The book I listened to over the past weekend (Vector by Robin Cooke) was a work of fiction based on Bio-terrorism. At the end of the book the authour’s note made some pointed observations about the threat of N.B.Cs – Nuclear, Biological or Chemical weapons. Each one has the power to literally annihilate huge masses of people, animals, plants and pretty much the immediate world around us. It’s indeed stuff that makes you sit up and wonder.

In the examples of real-life examples of bio-terrorism that the author mentioned were those initiated by followers of Rajneesh – salmonella poisoning of salad bars in Oregon which affected 751 people in 1994, infectious muffins causing dysentery in 1996 and the infamous Sarin gas attack by the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan in 1995.

What is scary about Nuclear, Bilological and Chemical warfare is not the sheer power of mass destruction that it posesses, but the fact that the knowledge of these weapons of mass destruction is accessible to people who are so screwed up in their heads so as to use it for terroristic activities. Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City is said to have been incited by the FBI raid on Waco Texas. The bombing of the US embassy’s in Kenya by Islamic fundamentalist and militant group led by Osama Bin Laden. So there is more than enugh evidence of people who believe that killing others in the name of their religious or fundamentalist beliefs is justified. I shudder at the thought of any such people using biological/chemical weapons instead of the conventional methods they have employed thus far.

In a recent conversation with a friend of mine, I remember passing a remark that these days I often wonder whether Darwinism has been reversed especially when it comes to human beings. Innocent people are killed by psychopaths. The birth rate in uneducated masses is significantly higher than that amongst those who are educated.

Bilogolocal and chemical warfare is indeed a real threat and as suggested by the author in his closing note, the only prevention against such attacks is counter-intelligence. Once again information becomes the key.

One of the characters in the book had a quote something along the lines that the threat of bio-terrorism is so real that the question is not if, but when it will happen…

I recently finished listening to a novel (Vector by Robin Cook… yes, it’s fiction, but it’s based on real events that happened and extrapolates on what could happen…) in which all the pieces of the puzzle just seemed to fall into place. The book was a great, and I’ll have a full review shortly in the Rants and Raves section for it; but the thing that I wanted to address here was just the way events seem to line up.

Conicidence is a curious thing. There are so many circumstances and situations that we are presented with which very often makes us all wonder what-f that wasn’t what happened? What if you didn’t accept that job and then you wouldn’t have been in that city and then you wouldn’t have met the person you’re with and things would be completely different. Right? The different paths that our life can take based on the simple decisions we make everyday is indeed fascinating. Reminds me of those old Hardy Boys books that I used to read as a kid which allowed you to choose your own path to the ending (Make your own mystery?). I used to enjoy figuring out ways to read every possible scenario and combination! Even till today when I think of depth first searches and breadth first searches in trees, I always think of the mystery books since that’s where I figure out how to traverse a path of a tree with multiple options.

The difference is that in those book, I could always go back and take the path that was previous not chosen and then see where that would lead. Unfortunately, we don’t have that luxury in life though. In life we make that decision and then that’s the one we have to go with. All we can do is simply wonder, what-if we had chosen a different path. (I’ve written previously about having no regrets, I still stand firm on that, but the what-ifs of coincidence are intriguing nonetheless). In the book, the male protagonist is able to piece together the cause of somemysterious deaths based on things as far-fetched as his colleague attending a conference on veterinary medicine and coming back and relating a story about a large number of rats having mysteriously perished in the sewers recently. Now, what if his colleague hadn’t gone to the conference. Or even if he did, if he didn’t come back and relate that particular story? Things would be different.

There are those among us who believe that there is no such thing as coincidence and everything is predestined and predetermined. I don’t buy that crock one bit, but still cannot help wonder about co-incidence. What if I hadn’t come to the US for my education…. would my entire outlook, my perspective and my weltanshaaung me completely different? Our environment has such a deep impact on how we develop and how we think. And the subtle experiences (and also the not-so-subtle ones for that matter) that shape how life progresses.

What if I didn’t decide to graduate early? What if I didn’t go to CMU for my grad work? What if the professor whose course I taught had not left for the valley? What if wasn’t at the cave late that night when the person who showed up and chatted with me on my site said should start my own company and in the process gave me the entrpreneurial bug? What if I didn’t meet the person who introduced me to my first financiers? What if the guy who became my best developer had already found a summer job before I got to him!? What if I didn’t hire the people I did? What if I didn’t send that email?

Just so many questions… each one the what-ifs of coincidence. Curious.

Before I end though, I do want to emphasize that I do not have any regrets about any of it.. None at all. Because I love the randomness. I love the fact that you cannot predict what will happen. And I wouldn’t want to either. Because the surprise is what makes it interesting. It’s what makes us adapt and develop.

Life is an improv.

