Finding the odd man out

This is an old game you and I are used to playing when we were all kids. This is the way to teach children to identify what is different in a set of given items or people. This helps develop children the instinct to identify anything that is not normal.

That said, I find this game such an  absurd. I have learnt to respect people for all what they are regardless of color, race, gender, vernacular background, the upbringing, cultural varieties, social, financial, political prospects, God believing, aethist, sexual orientations, environmental views, career orientation, age, physical and philosophical histories. This has come a hard way to me no matter how much my parents thought me to prefer something over other because I relate to it easily. 

I profess the same thing to my growing child and to find an odd man out in the given set of people is simply no way forward. In my thoughts, there is not a single Man who is odd on the face of earth. Everyone is different and they all come with their own individuality. You may call me narcissist. It does not matter...but everyone deserves respect by the virtue of simply being human. 

Finding the odd man out should be most contextual based like a person who is oblivious to what is happening in a meeting room or should be played with numbers like multiples of 4 accompanied with a 5. Hope the world finds more meaningful games for children to play. 

#sundaynightthoughts

Hidden Files - Prof. Triveni Singh and Amit Dubey

On LinkedIn I am friends with India's first and super cyber cop Prof. Triveni Singh Sir. He is an IPS officer who is known for cracking cyber crimes. He along with Amit Dubey who is a cyber crime investigator and cyber security speaker have teamed up to author this book by name "Hidden files". It is inspired by the real crimes they solved.

The book is a collection of short(mini tales) stories each one more thrilling than the previous one. I bought it through Kindle unlimited which is free of cost. Took about 2 nights to read them all.

One mini tale titled "Cats Murder" gave me shrills in the spine literally. Its about a small boy who plays video games and does nasty things at home. The sensational stories of SMS scams, fake job offerers, video game that detects wifi signals and determines the position of the person speaking on phone, game that captures pics of surroundings, Lover boy capturing nudity of girlfriends, marriage proposal scams are all horrifying and blood curdling.

Reading this book, one can discern the vulnerabilities we are exposed to just by connecting to internet(and otherwise). The stories are short and I assure you there is no glorification of the crime. I get to read about real life cases the professor solves on daily basis on linkedin. A man on a mission to solve every bit the cyber crime is the definition of Prof. Triveni Singh, IPS, MBA, PhD, CEH. He is an inspiration to cyber cops and to many like me. 

Midnight in Chernobyl

A while ago, when I was touring around my parents in law's home, I went to a deserted village called Borkatte near karkala. It was nearly barren with fallen tress and broken houses. At the same time I was reading this book called Midnight in Chernobyl. I could relate to the state of village of Pripyat being deserted due to nuclear blast.

The book - Midnight in Chernobyl is a documentary of events that led to the largest nuclear outage on the face of earth on April 25th 1986. That was around the time I was born and my father kept telling me stories about what happened in Chernobyl nuclear blast. Since I knew only what my father had told me, I was intrigued to fill myself with details and so I read this book.

Soviet Union assumes answers to most of the energy problems in nuclear energy. They decide the place to be Pripyat which is a small village near the regional capital Chernobyl. Victor Brukhanov a nuclear scientist is assigned to the project to build first ever atomic power plant in Ukraine from scratch. The project would cost 400 million rubles. Victor painstakingly goes through every stage of facility building to dealing with authorities and labourers.

The shape of the plant is dependent on functionality in the most economical ways the stations designers can conceive. The plant commission makes several important recommendations to develop safety regulations to protect reactors in the event of coolant loss. Recommendations to devise a faster acting emergency protection system are also made. Despite the apparent urgency, the reactor designers fail to act on any of the recommendations. Instead the Soviet Govt orders more of the reactors to be built. In the years that follow, there would be even more serious accidents in the nuclear reactors else where in the Soviet union and all of them would be covered up for the fear that it would tarnish the ostensibly spotless record of the peaceful reactor.

The key safety system of the reactor # 4 is ascertained to protect it during a blackout. The designers develop a run down unit which is the crucial safety feature of the reactor #4 and must be tested before it was approved for use in 1983. In 1986, the tests were overdue for more than 3 years and the first scheduled maintenances for the reactor #4 gave the opportunity to conduct trial in the real world conditions. From here, the things start to fall. During the test, the reactor shuts down and destroys itself. There would be a loud noise of the explosion and a mushroom like cloud blossoming in to the sky. The highest levels of emergency alerts are summoned. It is a  terrifying and apocalyptic sight and the worst is yet to come. The damaged reactor is running low on water coolant. Extinguishing fire with water is counterproductive as it burned more savagely. The blast released explosive hydrogen and radio active steam. The levels of emitting radiation was such that a man would absorb a lethal dose in less than 4 minutes.

The need for secrecy lead to the false report that the accident was something that could've been controlled and contained. The people's lives were kept at risk. After elaborate investigations, the failure of the reactor was blamed on the incompetence of the operators. There was a thick long block of wall constructed to contain the radiations as an aftermath. Its called sarcophagus. The people and directors who were penalised for the disaster were released in 1990.

25 years after the incident, the Ukrainian government decided to build a tourist center around the exclusion zone in Chernobyl. It is considered safe for short visits.

The book is a horrifying documentation of the events. I was so moved by the events that I watched the Chernobyl documentary on Netflix. The stories of Dyatlov, Victor, Alexander Yuvchenko and Nikolai Formin are heart rendering. 

The moment of lift by Melinda Gates

Melinda Gates grew up as a child in Catholic home, raised by aerospace engineer father and stay at home mother. She witnessed a number of space launches which inspired her to find the moment of lift in the human beings. Its the story of a passionate public feminist advocate who shares her experiences of travel and working with underprivileged women.

In the story, she tells about how she met Bill Gates when she was working at Microsoft. After the birth of her first child, she along with Bill establish a foundation meant to fight social inequalities. It was not Melinda's plans to work on gender issues but after realising that empowering women is the key to reduce and increase access to health care, the foundation becomes more poised in solving gender issues.

She writes that "Poverty is the most disempowering force on earth" and hence works on resolving world poverty. She then talks on working on unplanned pregnancies which is the no.1 cause of death for girls aged 14 and 21. She works on child marriages, woman working on unpaid work, gender barriers, religion biases etc in the book.

I was in the impression this is a self help book. But it is more of a autobiography. There are good advices all over the place though. The last conclusive advice goes as below.

Speak up when and where you can. This will not only help you find a safe place in your voice, but it will also improve your sense of self. Always remember you have a responsibility to yourself to speak up against every form of unfairness. Also be nice to everyone you come across as love is the ultimate bridge of life.