The story of horse-cart to spacecraft

The original ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by the wheels of Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial Rome they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

So when horse drawn carriages came, it was natural that the rails follows the same size of gauge because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. 

US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? 

Because that's the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English expatriates.

When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on the launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at a factory in Utah (Y-oo-t-aa). The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. 

So is it really the Roman who had a hand in the design of Atlantis?

:) 

Beyond the obvious

First, a little bit of a background about why this post was written. I was reading the book – “Autobiography of a Yogi” which described feats such as levitation, appearance of the form of a person when the person is physically located at another place, healing of a severed hand in 3 days and other such happenings. Naturally, my first reaction was that the author (an accomplished Yogi) was interspersing facts with imagination and I took the book to be a little more than a tabloid. But then Balaji gave me a hard rap on the head through an email exchange and asked me to come out of my “Western” style of thinking which postulates that ONLY those things which can be scientifically proven are the ones that exist. This style of thinking is a purely materialistic interpretation of the world and leaves very little space for “belief”, which is what basically predominates the “Eastern” thought process. If this belief is carried too far, it is called superstition. However, in many cases, having this “belief” is a display of humility. Humility which comes from the realization that the physical abilities of most men may be far too limited and slow to understand the power and reach of consciousness. Humility which acknowledges that our ancestors thousands of years ago could have had superior scientific abilities that our present day scientists have not yet achieved.

Yoga offers a way to get into a state where one is supremely aware of his or her consciousness and can tap into the collective consciousness of the Universe to perform acts which present day science cannot explain – because such acts are not “materialistic”. If you believe that this Universe is made up of ENERGY, and to achieve desired results, you have to simply readjust these blocks of energy (this thought again coming from Balaji) – then you will realize that everything from reading a person’s thoughts (what the world calls ESP) to producing rain by performing “havans” is within the realm of human actions. You will then also realize why prayers work. Imagine hundreds of ordinary people focusing their prayers on one object (as in a Christian mass) - their thoughts are ENERGY and when we have so much energy directed towards one person, do expect so-called miracles to happen. Alternately, an evolved Yogi should be able to generate and focus such high level of energies that materially or physically impossible outcomes are achieved with ease.

Here are some documented examples of what is possible - from www.amazingabilities.com (I acknowledge the copyright of the author):

