And They Made it.......

 

With time, as you meet more people, success stories develop a pattern.

Good family. Good environment. Great, attentive, smart parenting.

Structure.

I’m not knocking these people.

I see a lot of myself in them. We weren’t rich. But I had good parents. I had that good upbringing. I’m cut from a similar mold.

These types catch a lot more crap than they deserve. They don’t all get million dollar endowments to slide into Yale. They had to work for it. For each guy that made it, many more failed. Many blew it.

They deserve respect.

But you do know what their path looked like to get where they are. You know what the other paths are.

Every now and then you meet someone who came from an off path.

He’ll say, “I’m the first person in my family to graduate high school let alone college.”

To someone who is new to the game. It’s pretty bland at face value, “Well hooray, did you want a trophy?”

Take a few laps around the sun, and you’ll know that is a packed statement.

They grew up without money. No role model. No doting parent, good school, positive peers.

Reward system to incentivize their performance? Forget about it.

They inherited a bad reputation. They were probably seen as the poor, trashy family.

No hookups. No do-overs. No extra strikes. No summer school.

They had nothing but themselves and a dream that only they believed in. A dream they were doubted on from the moment they set out on it.

These people are born with the system rigged against them. The game was set to max difficulty on day one.

They had nothing. Absolutely nothing.

And they made it.

Something burned in them, to push them past endless obstacles, doubters, failures.

Every equation and sensibility predicted they’d land exactly where they started.

And they made it.

All on their own.

An eagle will rise.

From the dirt they came, in the corner office they sit.

  -Sean Kernan

I Remember My Childhood Friend

I remember Diego, my childhood friend.Diego was extraordinarily gifted in school and in sports. He was so good at playing soccer that he would score all the goals in the game.

Diego was also extremely competitive. He loved to glorify his successes. He even had his famous “in your face” arrogant celebration dance.

We hated when he made fun of us!

Time took care of Diego’s arrogance as he became the victim of his own success.

What things should we NEVER do?

Never be impressed by what we have done!

Diego got so excited and comfortable with his achievements that he destroyed his potential!

Diego could have accomplished extraordinary things in his life, yet he got so satisfied with his achievements that he wasn’t willing to make any additional effort to accomplish more.

Diego later became ‘average.’

NEVER stop improving yourself.

Potential is what you can do but haven't done yet. Potential is everything that is still unused inside of you.

Success is the number one killer of potential.

NEVER be impressed by what you have accomplished. That will kill your potential.

Stay humble. Always keep pushing yourself.

#BeBusinessSmart

   

   -Hector Quintanilla

Useful Mutations :

 Useful human mutations include:

• The CCR5-delta 32 mutation that makes carriers immune to HIV.
• The LCT MCM6 single nucleotide polymorphism that lets people digest milk throughout their whole lives.
• The Apo-AIM mutation that makes a group of carriers in Italy almost immune to arteriosclerosis, and lowers incidence of heart attack and stroke.
• The LRP5 mutation that makes carriers immune to osteoporosis.
• The ACTN3 mutation that makes its carriers exceptionally fast and strong (it was discovered by doing gene studies of elite athletes).
• The hDEC2 mutation that allows its carriers to function normally on only 4 hours of sleep a night (Thomas Edison is believed to have had this mutation).
• The EGLN1 and EPAS1 mutations that allow people to thrive at high altitudes without experiencing altitude sickness.
• The leukocyte antigen-B14 mutation that makes carriers highly resistant to Ebola.
• The PDE10A mutation that allows people to hold their breath for a very long time, common among the free-diving Bajau people.

That’s not an exhaustive list. There are beneficial mutations that confer tetrachromatic color vision, high-fidelity tasting, and all kinds of other cool stuff.

One Golden Rule

Want to learn something? then learn how to learn.

Want to memorize something? then learn how to memorize.

Want to be good at math? learn how mathematics is build on blocks.

I believe in excelling the learning process before learning something.

When I wanted to memorize some long answers I learned memory techniques like Memory Palace.

When I wanted to solve those complex functions and twisted PnC question, I learned about learning math.

When I wanted to read, I worked on my reading and now I can read and comprehend faster than most of the individuals.

Image Source : Phone Gallery

Learning the process always skills us up. 3 years ago, I was a skinny guy and with 2 years of gym, I became fit. In this time period, I studied a lot about fitness and nutrition. I had to leave working out for an year because of some reason and that increased the fat % in my body to around 18%.

I again started learning and studying about fitness and joined gym again and now I have visible light abs and body fat % is less than 13. With all my study in fitness, I applied for a course, cleared the exams and yesterday, I became a certified fitness trainer.

