Stuff

Facebook

By the start of this year, I had made up my mind; bye bye facebook. I implemented on my resolution and deleted Facebook from my phone. It wasn't a difficult choice where I felt perplexed. I wasn't too reliant on it anyway. I have never been a huge fan of Facebook, primarily because it is a parasite. Most people do realise this but sort of overlook it (?). Facebook feeds on our privacy. It builds up cookies on us (No, not the tasty type of cookies, the type that contain sensitive information about our browsing data and cache) Facebook is itself just a platform or rather the centre of the web. Basically whenever you authorise an app to access your Facebook data, you're not being beneficial to the app developers, you are being generous to the pseudo-human i.e Mark Zuckerberg (I have a conspiracy theory that Zuckerberg died in 2010 and this is his clone. Go figure) Every website or application log in associated with Facebook channels all the information to Facebook whose algorithm acts as a magnet for advertising agencies. Of course there are other companies such as Amazon which engage in similar activities of using our algorithms but none do so under a pretext. For the record, Amazon is probably my heavily betted company because of simply how gigantic it is. It literally is going to affect every single walk of the human life in the near future. Apple is more of a fashion company than technology. But lets retrace from the tangent and bring Facebook back to the limelight. The fact that Instagram is a Facebook owned company, doesn't help the case much. Without doubt, it aggravates the matter.
Of course, you can call me a hypocrite. "Why are you using Facebook then, Mehwar?" This is the catch. A paradoxical loop. Facebook is working because its.....working. I am compelled to check on this weirdly snug Facebook application everyday because most of my friends and families connect to it daily. Facebook shot through the skies in its early days. It is that same momentum which has carried it past the inertia. Indubitably there is always the option of isolation from online social contacts but that feels too strict. Maybe in the future?
Oh, and I just realised they have advertisements in the videos too now. Way to go!

13 Reasons Why

I have been wanting to do this since forever but I've never quite found the time until now. The phenomena that is 13 reasons why. FACEPALM. To be honest, I cannot judge it properly. Why not? Because I have never watched the show. Maybe some clips online here and there but not even a single complete episode. Why? Because I've read the novel by Jay Asher and it was more than enough to convince me that the show was not worth it. Yet it has been the top banana for all the wrong reasons. Now, I have been told that the show has some different details than the novel and the fact that there will be a season 2 whereas Asher finished the story already further distinguishes them. It still doesn't negate the critical point from debate. I have a pretty little idea.Here are 13 reasons why, 13 reasons is not really as good as it is claimed:

1) Its set in a school. A damn school. I mean, if you're going to set an entire show around a school, you better try to avoid the cliché, right? Nope. 13 reasons why prods those cliché ideas: bullying and public relationships to create a fuss out of nothing.
2) Its perfectly targeted. I am not sure if this goes in the good corner or the bad one. But, this show knew who will be hit hard by it and it made sure to deliver a mighty strike
3) Its about suicide. This is a sensitive topic. When you know you are targeting a young audience, who are most susceptible to such ideas, you must be careful. Right? RIGHT?

Jay Asher: So this is about suicide.

Most teens will read it.

Lets be careful

His conscience: Fork it!

4) Hannah Baker. Le Damsel in Distress. Bad stuff happened to Hannah. I sympathise. But, at times Hannah's reaction was melodramatic. At times, she created her own problems. And most importantly, I think what Hannah needed most was some crazy luck charm. That girl really had some bad luck going on. How else could there be so much wrong in your life? It looked like as if every facet of her life was just calamity! Way to exaggerate it out of proportion.

5) The way this show presents suicide is not just right. It dramatizes suicide. Logically, religiously and by all canons of human mind and culture, suicide is shunned. Its wrong. What does this show reveal? It presents it as a means of what suicide is exactly not. A way to escape. Hannah did it and now she has a sinister plan that will bring down all her friends. SLOW CLAP. It portrayed Hannah as immune. Like now her master-plan of revenge can finally be complete. For all I know, the next season might be that there was a 14th reason and that was all of the world. It would end with Hannah posthumously being elected as the President of the entire world.

6) Poor Hannah. Wrong. Cowardly Hannah. Correct. Ding ding ding. Facing her problems could've faced Hannah from so many further issues. Instead she decides to keep them in the back of her mind to conjure her sick trick (welps that rhymed).

7) Guess what? I am going to pull the good ole trick out of the book and state that the idea of the show and the novel was so sick that I cant even bring myself to write all the 13 reasons. But trust me, I really could go till 1300 reasons.

I know there's this lot who might potentially argue about the superb acting or the awareness. If you want good acting, go watch The Man in High Castle or Gotham. As for awareness...who are you kidding? That's an alibi for everything these days.

Sleep

What would be an ideal sleep time for a person that would allow him to be successful in this domain of era? Everyday lasts for 24 hours (duh). Most listicles will show it to be 7 hours. By spending 7 hours we are basically consuming a third of it almost, to rest when we actually need far less. Research has proven and shown that humans don’t need 7 hour sleep. Its not a set time span or anything. The sleep requirement for every person varies. A teenager who spends all his day being a couch potato needs less sleep than a teenager who does a lot of exercise or mental work. Personally I believe maybe 6 hours is good enough. Also, according to research, our bodies function at top efficiency after 9AM (almost) and we need a nap mid day to recharge our energy level. If we can do that, then the sleep time at night reduces further. Maybe it would be more feasible to have a three hour nap after lunch and then sleep for a further 3 hours at 3AM. But that's impractical. That's not how the world works.

Leonardo Da Vinci used to sleep 25 (or was it 20?) minutes each hour. Its called the polyphasic sleep cycle. He slept for 2 hours in total and he was quite successful at whatever he did. Edison practiced the same thing (but his success is another conundrum altogether). Tesla did not practice the polyphase sleep cycle but he also slept for only two hours. Obama, Freud and many people the society deems successful sleep/slept for 6 hours. Quite similar to this is the Uberman Sleep cycle.

Now of course we cannot duplicate his sleeping pattern for obvious reasons but it at least gives us a standard.

6 hours is good enough.

To check an infographic about the sleep pattern of our ‘heroes’, see this.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Don't forget to check my Medium profile.

If you don't know what Medium is, its this sick website and application where you can find interesting information. Its froody. Give it a go! (Way to do Medium's bidding *eye roll*)

.