The Era of Absolutes

 We hear a lot these days about the world becoming polarized. It is either good or bad; right or wrong; all or none. So many national and global events today draw sharp reactions from either side of the spectrum. But whichever side of the spectrum you align or identify with, more and more people have sharp opinions and extreme reactions. We hear this often from so many quarters – the world has become divided; politics is becoming polarized, and opinions have become extreme. but what does it mean exactly?

Take the recent example of China. We have people on two sides obviously; but most Indians believe that China is an evil, authoritarian regime that is hell-bent on destroying their competitors (read India) and hell bent on world domination. If you purchase and use Chinese-made products, you are branded a traitor. If you refuse to use them, you are branded a hyper-nationalist. Another polarizing topic is Narendra Modi. You can either love him or hate him. People fall into these two distinct categories. Either he can do no wrong or he can do nothing right. Either he is saving the country and the world from apocalyptic melt-down or he is taking the country down the path of a genocide and/or economic ruin. The most recent polarizing topic is of course the Israel-Hamas conflict. You see opinions expressed strongly on both sides of the dispute – you are either an antisemite or an Islamophobe. There is no middle way!

That is a most curious phenomenon. The question that comes foremost to my mind is – has public opinion always been this sharply divided? Has the discourse always been about two extremes? Perhaps we feel this way because this is the only “age” we have lived in. Statistics suggest otherwise. A 2022 study by Anindita Borah and SR Singh ^[1] on political polarization in India through social media network analysis and mining concluded that there was a significant amount of polarization (non-overlapping social media interactions) for retweets in general and controversial topics in particular. A 2023 study by the Association for Democratic Reforms found that 72% of Indians believe that the country is more politically polarized now than it was 10 years ago. A 2016 study by the American National Election Studies ^[2] found that Americans have become increasingly hostile towards the opposing political party. The study found that the share of Democrats who view Republicans as "very unfavorable" increased from 35% in 1992 to 89% in 2016. The share of Republicans who view Democrats as "very unfavorable" increased from 38% in 1992 to 85% in 2016. Prima facie, these are significant changes. To conclude, statistics from studies around the globe indicate two things - first; opinions are more polarized today than before and second; this trend is increasing.

Being a numbers guy, the second question that comes to my mind is whether this polarization has any correlation with income, education, age etc.? Extent of political polarization being the dependent variable, it would be worthwhile to check the independent variables that have the highest correlation in terms of impact. Are richer people less likely to have polarized opinions? Do highly educated people tend to avoid political extremes? Does political extremism taper off or increase with age? All truly relevant questions which should have some independent studies done for further investigation. But while this can be done by more capable people than me (read TISS or any other educational institution interested in this topic), armchair thinkers like me can sit back and contemplate more anecdotal incidents. A recent conversation with an acquaintance brought home this point in stark and brutal fashion to me. This conversation was with a young person (just under 30) about the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. It lasted around 30 minutes and it almost seemed to me that we were talking different languages. The disconnect was so obvious as to be comical. While my whole fascination with this topic was of a geopolitical nature and I kept trying to draw the discussion towards facets like the Sykes-Picot agreement, the Balfour declaration, the impact of the ‘Law of Return’; this acquaintance of mine kept brushing these topics aside and kept talking of the “ongoing humanitarian crisis” and how one side was the oppressor and the other was the victim. The conviction was absolute despite knowing that the best minds in the world agree that this is a complicated issue. At one point, I had to politely stop the conversation. This (and more such incidents) brought home to me the stark realization that political polarization might be increasing, and that income and education do not seem to have a correlation to it. This of course led me down the rabbit hole of whither did this come from?

One factor that we hear about is social media. It is cited often (and ironically enough, quite vehemently) that a glut of information and echo chambers created by social media algorithms have led to this rise in polarization. But to be honest, I feel that this simplistic solution is like missing the forest for the trees. Could very well be that echo chambers are created by polarized opinions rather than the other way around. I feel we need to go deeper. While social media might or might not be the root cause, there are two particularly important considerations that I would like to lay down – Firstly, reduced attention spans and secondly, the need/gravitation towards instant gratification.

Let us first talk about attention spans. Herbert A Simon, An American economist, political scientist, and computer scientist uncannily prophesized this in a 1971 paper titled “Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World.” ^[3]

In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.

