Sandeep Oke

Indeed! To conflate a Rasgulla with an Idli is not just a culinary error; it is a profound cosmological misunderstanding. To begin with, the comparison is practically a biological impossibility. She is comparing chhena (the delicate, squeaky, pristine curd of milk) with a meticulously fermented batter of parboiled rice and black gram (urad dal). Their compositions are from entirely different kingdoms. One is an airy, spongy lattice designed to trap light sugar syrup; the other is a dense, wholesome, steamed matrix of complex carbohydrates and proteins. Their taste, consistency, structural integrity, and existential purpose share absolutely nothing in common. But more important, her attempt to dismiss the Idli as merely a blank canvas for sugar syrup does a grave disservice to what is arguably one of the greatest engineering marvels of the culinary world. The Idli is not a mere "bland cake." It is a masterclass in biotechnology. To achieve the perfect Idli is to balance the delicate microflora of wild fermentation over a cold night, resulting in a steamed cloud that is a triumph of gut health, lightness, and nutritional balance. It is a savoury monolith of South Indian culinary genius, perfectly engineered to absorb the sharp tang of a well-spiced sambar or the fiery depth of a molaga-podi (gunpowder) paste infused with cold-pressed sesame oil or nutritious melted ghee. To suggest an Idli would even consent to being drowned in sugar syrup is to fundamentally misunderstand its dignity. If this lady finds Rasgullas overrated, argue that on the merits of their sponginess or sweetness. But please, leave the noble, perfectly fermented, steamed majesty of the Idli out of your dessert-table polemics, ma'am!

@anishmoonka Absolutely concur with this view. I find running in a group or even alone, quite invigorating. It is my go to remedy when I feel morose.

Charles Dickens fought his depression by walking through London at night. One October he set out at 2 in the morning and walked 30 miles, all the way to his country home in Kent. In 1860 he wrote about why it worked. It took psychology another 150 years to catch up. Dickens called his bad spells "spectres." They came back every time he started a new novel and sometimes hung on for months. His mood would fall apart, his sleep would collapse, and the only thing that pulled him out was walking. He explained his method in an essay called "Night Walks," published on July 21, 1860 in his weekly magazine All the Year Round. He had tried fighting his insomnia from bed and lost. So he changed the plan. The fix, he wrote, was "getting up directly after lying down, and going out, and coming home tired at sunrise." A worried mind cannot fix itself by worrying more in bed. You have to get up and move. Most nights he walked 12 to 20 miles. A friend called it "violent walking." Dickens wrote that on these walks his wandering self had "many miles upon miles of streets in which it could, and did, have its own solitary way." Today, walking is one of the most powerful tools doctors have against depression. In 2012 a team of researchers pulled together eight high-quality studies of walking as a depression treatment. The effect was as strong as the antidepressants doctors actually prescribe. The biggest test came from Duke University. The SMILE study took 202 adults with serious depression and split them into four groups: supervised exercise, home exercise, the drug Zoloft, or a placebo pill. After 16 weeks, the people who exercised did just as well as the people on Zoloft. A 2024 review of 75 studies covering 8,636 patients confirmed it. Walking should be one of the first things doctors try. The reason is the thing Dickens stumbled onto in the dark. Depression runs on rumination, the looping bad thoughts that grind people down during the worst stretches. In 2015 Stanford researchers scanned people's brains before and after a 90-minute walk in a quiet park. The walkers had less activity in a part of the brain called the subgenual prefrontal cortex. That spot, deep behind your forehead, is the brain's worry loop. After the walk, the worry loop got quieter. The walkers said they felt less stuck inside their own heads. The brain scans agreed. A walking body shuts up a noisy mind. The street takes attention, the walking rhythm fills the head, and the dark spells lose their grip. Dickens called the streets his cure because they gave his brain somewhere else to be. The science 150 years later says he had it right. Depression hates a brain that is moving.

Charlie Munger on Focus “I think people who multi- task pay a huge price”

205 years ago today, Napoleon Bonaparte died on a tiny British prison island in the middle of the South Atlantic. He was 51. He had ruled most of Europe. And he changed the world so thoroughly that you are still living inside the systems he built. Start with the obvious one. The Napoleonic Code. He commissioned it in 1800, sat in on the drafting sessions personally, argued with the lawyers, and pushed it through in four years. Equality before the law. Property rights. Religious freedom. The end of feudal privilege. It is still the basis of civil law in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal, most of Latin America, Quebec, Louisiana, and chunks of the Middle East and Africa. About a third of the planet writes contracts using rules a Corsican artillery officer wrote between battles. He sold Louisiana to Thomas Jefferson in 1803 for 15 million dollars. Roughly four cents an acre. It doubled the size of the United States overnight. Without that deal there is no St. Louis, no New Orleans as an American city, no Lewis and Clark, no Manifest Destiny. The American century starts with Napoleon needing cash for a war. He invaded Egypt in 1798 with an army and, weirdly, 167 scientists, mathematicians, and artists. They found the Rosetta Stone. That single slab is the reason we can read hieroglyphs at all. Egyptology as a field exists because Napoleon brought scholars to a war. He built the Bank of France, which still runs French monetary policy. He created the lycée system that still educates French teenagers. He shoved the metric system across Europe at sword-point until it stuck. He emancipated the Jews of every territory he conquered, tearing down ghetto walls in Rome, Venice, Frankfurt. He abolished serfdom in Poland. He standardized road networks, civil registries, and tax codes that European governments still operate from. And then there's the soldiering. He fought around 60 major battles and won most of them. Austerlitz, in 1805, against the combined Russian and Austrian empires, is still taught at West Point as one of the closest things to a tactically perfect battle ever fought. He was outnumbered, baited the enemy onto ground he had pre-selected, and broke them in a single afternoon. Three emperors took the field that morning. Only one walked off it on his own terms. He slept four hours a night. He read constantly, dictated letters to four secretaries at the same time, and personally signed off on everything from cavalry boot specs to the seating chart at the Comédie-Française. Wellington, the man who finally beat him at Waterloo, was asked decades later who the greatest general in history was. He answered without hesitating. "In this age, in past ages, in any age, Napoleon." He lost, in the end, because he could not stop. Russia in 1812 swallowed his army whole. Six hundred thousand men marched in. Maybe a tenth came back. He abdicated in 1814, escaped from Elba, ruled France again for 100 days, and lost it all for good in a wheat field in Belgium in June 1815. The British shipped him to St. Helena, a volcanic dot 1,200 miles off the African coast, and waited. He spent six years there dictating his memoirs, gardening, complaining about the dampness, and quietly rewriting his own legend so effectively that Europe spent the next century arguing about him. He died on May 5, 1821, during a storm so violent it ripped up the willow tree he liked to read under. His last words trailed off into fever. France. The army. Joséphine. Nineteen years later France brought him home. Two million people stood in the snow to watch the coffin go by. He was a tyrant. He was a reformer. He started wars that killed somewhere between three and six million people. He also wrote the rulebook that a third of humanity still lives under. Most people who try to conquer the world are forgotten inside a generation. Napoleon has been dead for 205 years and we are still arguing about him because we are still using his furniture.

How many type of push-ups you can do?

आज संध्याकाळी शिवाजी पार्क येथे फिरायला गेले असता एक पुरुष निर्वस्त्र फिरत आला आणि शिवाजी पार्क येथे फिरायला आलेल्या आणि कट्ट्यावर बसलेल्या महिलांना त्रास देत होता. १०० नंबर वर तक्रार केली असता काही वेळातच पोलिसांनी ताब्यात घेतलं. सलाम मुंबई पोलीस. धन्यवाद 🙏

'आशाताई' -दि लास्ट एम्परर ज्येष्ठ गायिका आशाताई भोसले यांचं निधन झालं. मी माझ्या एक दोन भाषणांमध्ये, आणि पुढे एकदा आशाताईंशी झालेल्या संवादात म्हणलं होतं की, लतादीदी आणि तुम्ही म्हणजे भारतीय चित्रपट संगीतातील, लिओनार्दो द विंची आणि मायकलॅन्जलो आहात. लिओनार्दो द विंचीच्या कामाकडे बघताना त्यातील परफेक्शन, कमालीचा आखीव रेखीव पणा, जबरदस्त ठहराव आणि एक सर्रकन जाणवणारी आध्यात्मिक अनुभूती जाणवत राहते. हे सगळं दीदींच्या गाण्यात जाणवत राहतं. सगळं कसं परफेक्ट, आदर्शवत वाटत राहतं.  तर मायकलॅन्जलोच्या कामात नजाकत आहे, आवेग आहे, लडिवाळपणा आणि बंडखोरी पण आहे. कधी कधी त्याची शिल्प त्या दगडातून बाहेर येण्यास आतुर आहेत असं वाटत राहतं.  तसंच आशाताईंच्या गाण्यांचं. त्यांच्या गाण्यात ओढ आहे, खेळकरपणा आहे, धिटाई आहे आणि माणूस म्हणल्यावर थोडा बेधडकपणा, झुगारून देण्याची तीव्र इच्छा असणारच , ते सगळं आशाताईंच्या गाण्यात जाणवत राहतं.  'गाणं हे माझं पॅशन आहे' किंवा 'ऍक्टिंग माझं पॅशन आहे' असं म्हणत स्वतःला कलाकार आणि कालांतराने ज्येष्ठ कलाकार इत्यादी म्हणून घेणारे हल्ली ढिगाने आढळतात.   असलं म्हणण्याची मुभा नियतीने आशाताईंना कधीच दिली नाही. वयाच्या १५व्या वर्षी स्वतःला आणि कुटुंबाला उभं करायचं आहे आणि त्यासाठी काय जमतंय तर निसर्गदत्त आवाजाची देणगी. या इतक्या भांडवलावर त्यांनी गाणं गायला सुरुवात केली. अजाणत्या वयात व्यक्तिगत आयुष्यात आशाताईंनी अफाट त्रास सहन केला. पण या त्रासाने किंवा दुःखाने त्यांच्या मनातला किंतुपरंतुवर मात केली आणि आयुष्यात जी धिटाई आली ती आवाजात आली.  मी वर म्हणल्याप्रमाणे लतादीदींचा आवाज म्हणजे परफेक्शन आणि कमालीचा ठहराव. स्वातंत्र्य मिळाल्यानंतर सगळं वातावरण भारावलेलं असताना असा आवाज हा त्या काळाचा आवाज वाटावा असा आवाज आहे. अशावेळेस स्वतःचा आवाज तयार करायचा, त्यासाठी आपल्या एक्सप्रेशनला साजेसं गाणं मिळेपर्यंत वाट पहायची यासाठी आशाताईंनी काय पेशन्स ठेवले असतील हे त्याच जाणोत.  'पिया तू अब तो आजा' मध्ये प्रियकराला थेट बेधडक आवाहन आहे. 'आईये मेहरबान' मध्ये लडिवाळपणा आहे, 'दिल चीज क्या है आप मेरी जान लिजिए' मध्ये नजाकत आहे. 'दम मारो दम' मध्ये बंडखोरी आहे, सगळ्या चौकटी तोडून येण्याची तीव्र उर्मी आहे. याच आशाताई मराठी भावसंगीतात 'मागे उभा मंगेश, पुढे उभा मंगेश' म्हणत युगायुगांचं वैराग्याचे प्रतीक शंकर चराचरात आहेत आणि लक्ष ठेवून आहेत हे आर्तपणे सांगतात. व्यक्तिगत आयुष्याच्या जवळपास प्रत्येक टप्प्यावर त्यांनी वादळं पहिली. तरीही आशाताई खचल्या नाहीत, दुःख हत्यार बनवलं नाही, कडवटपणा येऊ दिला नाही. दुःख हाताळायची त्यांनी कलाच जणू आत्मसात केली होती. म्हणूनच दीदी कायम दैवी वाटत राहिल्या तर आशाताई खूप मानवी वाटत राहिल्या. जसा दीदींचा सहवास मिळाला तसाच आशाताईंचा मिळाला. मी भाग्यवान आहे की ज्यांनी या देशाच्या अनेक दशकांच्या भावविश्वाला आकार दिला त्या दोन्ही बहिणींचा मला ओतप्रोत सहवास मिळाला. माझ्यासाठी आशाताईंकडे फक्त ज्येष्ठ गायिका म्हणून बघणं हे पुरेसं नाही तर तो गाण्यातून घडलेला अलौकिक प्रवास होता. तो चिरकाल तुमच्या माझ्यासोबत राहील, नवनवीन पदर उघडत राहील.  मी मागे माझ्या भाषणांत म्हणालो होतो की लता दीदी असतील, आशाताई असतील किंवा त्यांच्यासारखे इतर कलाकार असतील , ते जर नसते आणि त्यांनी आपल्याला त्यांच्या भावविश्वात गुंतवून ठेवलं नसतं तर या देशांत कधीच अराजक आलं असतं  ! उत्तुंग काय असतं आणि ते कुठे बघायचं याचा मापदंड या लोकांनी  आपल्याला घालून दिला ! जसं लिओनार्दो द विंची आणि मायकलॅन्जलो हे जरी वरवर परस्पर विरोधी वाटले तरी युरोपातील रेनेसाँस युगाला त्या दोघांनी वेगेवेगळ्या पद्धतीने आकार दिला. तसा आकार लतादीदी आणि आशाताईंनी भारतीय चित्रपट संगीताच्या  रेनेसाँस युगाला दिला. काही वर्षांपूर्वी दीदी गेल्या आणि आज आशाताई गेल्या. भारताच्या  रेनेसाँस युगाचा शेवटचा महत्वाचा घटक आज आपल्यातून गेला ! आशाताईंना महाराष्ट्र नवनिर्माण सेनेची विनम्र श्रद्धांजली. राज ठाकरे।

Long copy is dead. Long live long copy. Wish I wrote this ad.

@SandeepMall Run on Wednesday 1st April in Mumbai .

He could speak 8 languages and they said he could recite all 37 of Shakespeare's plays from memory. An award winning playwright & stage artist and one of Satyajit Ray's favourite actors. Also one of India's finest comic actors in films like Golmaal, and Hirak Rajar Deshe. The irony is that the marvellous comic roles in Golmaal and other films, what most people outside remember him for, is what he regarded as the least important "I have developed a technique of shutting my mind off, switching it off, rather. I will not be able to tell you even the names of the films I have acted in or even the name of the character I have just finished shooting.” He was also a brilliant writer & regular theatre reviewer. “Mr.Dutt as Othello was rather a pitiable sight, with his voice gone, his breathing laboured and his bulk enormous.” This was Utpal Dutt reviewing his own stage performance using the pseudonym Iago. He also loved classical art and there is this wonderful story told by his daughter. "When we went to Italy, it meant we would have to spend at least one day on viewing each sculpture. We had hired the services of a guide. But, we found that Baba knew more about the place than the guide. The next day, the guide asked us if we would be ready to go on our own." A true renaissance man and a principled one, not scared to go to prison for his views. Utpal Dutt was truly one of our greats. 97th birth anniversary today.

This map shows that the Kalbadevi temple ( currently at Kalbadevi ) belonging to our family was once located in the Mahim fort and people used to take a boat from Parel village to reach Mahim. This was before 1785 they say.

Our brain was designed for a tribe of ~150 people - “Dunbar’s Number.” Our world was supposed to be small in terms of our evolutionary makeup. We were never supposed to even know about people fighting each other thousands of miles away from where we live.

#मराठीदिन निमित्त एक मजेशीर गोष्ट. काही वर्षांपूर्वी मुंबईच्या झेवियर्स महाविद्यालयातील काही मुलं मला भेटायला आली. मला म्हणाली -“सर, झेवियर्स महाविद्यालयात खूप पूर्वीपासून मराठी वाङमय मंडळ आहे परंतु काही कारणाने ते अनेक वर्ष निष्क्रीय होतं. आमचे सर आहेत - शिंदे सर - त्यांनी या मंडळाला पुनुरुज्जिवित करायचं ठरवलं आहे. या मंडळाच्या उद्घाटनाच्या कार्यक्रमाला प्रमुख पाहुणा म्हणून आपण यावं अशी आमची इच्छा आहे. तुम्ही याल का?” तरूण मुलांशी संवाद साधायला मी कधीही नकार देत नाही. मी त्वरित होकार दिला. तसा त्यातला एक मुलगा जरा ओशाळून म्हणाला - “एकच प्रॉब्लेम आहे सर. मंडळ नवीन आहे आणि तुम्हाला झेवियर्सची कल्पना आहे. आमच्याकडे बराचसा श्रोतृवर्ग अमराठी आहे. तर तुम्ही तुमचं भाषण इंग्रजीतून कराल का?” मला याची गंमत वाटली. कुणी म्हणेल हे कसलं मराठी मंडळ! पण मला यात एक संधी दिसली. मी म्हटलं मी इंग्रजीत हे भाषण करेन. मुलं खूष होऊन परतली. त्या कार्यक्रमात मी मराठी का बोलली गेली पाहिजे. या विषयावर इंग्रजीतून भाषण केलं. पुण्याचे अनिल गोरे ज्यांना महाराष्ट्र शासनाचा भाषासंवर्धन पुरस्कार दिला गेला आहे, ते एकदा जे म्हणाले होते तेच मी या मुलांना इंग्रजीतून सांगितलं. आपण इंग्रजी बोलतो. उदा. आपण म्हणतो - “Virat Kohli is riding on a wave of popularity.” किंवा “I was surfing channels on my TV.” ही भाषा कुठून आली? तर ही भाषा समुद्रातून आणि नौकायनातून आली आहे. कारण इंग्लंड हा देश पाण्याने वेढलेला आहे. त्यामुळे औरंगाबादला राहणारी मुलगी जेव्हा riding on a wave म्हणते तेव्हा ती second hand अनुभवातून बोलत असते. लाटेवर स्वार होणं म्हणजे काय हे कळायला तो अनुभव स्वतःच्या इंद्रियांनी अनुभवायला हवा! आपली भाषा आपल्या मातीतून उगवते. म्हणूनच हिंदीत - “अफ़वाहों की बाढ़ आती है” आणि मराठीत “अफवांचं पीक येतं”. म्हणूनच मराठीत “पिकतं तिथे विकत नाही” आणि पत्रकार “घोटाळ्याची पाळंमुळं खणून काढतात”. लोक म्हणतात भाषा केवळ एक संवादाचं माध्यम आहे. भाषा संवादाचं माध्यम आहेच पण ‘केवळ’ नव्हे! भाषा संस्कृतीची वाहक आहे. आपली ओळख म्हणजे काही जन्माचा दाखला नाही. आपली ओळख सनातन आहे. भाषा ही आपल्या ओळखीचं एक परिमाण आहे. म्हणूनच तर ज्ञानेश्वर आपल्या रक्तात आहेत आणि तुकाराम आपल्या नेणिवेत. मराठी भाषेमुळेच शिवाजी महाराज म्हटलं की आपल्याला होणारी जाणीव ही इतरांना होणाऱ्या जाणिवेपेक्षा काहीतरी वेगळी आहे. भाषा आपल्या पर्यावरणाशी असलेलं आपलं नातं आहे जे आपल्याला जमीनीशी, वास्तवाशी जोडून ठेवतं. आणि म्हणून जिथे आपण राहतो तिथली भाषा आपल्याला येणं इष्ट असतं. मला ठाऊक नाही की माझ्या बोलण्याचा किती परिणाम झाला पण दोन वर्षांपूर्वी मला झेवियर्स महाविद्यालयात पुन्हा बोलावलं. या वेळी संपूर्ण कार्यक्रम तर मराठीत झालाच पण मीही माझं भाषण पूर्णपणे मराठीत केलं. पुन्हा एकदा माझं आवडतं वाक्य म्हणतो आणि थांबतो. वीज वाचवायची तर तिचा वापर कमी करायला हवा, पण भाषा वाचवायची असेल तर तिचा वापर वाढवायला हवा! #Repost

काही दिवसांपूर्वी माझ्या लायब्ररीत एक पुस्तक शोधत असताना , अचानक 'सुख पाहता' या नाटकाचं एक जुनं पुस्तक सापडलं. वसंत कानेटकरांचं हे नाटक. आजच्या पिढीला कदाचित वसंत कानेटकर माहित नसतील, पण मराठीत ज्या लेखकांच्या नावावर नाटकांना हाऊसफुलचा बोर्ड लागायचा अशा लेखकांपैकी एक म्हणजे वसंत कानेटकर. तर हे पुसतक पाहताना पटकन मी भूतकाळात गेलो , कारण याचं मुखपृष्ठ मी केलं होतं ! घडलं असं की १९८९ साली, माझे सासरे, ज्येष्ठ नाट्यनिर्माते श्री. मोहन वाघ हे माझ्या घरी आले आणि म्हणाले की मी वसंत कानेटकरांचं 'सुख पाहता' नाटक करतोय. त्याचं पुस्तक काढावं अशी कानेटकरांची इच्छा आहे आणि त्यांची अजून एक इच्छा आहे की त्याचं मुखपृष्ठ तू करावं. मुळात मराठी रंगभूमीचा काय काळ होता की नाटक हा नाट्यानुभव पण त्याची पुस्तकं पण निघायची आणि लोकं ती आवडीने विकत घेऊन वाचायची. असो. मी तेव्हा सामना , मार्मिक, लोकसत्ता यांच्यासाठी व्यंगचित्रं करायचो. पण नाटकाच्या पुस्तकाचं मुखपृष्ठ हे माझ्यासाठी नवीन होतं. मी मोहन वाघांना म्हणलं की मी नाटक बघतो, आणि सांगतो. माझ्यासाठी एक आनंदाची बाब होती ती म्हणजे यशवंत दत्त ज्यांचा मी खूप मोठा फॅन होतो त्यांना प्रत्यक्ष रंगमंचावर बघणार होतो. नाटक शिवाजी मंदिरला होतं. नाटकांत यशवंत दत्त यांनी सहा पात्र उभी केली होती ती पाहून थक्क झालो. घरी आलो आणि मोहन वाघांना कळवलं की मी करतो मुखपृष्ठ. एका दिवसांत हे मुखपृष्ठ तयार झालं. ते मी मोहन वाघ आणि वसंत कानेटकरांना दाखवलं, ते दोघांना प्रचंड आवडलं. माझ्यासाठी हा तेंव्हा मिळालेला आशीर्वाद पण होता आणि मराठी नाट्यसृष्टीतील मानदंड मानल्या जाणाऱ्या व्यक्तींकडून मिळालेली एक पोचपावती पण होती. आज त्या इतिहासाला पुन्हा उजळणी मिळाली. म्हणलं तुम्हाला सगळ्यांना ही आठवण सांगावी आणि हे मुखपृष्ठ दाखवावं. मराठी रंगभूमीवर 'हाऊसफुल'चा बोर्ड कायम झळकत राहू दे आणि नाट्यानुभवसोबतच नाटकाचं पुस्तक घेऊन ते पण झपाटून वाचण्याचा काळ पुन्हा येऊ दे हीच सदिच्छा... राज ठाकरे ।

WARNING Massive AI hype being built in a sudden burst (and most of it fake) 1) A scary article: I was surprised to read a long article on Twitter (X) claiming it's just 6-12 months before a Covid-like event changes this world. It claims this will be the AI-event, where most white-collar jobs worldwide would be gone, because AI is that good now. That article got 100 M plus views. Clearly, people are spooked (naturally). So the psy-op has worked. (and I saw other similar dark articles too) 2) Suddenly many influencers are pushing the same narrative, and it so turns out that media reported many are being paid heavy sums by AI firms to push their story (that AI singularity is arriving). But if AI is "revolutionary", does it need an influencer push? No. This should be a clear signal it's hyped. 3) A correction in IT stocks' and SaaS stock's prices is suddenly creating a doom scenario about these companies dying any moment now, with second- and third-order effects on entire economy. Stock investors who haven't studied AI technicals are automatically assuming it's all over, dead, gone, finished. WRONG. NO. 4) What is the truth, and what's most likely to happen? In my opinion, based on years of observing AI trends, reading and learning AI technology, and doing AI at various levels, my take is as follows. I urge you to read this, and preserve your sanity. Please don't panic, nothing catastrophic is happening anytime soon. A) IPO pressure: AI firms are going crazy pushing their God-narrative, as many giant IPOs are lined up soon. They need public to buy their paid subscriptions or else the story goes kaput. So they are creating a false hype. It's shameful, anti-social and deeply hurtful. (Almost all AI firms released doom-scenarios just before their next funding rounds; investors who haven't learnt technology fall for it; pure FOMO. This playbook is so repetitive it's comical) B) OpenAI is spooked: Sam Altman has lost the lead he temporarily managed to build against Google and others, and now his loss-making enterprise isn't the darling of any investor any more. He's terrified. C) Elon Musk's Grok does not have the traction in consumer space anyway near what's needed to make it a profit-making entity. So with many other capex-heavy AI firms. But the GPU / TPU hungry AI ops need more capex each day, not less. It's a dead-end for most except cash rich Googles. D) Enterprise AI is patchy, lagging, slow, choppy: Anyone who has ever built a company, or run a large department, or consulted a business enterprise knows how random, undefined, tacit, and unstructured most of the real world work actually is. No way is AI ever going to replace humans doing those very complex things on a daily basis. No way. Not tomorrow, not in 10 years. NO. (I am not even beginning to get into 'regulated' industries' needs) E) Consumer AI is cool, but has limits: The more AI regular humans (of all ages) use, the more the artificiality of it becomes apparent to anyone. The novelty cannot sustain the commercial numbers needed to make AI (foundation models) profitable. OpenAI and Perplexity would never have given free tiers for most Indians otherwise. They desperately need folks to stick to this opium. F) LLMs aren't solved, Hallucinations aren't zero: The structure of any LLM is such that it will ALWAYS hallucinate, no matter how much fine-tuning humans do. In most sensitive business operations, you cannot allow LLMs to control the core data at all. Can you run an airline with a Generative AI system (LLM-based) that's 98% accurate? Can you run a precision-mfg. operation at 97% accuracy? Can you run a financial services firm with 95% accuracy? NO. NEVER. So the deterministic, old-fashioned computer software ERP will go nowhere. Nowhere at all. LLMs will be good as a top layer on those ERPs to glean insights, nothing more. [ None can 'train away' hallucinations in a probabilistic LLM model, using larger datasets. You are actually claiming I'll build a dice that lands a 4, or a 6, each time ] G) Agents aren't magical, humans aren't going anywhere: Multi-step agentic AI is being touted as the final solution where one founder sitting alone can run 100 agents and build an empire. Try doing that once, experience the frequent breakdowns, see the regular edges and new complexities, and you will realize that other than the most mundane of tasks, nothing else will be seamless. Yes, Voice AI agents are good, and many in the developing world are now deploying those, but that's hardly a cutting-edge technology that'll replace all humans. H) IT and SaaS firms are going nowhere: Ironically, the more AI happens in enterprises, the more will be the need for humans to supervised and orchestrate those bits and pieces of AI, to ensure nothing flies off the rails. The complex software code that Claude and Codex can write only changes the nature of work for the human coders who now have to check the AI code thoroughly for the many edge cases in real world. The nature of IT and SaaS work will change, some companies that can't innovate and adapt will vanish, but many new ones will emerge in their place. (Yes, there'll will be some much-deserved disruption in short-term, and the non-innovating IT firms will have deserved every bit of it) I) If IT and SaaS are dead, why are AI firms hyping: Ask this simple question - if AI is indeed killing IT and SaaS, then why are AI firms spending massive sums hyping their wares? They need spend nothing and still earn the spoils. But they know the truth. J) The China angle: Models from China - many of them open-sourced - are getting better and more competitive. Many of them are cheaper, or free (for now). OpenAI complained recently that they are stealing from American models (via "distillation"). Imagine, just imagine - OpenAI that stole entire internet work of creative work is complaining the Chinese are stealing from it. A dacoit crying that thieves broke into his house. Rich. You think these are signs of singularity? Ha! The judicial backlash on stolen content and profiteering off of it hasn't even begun in most jurisdictions. (now imagine what happens to American LLM-makers when Chinese models gain traction everywhere) K) Downside of mindless AI already visible: Take just one example: In education everywhere, students, parents and teachers are all realizing that mindless AI use is harming the process of learning, not aiding it. The sensible, guarded and limited way AI should be brought into pedagogy hasn't even been given a proper thought. Students are just doing "cognitive offloading", and turning into non-thinking beings. This is bound to collapse sooner than later. Humans as species don't learn this way - it's a long, tortuous and slow process, always. L) AI is normal technology: Serious researchers from the AI field have for years argued that AI is being hyped unnecessarily out of proportion, turned into Snake Oil like propositions, and most of AI's predictive powers are anyway not better than that of astrology. AI's ability to talk to use like humans has totally stumped normal people, and anthropomorphism has kicked in. Since no ERP talked to use like a human would, the computer revolution came about without the singularity fears. M) AI in law and judiciary: The impact will be on the grunt work. It will be cut down substantially. But no judge will outsource their cognition to AI, now will any lawyer. The fact that an LLM can read a complex document fast and summarise it means nothing if it hallucinates. And LLMs will forever hallucinate; that's their structure. (so you'll need humans to sign off on LLM outputs) N) Enterprise AI's lessons: Every company that has mindlessly gone in on AI has learnt that employees just stopped using it if it didn't adapt to the existing workflows. AI cannot magically alter anything: it can speed things up (with hallucinations), it can generate beautiful stuff (needed or not) and it can help save some time, but the company-to-company needs are so different, it cannot be force-fit on all in one shot. (that is what foundation LLM firms are trying to do). Remember: Enterprise work is not just code. It’s messy data, old legacy systems, compliance needs, multiple integrations, business context, human complexities, and more. Services firms are going nowhere. O) AI has no solutions for the human situation: Fertility rates everywhere are dropping. Humans are being converted into permanently marketable selves. Consumption comfort has made us soft, and our morality is totally adrift. AI doesn't solve any of this, it just force-multiplies most of it. We built it. It reflects what we are. 5) So what should you do? a) Read up on AI. Its technical side. How LLMs are created. What they just cannot do. What they can. Why they aren't superhuman at all. Why AI is a good but normal set of technologies. b) Think why regulated industries (at least 25) cannot hand over their future to AI, LLMs, and GenAI. c) Check the history of Indian IT and how it kept rebooting itself to suit a new era (from Y2K, to outsourcing, to SaaS backend support, to much more). d) Check how human societies eventually revolt when artificiality starts overpowering natural human interactions. e) Be prepared for more hype and nonsense. Sadly, the AI firms won't stop at it at all. They need more humans to subscribe to their paid tiers, and fear seems to be the chosen weapon. Tragic. [I am subscribed to more than 10 such paid AI tools currently, and know exactly what's good and what's not, and why no singularity is arriving] f) Adapt your work, and bits of it, to AI tools that can adjust to the workflow well. Let your discretion be supreme. g) If AI is the shiny new tap, IT is the plumbing behind it. Remember: Elon Musk's predictions have mostly gone wrong Geoffrey Hinton's predictions have gone wrong Mustafa Suleyman's predictions have gone bust Yet they keep predicting. Sad part: We are living in an age of bullshit. And LLMs are excellent bullshitting machines. The reason the AI Bros are continuing doing so is no one is holding them accountable for their nonstop lies. But what about AGI: If AGI is ever built, it won't be by any one company. The technology diffuses rapidly each day. So multiple AGIs in multiple hands. Goes without saying governments will capture (claim) that technology almost immediately. If that day ever arrives, UBI is happening too. Finally: Your brain, running on just 20 watts, continues to outthink LLMs fueled by the energy of an entire planet. Never underestimate yourself. And stop falling prey to AI hype.

