Batman Vs Superman: Who's your Hero?

The title was one of the topics of discussion on our office forum. I wrote an answer there, but the character limit got exceeded. :D Not wanting to trim down the answer, I decided to write a post out of it and leave the link in the comment section. Here's my answer to this seemingly difficult question.

In short, as much as I like the Caped Crusader, I have to go with the Man of Steel.

Batman is one of the most epic characters created in the comics. The reason why we all love him is because he is one of us. A normal human with no superpowers. Yet he commands the respect of the entire Justice League. Hell, they even fear him sometimes. He showed us what any human can achieve with proper training and willpower. He is not an epitome of goodness. He has shades of grey. And we love shades of grey, 50 or otherwise. ;-) Although not monetary, he too faced hardships as a child. He has flaws and at times he fails. Making him much more human. And like they say, Batman is a symbol, anybody can be Batman. He fights his own inner battles along with the external ones. It is easier for us to connect with Batman.

But having said all this, my heart goes to Superman. Batman lost his parents? Sorry, but Superman lost his entire planet along with his parents. Yeah, he was too young to even realize that, but that doesn’t make it any less tragic. Batman was raised by a butler? Superman was raised by alien parents in an alien world. Batman became Batman primarily because he wanted to avenge his parents’ death. Superman was always Superman, and he decided to show the world how good one can be. Imagine being the most powerful person in the world, capable of superspeed, supersonic flight, superhuman agility, X-ray vision, heat vision, super breath, super hearing and the ability to absorb Sun’s energy. Now imagine being humble, not wanting to hurt or kill anyone, not going around boasting about your powers, not wanting to rule the entire world, not wanting to make a shitload of money and just going around helping people and saving the planet, daily and coming back to work at ‘Daily Planet’(couldn’t help with that wordplay :P). Hard to imagine, isn’t it? And he does all this to an alien species who call him alien even after all that he does. Because he empathizes with the human race. He knows what can be achieved with peace and unity. While Batman is trying hard to save Gotham from going to ruins, Superman is trying to take Metropolis into the bright and prosperous future. He is the quintessential good guy and better than all of us in every aspect. And we don't like it when others are better than us.

And all the people who say Supes is dumb, you don’t understand his powers well. He is fast not just physically. He is pretty fast mentally too. He has an eidetic memory. He can read an entire book in a matter of seconds. But his physical strengths are so overwhelming that his mental abilities are hardly highlighted. Batman knows how to diffuse a bomb? Well, Superman would just hold it between his palms and let it explode or throw it into the space. Also, in the Justice League, Bats is the brains and Supes is the strength. So there is hardly any chance or need to show his mental prowess.

Now coming to who would win in a fight, it would most probably be Batman. If at all they decide to fight that is. Not because Batman is better than Superman. But Superman would let the Dark Knight win. Because Superman knows he can take it all. Blow after blow after blow. Even if weakened by Kryptonite, he knows he can gain back his strength with a short trip to the space. He was able to live inside the Sun for God’s sake. He is literally God-like. Also Superman is always holding back. Never letting himself fully go. That is one of the reasons why no one knows the limit of Superman’s power. He knows no one can take it when that fist comes down with all its might. Above all, he will let Batman win because he is a good person deep down and a true incorruptible being.

Adding a dialog from the movie Kill Bill 2 where Bill explains why Superman is special and what makes him, him. This is one of my favourite dialogs from any movie and gives one of the best perspectives about Superman.

“Now, a staple of the superhero mythology is there's the superhero and there's the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he's Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic Superman stands alone. Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears – the glasses, the business suit – that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He's weak, he's unsure of himself, he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race.”

So who's you hero.??

Cellmate chronicles

Chronicle 1

Two guys in a jail cell.
Guy1: Who are you?
Guy2: I'm an environmentalist.
Guy1: Environmentalist? What did you do? Protest against cutting tress.?
Guy2: Nope. I grew plants.
Guy1: That's insane.
Guy2: I know, right?
Guy1: What plants did you grow.?
Guy2: Marijuana.
..
.
Guy2: Why are you in.?
Guy1: I bought plants.
Guy2: Marijuana.??
Guy1: Yep.!!