Gloria Mark, a psychologist and currently the Chancellor's professor in the Department of Informatics at University of California, Irvine, lays out the data in her new book - “Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity.” ^[4] In the early 2000s, she and her team tracked people while they used an electronic device and noted each time their focus shifted to something new—every 2.5 minutes, on average. In recent repeats of that experiment, she says, the average has gone down to about 47 seconds. Another study by Microsoft Corp ^[5] published as a consumer insights report highlights that attention spans (defined here as the amount of time consumers spend on one screen before moving on to another app/screen) has dwindled from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds in 2015. To put this finding in perspective, Microsoft themselves have compared it to the average attention span of a goldfish, which is about 9 seconds. This means that by 2015, on average, humans (at least Canadians as per this study) had a lesser attention span than goldfish. The study goes on of course to discuss the implications of this for marketers but we need not get into that. The point is attention spans have reduced markedly in the last two decades. Even citing high-level data, that hypothesis seems to be true. There has been a 66% increase in viewership for the “Shorts” format from 2022 to 2023. The average length of a typical music video ^[6] has decreased from 259 seconds (about 4 and a half minutes) in the 90s to 197 seconds (about 3 and a half minutes) today. The average length of a typical newspaper article ^[7] has decreased from 1222 words in 2000 to 589 words in 2022. A 2023 report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) ^[8] found that the average length of a digital video advertisement had gone down from 30 seconds in 2000 to about 15 seconds in 2022.

In an interview with Time magazine, Adam Brown, co-director of the Center for Attention, Learning, and Memory at St. Bonaventure University in New York cited technology (read phone usage) as a key factor in reduced attention spans. ^[9] To quote him verbatim -

Human brains want novelty, excitement, and social connection, and devices play into those desires. Checking a notification flashing across your screen can provide a small hit of dopamine, creating a sense of reward that keeps you coming back for more. When you give in to temptation by pausing a task to check your phone, your brain also has to shift gears to stop what it was previously doing and move to a new task, Brown says. This process negatively affects the overall speed and quality of your work in the short term, research suggests, and in the long term, “the more you engage in task switching, the more your brain wants to wander and look for that new thing,” Brown says. In other words, your brain gets used to constant diversions and engages in them out of habit—hence why you might find yourself mindlessly checking your phone even as you watch your favorite television show.

This “malevolent” design is everywhere. To understand how instant gratification has become inextricably linked to our shortened attention span we need to understand the reward mechanism in our brain. The first analogy to draw on is the spike in blood sugar levels after eating carbohydrates. Refined carbohydrates cause a much steeper spike in blood sugar levels than whole/complex carbohydrates. This is because the fiber in whole/complex carbohydrates need more work to be digested. This happens more slowly and therefore supplies a slower release of glucose into the bloodstream. Unfortunately, refined carbs can be highly addictive. Carbs release glucose into the bloodstream and a burst of dopamine in the brain, and this can act like a drug for some people. There is a reason these foods are called comfort foods. The essential molecular structure of the carbohydrate is similar in refined as well as the complex variants. However, the addition of fiber causes us to do more work to digest it and hence delays the gratification. Another example is the ubiquitous slot machine. When one pictures gambling, one often thinks of poker tables, and people in dinner jackets calculating the odds of various combinations in their mind. This notion of traditional gambling was made very popular by actors such as Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. However, slot machines are far more popular. They contribute over 70% of any casino’s revenue. The slot machine hacks into a very primal reward mechanism of the brain remarkably like Pavlov's dogs. We "salivate” at the sight of those reels lining up and that familiar sound which is a precursor to a reward. We continue to press that button, mindlessly tuned in to the short, quick bursts of dopamine or the painful thrill of disappointment laced with hope for the next turn of the reel. Delayed gratification is mostly not addictive. Instant gratification is. It is that simple. This design is embedded by large corporations into everything they try to sell us – from chips with the perfect blend of salt and fat to cola drinks with the perfect blend of sugar and caffeine to tobacco companies with the perfect blend of nicotine and tar to shopping apps with the perfect blend of deals and customized recommendations to social media and smartphones! The last two are a veritable smorgasbord of addictive choices with instant gratification. Smartphones reel us in with the very design of their UI and the way user experience is built. Notifications keep us hooked. That small red number indicating the number of unread messages, the buzz or ping or beep of the notification sound . . it's a science that is being perfected at alarming rates.

Having plumbed many examples of how instant gratification can get addictive, let us dive a little deeper. What is it that makes instant gratification addictive? Think of the baseline dopamine levels in our brain as an “elastic” string tied across two poles. It is a crude but effective metaphor often used by Andrew Huberman (A Stanford researcher and neuroscientist with a special focus on ophthalmology) on his podcast. From sugar to shopping to sex, any addictive substance has two (amongst others) important characteristics – firstly, the time lag between an activity and the associated burst of dopamine (rate of onset); and secondly, the introduction of a spike in the level of dopamine in the brain. This spike must be significantly higher than baseline. The higher the rate of onset, the more addictive a substance. The higher the spike, the more it's addictive potential. This elastic that I mentioned earlier is impacted by these two factors – the flood of dopamine and its rate of onset. But in a short time after the flood, the dopamine levels in our brain drop back down. The higher and steeper the surge, the more they drop. The more they drop, the more the craving for the same experience again. The more the craving, the more reinforcement for addictive behaviors. It is a vicious cycle. Spike, drop, crave, repeat. Over time with repeated abuse of this reward mechanism, the baseline dopamine level drops too. The elastic loses strength, and it sags down. This leads to a host of other problems such as depression, which is a topic unto itself.