1. Kuda Bux - The Man with X-ray eyes: He could read with his eyes closed. Any book any paragraph. He could also trace any letter written on the board in any language. Of course, announcing the color of dress the subject was wearing or balloons that he was being presented with were completely within the ambit of his abilities. 
2. Rakesh Pandey – mind reader. The “subject” would write down his thoughts (say some questions) and Rakesh Pandey would read the subjects mind and spell out those questions. Rakesh could also implant a thought in the head of the subject. 
3. Unnamed Gentleman – clairaudience. This gentleman was another mind-reader over telephone! The subject could write down ten questions with a specific answer of yes-no, then think about those questions on telephone and the unnamed gentleman would read back top you what the answers were. Just imagine – reading thoughts over a telephone! Goes on to show how interconnected this world is beyond the physical level. 
4. Swamy Lakshmanjoo – master over laws of nature. In 1991, when Los Angeles was experiencing its fifth year of drought, Swami Lakshmanjoo, traveling for the first time outside India, decided to perform a Homa (sacred fire ceremony). This lasted for over an hour and was designed to affect rain. In Swamy’s casual words – The flames in the fire are same as flames in the Sun, and the small fire has sent a message to the Sun. The Sun, in turn, is controlling all the heavenly bodies, so it will pass our message on to the moon, because it is the moon’s responsibility to create rain. It may take some time, but rain will come since we did this ceremony in good faith and without selfish motive”. And rain did come down in two days time, which was record breaking because it does not rain in Los Angeles in July! The rain continued over next several weeks until all lakes and all culverts were full of water.  
5. Prahlad Jani – no food for 65 years. Prahlad Jani is 76 years old and lives in a cave near Ambaji Temple in Gujarat, India. He does not eat or drink, nor does he pass stool or urine. In November 2003, Prahlad Jani was finally persuaded to participate in scientific research study, in which he was kept in a sealed room for 10 days with round the clock surveillance. Surprisingly, Prahlad Jani did not take any water, did not pass any urine and did not eat any food – and yet his vitals remained constant over the 10 days of observation 
6. Tat wale Babe – Youthful at the age of 85. A class mate of Tat wale Baba was born in 1890, which would be around the time when Tat wale Baba took birth as well. Baba used to practice transcendental meditation, and stopped ageing when he was around 35 years old. He was shot dead on 2^nd Dec 1974, something that he had predicted more than 3 years back. Research done on long term meditators indeed shows that people practicing transcendental meditation for more than 5 years were physiologically 12 years younger than their chronological age. 
7. Devraha Baba – 250+ years old. Can humans live forever? One observation is that animals with slow metabolism (e.g. turtles, elephants) can live for much longer than animals with fast metabolism. Transcendental meditation slows down metabolism. Another theory suggests that growth hormones production by pituitary gland slows down with age, which then produces signs of ageing. Still another theory of aging is free-radical theory – basically toxins – which damage cells over a lifetime. Cells produce anti-oxidants to fight the harmful effects of free radicals. If production of such anti-oxidants can be buffered, then cell damage will reduce and so will signs of ageing. Caloric restriction is another approach scientists have discovered which extends longevity. Researchers found that by reducing food intake by 30% to 70%, there was an increase in the life span of various creatures by up to 40%. What if a person does not eat at all, but is able to switch his body metabolism into living directly off of sunshine, can he prolong his life? Recent studies made on behalf of NASA, as well as other prior scientific research studies, have proven that humans can live without food. They do not understand why or how, only that it is possible for humans to do so. That is how Devraha Baba could have easily lived for many hundred years.
8. Yogi Pullavar - Self Levitation. On June 6, 1936 in Southern India, an Indian yogi, Subbayah Pullavar, levitated for five minutes in front of about 150 witnesses. This was widely photographed and videographed. 
9. Yogic Flying - In 1978 a six-month long study was conducted by MERU in Switzerland on human consciousness, where advanced Transcendental Meditation techniques were taught. After this, most subjects were able to do the first stage of Yogic Flying. There are various stages of Yogic Flying. The initial stage is "hopping." The second stage is "floating," and the final stage is "flying. 
10. The stone levitating monks – in Tibet. Tibetan monks were seen lifting heavy boulders up mountainsides by using sound waves. This was witnessed by Dr. Jarl, a Swedish doctor, in 1939, who also made two films on the same.  Also, see http://coralcastle.com/ - which describes a coral castle built by one man, Edward Leedskalnin. From 1923 to 1951, Ed single-handedly and secretly carved over 1,100 tons of coral rock. Features of the Coral Castle Museum include a 9-ton gate that moves with just a touch of the finger - something that modern science cannot re-create. Ed claims that he learnt about the techniques used in building pyramids - where many hundred tons of stone was moved to complete the wonder of the world.

Why do we have armpit hair?

You know how it is these days - you can afford to be inquisitive and know that all your questions will be answered - by Google of course!

    Recently, I wondered about the difference between POP and IMAP (both email access protocols) - and bingo "Google hai na". I was clear after 10 minutes of Googling

    Then again, I heard about GOP's opinion on joblessness (in US politics context) - and was surprised to know that GOP expanded into "Grand Old Party" (which is a nickname for Republican Party).

    Yet another time, I was researching on why we have the "pre-open" session on BSE and NSE stock exchanges since 2010 - and Google dished out a really nice article from indiabulls.com.