They both Hi5 and live happily in their jail cell.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chronicle 2
 
So a guy was put in jail. His cellmate asked him, "Who are you?"
He said, "I'm a scientist."
"A scientist.? What did you do to be put in here?", his cellmate asked.
"I invented a new drug. It makes people behave like dogs.", the scientist replied.
"So the drug didn't work as expected and killed people?", questioned the cellmate, now curious.
For that the scientist replied, "No the drug worked alright. The guy injected with the drug pissed on a electric transformer with his one leg up. And he got electrocuted."

Wrath of the Gods

One fine day in a village, the village priest called for a gathering. Everyone gathered near the ceremonial grounds. The priest told them that he had a very bad dream. That someone was going to commit a grave sin and the Gods are going to punish the entire village for that. Frightened, the villagers asked for a remedy. A way to appease the Gods. The priest said that they were to conduct a grand ceremony, offer Gods their gifts and sacrifice a goat to absolve them from the God's wrath.

The next day a huge ceremony was organised. All the people came to the ceremonial ground with their gifts. A healthy, full grown goat was brought to be sacrificed. The priest kept jumping and dancing around in trance whilst muttering words of Gods that were not understood by men. The goat was brought to the center. The village strongman was given a machete and the priest held the goat's head. Just when the blade was about come down, a huge lightning bolt struck the village chief's house. The poor frightened animal tried to pull away, bringing the priest's arms under the blade. The lightning started a fire which quickly spread to the entire village. The priest's arms lay chopped away from him while he howled and wriggled in pain. The last thing someone saw was the villagers running to save their houses while the goat ran into the woods.

The Manager who knew Shannon.

A manager had to hire for a position in his company. This position required the person to give suggestions, depending on which the company made decisions. So 3 interns A, B and C were hired. They were informed that the person with the best success rate at the end of the probation period would be hired permanently.

The probation period ended. A had a success % of 50, B had 70 and C had 10. Everyone thought that B would be hired. But to the dismay of all, C was hired. Enraged, B confronted the manager to justify his decision. To this the manager calmly replied, "A has a success % of 50. We will never know which suggestion would succeed or fail. You have 70. It is good, but not good enough. C has 10%, but everytime we do the opposite of what he suggests we will have a success rate of 90%. You either be good at something or be good at being bad".

P.S: I read this long back somewhere on the internet as an example for Shannon's error detection and correction theorem. Couldn't find the source now. All credits duly belong to the original author. :-)

The advantages of coming to office on Sundays

I know, I know. You would be probably wondering about the title. How can coming to office on a Sunday have any advantages.? Well, let me educate you about the various advantages of the deed. First off, you must be a highly important person if you have to come to office on a Sunday. The other ordinary nincompoops are not given such great honour. Unless you are very highly skilled at your craft, why would your company ask you to come on a Sunday sacrificing your personal life. Duh. So if you have ever gone to office on a Sunday, consider yourself special. Actually you should write it down in calligraphy fonts on a handmade paper and frame it to be hung on the walls of your home. I have three of them you know, one for Sundays, one for Saturdays and another one for coming on National holidays. What such important work I do, you ask.? Well, I work on image capturing and processing technologies on smart devices so that people can click selfies of their duckfaces to be posted on social networking sites. I know right? What would world do without me. Uff.

Now lets just assume as if I have not given enough reasons why it is advantageous. I will list the advantages of coming to office on a Sunday, in bullet points.

