2023: The Year Gone By

Another calendar year closes out. The world moved on from the Covid19 virus, till at the very end a new wave crept in again. As Professor Moody would say, “Constant Vigilance” – which should ideally be a default setting for everyone. 

Anyways here is the list of some events & non-events to remember (or maybe not) the year 2023 AD by.

1. Word of the Year

In a world where AI generated material is becoming more and more visible, “Authentic” being named the word of they year, is hardly surprising. Kudos to Merriam-Webster for making this choice.

Meanwhile, Oxford decided to name “rizz” as their word of the year. I have absolutely no clue what that is supposed to be!

2. Terminology of the Year

Amongst the many risks a flight traveler faced, there was added the risk of being peed upon by a co-passenger! And our enterprising newspapers headlined the culprit as “Urinator”. Talk about the lack of creativity here!

3. Mystery of the Year

On a beach in Japan, there mysteriously appeared a round metallic object. Speculations on its identity ranged from UFOs to spy satellites to Godzilla eggs. But no clear answer emerged.

Meanwhile, aliens are back in the limelight with “alien corpses” displayed in Mexican Parliament  and claims of CIA retrieving UFOs from crash sites.

4. Much Ado About Nothing

One fine day, the social media lights up with “news” of name being changed from India to Bharat. After much shouting in online echo chambers, pointless debates, lots of server space taken up, it all turned into a case of “Much Ado About Nothing”. After all, how does one change a name to a name which already is there?

5. Work-life balance debate

“Youngsters ought to work 70 hours a week to boost productivity and enhance India's competitiveness” – thus spoke Mr. N R Narayana Murthy and sparked what seems to be a never-ending debate on the (lack of) work-life balance, productivity and compensation. In the process providing ideal material for all the LinkedIn gyaanis. Many of whom seemed to be spending more than 70 hours of their week on this debate.

6. Management Lessons of the Year 

The Men’s ODI World Cup provided a full blown opportunity to generate management lessons/takeaways. Glen Maxwell’s 201* vs Afghanistan, Angelo Mathews being timed out, India faltering at the last step, Australia winning (again), Attendance at venues, Pitches, – everything had a life lesson derived from it!

7. The Armchair Experts Edition

They know everything. Any event which hits the headlines also generates a bunch of social media experts. Geopolitics, economics, commodity prices – these are passe. They also operate in niche zones – e.g., Deep-sea diving (the Titan tragedy), Generative AI (Chat GPT), Lunar geology (Chandrayaan landing), Mercenary armies (Wagner group), Short selling (Adani-Hindenburg), Tunnel rescue(Uttarakhand) .

8. When a Prophecy Actually Came True

#AbkiBaarSauPaar – that was the Broadcasters’ tagline for the Asian Games. Quite an aspirational statement, given that India’s best tally till date had been 70 medals. But at the Hangzhou Games, India reached 107 medals! Now, wondering what projections these oracles at Sony make for Paris Olympics!

9. The Dirtiest Match 

World & Olympic medalists on the streets against the Wrestling Federation. The impasse continued. There had to be a solution to it. Nobody in the powers to be even tried. It was definitely not what anyone wanted to see. And the worst bit, it is still not over. Getting suspended by United World Wrestling, Elections held and the sports ministry suspending the newly elected federation within days. Something is totally rotten here.

10. The Chess Siblings

Praggnanandhaa & Vaishali – the first brother-sister duo to become Chess Grandmasters. Both will be appearing in the respective Candidates tournament next year. What a feel-good story.

So this was a bit of 2023. Wishing all readers a Very Happy 2024!

2023 - TYIL

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

As another year draws to a close, its time for making of the lists. So without much of a preamble presenting the list of random, totally trivial, and mostly pointless, but fun (at least for me) stuff that I learnt through another year of trawling though the inter-webs and other such endeavors, and most importantly remembered to jot down,

1. India’s first Christmas Cake was baked by Mambally Bakery in Kerala in 1883. (BBC)
2. Hatsuyme – Japanese term for the first dream you have in the new year, which is said to predict how the rest of the year goes! (Kokoro) 
3. Returning Soldier effect – More boys are born during and after wars (Wikipedia). Given the multiple prolonged wars currently going on, could be another validation of this theory.
4. Samosas are banned in Somalia, apparently because their triangular shape in Christian and it is a western food! (News18) Somalis are missing out on a delicacy.
5. In 1976, Airbus managed to get an order of 3 A300s from Indian Airlines. The deal clincher – their Chief Executive Bernard Lathiere was born in Calcutta and showed a picture of himself when he was 3 years old with Gandhiji to the then Indian Airlines top boss, Air Chief Marshal PC Lal. (Source: Business Wars Podcast)
6. Tennis Sets: 6-0 is bagel, 6-1 is breadstick, conceding 0 points – Golden Set, 1 point – silver & 2 points – Bronze Set (Macmillan Dictionary), (Wikipedia) 
7. In colonial times, the roads were illuminated by gas lights which were lit using kerosene. Hence kerosene became colloquially ghaslet.
8. Skeumorph - a derivative object that retains ornamental design cues (attributes) from structures that were necessary in the original to to make something new feel familiar in an effort to speed understanding and acclimation. E.g. Floppy Disk as Save button, the telephone receiver as phone icons etc. (Wikipedia) 
9. Terminator Line – the line that divides the day & night sides of a planet. Also called twilight zone. (Wikipedia).
10. Jasper & Jinx – that was the original name given to Tom & Jerry, which was actually the name of a drink! (Link) 
11. Batukeshwar Dutt, who alongwith Bhagat Singh, threw bombs in the Assembly, later co-wrote the movie Shaheed, based on Bhagat Singh’s life and received the National Award for Best Screenplay. (Wikipedia) 
12. Einstein Shape – A shape that can be arranged in a tile formations that never repeats! (Guardian) 
13. Jaquar brand is named after the founder’s grandmother Jai Kaur (Wikipedia) 
14. Cappuccino - means little hood and is named after the colour of the hood worn by the monks in Italy (The Coffee Universe) 
15. Emirp - A prime number whose digits when reversed is also a prime number, e.g., 17 & 71, 13 & 31. (Wikipedia) 
16. The term “mugger” comes from magarmachh! One of the collateral effects of colonization! (Merriam-Webster) 
17. Mickey Mouse has a sister – Mrs. Amelia Fieldmouse!
18. Münchausen Numbers - They can be written as the sum of each of its digits raised to the power equivalent to the digit itself, resulting in the same number. e.g., 3^3+4^4+3^3+5^5=3435
19. Capitonyms – Words which change their meaning if the first letter is capitalized. E.g. March & march; Lent & lent etc. (Wikipedia) 
20. The Hollywood Sign was originally “HOLLYWOODLAND” and as an advertisement for new property in the area.
21. Letters to India’s Antarctic Station are routed through Panaji post office. Just who came up with this interesting idea of Goa & Antarctica sharing a pin code!

This as 2023. Hoping to build on in 2024 with some better noting down techniques.

P.S. Lists from 2019, 2020, 2021 & 2022.