Everyone has some vice. Some have several. But everyone has atleast one. Some smoke. Some drink. Some do drugs (that’ a little over the edge in my opinion though…). Some shop (yes, shopping can be a vice too). So what is a vice? The handy old Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary website, describes it as:

Main Entry: ¹vice

Pronunciation: 'vIs

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English, from Old French, from Latin vitium fault, vice

Date: 14th century

1 a : moral depravity or corruption : WICKEDNESS b : a moral fault or failing c : a habitual and usually trivial defect or shortcoming : FOIBLE <suffered from the vice of curiosity>
2 : BLEMISH, DEFECT
3 : a physical imperfection, deformity, or taint
4 a often capitalized : a character representing one of the vices in an English morality play b : BUFFOON, JESTER
5 : an abnormal behavior pattern in a domestic animal detrimental to its health or usefulness
6 : sexual immorality; especially : PROSTITUTION
synonym see FAULT, OFFENSE

Now, before, I continue, lets get is straight, that when I say vice, I mean it in definitely in the context of a a habitual and usually trivial defect or shortcoming for anything beyond that is tad too extreme and often not worth it. Also, when I say vice here, I mean a vice that we can recognize by ourselves and willingly accept as a personal vice. That is to say there may be many oher things wrong with us, but we may not recognize them. But in the contexr of this entry I’m talking specifically about that trivial defect or shortcoming in our character or behavious that we consciously choose to accept… because we all need some way of being bad right?

My previous vice was most definitely chocolate. I often said that “death by chocolate” would be the ideal way to go… well actually that’s the name of a desert that we used to have at the good old Scotland Yard @ Carnegie Mellon a long time ago 😉 Recently, I’ve tried to give up my chocolate vice, simply by telling myself that I’m not going to succumb to chocolate any more. And it’s working because I can look at chocolate and still be fine. Just depends on my state of mind. If I feel like not giving a damn any more, then I may still have it, but more often than not, I can control whether or not I want something or at least I’d like to think so!!

But then being without a conscious personal vice is tough. Coz. then you don’t know what to vent on! 🙂 So I’ve recently tried drinking, but it doesn’t seem to work so well. I already wrote in a previous entry about drinking. My experimentation with alcohol has been perfunctory at best, but it definitely doesn’t seem to be the one for me thus far. Some nights I could have a dozen drinks and not even feel it and on other days three or four would do me in. Again, it seems like more of a mental thing about whether or not I want to get drunk. If I’m away from home or know that I need to drive back, I can still maintain my composure reasonably well.

Based in recent conversations with some of my college friends (uhh.. you should know here that we were the non-drinking, highly studious and responsible types) more and more of them seem to be experimenting with inebriation. In fact, just this afternoon, I got a call from a friend who I have a lot of respect for and who I consider to be amongst one of the smartest people I have ever had the honor of working with… and what for? For recommendations on good drinks. Needless to say I was glad to oblige! 🙂

So any how back to vices. Everyone has them. It seems like we all need them. You can’t always be a Mr. or Mrs. Good Goody Gum Drops right? So now that I’ve tried chocolate as a vice and decided to move away from it, and been disappointed at the efficacy pf alcohol as a vice for me, I’m open to suggestions. Incessant blogging, hermitism, working out excessively (I’m still sore from the firecely competitive racquetball yesterday though!) seem to be good options so far, but I’m not sure I like either of those enough. I already spend too much time on the net, already spend too much time by myself and exercise as well.. so neither of those would be new and interesting enough.

What do you think??

Remember the famous commercial to prevent drug abuse? The one in which they show a fried egg representing your brain on drugs… It is your brain. But you don’t have to be on drugs alone to achieve the same state as the fried egg.

The mind is very powerful. It is our mind which produces the works of art, tomes of literary masterpieces, the design of the amazing machines which can make man fly, the ability to land on the moon. All human achievement has a singular source – the human mind. Without it we could not scale Everest and could not design chips which can process more information than we could hold in our heads.

At the same time the mind is fragile. It can at time be difficult to discern fact from fiction. It can play games on us. It can make us believe things so strongly that it inhibits our ability to question. Or even if we do question it can spin the most amazing tales and explanations for why things are the way they are.

Amazing…

I’ve mentioned this in a previous diatribe already, but I think it’s worth stressing. My highschool probably taught me some of the most invaluable lessons. And none could be more invaluable than the one embodied in the motto for my school: Naimatma Balheenien Labhya. I’ll quote the meaning directly from my highschool’s website:

The credo of Modern School “Naimatma Balheenien Labhya” from Sanskrit literally means – Perfection can only be acheived by the strong. The question is not survival of the fittest, or survival at the cost of others. It is the path of confidence, self-respect, and humility. It is not just survival, but the constant effort of self-improvement towards a goal of perfection.

It’s taken me a long time to understand the original Sanskrit saying above. For the longest time, I used to think of it as cocky and snobbish, since the literal transalation is: the weak cannot prosper But over the years, and in fact several years after I rgraduated from Modern I realized that it isn’t that the weak cannot prosper, but that in order to prosper you need to be strong. And not just strong physically, but mentally strong. The strenght of conviction, preseverance and self-reliance. The strength of courage, honor and logic. The abiity to realize that you yourself are the person who can help you the most!

So it’s not surprising that it infuriates me to see people who are not willing to help themselves. Who use lame excuses to justify their state of existence and survival instead of living and trying to create their own happiness. I can understand if there is a genuine problem that precludes any amount of effort from leading to success, but the lack of effort itself is unacceptable. You have to try. And yes, it may be difficult… there are some things for which I recognize my own fears and flaws and it’s definitely not easy to try and overcome them… but there still has to be an effort. If you try and then for reasons beyond your control you do not succeed, that is something to be sad over. But if you don’t try or if you are sad because of your own decisions… then those are things only you can control. … and remember… Perfection can only be achieved by the strong…