The non-stop elevators:

If you work at a office which is 12floors high and you sit at the 11th floor you will understand my plight. Everytime I have to go up to my floor or come down from there it's a nightmare. Not to mention the urge to punch people on their nose who use lifts to climb down a floor or two. Perfectly healthy people. And fart smell in the lift and the following awkward situation where everyone is suspecting the other person. Except the sneaky bastard who released the monster. I once got into the lift at my floor and it made a stop at each and every floor and no one got in or out. If I had been connected to a sphygmomanometer, the mercury would have broken the glass and shot up. So very frustrating. But come on a Sunday and elevator is all yours. No intermediate stops. I actually went up and came down and then went up again. Just to let this amazing feeling to sink in.

Uncrowded pantry:
I think most people would understand this. On a normal working day after a sumptuous lunch you are at your seat trying to stay awake. But sometimes the normal human limits are breached and you are left with no other option but to turn to caffeine. You go to the pantry for some double shot espresso. But there is a crowd of equally sleep induced zombie-like creatures standing there for their dose of caffeine. You want to push them all away and take your coffee and leave that place. But the stupid civility prevails and you wait till all of them are done. But come Sunday, you are the king. No queues, no waiting. It's a different matter that the milk would have been filled the previous day or there might be no milk at all and you have to drink the distasteful green tea.

Uninterrupted music time:
I love music. On most days it is what keeps me sane. If I have some work which does not involve discussions with others I turn the music on my phone or the workstation and go on about the the work. Music, like caffeine, actually makes me efficient. But there will always be someone who will come and ask/say something. And I have to pause the music and remove the earphones. Yeah, I may be slightly introvert. But I'm not unsocial. Just that I hate being disturbed during some good music. On a Sunday, the music keeps going on and on, uninterrupted. I even sing and whistle along with the songs, not caring about anyone mistaking it for a braying ass(the animal).

No need of stealth mode sleep:
This is the biggest advantage according to me. When nothing is going according to plan, when nothing is working out, when you want to escape from it all by taking a little nap and it is just 2pm. You try hard not to fall asleep. But there is only so much you can do. You close your eyes for few seconds and you are off to lala land. And then suddenly from the dark corners of the world you hear a voice calling out your name. You wake up to see your manager. You give an awkward apologetic smile and try to not fall asleep again. And for such situations we have the art of sleeping without the knowledge of others. It's a very tricky skill, learned through hours after hours of practice. And very hard to master. Quite embarrassing when caught. And not always safe. But on a Sunday, you need not worry about any of this. Feel like sleeping.? Play some soothing music and doze off to a sweet lullaby. The joy of falling asleep on your desk and not having to worry about being caught, quite impossible to put it in words.

Miscellaneous mundane daily office chores:
These are the various activities that are done during normal working days on a obligatory basis. The innumerous smiles and acknowledgements. The many group chats, both official and casual. The nonstop flow of  official mails and the replies. Having to watch out for when reading/watching something interesting on the internet. Having to update on the progress of work or the lack of it. Following a time table like a clockwork. On a Sunday, you need not worry about any of these. No people, no mails, no replies, no one is pinging you, no fixed timings to follow. It is the perfect working environment one can imagine. Whether the work is getting done or not is entirely different matter.

There people. The advantages of coming to office on a Sunday. There might be many more that I may have overlooked. So go ahead and ask your boss to assign you work on Sundays and feel all important and worthy. You have not worked enough until you have worked on a Sunday.

Thoughts and voices in my head.

"Do you really want to write this down??"

"Maybe, yes. Why, what's wrong in that??"

"Well I don't know. People might think that you are crazy.?"

"Why would they think that??"

"Because you hear 'voices' in your head.?"

"I don't think I'm alone. Everyone has a voice inside their head."

"But I don't think they are having a lengthy conversation with oneself, about having lengthy conversations with oneself."

"Umm..."

And that is a small snippet of what goes on inside my head most of the times. We all talk to ourselves, pretty much most of us do, I assume. Ever since humans invented language, talking to oneself has been a much amusing side effect. Researchers are still pondering over if this phenomenon existed before languages came into existence. As you can see, talking inside your head requires a voice, a language. Here is a pretty good game you can play with your mind. Try to create a thought process in your head, but without a voice. Let there be no sound or voices, telling you something or talking to you.