Fitness is just an example, I have worked in a same way in every aspect of my life. Be it academics or any hobbies.

If you want to achieve something then you must excel yourself in the process of learning.

  

  - Krishna

Trivial Knowledge That Might Save Your Life

 

Around five years back, as part of a training, we were working on the Risk Assessment for rooftop work.

One of them suggested lightning as a potential risk.

The other said ‘But when it is cloudy or stormy, we don’t go to the rooftop, right.’

The trainer then said:

Yes. You are right. You will not go to the rooftop when the weather is bad.

But say, you are already on the rooftop to setup three devices for your experiment. You finished two.

The sky suddenly starts to turn cloudy and stormy. You hear thunders.

But you don’t run. Rather, you will think, let me finish this one and leave, otherwise I have to come up again for this small work another day. Y

You will think when was the last time people died due to lightning anyway? You will continue to work.

And that is how accidents happen.

People are mostly safe and sound when they are prepared.

They get injured badly only when the accident happens in the least expected scenario.

• You carry your helmet always, but one day you don’t because you are just driving to a nearby shop.
• You drive in the opposite direction as taking a U-Turn is very long.
• You cross the road thinking no vehicles are coming.
• You agree to the intimate moments being photographed or recorded as you trust your partner more than you trust yourself.
• You say yes to the person you parents had chosen without even talking to him, thinking that they know better.

These are the situations where you least expect things can go wrong.

But they can go worse.

Hence, take everything seriously. There is nothing wrong in being extra careful. You friends might laugh at you or make fun of you for being over-perfectionist, but when you see loses you have escaped, you should be proud of yourself.

   

  -Srinath Nalluri,M.Sc., B. Eng. Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore (2020)

10 Points

1. As children we are encouraged to “Be ourselves.” We certainly can do this, but if we do, don’t expect others to always like us. We may lose friends, career promotions, and be alienated from family. The truth is that people often prefer the fake versions of us, depending upon whether we naturally have an agreeable personality or not.
2. The Boy Scouts of America just went bankrupt and dissolved due to lawsuits based on tens of thousands of incidents of sexual abuse of young boys. Pedophile priests and pastors ran rampant in the Catholic Church for decades. The truth is you cannot trust your son or daughter with strangers, even members of your own family.
3. There are some people who are dead inside. There is no hidden good person inside of them.
4. Many people cannot realize the absurdity of the rat race until they have completed the maze.
5. If you are a scapegoat in your family nothing you say or do can change that. You cannot “work out your differences,” “lay out your heart,” and have it change anything. In fact, they will use your vulnerabilities against you. There is only one way out—get out and don’t look back.
6. As a parent with three children you see the enormous power of genetics. Parents help nurture their children, but 80% of who we are is the product of the random combination of genes. My fraternal twins might as well be from different planets—looks, height, intelligence, hair color, and interests—all radically different.
7. One man’s heaven is another man’s hell.
8. Trust your gut. It usually ends up being right, and you realize this after you ignore it and give ______ suspicious person your trust.
9. Everything is politics—even your family. Next, you can be the most competent person in the world, but if you aren’t political, you will be passed over, bullied, or ignored.
10. The strongest form of violence is mass quiet assent.

Update:

#5 does not mean every family scapegoats. Most don’t. But for those that do, sometimes the only resolution is leaving. Next, many family conflicts are caused by misunderstandings that can be resolved. I am referring here to those which cannot be resolved by “talking it out.”

#8 Trusting your gut doesn’t mean all people are bad. Nor does it mean that your gut is always right. Some people have poor instincts related to people so their “guts” are not very good guides. I am referring to y

our average person.

#9 means the interaction between people. Politics is “us,” not just what happens in Washington DC or London. It is the dynamics of human interaction.

#10 Mass quiet assent is what enables the few or many to conduct acts of violence. It was the neighbors of Jews in Eastern Europe calling on their Jewish neighbors to be arrested and taken to concentration camps. It was the silence of the German people. It is the silence of American citizens (and the outright support) of children being separated from their parents at the Southern border.

   - Alexander Finnegan

EVERYONE STARTS FROM THE BOTTOM

I have solved thousands of problems in physics during my high school when I was preparing for International Physics Olympiads and a few hundred at University of Cambridge.

Last summer, I started preparing for Software Engineering internship applications. I solved a few hundred questions on HackerRank and, in a few weeks, I managed to get to a level necessary for good performance in interviews.

(I am telling you these so you would know that I am not BSing and actually know what I am talking about.)

