His Master’s Toys

I had to post this! [From Algomantra]

My fears came true in Shanghai. After visiting Island6 and having a great discussion with their artists and volunteers, we went to the awesome JZ Club, one of the best jazz clubs I have ever been to.

From China

We were talking to the drummer Gilbert, when minutes later, one of our bags was gone. The surveillance camera footage showed one of two chinese guys pulling the bag from under the table.

I lost my entire DSLR cam setup, two mobile phones, wallet. We did file a report with the police (which was another experience and a half), but knew that the situation was hopeless.

Apart from the gadgets, I was miserable about losing hours of work — just the previous day, I had spent half of an evening covering Shanghai’s speed juxtaposed with the old. All gone.

The Three Gorges is a scenic area on the Yangtze river, between cities Chongqing and Yichang. The historic river came into wider attention due to controversy surrounding the dam that has been built on it.

After escaping the bandits in the bus in Huaihai, and soaking in the outstanding old-town riverside scenery of Fenghuang, we managed to find ourselves in a train heading for Chongqing, hoping to catch a part of the cruise.

We arrived at 3 in the morning, and realized that it was the beginning of a nightmare. To cut a long painful story short, we basically ended up being massively harrassed by touts, spent nearly 3 hours roaming around with our backpacks just trying to figure out a place to sleep. In a land where you don’t speak the language, cannot read road signs, and everyone around you has a vested interest in you and is lying about nearly everything, and you don’t have a map…. how do you navigate? There is one and only one way…

Anyhow, we did manage to find a place (although lot more expensive than we needed), and eventually managed to get ourselves on a boat through the Yangtze. Will post a video soon.

Three Gorges dwarfs you. You stand and watch the giant mist covered cliffs, awestruck, and wonder how bandits and pirates must have ruled the land surrounding it. You weave stories in your head about the deserted towns and temples you pass.

The dam itself is an engineering marvel of our times. It was built ahead of schedule in 2006, a remarkable feat considering the sheer scale of the project. For it to be completed, millions of inhabitants living on Yangtzes shores had to be relocated. The dam is poised to provide for 1/10th of energy needs of the country.

Yet, many fear that a slight damage to the dam, and millions of lives would be washed away. It is China, the land of superlatives, and nothing is subtle in its scope.

Middle of the night in a sleeper bus to Huaihai in Hunan province. Or so we think, since no road signs in English, and the bus full of locals hardly understand our feeble attemps at Chinese phrases from the guidebook. As we lurch through the moutain roads, we hope that the bus ticket counter lady understood our destination, and that we somehow got on the right bus, and that we will know the correct bus stop.

At about 2 in the night, the bus stops at a town for about 5 seconds, to let a couple out. In my sleepy eyes, I notice that the signboard of a bank reads, ‘Industrial and Commercial Bank, Huaihai City Branch’. Before we can decide whether to wait or get down, the bus has already made its way back into a dark highway. In 15 minutes, we realize that we are back in the middle of nowhere, and there is no point in trying to get down at this point. We decide to go with the flow, and treat the bus as a hotel room. Figure out our location when the bus stops and make our way to somewhere reasonable from there. So we fall asleep, our dreams heavy with monsters of apprehension.

Three hours of driving through darkness, and we finally enter a massive town. We wonder if we have left Hunan province, or are still in it. The bus driver moves the bus into a dark bus station. We are about to drag our bags out of the bus, when a woman in the bus grabs my arm. In broken english, she translates the bus driver’s frantic chinese directed towards us.
You can sleep here till 6.

I nod, happy at the opportunity to save a 100 yuans, and gesture towards Poorva to come back up and go to sleep. Ten minutes later, my eyes drooping with dreamscapes, when someone shakes me awake. Its the bus driver. I notice that someone has closed the front door of the bus, and four men and one woman have surrounded me in a circle.

The bus driver pulls out a wad of notes from his wallet, and shakes it, and points to my pockets. I get his gesture instantly. How much do you have in there. Suddenly the puzzle falls in place. To say that I am freaked out would be an understatement. No less due to the wad of 2000 yuan in my pocket, and my fiance sleeping close by.