Smartphone manufacturers and social media companies have tapped into these characteristics of the human brain just like all other large corporations have done. Some of the key addictive features ^[10] of smartphones in general and social media in particular are infinite scrolling, instant push notifications, pending notification count, personalized recommendations, constant profile customization and instant messaging. Small things like a slight delay when refreshing the feed are by design! They increase the anticipation of a refreshed feed.

Which brings us to the impact. Over the last 10 years, daily average screen time ^[11] has increased by a whopping 23%! A large chunk of that is because of smartphones which has registered an increase of 43% in the same period! As of 2022, we spend around 7 hours in front of a screen every day and around 4 of these in front of a smartphone. But because of the addictive nature of its usage, we are not focusing on anything for too long. These 7 hours in front of a screen are spent scrolling/browsing/flitting from one screen/app to another. As per research done by Gloria Mark (cited above), the average time we spend on a screen is 47 seconds (8 seconds if you believe Microsoft). Even at the higher end of the spectrum, 47 seconds is just not enough to form a nuanced opinion. At this point we will have to delve a bit deeper again ^[12] into neurobiology and how humans make decisions/form opinions. While it is an oversimplified theory, the Triune model of the brain’s evolution suggest that the limbic system is more involved in decisions and actions involving emotion and the neocortex is involved in higher-order decisions, analytical thinking, and rational decision flows. While decision-making is an extremely complicated process from a neurological standpoint and the triune model is considered an over-simplified framework, it does provide a frame of reference or a point of ingress for us to understand the very crude basics. It is safe to say however, that the limbic system is highly involved in lower order emotional processing of input from sensory systems. On the other hand, the neocortex is understood to be involved in higher-order brain functions such as sensory perception, cognition, spatial reasoning, language, and analytical decision-making. The effect of social media on how we think has been well analyzed. A 2023 paper by Sergey Yu Tereschenko titled "Neurobiological risk factors for problematic social media use as a specific form of Internet addiction: A narrative review.” ^[13] found that internet addiction can lead to several changes in the structure of the brain. To quote -

"To date, a large number of studies have been devoted to the pathogenesis of Internet addiction using various neuroimaging techniques, including magnetic resonance imaging, positron and single photon emission computed emission tomography. These techniques have revealed a number of structural brain changes associated with Internet addiction: Decreased grey matter density in several areas, including prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortical layers and an additional motor area; abnormal functional activity of brain regions associated with reward dependence; activation of sensorimotor synchrony with a concomitant decrease in audiovisual synchrony; activation of brain regions associated with compulsive craving and impulsivity; increased glucose metabolism in brain regions associated with impulsivity, reward dependence and the urge to repeat sensations; increased dopamine secretion with a concomitant decrease in dopamine receptor availability in the striatum.

To sum up, social media addiction leads to two especially important effects – it increases our stress, and it increases our impulsivity. This leads to impaired decision-making (amongst other things). As we saw earlier, the neocortex is involved in higher-order processing of information. However, if the brain is hijacked and does not get enough time to involve the neocortex due to a greatly reduced attention span and a highly active need for instant gratification, the result is not surprising – polarized opinions, extreme reactions, and simplistic solutions. We use the limited time our attention is focused on a particular screen to react emotionally and instinctively to the content. In our hard-coded need to make sense of what we are seeing, we jump to conclusions, search for the simplest solution without analysis and form opinions based on emotion rather than logic/rationality. In essence, we are losing our ability for deep, focused, and nuanced thought. That is truly a scary thought. An even scarier consideration is that the brain is a veritable "learning machine” up to around 25 years of age. Neural pathways are being formed and it is extremely easy to pick up skills and reinforce them. After this age, it is generally considered that neuroplasticity goes down and it takes a lot more effort to "rewire” the brain (pick up new skills or change mindset). Young adults who have grown up with an internet addiction and have never picked up the skill for focused, deep, neocortex-worthy thinking will have an especially tough time dealing with complex topics. If this trend continues, we can expect future generations to be even more polarized in thought and even more easy to influence through nefarious techniques of social media manipulation. A whole generation of brain-washed consumers of information ready to amplify whatever is being fed to them and spread it even faster to other brain-washed consumers of information.

