The Ghost of Mission Impossible

Mind Blowing Awesomeness. But this bit, really is the only bit

I wanted to kick myself black and blue on seeing their embedded systems work at level of perfection comparable to that of a ballet dance in some London theater, or thousand violins playing a Mozart symphony in a concert, or maybe how millions of rupees smoothly disappear in our unHazare system. I couldn't help thinking where they recruit their embedded engineers from (and wishing if one of them could have helped with my BTP!)

Hence the part where his glove didn't work on the amazing glass of that really tall hotel in Dubai when that really massive sandstorm of which everyone was happily ignorant about was coming, was pretty unsettling. Maybe, I thought it was a subtle attempt to keep the flimsy fiber of reality running through the movie. Embedded systems, after all at the end of the day, are, umm... embedded systems. But maybe glove had more to do with material engineering.

At any rate, it didn't work. He anyways climbed up, unseen through the glass for so many floors and reached the server room, did whatever simple technical stuff he was told to do and found himself at a loss on how to get down. Held a cable and even before I could have thought what the heck was he thinking - he acted on his hunch, his gut - no he hadn't planned out what was going to happen, but he thought it should be alright, he knew it, he felt it - took the chord and was through the window running on the glass pane vertically downwards with the strap around his waist safely hinged god knows where, only to come to a sudden bone-crushing halt. The chord length was insufficient - and again before I could even grasp the situation or began considering possible options he ran back, swirled around in a large loop, "what the heck" (even his co-agents were thinking the same!), and left the strap in middle of his swing to continue on his trajectory towards the open window ...

That moment - of letting go, of taking the leap of faith, of acting on the hunch, of doing something which you don't know the outcome to - but in a split second before letting go you come to an understanding with yourself and say: "this will work" - that moment struck a chord. It was, discounting the risk and thrill by a million times, like the moment when I was almost on my toes - stretching between the rocks I was gripping from hands and those where my feet supported me from below, and leaned my entire weight on one hand as I threw the other one up to a higher point which looked like a prospective hinge, simultaneously as I pushed my legs to the next grip. If my flying hand misses the grip - I could slip, get bruised. But I in any case throw up my hand and legs one after the other. My hunch says I can do it ...

Sadly, that was the only thing that struck a chord. The background score was disappointing - where was that famous loud thumping MI tune which I grew up to! And let's not even get started about speeding in Mumbai, automatic multi level parking with left hand drive cars, and wait: no Marathi on doors: Tamil was it? Or Telgu? Point being: Shiv Sena - where art thou! And "No Anil Kapoor. We're not happy. Don't you know you need to dance on a song in some random non-related location while being seduced. Do a better role next time, or none at all."

Black Swan

Perfection

"Nina, what did you do?"

"I felt it. Perfect. It was perfect."

The entire theme stuck a chord within me. Romancing your artiste so much that you become the one you photograph/ dance/ paint/write about...

But it was more that that. It was about perfection. It was about doing one thing long and hard for so long that you're that and that is you. With a looming fear of losing sanity in the process.

But then, it feels perfect.

The Emperors of Chocolate

Candy is not a necessity. It’s a treat. A delight. A frivolous indulgence.So intoxicating, so intense, so opulent, it penetrates the taste buds and heads straight for the brain.

Read Joel Brenner's The Emprors of Chocolate. Not only it is a fantastic, and never been told before account of 2 chocolate gians: Mars and Hersheys, it is also a mouth watering delight.

The contrast drawn between the Hersheys and Mars is visible at every point, except for how long they took to become successful. Milton Hershey: 17 years, Forest Mars: 21 years.

The book is studded with core management pricipals of Hershey's and Mars, and the style of working on their top management. And I am sure that many of these pricipals will remain etched in your memory a long time after you've read the book; I list a few here:

• Both Hersheys and Mars started their day at 4:30 in the morning. Most of the new product ideas were born then.
  
• Being first is the key: if you ain't first, why bother?
  
• Product should be sole focus: that is what customers buy
  
• You can't shoot where the duck is: you've to shoot where the duck is going to be
  
• To do a business: you need to know how to make a product

--

‘Chemically speaking, what makes chocolate so unique and irresistible is that its melting point it slightly below body temperature’ ‘ Cocoa butter dissolves first and distributes the rest of the chocolate ingredients over the taste buds in quick succession starting with sugar’

Must Read!

The Philosophy Behind Matrix - 3

Last in the series: A few memorable quotes, which you can read again and again; and again and again they make you think!

