The joy in spontaneity!

How often have you fretted when something did not go as planned? Perhaps you pined for a well planned weekend travel and suddenly it goes for a toss leaving you clueless about the uncertainty. I was in a similar situation but yet had a memorable experience which I want to reminisce through this blog. The initial parts are just my experiences and the revelations are concluded later.

I need not tell you how fabulous the feeling of seeing the clock tick past 16:00 hours on a Friday is. However, I wasn’t really looking forward to the weekend and was a bit petulant about the road trip to Slovenia which did not go my way. I somehow have a mindset for circumstances and I get queasy when they do not go as planned. Nevertheless, ‘Things could be worked out spontaneously’ I said to myself. Suddenly, I got a call from my friend Gokul to watch “The Dark Knight Rises”. Though it extended to the late hours of the night, my answer was a certain YES!

After the movie, I was asked by Gokul’s friends if I had an interest in skydiving the next day. Gokul was acrophobic and hence showed no interest in the offer. Hearing about the departure at 07:00 in the morning, I told them not count me in. After all, who would want to get up so early on a Saturday? More importantly, how can I decide on the fly and say yes? But this Saturday appeared significant for a reason. I had orbited the SUN for the 26^th time – in other words, it was my 26^th birthday! An early morning call from my beloved parents woke me up at 06:45. Lying on my bed, clueless, I instantly decided to fantasize my whim and put a check mark on the most awaited activity on my bucket list. It was at this moment, I decided to skydive.

Already a bit late for the departure, I called my friend Abhi who was kind enough to accommodate this change. He gladly suggested me to take the next connection along with others who had delayed his operations. Thank God! I still have a chance of making it I thought. For most part of the day, I ended up catching everything just in the nick of time. I bumped into my good old friend Shesh whom I hadn’t met for 2 years and guess what? He also had come to skydive – A small world indeed! I was keen about not wasting too much time on the camp and that my turn would come soon. And so was Shesh, who had optimistically vouched his return by 11:00. After a painful wait and just before our enthusiasm plummeted, we got our turn at 18:00 hours.

We were fully geared up for the dive from 4000 meters and the adrenaline levels were high enough to surpass the butterfly effect in our stomach. We boarded the aircraft and after 5 minutes, we assumed that it was time to jump. But to our surprise, it wasn’t even 1000 meters - the first quarter of the ascent.  We were reminded for every 1000 meters and slowly reached the 4000 meter mark. The tandem master did some final checks and prepared us for the jump. The doors of the aircraft opened, we were on the edge and seconds away from THE JUMP that could not be undone. I remembered that all through the way, I was making fun of this saying “If you do not succeed in your first attempt, then skydiving is not for you”. And soon I found myself in the moment of truth validating the statement for its verity. The experience has been recorded in the video below.

Satisfied with the spontaneous decision of skydiving, I fell back on my habit of static planning and thought of spending a quiet Sunday in Stuttgart. But my friend Shesh had already arranged a party with his friends and me in Heilbronn. I had a very splendid time and met Shreyas, Veda, Puneet, Gopal among others, celebrated my birthday by cutting a cake, spent a night filled with laughter and then woke up with a mild hangover. A nice topping to this weekend was a good game of cricket and the fabulous delicacies that whet my appetite.

May be I deviated here in cherishing those memories, but my point is really about the lesson learnt in retrospect. It’s the same position on my bed, before and after the weekend, where I was clueless. Clueless on a Saturday morning wondering what to do for the weekend and clueless on a Sunday night thinking about unexpected outcome of spontaneous events. Had I not decided to watch the movie, skydive or join the party, had I just repented over the inconceivable road trip and had I not decided to act spontaneously? I am not sure of what I would have missed. Of course I missed my home, parents and friends, but in their absence I found some set of events which fulfilled me to the core.

A thing well planned and executed is good, but, in the midst of anomalies, often it does help when we adapt quickly as there seems to be a ‘joy in spontaneity’.

Just in Time. Really !!

There are numerous events in life which we would have managed just in the nick of time. This is one such true life anecdotal incident which I want to reminisce through this blog.

The final year of Engineering is a blissful period especially when one has secured a job and is about to wrap up studies. It was at this juncture when four optimistic youngsters ventured into a research level project. Though it was a pride to brand it as a project in collaboration with the elite IISc (Indian Institute of Science), the project had its own twists and turns. Let us not get into its technicality but head straight to the day before submission.