When I first started problem-solving, I was bad. I was nowhere close to even a regional-Olympiads, let alone International!

I started solving problems during my physics club. It took me dozens of problems before I could up my level. I remember one day how I happily approached my teacher and told her: “I solved a National Olympiad question yesterday!”

Fast forward, two years and I was solving international Olympiad problems in ease!

How? What did I do? What’s the secret?

The secret is…

JUST KEEP GOING.

Honestly, just keep solving problems and I guarantee that you would get better in this.

But DON’T just look up the solutions, and think that you solved the problem without understanding it and move on.

You need to think about the problems but most importantly you have to get value from it. When you look up the solution, do not just read it, say “yeah, whatever” in your mind and skip.

Instead, ask yourself, “why couldn’t I solve it? How could I have solved this?”

Maybe it’s lack of knowledge (e.g. you do not understand how the law of Mechanics works). If it’s knowledge, don’t problem-solve, but learn theory first.

Maybe you had to think out of the box. Learn from this experience. Note this down in your mind.

On and on, you do this, and your problem solving would increase. And not only it would be good in physics, but in math, in computer science, and in life.

The key point, however, is this:

EVERYONE STARTS FROM THE BOTTOM.

Nobody is born solving complex problems. Like any skill, problem-solving is developed.

Just keep doing it and you WILL get there. Believe me.

  

   -Ara Mambreyan,MEng, University of Cambridge (2021)

Conditions NOT taken Seriously

1. I often see rainbow halo around bright lights. I don’t worry because my vision is sharp, I can see everything clearly, I can even pick up a pin from the floor. Some dark patches at the periphery of my vision but well, I am 40 you see’.

It could be an early sign of a disease called glaucoma. ‘Open angle glaucoma’ has very little initial symptoms. Once visual dimness starts, it is generally pretty advanced where treatment may not help give back your vision. If you are in doubt, check out with an ophthalmologist.

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2. I am fit as a fiddle. But yesterday my wife said that my speech was unusual, like a ‘baby’ speech, slurred, but became normal 5 minutes later. I didn’t feel a thing; and yes that 5 minutes my left eye vision also seemed somewhat blurred. I know it is all office stress. Could you please ask my wife to stop worrying?

You have classical features of Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA), which if untreated might end up in a full-fledged stroke later. Walking with support the rest of your life is not a good idea.

3.No no, it is not the usual headache. It is on the side of the face, in front of the ear, on just one side. I got a routine check-up done, blood pressure, sugars, cholesterol all normal. Just that the ESR is high, must be the nothing important.

‘Temporal region’ headache and high ESR points to an unusual disease called temporal arteritis. Unless treated promptly, you could lose your vision, permanently.

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4.The other day when I was walking uphill, I felt some pain and numbness in my lower jaw tooth. I would have ignored it but it comes off and on. I have a bad set of tooth right from childhood; chocolates, you know. I am planning to see the dentist and get my tooth fixed. Before new year 2021; for sure.

You are describing a classical ‘angina’ a symptom of heart disease. Go see a cardiologist. You might need an angiogram and not a root-canal.

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5.I get these stomach pains during periods. But this one is too unusual, severe and bad, and I didn’t have my periods yet. 2 more days of pain killers should do.

Ectopic pregnancy is a rare case of acute abdominal pain which occur when the ovum is fertilized in the thin ‘fallopian tube’ instead of the cushy uterus. The enlarging fetal sac penetrates the tube causing severe abdominal pain, bleeding and often a shock. Check out.

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Endnote:

Did you say ‘oh my God’ these are symptoms I feel every day! You are scaring me, Doc’

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There is a fine line between ‘being cautious’ and ‘getting scared’.

Once on-board a flight, the cautious gentleman listens carefully to the safety instructions, notes the exits but after the take-off, he enjoys the meal, the music and the beautiful blue sky outside the window.

The scared man goes on praying with folded hands for a safe landing, all-through the flight, inattentive of the safety drill and the missing the goodies in flight.

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Knowledge can be used as seat belt or as a nightmare.

I leave it to you.

   

-Tiny Nair

Cardiologist at PRS Hospital, Trivandrum

You Don't Know How Research Could Benefit The Society

In the 1960′s a minor mathematician named Pyotr Yakovlevich Ufimtsev began research for the Soviet electronic warfare unit.

Since the EW unit was mostly concerned with radio waves, he began to look into how radio waves bounced off of two- and three-dimensional surfaces. The equations he developed were extraordinary, but not given much thought by his superiors since there didn't seem to be any practical applications.