You do not truly know someone until you fight them
- Seraph

Choice, the problem is choice.
- Neo
It is remarkable how similar the pattern of love is to the pattern of insanity
- Merovingian

Seraph: Did you always know?
The Oracle: Oh, no. No, I didn't. But I believed... I believed.
Choice is an illusion created between those with power and those without
- Merovingian

Humph. Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.
- The Architect

One way or the other the war is going to end
- Oracle

Other parts:

The Philosophy Behind Matrix - 1

The Philosophy Behind Matrix - 2

The Philosophy Behind Matrix - 2

Before we begin - a classic example of rhetoric:
Roland: I thought we just saved the dock.

Lock: EMP knocked out every piece of hardware, and every APU. If I were the machines, I'd send every sentinel I had over here right now. "Saved the dock" Captain?, you just handed it to them on a silver platter!

- Matrix Revolutions

Who are Agents - Who is Agent Smith?

Though we never get a feel of this, Agents are actually there to protect Matrix. I guess this is because we naturally watch the movie from the perspective of humans!

In actuality, Agents are like antivirus programs, protecting the Matrix from Zionites and people who understand that the Matrix is a fake (ref: post 1). Apart from killing the Zionites they also have an important task to find and destroy the programs in Matrix which are no longer useful...

Agents are like super-stud programs: they can move really fast, and can copy themselves on any normal human/program in the Matrix; but are under controls of machines (remember the ear-plugs they wore!). It's literally impossible to destroy them because they can always copy themselves.

However, at the end of 1st movie when Neo realizes that he's The One and dismantles Agent Smith; Agent Smith somehow (I still haven't understood - how? Help needed!) is freed from the control of machines. Smith also gets the ability to copy himself onto literally anyone (including Zionites), through direct physical contact. He thus becomes a virus. By the end of 3rd movie, he copies himself on everyone in the Matrix world - humans and non-humans (including Oracle!)

After he's unplugged his power keeps growing in direct proportion to Neo. Simply put, if Neo's matter then Smith is the antimatter. Together, they balance the equation; and eventually they annihilate each other!
Who is Merovingian?

Merovingian is a program who keeps a track of all the programs running in the Matrix. You can loosely treat him as the windows task manager but o'course with a lot more powers.

"What do all men with power want? More power."

- Oracle, Matrix Reloaded (about Merovingian)


How programs work?
It must be understood that programs are programmed to do things in order to make Matrix as real as possible. For e.g. Merovingian's wife is programmed to crave love which she never gets. However, programs know the word, not the associated emotion: emotions are for humans to know. For e.g. Rama asks Neo that since he loves Trinity - what would he do to save her? Neo says, "anything". Rama says that I too would do just anything to save my daughter Sati from deletion (but because he's programmed to love which tells him that a father should do anything possible to save her daughter from being killed - not because he can feel love!)
Now then, how it all ends?
After The One reaches the Architect, he is given a choice to either return back to the source code; after which he can choose 23 people from the current Zion and rebuild it - or return back to the Matrix which will ultimately lead to the destruction of the entire humanity (as machines will destroy Zion!).

Architect tells Neo that Trinity is going to die irrespective of what Neo does. Neo says that the machines can't destroy humans because they need them to generate power.

"There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept. However, the relevant issue is whether or not you are ready to accept the responsibility for the death of every human being in this world."

- The Architect, Matrix Reloaded
All previous 5 versions of The One return back to the source code, but this time Neo makes an exception. Love! Neo, using his superhuman powers, saves Trinity.


The events now reach a cataclysmic point as the Machines penetrate Zion intending to completely destroy it. In the Matrix world, agent Smith frees himself from the control of machines and learns the ability to not only copy himself on anyone present in Matrix, but also to source himself in the humans.

With things reaching their ultimate end, Neo goes to the Machine world to negotiate. In my view, this negotiating process has to be one of the inconceivable yet one of the most humane thing shown in the movie.
"The program Smith has grown beyond your control. Soon he will spread through this city, as he spread through the matrix. You cannot stop him. But I can."

- Neo, Matrix Revolutions Machines agree, and in the ultimate fight -



Neo destroys Smith; and is himself killed. Then there is peace.

The trick was that Oracle allowed Smith to copy himself on her. Then she tricks Smith, giving him false vision that Neo will die on that rock (ref: pic); but when Neo gets up Smith becomes all worked up because he thought Neo was meant to die. Add to this the fact that Smith calls Neo, Neo (he has always called Neo, Mr. Anderson!)
"Wait. I've seen this. I stand here, right here, and I'm supposed to say something. I say, 'Everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo.' " [pause] "What? What did I just say?"

