to read. The same tech is used in an ereader. If your are in the dark, you cannot read from the ereader. Yes, there have been work arounds by putting LED's on the edges of the ereader screen to assist in reading at night but, there is still a certain amount of direct light which hits your eye with thes devices but, it is a good start. I stil love reading with a bed lamp than an ereader weith LEDs on the side.

Now let us see what these ereaders can do

1. They can hold enormous amounts of books
2. Bookmarking is as easy as exiting the book and chosing a new one to read
3. Add annotations
4. Check for meaning of word which the author has intentionally used to more understand his point of view
5. Battery life of nearly a month on one single charge
6. Buying books on your couch, on your train or bus journey
7. and much more

Let us complete it with what an ereader cant do

1. Give u the arom of a new book or the bliss of opening an old book
2. The joy of reaching the right page where we left off and forgotten to bookmark it
3. The joy of hinting a friend writing on the specific page regarding some history or a deja-vu
4. No question of battery life
5. The joy and the fulfilness of buying a physical book after a tiring journey of the bookstore just to realize that the first book you saw while entering was the book you want to buy
6. The vanishing individual's book shelf
7. The infinite sharing of books

The most hated aspect of all ereaders is the incorporation of DRM, wherein the books are tied to you and you are in no way entitled to share it with your friends and family, mitigating free will. One more thing i hated was their size. You are not able to read a magazine or a graphic novel or a comic in its true size. The most bacic problem is they dont display pdfs in their full glory. If the ereader does support pdfs, the problem is that the format doesnt flow and adjust to the screen like epups format. Normally all pdfs are genereated based on an 4 size sheet which is what printed magazines come out in. Trying to read it on a regular ereader would involve pinching and zooming complicated by thre refresh rates of the e-ink reflective tech screens.

Since the advent of ereaders I always wanted a device capable of dishing out pdfs and graphic intensive books. This prompted me to consider a 10" tablet. But, the issue here is that they are backlit. Yes, the colors are beautiful, but, your eyes get tire very easily. In the beginning of the year there was a lot of interest for producing ereaders with larger screens prompted by the company supplying majority of hte e-ink type of devices. Their 13.3" e-ink display prompted all this sudden interest. Sony came out with a device with an exhorbitant cost and capable of reading only pdfs. This was clearly aimed at the enterprise market and I believe it was(is ?) mostly made to order.

A chinese complany showed interest in making one with the same screen. They have already shipped the first batch of their devices and it is called the Boox Max. This is one company which is serious in their e-reader offerings, They have all kind of sizes with the latest being 13.3". They have an all metal eraeder, a 9.5", 6" and I think many more. The 13.3" got my fancy and I followed it up since their announcment. There is a german website which is taking pre-orders for the second batch of Boox Max if your are interested. The tech spec is on their website. I would just like to add that on the software side there are some glitches. There are occasional freezes. The company has promised updates to the android version as well as its bundled applications.  But, reading on it is a breeze. it has re-kindled the reading in me. The greyscale display puts me right back to the gutenberg era. Reading comics and graphic novels is an experience. Reading an epub format file with plenty of books available on the guternberg project, it is perfect. The text is crisp, the display size is perfect. The battery life for such a huge device is definitely good. Did I forget to tell it has the Android play store, wifi, bluetooth, audio jack. Another downer is that you have to interact with the device only with the stylus provided. There are buttons for page turns, but the interaction with the device is only throught the stylus provided. That is ok since you will not be pinching and zooming at all. Once u open a book it is only with the next page and the previous page.

The product page : Boox Max
User discussion forum: Mobilleread
Pre-order Boox Max:  Ereader-store
Wiki: Boox wiki 


Happy reading.