In fact, his bosses thought so little of his work they allowed it to be published, completely unclassified. The paper, Method of Edge Waves in the Physical Theory of Diffraction, was published in 1962.

Well, the book was translated into English by the U.S. Air Force foreign technology division in the 1970′s just when the US was experiencing a big problem in Vietnam.

The big problem was that the NVA kept shooting U.S. planes down with surface to air missiles, and there wasn’t a lot we could do about it. The lesson learned from this by the US and NATO in the '60s-'70s during the Vietnam war was that a sophisticated, radar-guided air defense network would likely cause tremendous initial losses to NATO aircraft during the opening stages of a confrontation with the Warsaw Pact in Europe.

Our allies the Israelis had a similar issue with Soviet-designed air defense around the same time. In the 1973 Yom Kippur war they lost over 100 aircraft to Soviet-provided radar-guided SAMs in the first few weeks of the war.

Something had to be done to neutralize that Soviet radar air defense threat.

After all ideas were considered, it was decided that the best option was to build a plane invisible to enemy radar that could penetrate the defended airspace, take out the radar control networks and allow the regular aircraft to flow in through the gaps punched in the line by the invisible plane.

But how do you make an object invisible to radar? Well, for starters you’d better know how radar waves bounce off three-dimensional things like planes. Which is where our old friend Peter and his long-ignored book of formulas for exactly that purpose come in.

At the time, the computers were only powerful enough to calculate how radar bounced off flat surfaces, so they had to build a plane entirely out of flat surfaces. It looked like this.

(Lockheed Have Blue flying prototype)

It was so good that when they put it on the radar test range they got no return at all, and the engineers thought the equipment was malfunctioning. Only when they hauled a test object out onto the range to verify everything was fine did they understand the magnitude of what they had created.

Refinement and militarization produced a truly astounding aircraft.

(Lockheed F-117)

But still made out of flat surfaces. These days we have better computers that can model radar reflections off 3-D objects.
So we have this,

(Northrop B-2)

This,

(Lockheed F-35)

and this, the most stealthy combat aircraft to ever take to the sky.

(Lockheed F-22)

And all thanks to our esteemed comrade Ufimtsev, the father of Stealth, ignored at the time but now one of the most coveted military technologies of all.

   - Damien Leimbach

“35 Years of Experience”

 “35 years of experience.”

At least, that’s what the sign on his office door said.

Still, she never woke up, slipping from this world without ever knowing. No chance to say goodbye to her family.

She was dead.

She was Jill Lyons, a 55-year-old teacher and the mother of two young girls.

He was Dr Glen Childs, a cardiothoracic surgeon.

---

After getting sick, Jill realised something wasn’t right. Within days it was clear this wasn’t just a cold.

Her husband raced her to the hospital where doctors began tests, inserted tubes, and took images.

The diagnosis was in.

Jill had developed bacterial endocarditis. It’s a life-threatening infection where bacteria have gotten inside of her heart.

The endocardium is the inner heart layer, and this is bad. Our heart valves are also part of this endocardial layer. This meant that the infection was destroying Jill’s heart valves. Without them, she can’t pump enough blood forward to the rest of her body.

She needed surgery immediately.

The operating room was prepped, and the hospital searched frantically for the cardiothoracic surgeon on duty.

Dr Glen Childs.

He was a talented surgeon with over thirty five years of practice.

He had performed thousands of surgeries.

He had a stellar record and was well respected.

Jill died.

---

But how?

Dr Childs was experienced. It should have been a straightforward procedure.

He had attached Jill’s replacement valves the wrong way around.

It was later revealed that this was the first time he performed this procedure as the lead surgeon.

35 years of experience and Jill still died.

---

Dr Childs might have had 35 years of experience, but for a procedure he wasn’t familiar with, it may as well have been none.

Dr Childs isn’t the only person misguided by the lie of experience - we all are.

We all grow up and eventually get a job. This requires learning.

If you have a trade, you will spend some years learning it.

If you go to university, you will spend some years studying and then some years learning on the job.

That’s when it ends.

You fall into the rut of your work.

You stop learning.

Just like Dr Childs discovered, a wealth of experience doesn’t really mean much. When it came to something he wasn’t familiar with, his 35 years counted for little.

It’s not the time of your experience, but your experience in that time.

So when I hear someone saying they have 20 years of experience, I think…

Do you really have twenty years of experience, or one year that you’ve repeated twenty times?

When we stop learning, stop improving ourselves, that’s when we switch life from shuffle to repeat, and even the best song will drive you crazy when it’s all there is.