- Agent Smith, Matrix Revolutions

Now I am a little confused how it eventually ends. Smith copies himself on to the Neo, but machines give Neo some kind of super charge which kills him. As a result of which Smith dies. My guess is that once Smith copied himself onto Neo - machines again had the access to the source code of Smith, and thus they deleted it. At the very end the Architect agrees that he will give allow those who want to get out of Matrix - to get out of it.




I would end by quoting my favorite lines from the entire movie:

"...the temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson. You must know it by now. You can't win. It's pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why do you persist?"

- Smith, Matrix Revolutions

"Because I choose to"

- Neo, Matrix Revolutions

The Philosophy Behind Matrix - 1

The Philosophy Behind Matrix - 3

The Philosophy Behind Matrix - 1

I am writing this post assuming that you must have seen, or atleast heard about the trilogy of the Matrix Movies. I have been thinking about these movies a lot lately; and have finally understood the central thought behind all these movies (thanks to Kinari, Fote and Wikipedia) I must say - some really cool thinking by Wachowski Brothers. Must See Trilogy. Must Read Post.

Man and Machines: Purpose of Life (Ref: Animatrix)
Man created machines. Machines used to work for man, until one day when a cleaning machine transcended the boundary between man and machine; when the thought, "what is the purpose of my life?" flashed across the machines mind.

"In the beginning, there was man. And for a time, it was good. But humanity's so-called civil societies soon fell victim to vanity and corruption. Then man made the machine in his own likeness. Thus did man become the architect of his own demise."

- Animatrix Narrator, Renaissance Part 1

This led to a revolution. Machines overpowered man and killed their entire species except for those few who crept in the Earth's crust and formed Zion! Now, machines used to derive their entire power from the Sun.

So the clever thing the dying man species did was to block the entire sky. The clever thing machine did was to identify that humans produce energy when their mind is stimulated. So the machines captured all the humans who were alive; and plugged them into a virtual reality - to derive power from the human thought.
What is Matrix?

Matrix is this virtual reality world. Everything in Matrix is either a program or a plugged-in human. Matrix was created by machines to derive power from the human thought. It is a mathematically perfect world, and was created by the program called the Architect.

There are several bugs in Matrix, especially in relation to the presence of humans. Some humans somehow gain the sudden understanding that Matrix cannot be real during moments when these humans would exceed their humane limits. For e.g. a fast runner breaks the world record by completing 100m race in 8.7 seconds; which is when he suddenly understands that this cannot be real (shown in Animatrix). Such individuals are released from Matrix and are rescued by Morpheus.
Who is The One?

All the collected anomalies of humans are accumulated in the form of The One who traces his way through the Matrix to finally meet the architect and return to the source code. Thus it is like a feedback loop, which helps architect improve the Matrix.

"Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the matrix. You are the eventuality of an anomaly which, despite my sincerest efforts, I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden assiduously avoided, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control, which has led you, inexorably, here."

- The Architect to Neo, Matrix Reloaded

This function of The One comes to us as a rude shock, because we treat him as the hero all the along 1st and 2nd movie. It is only after this dialogue, that The One really becomes an hero: when he makes a choice which his predecessors had never made...to save Trinity. Love!
Who is The Oracle?

The movie starts with the 6th version of Matrix. The Architect was quite frustrated by his 1st 2 attempts; but then he realized that to control humans in this virtual reality world, he needs something less mathematically perfect and more emotional...
"The first matrix I designed was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art, flawless, sublime. A triumph equaled only by its monumental failure. The inevitability of its doom is as apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every human being, thus I redesigned it based on your history to more accurately reflect the varying grotesqueries of your nature. However, I was again frustrated by failure. I have since come to understand that the answer eluded me because it required a lesser mind, or perhaps a mind less bound by the parameters of perfection. Thus, the answer was stumbled upon by another, an intuitive program, initially created to investigate certain aspects of the human psyche. If I am the father of the matrix, she would undoubtedly be its mother."
- The Architect, Matrix Reloaded

Morpheus always believed in Oracle. She thought that what she said was true. It brings great pain to him when he learns that Oracle was nothing but a way to lead The One to the Architect, and finally restart the Matrix, he says:

"I have dreamed a dream, but now that dream is gone from me."

The actual role of the Oracle is revealed only at the end of the movie; which is to unbalance the equation of Matrix, and that she is favored towards the side of humans. Both Architect and Oracle are super-intelligent program who can decide what to do - themselves!

~~~~~~
Now, I'm yet to deal with the following things; but assuming you're already bored to death reading such a looooong post - I am giving it a rest. Will write more on these topics, if in case you want me to, in a separate post.

Who are Agents - Who is Agent Smith?
Who is Merovingian?

What is the entire funda about choice?

Now then, how it all ends?

The Philosophy Behind Matrix - 2

The Philosophy Behind Matrix - 3