Dear all, 25/06/16
I am a gobbler of Amul Butter.
Out of curiosity I happened to read the specifications given in the packet as
follows;
For each 100 gms:
Energy 722 kcal. Energy from
fat 720 kcal, total fat 80 gms,
saturated fat 54 gms, trans fat 3 gms, cholesterol 180 mg, sodium 838 mg, total
Carbohydrate 0g, added sugar 0 g,
protein 0.5 gms, vitamin A 850 mg.
It was a revelation to me that
there are so many types of fats I don’t understand as to why they should add
Sodium and Vitamin A. They could as well add uranium. Atleast I can generate my
own nuclear energy. Finally, why should it mention things that are not there as
0gms? They could have as well mentioned Rat poop 0gms.Still I like it because
Amul baby resembles my daughter.
This is what is happening in
the market place. If you want to buy anything, you are simply floored with
un-understandable and irrelevant information.
However, what makes us still
buy things about which we really don’t know?
Read the attachment and realise
what governs our decisions.
God bless you.
Ramani (C/2)
RANDOM RUBBLE 25/6/16
Imagine a hypothetical situation wherein an ass that is equally hungry
and thirsty and is placed precisely midway between a stack of hay and a pail of
water. It is assumed that the ass will always go to whichever is closer. The
paradoxical situation is that, it will die of both hunger and thirst since it
cannot make any rational decision to choose one over the other.
The Paradox, called “Buridan’s Ass” was named after the 14th
century French philosopher, whose philosophy of moral determinism it satirizes. Buridan's
Ass appears as metastability in digital electronics, when a circuit must decide between two
states, when there is an input that is changing its value. In such situations a
small amount of randomness acts as a tie-breaker, and the circuits settle into
one or the other state after a usually very small, but unbounded period of
time.
In the ultimate analysis, we are also Buridan’s like asse
and randomness rules our lives. Honestly,
do we really understand even an iota of the mumbo-jumbo spewed about every
product in the market?
Let me illustrate
Me and my wife went to a show room to buy a car. I was given
a brochure of a particular model containing all the technical specifications. I
am giving below only a very small part of it.
Engine Type: Naturally aspirated.
Engine code: Straight 4, 1.8 litres, 1797 cc,
Bore
and stroke: 81x87.2mm
Bore
stroke ratio: 0.93.
Double overhead camshaft. 4 valve per cylinder.
Maximum power output: 145 bhp at 6500 rpm.
Specific output: 80.7 bhp/litre
Maximum torque: 176 NM at 4700 rpm
Specific torque: 97.94 Nm/litre
Engine construction: sump – wet sumped. Compression ratio
– 10.3:1
Mean effective pressure: 1230.8 kPa
Unitary capacity: 449.35 cc.
I could understand very little. They start with the words
“naturally aspirated”. From the dictionary I got the meaning as inhalation. But
every engine has to inhale the air to burn the fuel. I don’t get the
connection.
Well, like a typical husband I was browbeating my wife on
my superior technical knowledge and was reeling out the specs and explaining
them to her. As usual she heard none of it.
She just ignored me and selected a car among the many. Literally
there were many, differing in size, colour, capacity, specifications etc. These
ladies really have hawk’s eyes. As soon as they enter any shop they make a
sweeping view and spot the prey and zoom on it. She told me that she liked the
car with the light cyan colour. She then sat inside it and found it very
comfortable. She tried the music system and found it very pleasing. Everything was
over in a matter of about ten minutes.
Later, I asked her as to why she chose that particular
car. She told me that it blends with the exterior of our house. Also, the
interior was of a shade that my clumsiness and dirtiness will not be revealed. Well
that’s it. That is randomness.
Another time I took my mother to buy a TV exclusively for
her. There were many TVs, blaring different channels. So, as usual I spotted an
LG TV which was fabulous. It was displaying National Geographic channel and I
was floored with the crystal clear images without any distortion, even when I
was just six inches away from it. As usual I asked for a brochure and the
following specifications were given.
Make: LG
Size: 40 cm HD Ready LED
Connectivity – Input 2* HDMI, 1*USB
Refresh Rate – 50 Hertz
Support Audio Format – AC3 (Dolby Digital), EAC3, AAC,
Mpeg, PCM,
Supported Video Fornmat – Divx (SD/HD),
Resolution – 1366 x 768
Display Resolution Maximum – 720 pixels
Wireless Connectivity – (Wi-fi) – Yes
Sound output – 15W
DTV Tuner – ATSC/Clear QAM
This was a little better than the car episode. Since I
very much wanted my mother to have the best one, I was seriously discussing
with the salesman on the salient features and comparisons with other brands.
Suddenly my mother was tugging at my shirt and pointed
out to a TV and told me that she liked that. I asked her the reason. She said
that the serial Saravanan & Meenatchi which was playing in that TV was
excellent. That settled it. The randomness.
I can go on adding many things like cell phones,
medicines, foods etc. All these products fool and fuddle you with unnecessary
information which you just cannot understand. It is called information
overdrive. We all have to live with what we have created.
Finally, I am coming to the crux of the matter. One day
my wife asked me as to how I chose her. She asked me tauntingly, whether I had
drawn the fullest metrics of her and also of other girls specifying colour,
height, weight, number of broken teeth, angle between the eye balls, BMI etc
How could I tell her that there were no dating apps then?
All I did was to obey my mother, who with uncanny ability of a typical hawk, told
me to tie the knot on her?
Randomness? You bet.
God bless you all,
Ramanis (C/2)
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