So what is the solution? As someone who has quit a debilitating alcohol and nicotine addiction and has stayed clean for the last decade or so, I can vouch that the path is not easy. To top that off, this is not an individual that we are talking about. We are trying to solve for the addiction of an entire population. We are also fighting the systemic disinclination of the entire establishment (from Big Tech to governments) to do something about this problem; mainly because it serves their needs. A population of these aforementioned brain-washed consumers of information are easy to influence. They’re easy to manipulate and easy to bring to a boil. In this moment of despair, I am reminded of Rabindranath Tagore’s timeless poem which can easily serve as a call-to-action for us and a fitting conclusion to this journey through the rabbit hole.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

 

References 

1. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13278-022-00939-z
3. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/06/22/partisanship-and-political-animosity-in-2016/
4. https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191843730.001.0001/q-oro-ed5-00019845
5. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/60795084
6. https://dl.motamem.org/microsoft-attention-spans-research-report.pdf
7. https://www.statista.com/chart/26546/mean-song-duration-of-currently-streamable-songs-by-year-of-release/
8. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/10/new-york-times-story-length/
9. https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/IAB_PwC_Internet_Advertising_Revenue_Report_2022.pdf
10. https://time.com/6302294/why-you-cant-focus-anymore-and-what-to-do-about-it/
11. https://medium.com/swlh/the-secret-design-tools-which-social-media-apps-are-using-to-create-addiction-e6a502ccb79f#:~:text=The%20psychology%20behind%20all%20this,see%20if%20you've%20won
12. https://explodingtopics.com/blog/screen-time-stats
13. https://seattleanxiety.com/psychiatrist/2022/7/22/anxiety-social-media-use-amp-maintaining-mental-health#end1
14. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370906115_Neurobiological_risk_factors_for_problematic_social_media_use_as_a_specific_form_of_Internet_addiction_A_narrative_review

The Susegad Bike

It is with a heavy heart that I'd put up my Vulcan for sale before I moved back to India. A good bike, a sound ride and a powerful engine. 650cc of displacement and 60 hp of peak output.  Just for fun, I'd gone to a Royal Enfield showroom in Mumbai. Hitherto I was a bit of a sceptic when it came to RE. I had never understood why the RE stable had such underpowered machines. But as soon as I test drove the Royal Enfield Classic 350 Reborn I knew this was the perfect bike for me. Now I know what you're going to say - here comes another moronic RE fanboy. Who says a 350cc downgrade is better than a 650cc cruiser? I know right!? To clear the air, I'm far from a fanboy. RE really does make only average machines with really old engine tech. As a manufacturer they leave a lot to be desired. 

But they have nailed one thing right - they've got the engine tuned JUST right for anybody who wants a relaxed ride quality with a lot of low-end torque and low peak output. If you fall even slightly outside these specifications, the RE Classic is simply not the bike for you. In fact in this situation it's niggles will outweigh it's USP. But if it's this specific ride quality you want - you couldn't ask for more (well you could if you upgrade to the Bonneville T100 but it'll set you back by 12 lakhs). And since it IS this ride quality that I was looking for, the RE Classic 350 was simply put, an upgrade for me. The Vulcan has the same engine as the Ninja 650. It's basically a sports bike disguised as a cruiser and that's why I was never truly comfortable and relaxed driving it. The engine just kept begging to be revved. It felt like a caged tiger. That's the character of the Vulcan. A split personality disorder - the spirit (engine) of a sports bike and the body (chassis) of a cruiser. As soon as I test drove the RE Classic I realised the difference. The Classic simply rides with you. It's a bike meant for the backroads of Goa or the winding roads of the mountain ghats or the green countryside where you just cruise along at 80kmph and think of life in general and contemplate on the nature of the universe. It's peak torque of 27 Nm is delivered really low at only 4000 rpm. This means you don't have to worry too much about shifting gears too often. It has ample oomph to tackle low speeds at relatively high gears and relatively high speeds at low gears. Not that it's advised to do that but it does make riding easy.  It gives you room to breathe and think of things other than mundane concerns such as worrying about your engine stalling. The engine purrs along at 80kmph and the ride quality just sets you in a philosophical mood. Not the caged tiger kind but the smiling buddha kind. With a kerb weight of just 195 kilos, it's pretty light too and you can maneuver it about quite easily. 

In many ways I realized that's what I'd been doing too before the RE epiphany came along. A split personality disorder. I was trying to be someone I was not. A simple test drive set me right and got me to realize that if one stays true to one's core essence, one is much happier. RE sales numbers bear that out too. The Classic 350 is it's top seller with 39% market share as of Feb 2023. In the 200cc-500cc segment too, it leads the pack with over 35% market share. That's because it knows what it does well and gives you exactly that. It doesn't pretend to be something else. Something to ponder on for my next ride! 

Does Everybody Really Love Raymond?

 There are some mainstream cultural shows or movies that you revisit across the years with a fresh perspective and they just give you a totally contrarian view from the one you had years ago. If you watch them after a long time it's as if you are having an "Aha moment" and you ask yourself why you didn't realise it before! A small example is "Dil Chahta Hai". It's a very well made movie but when I watch it now, all I realize is that the 3 protagonists are basically a bunch of spoilt brats with extremely superficial first-world problems throughout the movie.