    Today, I got curious about why we have armpit hair. Some search results giving me reasons for armpit hair brought a smile. Here are some of the non-obvious ones:

• You know, when you put the hand under your arm, and close your arm down on it, and make that farting sound? The hair changes the quality of the farting sound, so when you have less hair, well, it just don't sound so good. But if you have a lot of hair, and it's nice and wet and sweaty, preferably as smelly as possible, why then, at summer camp, you can make the fake farts with the best of them. You haven't lived until you've been around ten guys all arm-farting at each other, especially when they get into a rhythm!
• It's there for babies to grab onto. Ouch!!
• One explanation for armpit hair is that it acts as a cushion to prevent skin to skin friction when our arms rub to our body. But this seems unlikely to be true. If it were, we should have a lot of hair on the bottoms of our feet.
• It's evolution. You used to be a monkey.
• I use mine to floss!
• To make you ask why  :)

(Ok, so there are two "real" answers for armpit hair - those I will leave to you to discover from Googling)

But really, the bottom line to this note is - Google is really that disruptive app that has completely redefined the scope of our access to information. May be, rather than teaching so many myriad subjects in school, they should teach just high level basics and a new subject called Googling.

Vaastu - my representation

Here is my understanding of what Vaastu layout is all about. Acknowledging a couple of sites, which gave me the base to go ahead with below diagram:
http://www.stephen-knapp.com/vastu_shastra.htm
http://www.indianrealestateforum.com/pune/t-question-vastu-main-entrance-direction-11351.html

Note - the "Stop" sign in the diagram below denotes a no-no for the room to be located in particular direction. A checkbox denotes the most favorable location. A (1) or (2) with or without brackets denotes alternate locations, where (1) is the best location, followed by (2) and so forth.

What if ...

...the earth were flat. Then everyone would have been in the same timezone. That would have saved watchmakers the extra pain of designing additional mechanisms to adjust the hour hand.

...the Indian legislators pass a law making the user of the term "Car" illegal. All cars should be known as RPUs - Road Polluting Units. And the usage of this word would be mandatory in all adverts for RPUs. So you would have car advertisements screaming - "Brand New Road Polluting Unit from Suzuki"

...a law is passed to disconnect all phone numbers printed on any unauthorized advertisement within 24 hours. (These unauthorised advertisements appear all the time - in train compartments, on compound walls, etc.) If the phone numbers were to be disconnected, that would be a big incentive not to mess with public space. Of course, the number should be reconnected once there is physical evidence that the condition of the wall or public space has been restored to original.

Inflation doesn’t ride on a Meru

Inflation in India is at a 13 year high of 11%, while bank deposit rates are 9% tops. This means leaving the money is the bank is theoretically reducing its purchasing power. And yet when I think about it, good things that beat inflation happen regularly. I bought a computer in the year 2000 for around 45000 rupees. Not top-of-the-line, just latest enough. If I buy a contemporary “latest enough” model today, it should cost me no more than 20000 (with a flat screen monitor rather than the CRT that I currently have). Mobile phones are now available for sub-thousand rupees with features that were considered “sexy” just a few years back. Mobile calling rates are as low as 10 paise per minute, or even free if you subscribe to the appropriate plan. White goods have become so much more affordable too. I was checking out a 32 inch LCD TV, which now costs around 30000 rupees vs. 150000 some 5 years back. The common thread tying all these examples is innovation.

Talking of which, I came across yet another example of innovation – this time in travel. I phoned the “Meru” cab service to drop me to the airport. For starters, there was zero wait time before I was put through to a person who took down my address. As soon as I hung up, I got an SMS about my booking reference number along with a note that the driver’s number and cab number will be SMS-ed half hour before pick up. The cab arrived a few minutes before scheduled time. When I got into it, I was greeted with clean, air-conditioned interiors. The leather seats blended well with the sun film on the windows to give an overall executive feel. The cab had FM radio and a CD player. I got talking to the driver about the system being used to manage the cab fleet - he said it was modeled along the lines of Singapore. For starters, there is no irritating two way radio with its constant stream of messages asking for location of a particular driver or directing another cab driver to an unrelated passenger. Rather, there is a small LCD console where a short message flashes about the next pickup location (e.g., Borivali - W). This message flashes only on console of those drivers who are within a certain radius of the pickup location. All these drivers can then respond back to the message to indicate that they are available. Based on the response, the system picks up the driver who is closest to the pickup point (each car is equipped with GPS) and flashes the entire address only to this driver. This process takes place around 1 hour before the scheduled pickup. Once the passenger gets in and the electronic meter starts ticking, the LCD console blanks out. No further messages are flashed on the console until a bill is generated via an onboard mini- printer. Great, so the driver doesn’t have to be constantly distracted. By the way, contrary to the popular conception, you can wave to a empty Meru cab and it will stop for you if it is not en route to another pickup.

