It is all a ploy!

Centennial light 113 years old still lighting in Livermore fire station

Our whole childhood in RRF was filled up with the memory of a single refrigerator - National Jet cycle. Even the fluorescent tube light then seem to last forever. I do not even remember the tube starter needing to be changed. So what happen? Every thing seem to have a shorter life span as time goes on.
Just heard about a light bulb which was bought in 1903 and is working after all these years barring a few instances when it went off due to wiring faults, power failure and whilst the time the place it was placed, i.e. a fire station, moved premises.
It is a  hand-blown common 60W bulb made from carbon filament in the 1890s, donated to a fire brigade when light technology was in its infancy. It was a sort of community service for the voluntary firemen to get ready to rush to their job. The bulb kept on burning over the years, seeing many transformations in mankind. It saw the Wright brothers fly for the first time, two World Wars and survived two transfer of premises! The company which manufactured these type of long lasting bulbs, Shelby Electric Company, later went bust.
In the 1920's, at a time of economic awakening after the devastating effects of World War 1, a bulb cartel mooted a movement referred to 'Planned Obsolescence'. They grappled the idea that 'a product that refuses to wear out is a tragedy of business'. Hence, there was a conspiracy to shorten lifespans of products. This, with the lure of Edward Bernace's use of psychological marketing, generated sales and boosted the economy. Pretty soon, carbon filaments were replaced with tungsten and bulb's life span reduced from a lifetime or more to 2500 hours to 1000 hours.
Interestingly, the light of the technologically advanced webcam which was set up to watch the Centennial Bulb when it became a national heritage, had to be replaced a couple of times. It continues performing its duty, albeit at a lesser glow akin to a 4W nightlight.

http://www.catalanfilmsdb.cat/en/productions/documentary-television/the-light-bulb-conspiracy-ndash-the-untold-story-of-planned-obsolescence/2749/

http://www.centennialbulb.org/

Paraprosdokian

A paraprosdokian /pærəprɒsˈdoʊkiən/ is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence, phrase, or larger discourse is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to re-frame or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax. For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists. Some paraprosdokians not only change the meaning of an early phrase, but they also play on the double meaning of a particular word, creating a form of syllepsis

Thanks CG.  

Decisions, decisions

Why do I always feel that I am constantly in the company of fools? Is it just me or am I not alone? Do I have a psychogical disorder that make me immersed in a sense of grandiosity that look at others as lesser beings?

Or is it that I am in the wrong place? I should be in a place where my true potential can be developed to great heights. 

Why is it that the people around me are always cock sure of things remotely close to the truth? Why is that I sometimes fall prey to their dogmatic insistence of their viewpoint? Am I too timid and too gullible for my own good? 

Well let fools think that they are right. For the feeble minded, making decisions is easy. The more knowledgeable one is, the more he is aware that there are many ways to approach a problem.
Just because fools make a ruckus and are loud, it does not them make right. Might does not make right.
All these uncertainties are making me go slightly mad...

It doesn't pay to be wise in the company of fools.
Muhammed Haider

Wisdom doesn't automatically come with old age.Nothing does --- except wrinkles.It's true,some wines improves with age.But only if the grapes were good in the first place.
Abigail Van Buren

Knowing a great deal is not the same as being smart; intelligence is not information alone but also judgment, the manner in which information is collected and used.
Dr. Carl Sagan

Meet the man who spent 12 years trapped inside his body watching ‘Barney’ reruns

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/01/13/meet-the-man-who-spent-12-years-trapped-inside-his-body-watching-barney-reruns/
By Peter Holley January 13

Martin Pistorius in his wheelchair in 1992. (Courtesy of Martin Pistorius via HarperCollins)
"Lynchian," according to David Foster Wallace, "refers to a particular kind of irony where the very macabre and the very mundane combine in such a way as to reveal the former's perpetual containment within the latter."
Perhaps no other word better describes the onetime fate of Martin Pistorius, a South African man who spent more than a decade trapped inside his own body involuntarily watching "Barney" reruns day after day. "I cannot even express to you how much I hated Barney," Martin told NPR during the first episode of a new program on human behavior, "Invisibilia."

Pistorius at a special needs center during his illness. (Courtesy of Martin Pistorius via HarperCollins) 

The rest of the world thought Pistorius was a vegetable, according to NPR. Doctors had told his family as much after he'd fallen into a mysterious coma as a healthy 12-year-old before emerging several years later completely paralyzed, unable to communicate with the outside world. The nightmarish condition, which can be caused by stroke or an overdose of medication, is known as "total locked-in syndrome," and it has no cure, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

In a first-person account for the Daily Mail, Pistorius described the period after he slipped into a coma: I was completely unresponsive. I was in a virtual coma but the doctors couldn’t diagnose what had caused it.

I was treated for tuberculosis and cryptococcal meningitis, but no conclusive diagnosis was made. Medication after medication was tried – to no effect. I’d travelled beyond what medicine understood. I was lost in the land where dragons lie and no one could rescue me. When he finally did awaken in the early 1990s, around the age of 14 or 15, Pistorius emerged in a dreary fog as his mind gradually rebooted itself.

"I had a sense that something was wrong," he told "The Wright Stuff," a British TV program. "I suppose you can almost describe it like when you are trying to wake up from a dream, but can't."
At some point, between the ages of 16 and 19, Pistorius fully regained his consciousness -- only to be confronted by the jarring reality of his situation, according to NPR. He was trapped, marooned on a deserted island within himself, his only companion his despondent thoughts, which had begun to eat away at whatever hope he had left.

