Ravi S. Iyer: Worldly

Last updated on 5th Oct. 2019 Firstly, let us see how Industrial Revolution has contributed to improvement of standard of living: Some points taken from introduction section of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution are given below: * First Industrial Revolution was from 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. It involved transition from hand production methods to new manufacturing processes involving machines and mechanized factories in Europe and the United States. * Textiles were the dominant industry of the Industrial Revolution in terms of employment, value of output and capital invested. The textile industry was also the first to use modern production methods.[Ref: David S. Landes (1969). The Unbound Prometheus. Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. ISBN 978-0-521-09418-4.] * The first industrial revolution was a major change event in history impacting lives of people. Average income and population started showing unprecedented sustained growth...

Last updated on 8th Nov. 2019 Remembering Viju Khote: his iconic roles in ‘Sholay’, ‘Andaz Apna Apna’ and more..., https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/movies/remembering-viju-khote-his-iconic-roles-in-sholay-andaz-apna-apna-and-more/article29555769.ece , 30th Sept. 2019 The article, an obituary on actor Viju Khote who passed away recently, mentions the Kaalia role played by Viju Khote in the 1975 cult classic and superhit Hindi film Sholay, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sholay . Kaalia is a member of the gang of dreaded dacoit Gabbar Singh (played by Amjad Khan). For my generation of Hindi speaking Indians, Viju Khote is unforgettable for his Kaalia role. It is a bit part. But still he is unforgettable for the position he is put in by Gabbar Singh and the short dialogue exchange they have. The scene where Gabbar Singh shows his fury at Kaalia and two other gang members who had been sent to a village for extortion but ended up getting beaten by two good guys (Dharmendra pla...

Last updated on 3rd Oct. 2019 Warning: This is a sensitive and looooong post. Readers who don't like reading such sensitive stuff may please skip reading the rest of this post. In the past few days, I have been reading, in fits & bursts, the book: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. I downloaded a PDF version of it from here: https://archive.org/details/ConfessionsOfAnEconomicHitman_257/ . Given below are some thoughts of mine on the book, and also about some related matters. Parts of this post are somewhat disjointed. Readers will have to please bear with that. I read/browsed up to PDF page 150 (book page 129). The book PDF runs into 272 (PDF) pages. I think what the book covers is old stuff but still interesting to read. Perkins quits his EHM (Economic Hit Man) work in 1981 as per the Table of Contents. The last parts of the book do cover later years (the book seems to have been published in 2004) but Perkins, I guess, would be giving an outsider...

Last updated on 20th Sept. 2019 Over the past few days, in the book FDR by Jean Edward Smith, I have been reading about Woodrow Wilson, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson , running for USA presidency in 1911-12, winning the 1912 presidential election, and becoming president in early 1913. It also covers FDR's role in Wilson's campaign, and later appointment as Asst. Secretary for the Navy in the Wilson presidential administration, which was FDR's first national level (political) administration post. [FDR refers to Franklin D. Roosevelt, former president of USA.] I then looked up the wiki page for Woodrow Wilson. I would like to share some points from the book account I have read so far, and Wilson's wiki page, that I found noteworthy. 1. Wilson was an academic! I found that to be very interesting. An academic becoming president of USA! He was a Political Science Ph.D. He taught at two educational institutions before being elected to the "Chair o...

Given below is my share comment for a Facebook post-video:  https://www.facebook.com/VolusiaSheriff/videos/758159051269496 , which I shared a little while back on Facebook. This 4 min. 36 sec. video seems to have gone viral about a month ago. The juvenile arrest happened on 16th Aug. 2019 in Florida, USA. I saw it today on a news network video on youtube (The Sun, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=361ROwkenXU ) and browsing on the matter led me to this official Sheriff's office Facebook post video (which seems to have been reproduced by The Sun). My heart goes out to the mother who had to face this. The video clearly captures her agony. The 15 year old kid seems to not know what he has got into, though, hopefully a juvenile court would show some leniency to him, releasing him (don't know if he has already been released) with a warning about not ever making such foolish statements again even in jest (which is what he claims he did). I can't blame the US security forces ...

The text below is from my Facebook post share of US Embassy India's Facebook post:  https://www.facebook.com/India.usembassy/posts/2574902935959053 Utterly fascinating! I have to admit that I did not know of this. Thank to US Embassy India for sharing. Wonderful to know about the goodness and nobility of Late Mrs. Theodicia Carpenter of New Jersey, USA who took an interest in making the Indian lady an allopathic doctor! Some info. about Anandibai Gopalrao Joshi from her wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anandi_Gopal_Joshi , along with my comments prefixed by Ravi: * Anandibai Gopalrao Joshi (birth:1865, death: 1887) was born, raised and married (at age of nine) in Kalyan (Thane district, Maharashtra state). [Ravi: During the years I lived in Dombivli (1980 to around 1990 with around 3 years spent on foreign trips, and then from around 1993-94 to 2002), I have visited Kalyan umpteen times. It is just around 10 minutes by train, and perhaps half an hour or so by road, f...

When author of post or comment is not mentioned, it should be assumed that it is me (Ravi S. Iyer). To save time, I am usually not providing my FB post links but only contents. I am also not hyperlinking links. So readers will have to copy-paste links from this post onto a browser link box and then browse to that link. Inside Bill's Brain: Decoding Bill Gates | Official Trailer | Netflix, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCv29JKmHNY&feature=youtu.be, 2 min. 32 secs. I guess I will now have to get on to Netflix. This docuseries is a must see for me. A lot of my software industry career (Mar. 1984 to Aug. 2002), and even free service technical consultancy & teaching in Prasanthi Nilayam ashram system including the Sai university (Oct. 2002 to Mar. 2012), was linked to Microsoft software. And even today I am typing this post on a desktop computer running Microsoft Windows Operating System, even though the browser is Chrome (and not Microsoft Edge). ============= Somet...