Mind of my Stroked Brain

 My first encounter with a computer was in middle school at one of my friend's house.  It was almost a miracle to have a computer in ​I ndia in those times ( ​19 80s).  My friend's father was connected to IEEE and I am guessing the computer was importable through that connection. We only played games on it occassionally ( ​games of those days -  Packman, F16, Nascar, Mario, Prince of Persia, etc.) I don't remember how much storage memory capacity it had ​.   I think it had only 512KB of RAM  and a 5¼" floppy disk drive (I think they came with a max 512KB of storage capacity). I vaguely remember once they had got Autocad and it came with 95 of those installation floppy disks! This was DOS ​O perating system - ​i.e., big CRT monitor  screen ​s with green characters (think ​ of the Matrix movie) Anyway, the first time I really interacted with a computer was in engineering, around 1993, I think. We had a subject called Fortran (Formula Translation) - whi...

  ​I am a ssuming you are a human reading this...  Typically we believe in the following 2 (main) things: 1. Category 1:  We (humans & all life on Earth, for that matter) started as single celled organisms several million years ago ( ​We  don't know exactly how - just assuming it was a freak incident of nature). Anyway, since then, through further accidents (mutations) over several million years, we developed into various species and evolved to what we are today.  Now ​, why evolution decided that every living entity has to die (& not live forever), I don't know. However, as each species evolved, it decided to cap its life tenure and that life must end. For us humans, typically ​that limit is  75-90 years nowadays.  So there is no real purpose to life. We take life by chance and die ​ eventually since evolution has baked it into us. That 75-90 years is not even a flash in the pan on the universe's timescale. 2. ​Category 2:  Life has a g...

 " I love you "... ​ What does it mean? I am aware of what it means generally. We are familiar with those words commonly in many contexts. This is a debate and deliberation I have been having in my mind for some time now. We can love people - our parents, siblings, spouses, children, family, friends, etc. We can love animals - dogs, cats, all forms of pets. Or generally be an animal lover overall. "I Love all animals" type... Or, we can love things as well - so many times we have heard "I love my car", "I love my bike", "I love my house", etc, etc. ​ But what does it mean? I feel this (and I am sure there will be many other perspectives and interpretations) I cannot really simply say "I love someone" and leave it at the level of words. My love towards someone can only become real if I find ways to express my love towards them. Expressing love happens in several forms - care, affection, attention, concern, sacrifice, adjusting,...

  In 28-July-1914, Austria-Hungary declared war against Serbia for a reasonably local issue. This event is officially regarded as the start of world war 1.However, there were many other things happening making the world a tinderbox ready to ignite before this. Geopolitically, There was escalating alliances & rivalry like - Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy) - There was the Triple Entete ( France, Russia, Britain)There was the Balkan crisis (Austria, Hungary, Russia)There was the Moroccan crisis , etc. Geoeconomically, There was the imperial rivalry b/w France & Britain regarding dominance of Asia & Africa and their resources/ riches. Rivalry b/w Britain & Germany for naval supremacy for trade leadership. Capital driven pressures on society and unrest . Hangover from military conflicts, Japan's victory over Russia Decline of the Ottoman empire affecting central Europe Severe arms buildup amidst many of these nations. World war 2 had diff...

 Recently, I wrote that I am living on the edge everyday between going on v ​/ s giving up. It probably can also be interpreted as the edge of remaining sane v ​/ s going insane... Anyway, I have often wondered, when everything is looking so bleak to the mind's eye, what makes me go through the day and make it to the next day. What is it that is causing this? Is Love what is giving  ​me the  strength? Love is a very fashionable word in my opinion. It is very easy to say we love someone. It is equally applicable to our love towards people, animals and things. In my opinion, Love gets manifested to reality with care and affection. That's how our love is expressed. Sure, I love my wife, children, family and friends. Everyone to different extent ​s  depending on the degree of closeness or separation. But it has been many many years since I have really expressed any love through care towards anyone. In the initial period of the stroke, I was very very desperate to want t...

There are many challenges and limitations that I face everyday, to just get by the day. I am not unique in that aspect. There are 100s of thousands of people who face challenges and limitations everyday.  I think it is the element of "hope" that is different. I am guessing (& I might be wrong ​ here ), but I feel somehow there might be an element of hope for some improvement  ​in the future  that  ​ p ​ropells  most to go on. I am guessing it might also be the situation with very elderly individuals who have an unexpected mishap/ accident and impacts them  ​ severely .  ​e g , consider an elderly person in ​, say -  their 80s, reasonably independent ​ otherwise ,  ​but  having an  ​unexpected  accident ​/ fall breaking their back/hip. It will be very severely limiting. Given their age, they will inherently know (I am guessing ​ again ) that "hope" and probability of recovery is very dim. That's very very demoralising and di...