I decide to act cool and ignorant. I smiled and said Hello. And while I continue to freak out, I wonder if its all my imagination. I start engaging them in pointless english chatter, which they try their best to figure out. In between that, I ask Poorva if we should just leave.

One of the guys go out of the bus, and I decide to use the opportunity. Abruptly, I get up and ask her to move out asap. Before they are able to act, we are out of the bus in the open. The bus driver comes along with another guy, waving the wad of notes. I keep smiling and walk away.

In a short while, after a chat with the locals regarding Mao and geography and cartography, we realize that we actually have ended up in the right destination, Huaihai. I still wonder what the other town was that I saw in my sleep

Right now, we are sitting in a net cafe in Fenghuang. Gorgeous little town that has been frozen in time (in pre-modernization days), its alleys and riverside cafes and bridges out of a wonderful panoramic snap. In a short bit, we will go sample some street food.

One small lesson learnt: always be short of cash. And, always act like a fool.

…and halting for the night at Guilin. I had expected something totally horrid after reading the Lonely Planet’s review of the town, but I am pleasantly surprised. The town is big enough to not feel like an assault of western backpackers and tour groups (as some other destinations) and that itself makes it worth it.

Tomorrow I plan to test the mobile internet here, and then test the reach when traveling through more remote villages in central and northeast. I had initially planned to stay ‘offline’, but met two Australian travelers today morning who are on a 14 month bike trip through Asia (cutting across from SE Asia to India and then Middle East), and have a whole laptop + mobile internet setup with them and are blogging on the go.

On a different note — I re-read the facts of the Opium War. Its totally hilarious — (in simple terms) the Chinese begin with a winning import-export equation, and then the British dump massive amounts of Opium in the country leading to widespread addiction… and then when the King tries to stop the nonsense, they end up getting attacked and eventually losing Hong Kong.

Yangshuo. A cluster of villages in the middle of outstanding karst scenery, right on the shores of Li River, and full with caves, limestone peaks, and foggy cloudy weather that adds to it. Biking through the muddy village roads purged me of all the sins of liquid and smoke consumption committed in the last few weeks.

Yesterday was a chinese holiday, and masses of professionals and uni students from Guangzhou had descended for a day out. We were drinking in a chinese bar, downing beers and listening to a young chinese band sing love songs, and watching this one giant group of early-21s play a game of dice.

We tried to get one of them to explain the game — not much success there, but in the process, we found out that they were a good old ICQ (QQ in China) community who were meeting face-to-face for the first time. They didn’t know each other’s names, backgrounds, nothing. All they knew was their code number. I had always heard of such meetups, but never witnessed one. Nice.

In China right now — Guanzhong to be specific.

This place is crazy. So, after traveling out of Hong Kong (which was
really a gaint chinatown slapped on top of a New York + San Fran +
London aesthetics), we reached mainland china today, to this city. It is apparently one of China’s fastest growing cities —
so we expected the experience to be similar to Hong Kong.

This place is completely bonkers — not a single person speaks
english… not a single real sign in english (apart from some road signs). On top of tht, I gots
fever right after eating at McD (found nothing veggie anywhere else) today
morning. So navigating through the city with a massive backpack, body
ache and trying to get somewhere with gestures and maps. You can
imagine.

We go to the train station —- it was a madness of people that only
Kolkata or Mumbai comes close to…. we dared not enter. On top of that, it was raining, so all the crowd from the street had also come into the station for shelter. So much so
that it was difficult to STEP somewhere lest you crush a human.

Took us bloody 5 hours — but finally found a hotel and managed to
book bus tickets… and finally got some fever medicine (which is all
in chinese… so I don’t know what the fuck it contains). And I call myself a honed traveler.

