A different prespective to Life

This is a documentary that involves the US, Israel and Iran. It is about a malicious sophisticated software code called Stuxnet which is a computer worm. A worm, unlike a computer virus which like its named biological equivalent, since a virus requires a cell host to replicate itself. But the computer worm can self replicate and activate itself. The code was well written, with no bugs and it has a zero-day exploit.  Which means it could infect the computer immediately, as day zero is an undisclosed computer-software vulnerability that hackers can exploit to adversely affect computer programs, data, additional computers or a network. It is known as a "zero-day" because a virus or worm usually reported or announced before becoming active, but this is activated immediately.  In Stuxnet, there were several zero days. Those with experience in looking at the code security as the professionals they came to the conclusion that it looks like a code written by a nation-state pro...

Just finished watching a series on Netflix, "When They See Us", consisting of 4 episodes; these were all directed by Ava DuVernay, who also directed  13th  and  Selma .  It was made for Netflix, and it follows the story of five 14 to 16-year-old Harlem teenagers of colour called the " Central Park Five " who were arrested for raping and molesting a 28-year-old white female jogger in New York Central Park in 1989.  The story was built around their lives and what happened on the day of the incident. The fact that the boys were arrested by a biased police force with a white female lead, Ms Linda Fairstein, who was then the sex crimes chief in the Manhattan district attorney's office, and she was determined to get them. She said, "Every young Black male who was in the park last night is a suspect in the rape of that woman."  That throws innocent until proven guilty out the window. The police were biased and out to make an arrest from the very beginning ...

I had the opportunity to attend a debate yesterday at the Tea House Theatre, near Vauxhall station in South East London. The debate motion was “ This House believes the Caster Semenya ruling is unfair ”.  The running order was 6.30 pm - 6.45 pm: Introduction to the debate 6.45 pm - 7.45 pm: Public debate and audience Q&A 7.45 pm - 8.00 pm: Break 8.00 pm - 8.45 pm: Showcase debate 8.30 pm - 9.00 pm: Post-debate drinks As it was my first time attending, I managed to find the place easily, and the surroundings were excellent. It is a nice pub at the end of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in the centre of London. It was not far from Vauxhall Underground Tube Station. Amateurs and students from the debating club led the public debate. The issue was well thought out, and in the end, I sided with the notion that the ruling was unfair. It seemed they had specifically targeted Ms Caster Semenya . But later, when the professional debaters dissected the issue and the...

There is a book I am currently reading on great and good ideas. One of the numerous example given is that of Dr Barry Marshall.  The Australian doctor turned the treatment of peptic ulcers on its head and was subsequently awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. This doctor noticed that most of the patient with ulcers had a stomach bug Helicobacter pylori . It lives in the stomach and is shaped like a corkscrew and is able to burrow into the mucus lining of the stomach and hence avoid the acidic environment. The bacteria H. Pylori also uses chemotaxis to neutralize the acid producing a large amount of urease which breaks down the urea present in the stomach to form carbon dioxide and ammonia. These neutralise the acid. After Dr Marshall produces his report in Australia he was ridiculed by the established doctors and scientists. Most of them did not believe that any bacteria would survive in the hostile acidic environment of the stomach. The stomach does produc...

  In his 1798 book  An Essay on the Principle of Population , Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus observed that a nation's food production increased arithmetically  (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, etc.), but population growth increased geometrically (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, etc.). Reverend Malthus postulated that there would be a point when the population growth would outstrip food production. This has since been known as the Malthusian Trap , in that " Populations had a tendency to grow until the lower class suffered hardship, want and greater susceptibility to  famine  and  disease ". Malthus essay is one of the articles that Charles Darwin, who had an experience of breeding pigeons, read that lead him to think of evolution because there was a constant "battle" between populations of species for survival, he deduced that those which have advantageous genes will be "selected" naturally as the disadvantaged will die out i.e. go extinct. Our dear ...

There is a book that I am currently reading, about gaining insights and a new way of thinking. Among its numerous examples, it gives that of the British attack on the  naval base at Taranto,  a coastal city in southern Italy on the night of the 11th of November, 1940. France had already surrendered on the 25th of June, 1940. The US had not yet entered the war, hence only Britain was fighting Germany, Italy and Japan.  This attack was seen as revolutionary, a change in the current general thinking and a different approach to warfare. This is the first time an attack from an aircraft carrier by planes on other ships. T he first all-aircraft ship-to-ship naval attack in history, employing 24 obsolete  Fairey Swordfish  biplane  torpedo bombers  from a new  aircraft carrier   HMS  Illustrious  in the  Mediterranean Sea . The plan for this attack had been on the books since  1935 when Italy invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia). ...

The Book After reading about 23 things, they don't tell you about Capitalism . Instead, I develop a yearning to read about Capitalism and finance, especially after working in finance and doing short courses. I would like to say and believe that I have a more than average knowledge of it. However, it will seem that everything was not necessary as we have been made to believe, and we have all been lied to and deceived over the years by our governments and some brilliant people  - like  Alan Greenspan  (Chair of the Federal Reserve  of the United States from 1987 to 2006. ) and some others. Maybe I am hard on them because they were telling us what they believed to be the truth, as they were apologetic when it turned out not to be so . With the technocrats and the financial wizards who had developed complex algorithms that will detect any changes in the market immediately, we put our faith in them. They had complex financial instruments tha...