2022: The Year Gone By

After the horrors of 2020 & 2021, Covid-19 was finally off the main headlines in 2022. It’s still not over though with the year bookended by the Omicron wave at the beginning and apprehensions of a new wave emerging from China (where else) at the end. The war maybe be under control but battles are still raging on. While we wait and watch, hopefully much better prepared, here is a recap of some major (and not major) events to look back upon (or maybe not)

1. News Event of the Year: Russian invasion of Ukraine

On 24th Feb ’22, Russia invaded Ukraine. It’s been 10 months, but the battle rages on with territories gained, wrested back and lost again. Apart from the actual battle on the field, there was another one being fought online between two propaganda machines. After a while, no one was quite sure of what was happening on the ground. Only one thing was clear - the human cost was huge and so has been the military spend. There have been economic sanctions and sports bans imposed. Yet the war keeps going on and on. And as a collateral damage, it has spawned arm-chair geopolitical experts, with most having a minor expertise in petroleum economics as well.

2. Designation of the Year: Chief Twit

Elon Musk acquired Twitter (rather was forced to buy after having announced his intent to buy), announced himself as Chief Twit and turned Twitter into a dark comedy channel. Proclaiming free speech, then banning accounts which he did not like, changing policy, firing people and then trying to rehire them, restoring banned accounts, finding himself being voted out as CEO on a poll he conducted! More than the company – he has become a non-stop source of amusement!

3. Work Jargon of the Year

Be “Extremely Hardcore” – the ultimatum given by the “Chief Twit” to the remaining Twitter staff. The deadline passed and far less people remained (What A Surprise!).

On the other end of the spectrum was trend of “Quiet Quitting” – where workers did only what was supposed to be done and not more (Again, What a surprise!).

4. Management Course of the Year: The Football World Cup

From being the “beautiful game” football evolved into a full course in management, with every match, every play, every goal scored, every shot saved, the actions of players, coaches, the watching dignitaries being dissected and ending up as a “what life lessons you can draw from them”? post on LinkedIn.

5. The fall & fall of Big Tech

There were the antics of Musk, the single day drop of $ 230 Billion in valuation of Meta, large layoffs at Amazon & Meta, Elizabeth Theranos (once touted at the next Steve Jobs) sentenced to 11 years jail and finally Sam Bankman-Fried – from appearing on Fortune magazine as the next Warren Buffett to be arrested a few weeks later for what could potentially be the biggest financial fraud! Tech industry was in turmoil to say the least!

And then there was the bizarre case of Chitra Ramkrishna who was running NSE based on advise of a “Himalayan Yogi” who communicated with her via email! 

6. The Eyjafjallajökull of the Year

Remember the volcano with the most exotically unpronounceable name which disrupted European airline traffic in 2010. It found its successor in 2022. The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai Volcanic eruption which cut off Tonga from the rest off the world and caused damages worth ~$ 90 Million in a country whose total GDP is less than $ 500 Million

7. The New Fad of the Year - Wordle

There was Wordle, a fun game. You play it and then spam the whole world with your grid of grey, yellow & green! It also spawned variants, more numerous than even the covid variants! It may be off the headlines as the year progressed but remains fun!

8. Lost & Found of the Year: Endurance

1915 - Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance sinks off Antarctica.

2022 - 107 Years later, it is found again, resting in the depths of the ocean

9. Book of the Year: Ret Samadhi

Geetanjali Shree’s novel became the first Hindi novel to win the International Booker Prize. Now for a twist in the tale. On Amazon, the original Ret Samadhi is available cheaper than its translation Tomb of Sand!

10. Vegetable of the Year: The Lettuce

Why not, after all it outlasted a Prime Minister. So short was Liz Truss's term, that her biography had to be updated before it could be published! But she did oversee a regime change during her brief stint.

11. Quote of the Year: “I am Mr. McAdams”

So this was a bit of 2022. Wishing all readers a Very Happy 2023!

2022 - TYIL

The more I learn, the more I realize that I know nothing.

This Year I Learnt (#TYIL)

Another year draws to a close. And as has become a tradition, made a list of random factoids learnt during the year. Mostly encountered while trawling the interwebs, others via TV, movies & books and some through various Quizzing platforms/leagues.