A big such "Aha moment" for me was watching "Everybody Loves Raymond". I used to watch this growing up all the time and I used to love it. Then it was just a family sitcom with a bunch of laughs about life as a married couple and an intrusive set of parents. I recently watched the series again and I realized its more of a tragedy than a comedy. The "unhealthily" codependent and dysfunctional family that is portrayed so casually is dark and depressing. Despite the small redeeming acts by Raymond, he's basically an entitled male chauvinist, and a lazy, irresponsible parent to boot. Throughout 9 seasons; episode in and episode out - the comedy created at the expense of basic values like gender equality are mind-boggling. Raymond casually tries to get out of any and all responsibilities as a husband and a parent on the sole premise that he works a 9 to 5 job. It's actually tragic how this is the main theme across 9 seasons! I wonder how this recurrent theme would be received in today's culture. 

But an even bigger "Aha moment" was Marie Barone. I remembered her as a meddling mother and a bit of a nuisance. But this time the evil, narcissistic and manipulative traits just jumped out at me! Not having been exposed to such evil (a huge thank you to my parents for that), I did not realise it when I watched this growing up! Today I can positively say that Marie Barone is perhaps matched only by Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter and Col Hans Landa from Inglourious Basterds vis-a-vis the sheer depth of evil in an on-screen persona. And I see such personalities in so many families that it's just saddening. In fact, I found a reddit thread titled "Despicable Marie" where users have listed down incidents where Marie comes across as a very hateful personality. And the list is mind-boggling. From sabotaging her son's job interview just so he would stay home and be with her to asking her other son for an apology for an innocent diary entry from 2 decades ago to ruining her son's wedding in order to express her thoughts at the absolute wrong moment. And then I came across a comment on the thread that basically summed it up and hit the nail on the head -

"Marie exhibits all the traits of a pyschopathic Narcissist. Always wanting to get her way. Manipulation by guilt or blackmail. Playing favoritism with her two sons. Not being able to admit shes wrong and even if she apologizes for something she did she finds a way to twist it so she's still putting the blame on someone else. Claiming she the most loving mother ever but it's fake love controlled through manipulation. Never does anything nice unless she can take the credit for it and everybody knows she did it. Everything she does in the show is dispicable. She doesn't love her family because narcissists are incapable of genuine love."

What is sad is that it's couched in comedy and thus normalized as behaviour. And what's even sadder is that you see it everyday in so many families. Guilt-tripping, gaslighting and codependence . . whether mainstream cultural shows like "Everybody Loves Raymond" or for that matter soap operas normalized these traits or whether they were already so mainstream that they were casually portrayed on screen . . the debate is much like the chicken and the egg conundrum. For a long time I got feedback that having such a detached family is a bad thing! Minding our own business and not getting involved in each other's affairs is basically not caring for each other! Today I see that a healthy amount of space for personal privacy and the sacrosanct nature of individual choice (along with owning up to the consequences thereof) really laid the foundation for a self-reliant and self-sufficient emotional range. Today I see the obvious advantages of how I was raised and the environment I grew up in and I cannot be more thankful! 

Using Vanilla Gnome on Ubuntu

Ubuntu is perhaps the most popular Linux distro today. It's got a lot of pros if you look at it objectively speaking. The biggest advantage is of course a very strong and active user community. It's also got a good ecosystem for 3rd party apps and an easy application manager (apt) in addition to the default Gnome store. Since it's debian-based its also got a stable release cycle and pretty strong enterprise support. As of today, about half of all websites using Linux run some version of Ubuntu (just under 49% to be precise). CentOS comes a distant second at 18%. 

Personally speaking, I've been using Ubuntu on my machine since quite a number of years. I've experimented with Fedora, Suse, Elementary . . even tried Clear Linux from the Intel stable. But somehow I keep coming back to Ubuntu. However, the one grouse I have against Ubuntu is its stock UI. With Ubuntu 10.10 netbook edition, Mark Shuttleworth launched its new UI shell which replaced Gnome - Unity. Shuttleworth intended the development of Unity to subsume all other device user interfaces. In fact he said as such in an interview that the future of computing is having a unified interface across all devices. In hindsight, that vision was prophetic and right on the money; but messed up in implementation. Unity never really caught on - neither in the desktop/server space or in the mobile phone space. From versions 10.10 through 16.04 (LTS), Canonical gamely battled on and pushed Unity on all releases. They pushed back against criticism through articles, community engagement, interviews and press nuggets. Shuttleworth finally abandoned Unity with Ubuntu 18.04 and reverted to Gnome. However, this transition wasn't smooth either. Lots of users had gotten used to Unity by then (myself amongst them) and a lot of feathers were again ruffled with this news (again, myself included). Grudgingly and reluctantly we prepared ourselves for the transition back to Gnome. However, Canonical has since retained critical elements of the Unity UI as Gnome shell extensions while discarding the actual UI itself. It retained the Unity Dock but abandoned Unity Dash. It switched its window controls to the right but got rid of the maximize and restore buttons by default. I tried it all as god is my witness. I stuck through all the experiments that Canonical did through the Unity phase. But at one point (somewhere around Ubuntu 18.x) I finally had enough. With every Ubuntu installation, I'd install vanilla Gnome on top of it. Inefficient of course, from a resource perspective; but I loved Gnome. It is clean, functional, minimalist and very easy on system resources. Unlike KDE it's got no flashy animations and effects. Unlike Elementary, it doesn't try to ape some other OS UI. It's got its own philosophy and it makes no bones about it - ease and elegance. 