  I have been tinkering with and using AI for a while now.  I have used it for coding, documentation, spreadsheets, market  ​ /stock analysis, asking all kinds of information about facts, processes, events, generating questions and scenarios, etc . Pretty much in almost everything. I have not come back empty handed yet and it is getting better every day... ​ Sure, some things might be incorrect or made up. It can be spotted after a while.  I have recently got promotional access to a pro version of an AI tool and it is even better than I imagined  ​( duh! ​) There will be none (actually, there are none already) reasons to go to a school or college for getting information about anything.  Sure, information doesn't give us logic, reasoning and understanding how and why that information  ​was  arrived at  ​and why things are  that way. It needs something more. There are tons and tons of free content on YouTube and a zillion other o...

I watched a movie last evening. It had a lot of scenes with prisoner torture , interrogation and techniques.  It is something I could imagine as a young boy growing up as " 3rd degree " treatment. It was regularly used to refer to extreme torture for interrogation in movies. Of course, I don't know if there exists anything by that name in real life but it existed in reel life definitely.  So I was thinking, almost all of it involved some kind of physical torture to affect the mind eventually. The end goal is to make the subject spill the beans on something. But we have to get to the mind for it to happen. And that invariably involved some form of physical torture/ abuse. I think I have a better idea. I have a fair amount of confidence it will work.  Take a normal person (the subject) - Attach a tube to their stomach (peg it). Dont give them anything to eat or drink. All the required nutrition and fluids can be given as a badly coloured, ugly looking fluid every couple of ...

Take a typical well accomplished doctor as a professional (in India as an example)... People have to finish ~ 4-6 years of childhood  ​ p ​rior to  schooling  ~ 13 years of schooling (K-12) ~ 5.5 years of M.B.B.S ~ 3 years of specialisation  ~ 3+ years of super specialisation  And a few years of practice afterwards, they will be considered a well experienced and accomplished doctor. Roughly speaking at least 30-35 years. And they probably have to have had a very good track record all through. A Doctor was just an example and is on the higher side. Take any other profession and  ​to  be a good/ accomplished professional, it will take at least 25-30 years, after being born. Point is, none of us ( humans ) are born professionals. Sure, some may have an edge because of  ​their  genetics of being a little more "intelligent" or having a little more "memory capacity", etc.  However, everyone is born with these capacities with a " clean canvas "...

  Let us assume you had a wonderful vehicle. Can be any vehicle - 2 wheeler, 4 - wheeler, a truck with 18 wheels, anything. A vehicle with a good old fashioned IC engine and not the newer EV models  You have had it many years and have had wonderful experiences with it. You have great memories with it.  Let us assume one day it had a very very bad accident and it is completely broken. The specialist mechanics have had a look and haven't been able to do anything to fix it. It is a write off basically...  However, miraculously, the engine survived the accident and is able to run. But, as the vehicle is so absolutely damaged, it just can't ever run  ​anywhere  again ​ and be useful as a vehicle anymore . You can never ever have those experiences with the vehicle again.  Now, because of the good times you have had and can remember, how long will you put fuel everyday and keep just the engine running? It's not an efficient engine anymore. Needs a lot of fuel...

 Thoughts are not linear to easily understand how we came across some line of thinking. It jumps from one to another seemingly unrelated thoughts. This is one such thing. I have no idea why I started thinking about this... Note: as usual, some of the things I have said might not be relatable ​to everyone  and even offend ​some of  you. Please ignore and read no further in such a case... "Survival of the fittest by natural selection" - that is Darwin's famous and well accepted theory explaining evolution.  According to it ​, simply put, evolution is a random series of mistakes (genetic mutations) which makes specimens of species either fitter or weaker and subsequently, nature has a brutal mechanism of weeding out everything that was less fit as against a fitter specimen and the better one survives. It applies to everything from animals, plants, insects, birds, fish, etc., etc. ​ That is how any species has not just survived but gotten better and better over the year...

 I have had a couple of folks (friends & family) come home in the past few weeks. Visiting after a few months - after about 6+ months at least. They have all remarked that I have improved . Now it could be 2 things:   1. They are just being nice and making conversation 2. They are telling the truth and they actually see some improvement I'll give them the benefit of doubt that they are indeed seeing something that has improved. When most folks come home and see me, I am not lying on my bed in my room but plonked on the wheelchair and in the living room. I have a pillow on my legs to cover the mess that happens underneath and I will typically be pushed to the dining table so waist down, nothing is visible really and they get to see mostly my face and upper body with only my left hand moving. So, it leaves me wondering what improvement are they seeing? When I had my stroke, my face was very very disfigured as most of my facial muscles couldn't move and most of them had spasm...

 Note :- some of the things I have said below might seem a bit sexist and offend a few. I am definitely not intending to do anything like that. Please ignore this if you don't agree with the view I have shared... The world population is shrinking. There is enough data available to show that the women's fertility rate is going below the population replenishment level of 2.1 (i.e., every woman has 2.1 children on an average to sustain the population) But the world population is not going down. There are many other statistics to show that. Thing is, The population in most "developed" countries is steadily declining and it is steadily increasing in "developing/ underdeveloped" countries. Ex., Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany, etc. - they are all going down. Niger, Angola, Uganda, Somalia, Mali, etc, etc - they are all exploding! So what is really happening? If we scratch the surface of the data, we will realise that the world...