I still remember rambling around the corridor of my college campus for we had to follow-up on a few important formalities before the next day. Amongst those, the tasks were to:

• Get the project reports printed from the printing press
• Get the reports signed by Head of Department (HOD), Principal and the advisor at IIsc

First was the marathon to the press to get the report which happened scarily close to the time the HOD was about to leave for the day. 'The HOD has just left the office' was the outcry over the phone from one of our vigilant source. Thankfully, the huge infrastructure of the college had a long walk from the staff room to the staff parking area through the Principals' office in the lobby. Every bit of this buffer time helped us in finding the HOD just as he strolled through the front foyer. There was no mark of hesitation in signing the reports 'the HOD is eager to reach home soon' was our surmise. Indirectly, the on time delivery of our Bachelors degree was in the hands of this printing press. But nonetheless, phew! 'Just in Time' we thought. Next was an insane attempt to get the Principals' signature without even bothering to make an appointment. Despite an annoyed look from his secretary, we barged into the room to get his signature. Voila!! Another 'Just in Time' event. In the midst of our recuperation, the premonition of missing the other signature invaded us. Miraculously we ended up getting all the signatures 'Just in Time'. What fun does it make when everything happened 'Just in Time'?

The fun lies in the answer to this question: 

For our project, we worked on an optical networking protocol. Based on your reading thus far, can you guess the name?

Yes you are right if you guessed 'Just in Time'. 'Just in Time' also known as JIT was indeed the protocol we worked on. A memorable happenstance. This blog post goes in dedication to my wonderful project mates Roopesh - AKA Professor, Rutwick - AKA Toothpick and Sagar - AKA Sucre and also to my ever inspiring friends - Viju, Ajit, Vikas, Sameer and BT.

Limitless Automation

The quest for automation has been the prime reason for technological advancements. Engineers, and perhaps in an indirect manner, even scientists seem to be intent on making the common man lazier. Being an engineer, I find this pursuit towards advancement quite exhilarating, interesting and challenging but I find myself in a fix when a new invention is presented to humanity. A part of my mind rebels and thinks like a Luddite (don't worry if you are not aware of this term for now). The thought of blogging about this topic ahead of my Amsterdam trip adventure arose when I was working on an interesting algorithm. It became more intense when I watched the employed factory workers in the movie "Schindlers' List" last weekend. No, this is not about the eventual fate of those workers. In this blog, I want to briefly take you through history and then explain my dilemma. This blog (though most of it is under the grasp of a layman) might be of more interest to my tech savvy friends.

The dilemma which I am referring to is 'our over indulgence with machines'. While often I feel that it is good, there are also several instances when I wonder whether it is potentially damaging to us. This topic is debatable. Let us see what happened in the recent past and what's happening now. This dilemma can be compared to the interesting "Luddite Fallacy" of the labour workers. The Luddite movement began during the Industrial Revolution in the earlier years of the 19th century. They protested against excessive use of machines which gave rise to unemployment on a massive scale. Many  workers became redundant as machines did most of their work in a faster and efficient manner. I cannot be sure when it comes to sympathising them. Looking at the current advancements, we may now conclude that they were insane. But may be, during those days, their ideology was a self-proclaimed truth. Okay! Too anachronous? Let us examine the current scenario just to try and understand the reason for their fallacy.

What happened since then is that we saw the advent of marvellous machines and skilled labour which, no doubt, has led us to where we are now. But, now there is a sudden shift in paradigm. One might argue that there is still strong employment potential because we still need people to operate such machines given the fact that machines are dumb. But what we might not readily be aware is the second level of intelligence we are trying to add through "Machine learning" and other intelligent algorithms that makes human intervention and supervision unnecessary. Okay! earlier machines took away work from manual labourers and now algorithms are snatching jobs from skilled labourers. Again, one may ask "Aren't we progressing after all? Further, has that not spawned a huge job market for algorithm developers?” To that my answer is definitely YES but, I also ask for how long and at what cost? Imagine an algorithm developer now being replaced by a powerful machine which synthesizes algorithms for any problem with sheer efficiency and accuracy. Meaning - we advance intelligence to such an extent that algorithms are generated automatically for a given problem (and I bet you that it is not a distant future). Can you envision the fate of algorithm developers then? I mean I am just imagining a day when there is so much of automation that there is no need of any workers apart from machines. Otherwise, you can recursively keep trying to ask questions to please yourself till you hit that bottommost case at which a machine replaces your skill.

So this is the 21st century Luddite Fallacy that I have now. The topic is open for discussion. With conviction, can you tell me if it is good to be inordinately machine dependent? Or is it bad?

Some reflection helped me conclude by giving myself the following answer:
We live in an age of Limitless Automation. So long as we stay updated, we can bring continuous improvement in human condition thereby evolving mankind to a new level. In this pursuit we should ensure that we do not neglect the very home (nature) that we live in. I hope we are intelligent enough in keeping machines one step behind.

Hopefully I did not confuse you whilst recounting my dilemma. Nevertheless, few insights from you will be appreciated.