An inside look: Each driver has to put in a 12 hour shift – 7 in the morning to 7 in the evening for the day shift, or 7 evening onwards for night shift. The cab company is responsible for the maintenance of the car, while the cab driver is responsible for the fuel (CNG) and cleanliness of the car. Each day, the cab driver has to pay 600 rupees to the company (7 days a week, 365 days a year). The drivers get to take the cab home after their shift. There is no upper limit to the number of hours the driver can put in, but the cab has to be on the road during the designated shift hours. Pickups will keep flashing on the drivers screen for as long as he is logged on into the LCD console. Once the driver is tired and decides to rest, he has to log off the console. However, the next day, he has to log on by the start of the shift time. This helps with forecasting the number of cabs that will be on road, so that the company can book pickups accordingly. Side note – the drivers are currently asking for at least 2 days off in a month, which I think is a fair demand. To ensure that the company does not face loss of revenue during this period, a small core of drivers can be designated as “rotating” drivers, who would drive cabs of drivers who are on leave.

The charges: Charges are 15 rupees for first kilometer, 13 rupees for each subsequent kilometer. There is no minimum charge. So if you travel only one kilometer, you pay only 15 rupees. Overall, it cost me 263 rupees from home to airport (~19 kms), where a regular non-air-conditioned black and yellow taxi would have quoted a flat rate of at least 300 rupees. Even night time charges are managed very well. Night time charges are from mid-night to five in the morning, the same as black and yellows. However, since the metering is electronic, if you get into a cab at 11:00 pm and get out at 12:05 am, you pay night charges for 5 minutes only (calculated automatically by the meter).

Monitoring: There are four mobile vans that carry out random checks on these cabs. If a cab is unclean, or if the driver has not shaved, is not in uniform or has forgotten his license, there is an spot-fine of hundred rupees. (I suggested that maybe the drivers should additionally wear a tie – that would make them look really smart ... and give an additional cause to the monitoring vans to impose a fine ... he he)

Future Plans: Meru currently has 500 cabs in Mumbai, with plans to go up to 1000. When I asked whether this would affect the regular yellow and black cabs, the driver said it wont, because the number of overall taxi licenses in Mumbai are constant. So if a yellow and black decides to sell its license, Meru buys it and replaces the yellow and black with a Meru. The going rate is 1.5 lac rupees (150,000) for a 10 year license.

All this has come from the mouth of an ex-yellow and black taxi driver. I asked him what was better - his old taxi or Meru. And he was emphatic that Meru was much better. I certainly think this is a win-win situation for all parties!

Bottom note – The root cause for all inflation is the oil prices which has recently hit $136 a barrel. I think this is largely because disruptive innovation in vehicles has been stagnant since almost a century. Agreed the cars are becoming more powerful, cleaner and more sophisticated, but at the end of the day, they are still fuel guzzlers. If only there would have been more regulatory pressure on the car industry to innovate, we would have been in the year 2008 but with 1980 prices.

A picture that is worth a thousand ... laughs

This is a funeral announcement that appeared in a daily in Uganda (Daily Monitor 25/Sep/2007). Even in such an event of sorrow, the relatives have inadvertently maintained a sense of humor (see underlined sections) ...

"It is with deep sorrow that we announce the sudden death

of Nathan Wohoro Kariuki which occurred between 12th and 18th Sep 2007 after being brutally murdered ..."
















Another picture (not funny really, but has made it to this blog for obvious reasons) - sent by Stephen Guest from his trip to Uganda in Sep-Oct 2015: