5.0 Gun Violence and Herd Immunity

The recent spate of gun violence has caused a lot of hand wringing and unrealistic suggestions on "gun control". It occurred to me that gun violence is a "disease" that is preventable and similar, in principle,  to vaccine preventable diseases.  “Herd immunity (or community immunity) describes a form of immunity that occurs when the vaccination of a significant portion of a population (or herd) provides a measure of protection for individuals who have not developed immunity” (Wikipedia)

Essentially, herd immunity is conferred on un-vaccinated individuals when a critical mass of the population is immunized against the disease. This critical mass number varies with disease and vaccine, but the principle is useful in that it may apply to controlling gun violence. The answer to gun violence is not to reduce and restrict gun ownership, but to increase use and training among the general population to achieve a critical mass of "immunity". Ann Coulter has a list of gun incidents (largely unreported) where casualties were minimal because of the presence of gun toting, law abiding citizens (reference link in the end of this blog). To me the case for “gun immunization” is pretty strong and all the hand wringing in liberal and some conservative circles does not address the problem. Here are some relevant portions from Coulter’s article:

 “Two economists, William Landes at the University of Chicago and John Lott at Yale, conducted a massive study of multiple victim public shootings in the United States between 1977 and 1995 to see how various legal changes affected their frequency and death toll.

Landes and Lott examined many of the very policies being proposed right now in response to the Connecticut massacre: waiting periods and background checks for guns, the death penalty and increased penalties for committing a crime with a gun.

None of these policies had any effect on the frequency of, or carnage from, multiple-victim shootings. (I note that they did not look at reforming our lax mental health laws, presumably because the ACLU is working to keep dangerous nuts on the street in all 50 states.)

Only one public policy has ever been shown to reduce the death rate from such crimes: concealed-carry laws.

The effect of concealed-carry laws in deterring mass public shootings was even greater than the impact of such laws on the murder rate generally.

Someone planning to commit a single murder in a concealed-carry state only has to weigh the odds of one person being armed. But a criminal planning to commit murder in a public place has to worry that anyone in the entire area might have a gun. Mass killers may be crazy, but they’re not stupid “  

This herd immunity concept already works in other areas of law enforcement - Take speeding, for example. With a critical mass of random police cruisers, excessive speeding is prevented for the most part. Once funding issues affect the numbers of personnel deployed, speeding and other infractions of the law start occurring in greater numbers. One of the comments below mentions the MotherJones article. That article misses the point in that the potential presence of large numbers of concealed weapons carried by law abiding citizens would act as a deterrent towards mass shootings- as Ann Coulter said  "They may be crazy, but they are not stupid". The stupidity, I think, occurs among those who wring their hands and want to take away all guns off the streets (leaving only those capable of carrying out a Mumbai type massacre with guns to do as they wish)

Note: all pictures are copyright J Devasundaram. Do not use without permission and attribution

REFERENCES

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity

2. http://www.humanevents.com/2012/12/19/ann-coulter-we-know-how-to-stop-school-shootings/

4.0 Photography

PHOTOGRAPHY

While I have quite a collection of photographs and one never knows where to start or end, let me begin with a picture of some Foxtails I had posted on Facebook and my responses to some comments and questions.. This particular picture was taken in Lancaster County, home of the Amish.

The first time I noticed glowing Foxtails as a photograph-able phenomenon was when I noticed them on the side of the 301 hwy en-route to Leonardtown one evening, in Maryland, in 1998 (left); I parked the car by the roadside, hurried back, lay down with my legs almost into the road, risking amputation by passing cars and took numerous shots from a low angle. Those were the "slide film days" when proper exposure was pretty much hit and miss and there was a three week wait time to see how it came out!

There is a reflectivity differential between the hairs and the "base", hence this effect when lit from a low angle..Which is just a lot of verbiage for "I have often noticed this with foxtails, and especially look out for this effect at the time of the setting or rising sun"! The thing is, the lighting phenomenon only lasts about 10 or fifteen minutes..

Here is another picture of glowing Foxtails I took during the Fall, in Shenandoah Valley, a few years ago:

Anyone can buy a camera and make quite nice pictures; technology has taken care of most of the technical constraints of capturing a scene. But, just as in the days of painting, lots of people painted, but the only ones that stood out - The Van Goghs, Rembrandts et al had that special "something" - a sense of proportion (Van Gogh), color (Van Gogh) that made them stand out from others. Some of this is technical mastery , but a lot has to do with the "soul". I am trying to find  that "soul" in Photography that no one else can possess.. Every time I see others' pictures that exceed mine in quality and "soul", I am discouraged. I am not sure whether I will ever achieve that level of expression.. I plod along and take pictures that, hopefully, have meaning within, beyond captions and descriptions.

Note: all pictures are copyright J Devasundaram. Do not use without permission and attribution

2.0 Epigenetics and Karma

I am fascinated by developments in the Science of Epigenetics. Here is a possible mechanism for the translation of Karma into our worldly life - through complex genetic code expressions not implicitly programmed by inheritance of traits from the parents! See, for example, the genetic karma operating within the caste structure of bees: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/16/bee-study-behaviour?newsfeed=true

Any aspiring or established molecular biologist interested in pursuing this connection further, please contact me - I have plans for experimental approaches to investigate this phenomenon!
The following paragraphs are from the National Institutes of Health  (NIH) Epigenetics Program that focuses on disease that's not inherited from one's parents - Disease Karma, if you will. Is this indeed the "Great Karmic Database in the Sky"? (refer to my blog "God and the Database" )

"Epigenetics is an emerging frontier of science that involves the study of changes in the regulation of gene activity and expression that are not dependent on gene sequence. For purposes of this program, epigenetics refers to both heritable changes in gene activity and expression (in the progeny of cells or of individuals) and also stable, long-term alterations in the transcriptional potential of a cell that are not necessarily heritable. While epigenetics refers to the study of single genes or sets of genes, epigenomics refers to more global analyses of epigenetic changes across the entire genome.

The overall hypothesis is that the origins of health and susceptibility to disease are, in part, the result of epigenetic regulation of the genetic blueprint. Specifically, epigenetic mechanisms that control stem cell differentiation and organogenesis contribute to the biological response to endogenous and exogenous forms of stimuli that result in disease."

Here is a link to a more complete treatment of the subject.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK45788/#epi_sci_bkgrd.About_Epigenetics

And in today's (September 5, 2012) news:
With ENCODE, said Stamatoyannopoulos, "we're exposing previously hidden connections between diseases." ENCODE has also shown that a gene is not the simple stretch of DNA that makes a protein, as students are taught. Instead, the functional unit is an amalgam of sequences from both strands of the double helix, interleaved like two halves of a deck of cards in the hands of a Vegas dealer.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/05/usa-health-junk-dna-idINL2E8JUC4H20120905


Nature is making all of the ENCODE research freely available, at http://www.nature.com/encode/ and through an iPad app.


A Few More references :
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/05/health/encode-human-genome/index.html
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-09-05/genetic-circuitry-found-that-may-help-target-complex-diseases
http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/07/babys-dna-constructed-before-birth/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/16/bee-study-behaviour?newsfeed=true

And an interesting Blog along similar lines:
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4276&p=206729#p206729

Note: all pictures are copyright J Devasundaram. Do not use without permission and attribution.

3.0 Indian Cooking

Food reflects civilization; man has advanced through the ages from hunter- gatherer to agricultural societies, from raw to cooked food. Indian cooking and cuisine is well known worldwide. The dominant food style in the UK is  Indian. Most Indian restaurants are not known for their interior design and aesthetics, being managed by run-of-the-mill "mom-and-pop"operators, but continue to draw doting crowds in spite of the dowdy decor.

The secret to the richness of flavors of Indian food, is the way the various ingredients are brought together at various stages. Water has a specific heat of one and always stays at 100 deg C (212 deg F), at sea level. Above that temperature, it evaporates/becomes steam. It is this property that makes water the ideal coolant in automobile engines and other such heat control applications - it keeps the ambient temperature down to 100 deg C and no more. (pressure cooking, which raises this temperature is another whole chapter!)

Most spices used in Indian cooking contain aromatic essential oils, insoluble in water and requiring higher temperatures than the boiling point of water to bring out their flavours. In order to "bring out" the flavors within these spices, they are fresh roasted and ground just prior to use (coriander, red chillies, cumin) and their essential oils extracted in hot oil. Oil serves as a solvent and allows for a higher temperature. This is why, in Indian cooking, spices are sautéed in oil before they are added to a water based dish. Raw spices are added to hot oil and sautéed till "the oil leaves the mixture". I'm skeptical of Indian restaurants that ask for your preference of "mild, medium, or hot"; if spices are added after the dish has been cooked it tastes "kaccha" (raw), unless they use the oil extraction process to add spices to an already cooked dish. Other ethnic cuisines that make use of cumin and coriander usually boil these ingredients along with the rest of the body of the food and the difference in treatment is obvious. Indian food wins every time!

For an even more esoteric treatment on why Indian Food is like no other in the world:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/03/a-scientific-explanation-of-what-makes-indian-food-so-delicious/




Ingredients
Lentils (Dal):
1 cup masoor dal (red lentils)
2 cups water
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 medium tomatoes, diced
Generous 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder


Tempering :
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon black mustard seeds
2-3 dried red chillies (kashmiri)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
about 10 fresh curry leaves
Handful chopped fresh cilantro leaves
One onion sliced thin


Directions:

1. Put the lentils in a strainer and rinse them under running water.

2. In a medium saucepan, combine 2 cups of water, tomatoes, turmeric, and the lentils.

3. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Skim any scum from the
surface. DO NOT ADD SALT YET; it will toughen the lentils, thereby
lengthening their cooking time.

4. Lower the heat, cover the pot with a lid and gently simmer until
the lentils are tender, almost translucent, and almost falling apart,
about 30 to 40 minutes.

5. Whisk the lentils, releasing its natural starch, and mash some them
so the mixture becomes thick. Add salt, to taste.

Tempering:

1. Have all the ingredients ready because this will move very fast!

2. In a small skillet, over a medium-high flame, warm 1 tablespoon
vegetable oil.

3. Once the oil is shimmering, add mustard seeds and immediately cover
so you don't get covered in spluttering oil and popping mustard seeds!

4. Lower heat, Add cumin seeds - these burn really quickly, so proceed to
the next step quickly while lowering the heat..

5. Add red chillies and garlic and curry leaves - they should sizzle
and bubble a little - that's the blooming and it's exactly what you
want. Don't let them burn.

The mixture should bloom for about 30 seconds, no more.

6. Add onions, suate till translucent. The large mass of the onions will bring the
 heat down, so raise it at this point.

7. Pour this mixture into the lentils, standing back when the
mixture splutters again.

8. Stir to combine.

9. Transfer the lentils to a serving dish and garnish with cilantro.

SERVES 4

Note: all pictures are copyright J Devasundaram. Do not use without permission and attribution

0. 0 Introduction

0.1.   I started these blogs on a whimsy. I did not have a sequence or organization of thoughts in mind when I started. I didn’t even make a draft copy on my computer. I started writing as the spirit took me. Now, after having written 1.0 on the Enigma of the Database, I am writing 0.0, the Introduction!

0.2.   If these writings seem to be rambling, it’s because they are rambling! I start with a logical sequence (Chapter 0, 1 etc.) only because it is comfortable to most, but as I have discovered time and again, logical sequences are not an intrinsic property of thought, but a convenient necessity for most, living in an ordered society. I am perfectly comfortable with bits and pieces of seemingly unconnected facts and processes; comfortable with the idea that at some time, they will all come together in ways more elegant than an externally imputed logical sequence early in the exercise. This Blog entry system does not display this sequence in ordering the posts. Nor does it allow me to order the posts in any sequence I wish them to appear. It assumes I know what the last post number is going to be before even starting.

0.3.   My mother was a mathematician (still is, at 90 and sharp as a tack) and I have inherited some of “me” from her. She was probably one of the first Fortran programmers in India in 1964, when she topped her class of programming at a course in Delhi. I get my abstract thinking from her. We built binary computers at home with flashlight bulbs and switches to represent binary bits of 1’s and 0’s before the time when Steve Jobs and Wozniak were puttering around in their garage building the first personal computer, but we sat back and marveled at our creations and did not create a marketable product.

        0.4.   As far as I can remember, I have always been a curious person, by nature, not readily accepting everything presented to me. This was not distrust, but a healthy curiosity (healthy disregard for the impossible , as Larry Page of Google, said). I had to indulge in deconstructing everything, much to the chagrin of all those around me, including my parents and my brother. Thus, a radio was not just a radio, but something to be dismantled to discover what lay within - The programming content of the radio held some interest for me, and I did enjoy the commentary of cricket and tennis games, the weekly programs with the popular music of the day, the news at 9:00 PM with the six prior bleeps by which you set your watch etc. Of course, in order to avoid upsetting my father, I would open up the family’s vacuum tube radio when no one was around, stare at the glowing valves and, miraculously, not electrocute myself with all the high voltage components within. Most people, I discovered, are more satisfied with higher level ontologies than I was. For most, a radio is a radio, to be listened to, sitting prettily in the corner, with lace doilies on top of the wooden cabinet. For me, the definition of a radio was less succinct. It had circuit diagrams, electrical smells, and little buzzing noises among the tubes that were warm to the touch, a loudspeaker with a paper cone and a powerful magnet that your screwdriver stuck to; things you discover only if you open up the perforated cardboard back of these things. My forays into the innards of the radio may have been influenced by my father periodically opening up the back and brushing out the accumulated dust using a sable haired brush. I was about 9 or 10 years old when I first started examining seemingly whole manufactured objects like this. I had to do this by myself because most people freaked out when you started dismantling things by yourself, especially when young, but I have noticed this among my contemporaries who would rather a “repair technician” (there is that distorted ontology again) opened the back of things! I never destroyed anything, but fixed many things, through this exercise, I must hasten to add!

0.5.   Life too, is like that. For most people, life is clearly defined with not much variance; meant to be enjoyed if you are on to a good thing. And there is a darker side to this, but life too can be described just like a radio can be with its circuit diagrams. I call this description of life, the “Symbolic Language of Life”. Bits and pieces of observations and factoids, hardware, bio-chemistry, molecular biology, genomics, and proteomics to be elegantly put together at some later stage through an appropriate ontology. Many really smart people have developed this language over centuries, only, it is not called “Symbolic Language of Life”. I will not use the common term for it because, like with many other concepts, there is a powerful bias that sets into most people when they hear the word that describes the method for describing life, the human condition, in combinations of symbols. Given the inclination and the time, a massive volume such as “War and Peace” can be derived from a symbolic language representing the cast of characters and events that they were embedded within.

Note: all pictures are copyright J Devasundaram. Do not use without permission and attribution

1.0 God and The Database

1.1 When I was a child, my mother would threaten me with dire consequences from God who would punish me for deeds, the details of which I don't remember now. I couldn't help wondering where God kept His "notes". This was before I knew of the existence of computers and hard drives, memory and databases and Information Theory. Considering we are 7 billion strong (and growing), God had better be using a reliable and backed up database if He was going to keep track of every individual's every action every second, minute, hour, day, month, year, decade, half century and full century and change, dispensing rewards and punishments without error. This would be a more formidable task than that achieved by the Mumbai DabbaWallahs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala  Forbes Magazine found its reliability to be that of a six sigma standard. More than 175,000 or 200,000 lunch boxes get moved every day by an estimated 4,500 to 5,000 dabbawalas, all with an extremely small nominal fee and with utmost punctuality. According to a recent survey, they make less than one mistake in every 6 million deliveries, despite most of the delivery staff being illiterate. Not being dis-associated and facetious here, just putting things in the context of Information Theory.

1.2 What is God, Where is the database? What is the soul? What is the Self? What is this body? The Buddha and Hinduism have helped me with some answers to these qestions to some extent. Folks who do not want to think about these are at peace by just reading current “god literature” believing in it and not worrying about how (or whether) it is executed (correctly or incorrectly). Just as people before Newton with regard to Gravity. everyone knew it worked and nobody cared to ask why or how.

1.3 Many are well off and do not really care to know the “why” and the “how” of their condition, some think that everything is random and life should be enjoyed as a one-time thing.  The Buddhists tell me this sort of unexamined life is similar to the one led by privileged pets that are fed on caviar and live in airconditioned comfort.  As for me, an explanation of the "system" is necessary. How is karmic connectivity maintained through the multiple sequential lives of the same soul? Are there multiple sequential lives? Or is it the same soul or a part of the "universal soul" and hence actions of one soul affect the "universal"? 

1.4 You need a data repository in order to keep track of, and distribute karmic rewards and punishments. I have a hypothesis as to what this database may be, what’s yours?

I welcome your thoughts and may you heed Steve Jobs' advice to " Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish"

Note: all pictures are copyright J Devasundaram. Do not use without permission and attribution