Very recently I really got stuck into Linux as an operating system and amped up my knowledge of the bash shell, the Linux architecture and open source in general with a bunch of online courses and hands-on DIY projects. With this recently acquired knowledge I started to wonder whether I could avoid installation of Gnome separately and try to just switch off Ubuntu-specific UI elements of the OS itself. Turns out its very easy! You don't need to install Gnome on top of Ubuntu to get the vanilla version. The key differences in pure Gnome and "residual" Unity are - 

• Gnome theme
• Ubuntu dock
• Custom scaling (needed on high res systems)
  
• Minor tweaks

First off, the default gnome theme is Advaita. This includes the colour palette, the icon-set and the general look/feel. To change this, one has to install the gnome-tweak-tool from the software centre. One can do that with

$ sudo apt install gnome-tweak-tool

Once this is done, just go to launcher using the <super> key and type in  "tweaks". Go to appearance tab and change the default theme to advaita or advaita-dark and you're good to go

The Ubuntu dock is basically a gnome shell extension. You can try to switch if off from the tweaks tool but 9 times out of 10 that doesn't work. The beauty of the Gnome UI is its simplistic default panel. The Ubuntu dock really gets in the way. It doesn't gel well with vlc media player and keeps messing up full-screen mode when watching videos. Next up, we switch off the Ubuntu Dock and revert to basic Gnome panel. To do that, we have to first identify what the dock is called. All extensions are stored as files in usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions folder. Just navigate to this folder in the terminal and list the contents of the folder. Like so - 

In this case (and in most cases), the dock is called ubuntu-dock@ubuntu.com (the syntax is usually <name_of_extension>@<author>). Once you have identified the correct filename, just use the gnome-extensions command to disable it. Like so -

$ gnome-extensions disable ubuntu-dock@ubuntu.com

Voila. The dock is now replaced with the default Gnome panel. 

On high-res systems objects looks really tiny. By default, Ubuntu does not support custom scaling. Ubuntu has two window managers (display server protocols) installed - X11 and Wayland. The command for fractional scaling depends on which one you are using. You can find that out with - 

$ echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE

Depending on the output, run the following command -

X11/Xorg - $ gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['x11-randr-fractional-scaling']"

OR

Wayland - $ gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['scale-monitor-framebuffer']"

Once that's done, what remains are minor UI tweaks such as restoring the maximize/minimize buttons, adding battery percentage and date to the top bar, switching desktop icons on/off, changing the font to Cantarell and changing the wallpaper (you can download the default Gnome wallpaper from the Gnome repository.

There you have it, once these minor customizations are done; for the most part, you can enjoy the clean, simple and minimalist feel of vanilla gnome. Just as the makers intended.

It was his heart. It just wouldn't go!

Roberto Duran Vs Iran Barkley. 24th Feb 1989 at the Convention Centre, Atlantic City, New Jersey. 1989 fight of the year by Ring Magazine. A fight for the ages! 

In the post-fight interview, Barkley had just one thing to say; "It was his heart. It just wouldn't go". Brings to mind the famous saying; "It's not about the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog". 

On paper, this bout was a no-brainer. A 37-year old pitted against a 28-year old. Duran was 5' 7" tall against Barkley's 6' 1". Duran had a 66-inch reach against Barkley's 74 inches. A 6-inch difference in height and an 8-inch difference in reach. That's heavy odds as evidenced by the betting cards. Barkley was a 2.5 : 1 favorite to win this bout.  Not just the tale of the tape, but the background of this fight put Duran at heavier odds still. Barkley was the WBO middleweight champion who had KO'd Thomas "Hitman" Hearns in 3 rounds in his previous fight just 8 months ago. Duran himself had suffered an embarrassing KO at the hands of the Hitman 5 years ago. Here's the tale of the tape as it stood on fight-night - 

	Duran	Barkley
Age	37	28
Height (ft/in)	5 feet 7 inches	6 feet 1 inch
Weight (lbs)	154.5	159
Reach (inch)	66	74