1. Creatcoeus Period in the Geological Time Scale comes from Creta, Latin for Chalk (the softest stone) (The Guardian). 
2. Erdos-Bacon Number: sum of one's Erdős numbe, which measures the "collaborative distance" in authoring academic papers between that person and Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős, and one's Bacon number, which represents the number of links, through roles in films, by which the person is separated from American actor Kevin Bacon. (Wikipedia) Why the need for such a number combining disparate fields is a mystery though! 
3. Graham Number: measures a stock’s fundamental value as {22.5*(Earnings Per Share)*(Book Value Per Share)}^(1/2). Any stock trading below the Graham number is considered undervalued. (Investopedia) A good rule of thumb for investors but need to consider in many more factors.
4. Harshad Number: A number which is divisible by the sum of its digits e.g. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,12,18,20,21 and so on. (Wikipedia)
5. Lindy Effect: the idea that the older something is, the longer it is likely to be around (Wealest). A decent measure for judging works of arts, books, popularity of movies etc.
6. Cantillion Effect: the change in relative prices resulting from a change in money supply (SWFI)
7. Weismann Score: Performance Metric for lossless compression applications. Fun part - its a fiction metric developed by a Stanford University professor for the show Silicon Valley (from which I learnt about it) (Wikipedia) 
8. Allen Curve: represents the exponential drop in frequency of communication between engineers as the physical distance between them increases. (Wikipedia) Wonder how this holds with increased WFH!
9. Virtual Water Content: volume of freshwater used to produce the product, measured at the place where the product was actually produced. (Water Calculator)
10. Argentina and Uruguay’s first sporting encounter was a game of cricket (not football), in 1868 predating the Ashes by 9 years! (Cricinfo)
11. Geomythology: study of etiological oral traditions created by pre-scientific cultures to explain—in poetic metaphor and mythological imagery—geological phenomena such as volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, fossils, and other natural features of the landscape (BBC) at times the entire subject of geology seems a myth and not a science!
12. Stendhal Syndrome: visitors to Florence suffer psychological breakdowns after being overwhelmed by the city's abundance of great art! (BBC) I guess another of first world problems.
13. Stephen Wilhite invented the gif in 1987. The first gif was a flying airplane. (The Guardian) 
14. Palm Oil is known as Red Gold. (The Conversation).
15. Jennifer Joseph: model for the Columbia Pictures logo. A real person whose image is familiar across the world but name is not (Link) 
16. Enigmatology: the study of puzzles; Will Shortz is the only known person to hold a college degree in this subject (Wikipedia) 
17. There are more Indians than Qatari citizens living in Qatar! Qatar’s demographics are quite interesting (Wikipedia) 
18. Hofstadter’s Law: It takes always longer than you expect. Named from Dr. Richard Hofstater who also lends his name to Leonard’s character in The Big Bang Theory. (Techtarget) 
19. Overshoot Day: the date when humanity has used all the biological resources that Earth regenerates during the entire year. In 2022, it fell on July 28th. (Overshoot Day)
20. MCC (Marylebourne Cricket Club) were the custodians of the rules of Tennis in the 19th century! (Britannica) Wondering if there is "spirit of tennis" also?
21. The world’s loneliest tree – an isolated spruce on an island in New Zealand (The Guardian)
22. The Ghan: longest passenger train in regular service, runs from Darwin to Adelaide, in Australia (Link) 
23. Operation London Bridge: The funeral plan for Queen Elizabeth II, with the phrase “London Bridge is Down” announcing her passing. The plan was first prepared in 1960s with constant updates as the years went by (Wikipedia)
24. Nora Polley: 1st Indian woman to participate in the Summer Olympics (Tennis, 1924) (Link)
25. One Piece by Ilan Manouach: the longest single volume book (21,450 pages) and also physically impossible to read and hence is sold as a sculpture rather than a book! (The Guardian) 
26. Streisand Effect: the attempt to suppress something only brings more attention or notoriety to it (Webster)
27. Stone House, the meaning of Zimbabwe in the local Shona language. (BBC) 
28. The Smiley Company owns the trademark for the smiley image, which was created by Harvey Ball. And it is currently a $ 500 Million business. (The Guardian)
29. Meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in his book “The Selfish Gene” by shortening the Greek word mimeme. (BBC)
30. The Great Emu War: In 1932, over a 6-week period, Australia waged a war against the emus and lost. The emu population survived the battle against Australian artillery and continued with its crop destructive ways! (Wikipedia) 
31. And the Chinese fought a battle against Sparrows (1958-62), seemingly won and realized that not having sparrows was more harmful to the crops (due to increased insect population) and ended up importing 250,000 sparrows from Soviet Union! (Wikipedia)
32. The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” and The Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” were recorded on the same piano (Link) 
33. Enheduanna: the world’s first known named author, who lived around 5,000 years ago (BBC)
34. Bihar was the first state formed in India, in 1912! Maps changed later with first Odisha and later Jharkhand being carved out of it though (Wikipedia) 
35. The “Iron Law of Megaprojects” - Over budget, over time, under benefits, over and over again. (Link) 
36. Khaki colour originated in the British Indian Army. The word Khaki originated from Urdu and means soil-coloured. (Link) 
37. Dora the Explorer is a 7 year old girl and 5 feet 2 inches tall! I know it’s a fictional character but still that's one tall kid! (Comicbook) 

This was 2022. Hoping to build on in 2023.

P.S. Lists from 2019, 2020 & 2021

2022 – Top Ten Moments from the Indian Sports Arena

As we enter the last week of the year 2022 AD, it is time to make a list of things to remember the year going by. Presenting the Top 10 moments from the Indian sporting field (rated by yours truly).