Now here’s the icing on the cake —–  after eating dinner at a
veggie monastery cum restaurant, we are walking back — and I see a
giant hall full of computers through a window, with game visuals running on every single monitor (this is at 10 pm)  —– we are like, what
the hell. I come in, it happens to be a NETBAR (internet cum bar) —
nearly 100 young early-twenties are sitting here, some drunk and/or smoking… either
playing a MMORPG, or watching films on some chinese website. I am
going to try and sneak a pic of this place before leaving.

This place is mad. No one smiles or laughs (which my grandfather
already warned me about) except the teens —- I barely managed to get
through immigration… they stopped me right before entering
mainland…. I think they thought ‘wht the fuck is an Indian doing
here… GOTTA be something weird. They let me go when they saw Poorva
was an american (hahahaha).

More tomorrow —- actually feeling better after (whatever) medicine
and food. I need to make sense of this place….! Tomorrow we head
further interior….

I love this: “We now move on from the human plane to the world of the departed souls - the pitrus. Here, a human month equals the length of a day. The brighter half of a lunar month constitutes the pitru’s day time and the darker half their night. ”

I also love this: “Thus, a single day in Bhrahma’s life spans 2000 * 4,320,000 ie. 8,640,000,000 human years. 360 such days, each lasting 8.6 billion years constitute a year in Bhrahma’s life, which lasts for a 100 Bhrahma years. At the end of one Bhrahma’s life, another starts. This cycle goes on and on.”

Concept of Time in Hindu Mythology

The smallest unit of time is a kaashta which is 18 times the amount of time it takes to blink an eyelid. 10 kaashtas make a kshanam and 12 kshanams constitute a muhoortam. 60 of these muhoortams constitute a day.

30 days constitute a month and 3 months make up a ritu. 12 months of course constitue a human year.

We now move on from the human plane to the world of the departed souls - the pitrus. Here, a human month equals the length of a day. The brighter half of a lunar month constitutes the pitru’s day time and the darker half their night.

In the realm of the Devas or the Gods, a human year constitutes a single day. The brighter half of the year Uttarayanam makes up the day time hours of the Devas while the darker half Dakshinayanam makes up the night time hours.

An epoch or a yuga is the next higher level of measurement. 1200 Deva years constitute the Kaliyuga or the present epoch that we are believed to be living in; 2400 deva years make up the Dwapara yuga that preceded kali yuga; 3600 years made up the Treta yuga and 4800 the Krita yuga respectively.

Thus, the length of the Kaliyuga is 1200*360 i.e. 432,000 human years. A cycle of 4 yugas is referred to as the catur yugas. A cycle of catur yugas lasts for 12,000 deva years or 12,000* 360 i.e. 4,320,000 human years.

How do these time measurements correlate with the process of creation?

Bhrahma in Indian mythology is referred to as the creator. A thousand catur yugas are said to make up the daylight hours of a single day of Bhrahma’s life. Another thousand make up the night time of a single day of Bhrahma. Thus, a single day in Bhrahma’s life spans 2000 * 4,320,000 ie. 8,640,000,000 human years.

360 such days, each lasting 8.6 billion years constitute a year in Bhrahma’s life, which lasts for a 100 Bhrahma years. At the end of one Bhrahma’s life, another starts. This cycle goes on and on.

A Bhrahma’s life is also known as a Para. Each half param is referred to as a parardham. It is believed that we are currently living in the 2nd half of the life of the present Bhrahma.

It is to be noted that in the performance of Vedic rituals, the frame of time in which the ritual is being performed is specified both in macro and in micro terms, the term ‘dviteeya paraardhe’ (the second half of Bhrahma’s term) is stated.

The reference point here is the moment of commencement of creation of the Universe by Bhrahma.

When we say ‘dviteeya paraardhe’, which Bhrahma are we referring to? How many Bhrahmas have preceded the current one? This specification is non existant in vedic mantras. Since the whole process is cyclical, with one Bhrahma commencing when another completes, and with this process repeating forever, there may not be any significance in stating the position of Bhrahma.

In a cyclical concept of time every starting point will have to be an ending point. If time is postulated as being linear and unidirectional there will have to be an absolute starting point for time.