But the absolute doggedness and ring IQ that 'El Cholo' displayed in the ring was simply inspiring. A rare display of determination and heart in the face of overwhelming odds. The sport of boxing has many such stories and this one is at the top of my list for those inspirational "wow" moments. Considering the "no mas" debacle in 1980 when Duran got frustrated by Sugar Ray Leonard's "smart boxing" which went against Duran's grain of infighting and brawling; this fight was a huge turnaround where Duran employed all the tricks in the book to keep adapting over the course of 12 rounds. One of the key disadvantages Duran went in with was his inability to use his signature wrestling techniques due to his height. His head only came up to Barkley's mid-shoulder rendering self-protection impossible. To complicate matters, Barkley used these opportunities to land some hard body shots which shook Duran early. But Duran withstood this barrage and then dished out some! Duran then switched tactics to employ "smart boxing" maneuvers of his own. No wonder there's a larger-than-life persona built around the "hands of stone". At 37 the head movements and slips he employed to evade Barkley's jabs are a pure pleasure to watch. The willingness to engage with a fighter much larger than yourself takes heart. And boy did Duran take some hard hits! Round 8 truly brought out the best in Duran where he refused to give up despite being staggered by a mean left hook. 

Here the modern martial artist breaks the fight down to showcase some of the techniques employed by both Barkley and Duran. A must-watch for any fight enthusiast 

A fitting swansong for a great fighter. 

NPE2019 - a critical stepping stone to "आत्मनिर्भर भारत"

The "National Policy on Electronics 2019" or "NPE2019" was passed recently by the cabinet. This is a landmark decision that has the potential to have far-reaching impact on India's global competitiveness. A more knowledgeable person than me can shed much more light on how critical indigenous know-how is when it comes to electronic system design and manufacturing. However, suffice it to say that it's the equivalent of being a member of the nuclear club. Currently a large portion of India's needs in various industries when it comes to electronic equipment is being met through imports. Not a healthy situation to be in. NPE2019 aims to tackle this large area of opportunity. Self-reliance in the ESDM sector is not just good for the balance sheet but also of strategic importance for other industries as well and for the economy in general. 

The official gazette notification on NPE2019 makes for VERY interesting reading and can be found on the Meity website (or click here). The first section sets out the context of why ESDM sector is of importance. Then it lays out the vision, mission, objectives and strategies that Meity is employing to meet aforementioned objectives/mission/vision. NPE2019 has some key strategies. Amonst other things, these involve creating an ecosystem, mandating a quality framework and funds for R&D. It's a well thought out document and very much worth a read. 

Some of the most important take-aways from NPE2019 are - 

1. Creation of EMCs (the equivalent of STPI for software and IT services). This is done through a variety of provisions - 
• Focus of EMC creation to be hitherto underdeveloped/undeveloped areas
• Financial assistance financial assistance to the tune of 50% of the project cost subject to a ceiling of Rs. 70 crore for every 100 acres of land.
• Phased release of funds depending on project progress. 
• Defined provision of vital and essential services such as internal roads, storm water drains, e-waste management, safety services etc. 
2. PLIs (production-linked incentives) for Large Scale Electronics Manufacturing proposes a financial incentive to boost domestic manufacturing and attract large investments in the electronics value chain including electronic components and semiconductor packaging. The government shall extend an incentive of 4% to 6% on incremental sales (over base year) of goods manufactured in India for a period of 5 years.
3. SPECS (Scheme for Promotion of Manufacturing of Electronic Components and Semiconductors). As of today, the main impediment in the way of attracting investment for manufacturing electronic components are “Nil” Basic Customs Duty (BCD) on imports (mandated by WTO) and high cost of capital to set up units locally; not to mention lack of infratructure, lack of relevant know-how, lack of technology, high logistics cost etc. SPECS involves an incentive of 25% of capital expenditure for all manufacturing set up under the SPECS-approved list (ranges from LED chips to camera modules to RFID chips to HDMI cables). 
4. Creation of CoEs for innovation. 
5. Creation of a sovereign patent fund. This will be a state-led investment fund that shall acquire Intellectual Property (IP) assets important to national economic objectives. The SPF will provide high-level IP support and expertise to Indian enterprises, which themselves may be unable to afford it. Setting up of an SPF to acquire IP assets would support the MSME players largely by making these technologies available at a low cost

While belated; NPE2019 is a critical stepping stone to "आत्मनिर्भर भारत". However, it needs to also be backed by a robust quality framework to ensure that products that go from India to the global marketplace meet expectations and aren't substandard. It is critical in ensuring the success of this long-term vision. While industry reaction has been positive, the framework is but the first step. It shall all boil down to how well private players take up the mantle and deliver on quality along-with cost effectiveness. No doubt it shall be an uphill battle considering India's affinity for quick fixes and "jugaad. The next few years will be very interesting - make or break for India! 