1. Thomas Cup win: Stirring performances from Lakshya, Srikanth, Prannoy and Satwik-Chirag lead India to become just the 6th country to win the Thomas Cup. It was a culmination of a long journey to becoming a badminton powerhouse.
2. Neeraj Chopra becoming the Diamond League champion. Such is the amazing consistency of India’s first ever track & field Olympics champion that a silver in the World Athletics Championships (the first ever Indian to do so) is not his biggest moment of the year!
3. Avinash Sable winning the silver medal in 3000m Steeplechase at the Commonwealth Games and breaking Kenya’s dominance of the event. This is the first time since 1998 that Kenya did not have a clean sweep in this event!
4. MCG, Men's T20 World Cup, India vs Pakistan, Over 18.5 – Haris Rauf to Virat Kohli, lands for 6 behind the bowler off one of the most stunning shots seen in cricket – a straight punched loft over the bowler’s head! And somehow India sneak in a win out of nowhere after a dramatic last over.
5. Lawn Bowls Gold at Birmingham Commonwealth Games. An afternoon spent plonked in front of the TV watching Lawn Bowls 4s Final wasn’t a part of any plans. But Rupa Rani Tirkey, Nayanmoni Saikia, Lovely Choubey & Pinki Singh combined to bring a new sport to the collective Indian sporting minds. After all, we are fast learners (at least in learning the rules of a new game).
6. The Women’s Hockey team won the inaugural Nations Cup, getting their rightful place in the next season of Pro Hockey League. They should not have had to play this round given that as alternates the team finished 3rd in the previous edition of the League. But they proved once again that they belong in the top tier of World Hockey.
7. Deepti Sharma runs out Charlie Dean at the non-strikers end to seal a whitewash for India over England. A non-striker run-out (formerly known as Mankading) and that too at Lords! As expected, all hell broke loose on cricketing social media with the defenders of the so called “spirit of cricket” marching in on full battle mode! The debate kept going on and on for seemingly ages! Don’t remember so much attention to an incident in women’s game before!
8. Nikhat Zareen became the Boxing World Champion, India’s 5th ever female boxer! She also added a Commonwealth Games gold confirming that Mary Kom’s legacy is in good hands.
9. Mirabai Chanu lifting the silver at the World Championships with a sprained wrist!
10. Achanta Sharath Kamal, at the age of, 40 won 3 Golds and a Silver at the Commonwealth Games!

Other honorable mentions: Manika Batra winning the Bronze at Asian Cup; Rudrankksh Patil winning a World Cup Gold to qualify for the next Olympics Shooting; Bajrang Punia adding a 4th Wrestling World Championships medal and Vinesh Phogat getting her 2nd medal.

Finally for an announcement off the field of play. In a major step towards gender parity, BCCI announced that the women players will be given the same match fees as the men for internationals. A great initiative, but just the first step in a long journey to parity. And this is something basic to be done for all sports.

Now looking forward to the sporting year 2023, which has Hockey & Cricket World Cups, the postponed Asian Games (fingers crossed given the re-emergence of the Covid situation) and many Paris Olympics qualifiers scheduled!

Learn N Blog #20: Off 15th December

Came across one of the weird connects from history

15 Dec 1944, Imphal

Two officers of the then British Indian Army are decorated with the Military Cross by the Viceroy Lord Wavell for their services in 2nd World War. Their names

• Major Sam Manekshaw, 12th Frontier Force Regiment
• Lt. AAK Niazi, 14th Army

Fast forward 27 years to same date

15 Dec 1971

Lt. Gen Niazi conveys the decision to surrender the Pakistani Eastern Command to General Manekshaw and signs the Instrument of Surrender the following day.

Same two officers, now lead protagonists in another war, this time against each other!

Links:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._A._K._Niazi#World_War_II_and_Burma_campaigns
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_War_of_1971

Previously on Learn N Blog: The Hydrogen Rainbow

BookMarks #108: Dying To Meet You

Title: Dying To Meet You

Author: Rich Amooi

Genre: Fiction

Published: 2019

BookMarks

The book presents an interesting premise, showing all the crests and troughs that life can present in one go. Liz wins a huge lottery, and a few days later is diagnosed with a life-threatening disease with minimal survival chances. While waiting for a donor, she decides to knock a few places off her bucket list, all in private charter flight. The journey takes her from Peru to Kenya to France while also meeting the new love of her life. Then things go astray, but everything ends up well. And they all lived happily ever after.

After an interesting beginning, the story becomes contrived, and especially the ending which is abrupt and is too contrived even for a pure work of fiction!

Does give a glimpse of some of the challenges faced, when you suddenly have more money than what you know what to do with it. And a peep into the super-luxurious life which only the uber-rich can afford! 

Previously on BookMarks: How To Win Friends & Influence People