Very hard, right.? Also not to mention very creepy.

That doesn't mean people who have been deaf since birth cannot have thought processes like us. They do, but it is very different from us. It is also proven that animals do have thoughts like us, certain emotions and also they dream. But having a voice and by using a language as a tool we seem to have an extra edge in this behaviour. And it pretty much varies from person to person. It also signifies how much our thought process is dependent on our sensory organs. An experiment has shown that we could get hallucinations when our sensory organs are deprived of data. Imagine sitting inside a dark and sound proof room, will you.??

I usually have this lengthy conversations. Some very interesting, some amusing, some exhausting and some pointless. It's like having a friend who is always there, acting the way you want to. But sometimes it can be my foe too. Making things pretty hard. But the best thing about it is that, it is always interesting. It's like having a continuous commentary in my head. It's annoying and exhausting at times, but I got to live with it. Since it is my own mind, it pretty much knows all the non-boring stuff. So in a way I'm always entertained. If you ever spot me smiling or grinning from ear to ear, all alone, you know I ain't.

And like I mentioned, language has been very instrumental in this phenomenon. So have you ever wondered which language you talk to yourself.? Well, I did. I was talking to myself about the language in which I was talking to myself. And quiet funnily, I talk to myself in English. Very very funny. I tried changing it to Tamil, Telugu or Kannada sometimes and it felt weird. It was like someone else talking inside my head. And I don't remember what language I used to use previously and when it got switched to English.

Another very interesting thing about this is the voice. Well it's our mind, so obviously it should be our voice right.?? Well, no. Atleast for me it isn't. Do you remember Bumblebee from the Transformers movies? The yellow Autobot that is always around Sam. And do you remember how it uses the internet to find audio from the web to say something.? Well it is similar to that. The voice in the head depends on what I'm talking about. If it is about cricket it is usually Harsha Bhogle, if it is about studies or something then it's the voice of a teacher from my school, if it is about complaining about something sinister I did, it would be my mom and so on. I do not know about others but I find this really fascinating. You see, the temporal lobe in our brain is responsible for the language comprehension. We are somehow able to create our thoughts and then assign a voice from our memories stored in temporal lobe and then feed it back to the temporal lobe to be interpreted and make meaning of it. Freaky brain, even when not on dope.

"You have lost it dude."

"Shut up."

Now, another interesting thought. Lets say we die one day. We all do. But someone decides to recreate us or resurrect or whatever. Well, it's possible even with the present technology. All you need is the DNA. And voila, you can clone as many copies you want, of yourself. How great that would be. But then it only ensures the possibility to make that copy look like yourself, physically speaking. It cannot guarantee it. Other than DNA, many other parameters decide the physical attributes of our self. Height, weight, immunity, skin colour to a little extent and many more can be influenced by the food we eat, places we grow, the climatic conditions and the overall environment of our growth. But let us assume we develop a technology to recreate you completely to your present state(3D printing, anyone??). But other than anatomically it still doesn't make us, us. It would not be us.

We are not just our body. No no, I'm not talking spirituality here. Pure science fiction this is. Atleast that's what I have convinced myself it to be. So, what makes you you are the thoughts that are inside your body. Any changes in that would make you similar to you but not you. Now lets say we are in a time where we can recreate an entire human with their DNA, physically. But then you have to flood it with your conscience and consciousness to make it exactly you. Ok lets assume we have the methods to extract a person's mind and store it on a hard disk. Unfortunately you are dead and you haven't stored your mind in a Mind Bank for back up. What?? Mind bank is where you store your mind. You know, like sperm bank.