"Ghost Boy" by Martin Pistorius. (Courtesy of HarperCollins)

Pistorius told himself nobody would ever love him and that, for as long as he remained alive, he was doomed, according to NPR.

"It's like a cold, sinister frustrating and frightening feeling, which seems to throttle every cell in your body," he told "The Wright Stuff" about the feeling of being trapped. "It's was like you're a ghost witnessing life unfold in front of you and nobody knows you are there."

But Pistorius was there, so much so that he remembered with clarity the death of Princess Diana, the inauguration of Nelson Mandela and the Sept. 11 terror attacks. He watched his relatives go about their lives and listened to the things they said, though they had no idea he could hear them. "But nobody thought I was even aware of them, let alone the fact that I not only knew about them, but was shocked or excited or saddened like everyone else," he told "The Wright Stuff."

He described the feeling in more detail for the Daily Mail: 

My father’s faith in me was stretched almost to breaking point – I don’t think it ever disappeared completely. 

Each day Dad, a mechanical engineer, washed and fed me, dressed and lifted me. A bear of a man with a huge beard like Father Christmas, his hands were always gentle.
I would try to get him to under-stand I had returned, willing my arm to work. "Dad! I’m here! Can’t you see?" But he didn’t notice me.
"Let’s get you into bed, shall we?"  

He continued to undress me and my gaze slid to my arm. It was not moving: its only outward manifestation was a muscular twitch close to my elbow. The movement was so tiny I knew my father would never notice it.

Rage filled me. I felt sure I’d burst. I gasped for breath. "Are you OK, boy?" Dad asked as he heard my ragged breathing and looked up.

I could only stare, praying my silent desperation would somehow communicate itself.

Pistorius giving a presentation in Israel. (Courtesy of Martin Pistorius via HarperCollins)

His recovery began with Barney, the big purple dinosaur he was forced to watch on loop at the special care center where he spent his days, according to NPR. Pistorius decided he'd had enough and dedicated his thoughts to something that offered some modicum of control over his reality, such as telling time by tracking sunlight in a room.
"I can still tell the time of day by the shadows," he told NPR.

As his mind improved and Pistorius learned to "reframe" and "reintepret" his "ugliest thoughts," his health improved, too, according to NPR. By age, 26, he was able to use a computer to communicate, shocking his family.
"When he gets the tools to communicate, he forges ahead," his mother, Joan Pistorius, told NPR.
It wasn't long before he'd gotten a job, enrolled in college to study computer science, started a web company and, more recently, written a book, "Ghost Boy," which was published in 2011. The Sunday Times calls it "a deeply affecting and at times shocking book" that recalls "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" -- "but with a happy ending."

Pistorius on his wedding day. (Courtesy of Jeff Turnbull via HarperCollins) 

Indeed, Pistorius also fell in love and got married. Speaking through a device that allows him to talk with the help of a computer keyboard, he can be seen on video here discussing the book and his wife in the same sitting.

He's now living happily in the United Kingdom with his wife, Joanna, leading a life that is perfectly regular, which is exactly how he prefers it.

"I am happy with who I am," he told "The Wright Stuff."

"Yes, life has its challenges, but then again, whose doesn't."

Evolving with the times or swaying to the tide?

I vividly remember, some 10 years ago when the relative was berating the country  as his children were off to the Land Down Under. He was disillusioned with the direction of the country was heading and was singing praises of his new found soon to be Motherland. He was even contemplating, at his middle age, of uprooting his family and practice and start anew Down Under.
10 years went on in a flash...
Last week, during my last visit, I was shell shocked when the same relative went on a 180 degree turn. After being comfortable in his own background and not quite being able to leave the country, he now sings another tune. He now says that there is no country like Malaysia and cannot understand why anyone would want to migrate elsewhere?
I can totally understand where he is coming from. Decisions and actions are dynamic. There can never be one size fits all. With time, we will become wiser. We see things from a different perspective with the benefit of hindsight.
So when you tell me that scriptures were cast in stone and can withstand the test of time to be interpreted literally to solve present day problems, I say take it with a pinch of salt. Everything must be looked from the perspective of time, culture, knowledge and the intended target group.
A dogmatic non wavering approach will not solve the problem.

Crisp from the printers

Out now... Crisp from the printers...

Inside the twisted mind of Rifle Range Boy
ISBN: 978-967-13153-0-9
to order...http://asok22.wix.com/rifle-range-boy

Strange...

Sleepy Hollow, Kazakhstan
RT Documentary 2014
A small village of Kalachi, 200 miles from Kazhakhstan's capital, Astana, recently hit the headlines for a strange occurrence. Over the past 2 years, unofficially, 200 people have been affected by a benign sleeping disease. People of different age groups, toddlers to the elderly have had the sudden urge to sleep after feeling heavy in the legs. They would sleep unarousable for one complete week and would recover without any morbidity save for initial staggering 'drunken-like' gait.
Examination by the medical personnel did not reveal any neurological symptoms except for transient cerebral edema on CT scans. Biochemical analyses, toxicological studies and samples of water, soil and agricultural thus far had failed to pinpoint any anomaly.
There is a disused uranium mine in the village but Geiger-Muller counts were normal. The only aberrant finding is marginal high level of lead in the water. Experts are still working on the cause of this bizarre disease.