Good to see this kind of use of AI 👌👌

@AAPforNewIndia This person can be found at Shivaji Park.

RIP to @ScottAdamsSays, an unflinchingly honest sage and wit who also showed me great kindness. In honor of him, here are 10 of my favorite Scott Adams quotes:

As the son of a mother whose favourite actor was Dharmendra, I reflect on why he mattered so much to so many, and express a personal regret : ndtv.com/opinion/the-en…

@KulkarniRL Superb!! @grok translate this to English please

“रोज किती सूर्यनमस्कार करावे?” कोणी म्हणतं 12, कोणी म्हणतं 108… पण वैद्यकीय दृष्टिकोनातून यामागचं गणित काय? 1. सुरुवात ही “फॉर्म” आणि “श्वसनतंत्र” समजून घेऊनच करा रोज फक्त 3-5 सूर्यनमस्कारही पुरेसे असतात. जर तुम्ही योग्य पद्धतीने, श्वसन समन्वय (Breath Coordination) ठेवून केले, तर. “गतीपेक्षा स्थिरता आणि शुद्धता जास्त परिणामकारक ठरते.” 2. श्वास समन्वय म्हणजे काय? प्रत्येक आसनामध्ये श्वास घेणे वा सोडणे एक विशिष्ट लयीत , उदा. ‘भुजंगासन’ करताना श्वास आत, ‘पश्चिमोत्तानासन’ करताना श्वास बाहेर. यामुळे parasympathetic nervous system सक्रीय होतं → मानसिक शांती, BP नियंत्रण, आणि Insulin Sensitivity सुधारते. (Ref: J Yoga Phys Ther, 2022) 3. दररोज १२ सूर्यनमस्कार हे एक ‘वैद्यकीयदृष्ट्या पुरेसं’ प्रमाण मानलं जातं 12 सूर्यनमस्कार = 288 हालचाली → यामुळे metabolism तेज होतो, fat oxidation वाढते, आणि साखर नियंत्रणास मदत होते. 4. व्यायामाच्या स्वरूपात हे “Low-Impact Dynamic Meditation” आहे हृदयासाठी अत्यंत सुरक्षित, स्नायू-हाडं मजबूत करणारा आणि stress hormones कमी करणारा व्यायाम. (Ref: IJMR, 2020 : Yoga vs Aerobic comparison) 5. शरीरासोबत संवाद साधा , दम लागतोय? गुडघे दुखतात? कमी करा, थांबा, पर्याय निवडा. व्यायाम म्हणजे शिक्षा नाही , समजूतदार संवाद आहे. 6. सूर्यनमस्कार शक्य नसेल तर नियमित चालणं, प्राणायाम, योगासनं हेही उत्तम पर्याय ठरतात. 7. उपवासाच्या दिवशी सूर्यनमस्कार करताना विशेष खबरदारी ठेवा. ऊर्जा कमी असते, त्यामुळे फार exertion टाळा. प्राणायाम, स्ट्रेचिंग वा सौम्य हालचाल निवडा. 8. हृदयविकार, उच्च रक्तदाब, ऑर्थरायटीस यांसाठी वैद्यकीय मार्गदर्शन आवश्यक. सकाळी उपाशीपोटी / भिजलेल्या चटईवर / गरम हवामानात सराव करताना सावधगिरी बाळगा. 9. डाएटिंगपेक्षा मी उपवास व सूर्यनमस्कार याला जास्त प्रभावी मानतो , क्लिनिकमध्येही याचा अनुभव घेतलाय. हा शरीर-मन संवादाचा सुलभ मार्ग आहे. 10. “संपूर्ण नाही जमलं तरी सुरूवात ही आरोग्याकडे एक पाऊल असतं.” ❤️ “सूर्यनमस्कार हा अध्यात्म, व्यायाम आणि वैज्ञानिक शिस्त यांचा संगम आहे , ती भावना समजून घेऊनच करावा.” Follow करा, सुरुवात करा, आणि तुमचा अनुभव शेअर करा! Dr. Ravindra L Kulkarni MD DNB FSCAI (Cardiology) Just For Hearts Appointment: 94229 91576 Follow 👉 @KulkarniRL ( WhatsApp message only ) #SuryaNamaskar #HeartHealth #MarathiHealth #JustForHearts #YogaTips #FitnessOver40 #CardioYoga #सकाळसूर्यनमस्कार #आरोग्यसंवाद