Lessons from failure . . Musings from the squared circle

Much of the boxing community these days has gone gung-ho after #WilderFury2. It has been a cracker of a fight. Fury bullied the bully and emerged as the new WBC heavyweight champion. It was a shocking defeat; all the more so because of how comprehensive it was. Fury outclassed, outmuscled and outboxed WIlder in all departments and in every round. By the sixth, Wilder was wobbly, bleeding from the ear and mouth and had no answer to the flurry of combinations that Fury seemed to be cooking up at will. Finally, Wilder's corner threw in the towel around a minute into round 7. I could go on and on about tactics that Fury employed and analyse the technicalities of the fight itself; but that's not the point of this post. What was interesting came after. They say you get to know a man when he's really down . . they say the true test of your character is not how you parade yourself on your best days but how you comport yourself on your worst. And boy did we get to know Wilder! 

In his immediate reaction post the fight, Wilder said he didn't want to make excuses but that his legs were "weak coming in" and that he had a lot of things happening before the fight . . not to make excuses mind you! He then disappeared and did not attend the post fight press conference. A day after the fight he released a statement that his team should not have thrown in the towel and should have let him "go out on his shield". He blamed Mark Breland for this decision and contemplated firing him. Day 2 and Wilder spoke in an interview about how his legs were wobbly because his ring-walk costume was too heavy and that weakened his legs! He actually blamed his costume for his wobbly legs! Finally Wilder took to Twitter and released the most ridiculous statement of all, looking down at the camera and talking about how "the king is still the king" and that his fans should stick by him in this phase. Every sentence from Wilder's mouth was reminiscent of a pouting bully threatening repercussions because his toy was taken away.  It was a sight to see! How the mighty crumble. A few days ago Wilder was the most feared fighter on the planet. That explosive right cross was every boxer's nightmare. He had the highest KO-2-win ratio of any boxer around. Cut to this video where he came across as sulking and bratty. 

🤴🏿 pic.twitter.com/nanMke2BqQ

— Deontay Wilder (@BronzeBomber) February 29, 2020

The infamous costume that Wilder blamed for his wobbly legs!

Rewind to Jun 2019 - another champion; another shock defeat. Anthony Joshua was then the reigning WBO, WBA, IBO and IBF heavyweight champion with an unblemished record of 22 fights and 0 losses (much like Wilder who had zero losses before Wilder-Fury-2). He was scheduled to fight Jarrell "Big Baby" Miller in New York. Unfortunately, Miller was forced to pull out due to some shady doping results and Andy Ruiz Jr stepped in. On fight night, the unthinkable happened! Ruiz Jr beat Joshua! It a shock defeat; compared to Buster Douglas' upset victory over Mike Tyson. Nobody had imagined it could happen. Joshua's reaction however; was TOTALLY different from Wilder's rants and tantrums today. Post fight, Joshua made no excuses, just congratulated Andy on his victory, graciously attended the presser and left. No statements assigning blame, no excuses. His only tweet that night was a simple congratulatory tweet to the victor. 

This is Andy’s night, congratulations Champ 🇲🇽 pic.twitter.com/5gE8uFx4MG

— Anthony Joshua (@anthonyfjoshua) June 2, 2019

A couple of days after that he released another video manning up to the loss; rubbishing rumours that he was unwell before the fight, rubbishing rumours that he was hurt in sparring and quelling all such nonsense. He took blame himself and refused to fire his trainer. 

A day after was another classy tweet - 

Don’t let success get to your head or failure get to your heart 💙 pic.twitter.com/b8GUcZnm0A

— Anthony Joshua (@anthonyfjoshua) June 6, 2019

Wilder's own reaction to Joshua's defeat was cringe-worthy too! He talked smack about Joshua; did not give him the respect of a fighter and even called him a substandard boxer. He said he wasn't surprised by Joshua's defeat, that he was wrong to ask for an immediate rematch (which Wilder is himself doing now) and that the rematch would go the same way. In contrast, Joshua has not spoken at all about the Wilder loss! 

Aside from boxing tactics and analysis thereof, the sport reveals a lot before and after the fight too. Behind the blood and the glory, behind the pomp and the pagaentry are real men and women who can display the best within them . . and the worst! While Joshua might have tons of opportunities in terms of his game and his technique, while he may or may not win the mandatory fight coming up against Kubrat Pulev in Jun 2020. If he does, he may or may not figure out Fury's tell behind his classic "feint" . . . all probabilities too complex to ponder on. What is certain though, is that apart from actually winning the belts, he's displayed the hallmarks of a champion outside the ring too . . by staying classy. No trash-talk, no notoriety like McGregor, no wierd antics like Fury, no arrogance like Wilder. His tagline? #cleanheartswin! A refreshing change from all the bad-boy personas that seem to be so popular these days. And more importantly, vibes and lessons we can all learn from - 

"Don't let success go to your head or failure get to your heart".