You have a body but no mind. That means the process of recreating you is now in a limbo. So what else can we do? This is where the Electronics engineer in me rubs his hand in glee. Have you ever heard of sampling.? It is the main process in converting an analog signal to a digital one. The continuous analog signal is sampled at discrete time intervals to produce a discrete-time signal. And the analog signal can be reconstructed from the discrete-time signal by a method called interpolation. The shorter the sampling interval the better the reconstructed signal. Do I still have your attention..??

What does this Electronics sorcery has to do with your reconstruction you ask.?? Good question I say. See, just how the signal is constructed back from the sampled signal, how if your mind is put together with the samples of perception of you in the minds of other people.? *Eureka moment* You know, like a personality report that is created by running various tests. Yes this could be very foolish and sinister. But hey, we are a social being and we leave impressions on the minds of other people, wantingly or unwantingly.

And not to mention the amount of online or virtual interactions we have that are always monitored and recorded. But perception is a very tricky thing. The perceived idea of personality of a person is not just dependent on the person who gives the impression but also the person who perceives that impression. What could be funny and interesting(like this post) for me might be boring and irritating for you. But then what is your mind? It is the perceived idea of the world around you and the people in it and the memories created centered around that idea. Watch this video for example. Even our own perceptions of ourselves might not be what it is. I don't know what level of practicality this idea might have. But I would like to see such a thing. How much different my actual self will be from the perceived idea of me by others. All while I'm still alive. May be we could exchange a few notes. One thing for certain I know is, he is going to tell me that I'm not that good at writing as I think I am.

"You are never getting laid."

"You know, if you weren't inside my head, you would have been dead long back."

My ode to the Master Blaster.!!

Ok, the festivity may have already come to an end for me. India has built up a sizable lead. In all probability we are going to win by an innings. I would not want Sachin to come back and bat. This was good, if not better. Yes, I would have loved to see a century from the Master. But that's ok. It doesn't matter. Even if he had gone for a duck or scored a century or even a double century, we would always want more from him. We can never get enough of this man.

We have seen so many play this beautiful game. Many rise up to a level attained by only a few. And each time such a player exits from the game, we feel sad. But him? For Sachin it just doesn't stop at being sad and disappointed. It goes beyond that. We mourn. For we don't just love him. We adore him. We worship him. When he walked back to the pavilion today, it was not just an end of an era. It was end of something much more beautiful. The sweet memories of our childhood with which most Indians grew up with. He was walking away with a part of us.

And I can't identify just a thing or two that I will miss the most. That cover drive or the square cut. That paddle sweep or the upper cut. The way he comes down the pitch to loft the ball straight over the bowler's head for a six or the way he comes on to the front foot to hit that straight drive. When he is in full flow, it's like a poetry in motion. Beautiful, elegant yet destructive. And when he scores a century, the feeling is described best only by the word 'Euphoria'. Or may be just him standing on the non-striker's end, leaning on his bat, his left arm on his hips. Like I read somewhere, 'Will we ever see such a sight again?'

No matter how much I try, I can't put all that I feel into words. Words fail us sometimes. And I'm happy that it does so, right now. What can we mere mortals, who can't handle the expectations of few people and feel pressurised say about a man who has handled the expectations of nearly a billion people for over 2 decades. Succeeding more often than not. What can we mere mortals, most of us who don't even have a single achievement to talk about say about a man who owns almost all the major records of the sport. What will we mere mortals, whose entire lives have not influenced more than a few hundreds if not thousands, talk about a man whose 24yrs career has touched so many people that we can't even imagine. He transcends normalcy. And in that transcendence, he became the titular 'God'.

For all that joy he has given us, we have nothing but #ThankyouSachin in return. And he accepts it gratefully. Such is his humility. And when I go to sleep tonight, I know cricket will not be the same for me and million others like me from tomorrow. For I know, from now, whenever India plays I will not be able to ask 'How much did Sachin Tendulkar score?'. But I will reminisce about all the sweet memories and cherish them. And indulge in the nostalgia with the help of youtube videos and television replays.

And once again, #ThankyouSachin.!!