This cyclical nature of time as believed in Indian mythology refers to time as ‘anaadi’ or that without a beginning.

Yet another measure of time is Kalpa. The puranas are named after kalpas; thus we have the matsya kalpa, koorma kalpa, lakshmi kalpa, sweta varaaha kalpa, shiva kalpa, bhrahma kalpa, vishnu kalpa and so on. Each Bhrahma’s term lasts for a period of 7 kalpas. The current period in time is said to belong to the sweta varaaha kalpam, which is in the second half of the life of Bhrahma.

A kalpam or an epoch is made up of 14 manvantaras and each manvantara spans 71 caturyugas. The fourteen manvantaras are respectively swayambhuva, sawosisha, audhama, thaamasa, raivatha, sakshusha, vaivasvata, savarni, daaksha savarni, bhramha savarni, dharma savarni, rudra savarni, rouchya and bowdhya. The present kaliyuga is the 28th in the present Vaivaswata manvantara.

Sankalpam: Thus, vedic mantras pin point the time of performance of a ritual - by narrowing down from dwiteeya paraardhe (in the 2nd half of the term of Bhrahma), Sweta varaaha kalpe (in the kalpa sweta varaaha), Vaivasvata manvantare (in the 7th manvantaram), Kaliyuge (in the kali epoch) - through the finer details such as the name of the current year, month etc.

It is not important to ask ‘when’ the first heart device will be hacked. As is always with any innovation, universal acceptance happens sooner rather than later, however controversial it might be.A more interesting discussion is — what happens if the heart devices allowing open access. What is it that changes? 

As with every change, the outcome is at the minimum a duality and everything in between. If the at least, the opposite poles can be identified (at any particular instant — this is important), then it allows us to break down the problem into simpler blocks.

As an example — if a hundred cellphones are distributed in a village in Ethiopia — the two possible outcomes could be:a) A hyper-connected village, and a range of services / economic changes that emerge as a consequence.b) the cellphones are never used for productivity at all — they are used a jewelries instead.

The actual outcome would be a combination of the above opposites, of course.In that sense, if I try and analyze the outcome of an innovation such as a heart device with open api —

•  positive: a range of middle layer services that promote life — such as: heart beat based art creator, romance analyzer (does her heart beat faster when she’s around me?), stress analyzer (during war?), longer life expectancy, music which modifies according to the heart rate (different music during sleep and jogging), better monitoring of food quality…. there is literally no end. 
• negative: a range of possibilities that destroy life — such as: freaky weapons of mass destruction, employee exhaustion monitoring, mass scale deaths due to machine failures…

By tomorrow morning, I will think of fifty more possibilities. Of course, I am just ranting… early morning coffee induced rant. There is no point to this rant, since both of the above will happen sooner or later. The fact is, we are living a cyberpunk novel… we just don’t see it yet.

Douglas McGrath writes on the strike…

But there is a much bigger issue at stake, because it concerns where the future—and a good deal of the present—is: the Internet. The studios can now sell you a movie, or an episode of a TV series, or a whole series of series, right over your computer. Not only is it convenient for you, it has dramatically reduced the studios’ costs: they need not make a videotape, with its plastics and tape and spools and boxes. They need not print and package a DVD, with their team of overzealous shrink-wrappers that make your average DVD harder to get into than Princeton. They have no shipping costs, no storage costs, only the movie or TV show that already exists.

With their costs substantially reduced, this would be the right time to correct the old imbalance of the DVD rate and give writers a share more fairly in line with the level of our contribution. But the studios are not looking to find a more equitable residual rate—it seems they are hoping that the new media will allow them to do away with the idea of residuals altogether.

Right now, if you go online and watch a streaming version of a TV show, the company that owns that property is getting paid by the advertisers whose commercials appear at the top of it. Just like TV, but with one difference: the writers are paid no residual, not even the four cents. The companies say they don’t need to pay us for this: it’s “promotional.” By that I suppose they mean that it promotes the size of their earnings from smaller to larger.

Read more here…