Its been a years since the carnage in Mumbai. The entire nation was stunned by a handful of youth with sinister intentions. Lot of things were said and done both by the media, the authorities and the people. Respect and homage were paid to the fallen heroes and those who had shown courage at the time of difficulty.
India had taken a stand to pressurize Pakistan to act on its home grown terror infrastructure. A stand that is certainly not new and certainly without a bite. Our prime minister has assured the nation that it will try all it can to persuade Pakistan to take action on the perpetrators of this terror. A cynical side of mine cannot help but wonder how can India achieve it. Let alone to act on a foreign soil, but the lone terrorist who was caught is yet to given a verdict.
If I am asked "Are you angry at the police authorities for lack of security?", I will say I am more angry at the judiciary than the authorities. If a terrorist who is caught with smoke in his gun is yet to be executed, how this country can hold its head among others and say "we are a partner in the global initiative against terror". No doubt the judiciary should not be bogged by emotions, but the judiciary should some day wake up and realize what is been made out of it. They say a justice delayed is justice denied. I cannot agree more.
We all know the 3 pillars of this democracy. The Legislature, Executive and Judiciary should work in tandem they say. I am only feeling sorry today that the 3 pillars has done little justice in this case. We are all helpless Indians as we always were. Its a sad day and a shameful one.
A lot has been said about Git. There are tons of articles written about how cool and efficient this new SCM is. I was already comfortable with all the features of Subversion and was reluctant to move. But then after a strong urging from my colleague Sankara, I thought to give Git a try.
One thing I can say is that its very very rich in features. It makes Subversion look like a small subset of it. Furthermore it keeps the entire repository in my development machine. It has reduced my dependency on network to reach the Subversion by 90%.
So myself and Sankara are planning to convince other (rather lazy) developers in my company to move to Git. As a sampler we are using git-svn. But it has some issues brought about by the Subversion end of thing. But it works great, surely better than just using Subversion client. But we are planning to move the entire code base to git repository for better leverage.
It there is anyone who is starting a new project and is thinking about which SCM to choose from, think no more. Git is the panacea of all the troubles of tracking code. I have been a huge fan of Linus, and he continues to amaze people like me.
I have been keeping a copy of Donald E. Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming as a reference for few years now. The level of attention to detail is just mind boggling. But the entire book is written for a hypothetical architecture which is like a ASM. Its not only frustrating but makes me skip over pages when I find the reading little painful. I naturally resort to wikipedia for pseudo code or algorithm mentioned in the sections of TAOCP. I would like to see a version of TAOCP upgraded to a more contemporary language or base it on better programming/psuedo-code constructs. Even with these drawbacks, without doubt TAOCP is the best source of reference I know of today.
Ordinary citizens with salaried employment hate the TDS. Its a substantial percentage of their income no doubt, and people don't want to part with their hard earned money, especially if the cost of living has more than doubled in past 5 years.
But its a criminal offense to evade tax. So as a ordinary law abiding citizens, we pay our taxes dutifully. But should we?
I don't know how many Indians know the fact that BCCI is registered as non-profit organization. So it is exempt from taxes. How can the law be so dumb? I am just angry that is all. And people say that other sports aren't doing as well as Cricket. I would say make BCCI pay tax for every nickel and use that money to develop other sports. Surely the money that the government gets through this will not be peanuts. There have been initiatives from the government in 2008 to make BCCI pay tax for IPL. But with the financial year over, we are yet to see any tangible results. Sure BCCI would have bought out high rank officials in the always corrupt IT dept.
Why can't I register myself as a charitable person and not pay tax just like BCCI? I seriously like the model followed in Gulf. Bloody public sector should start thinking of breaking even rather than depending on millions of pockets of ordinary citizens.
I am ok with paying taxes as long as right examples are set for me to pay it. Till then I reserve my right to crib.
Man has through the ages sought in vain for an imaginary elixir of life, the divine amirta, to confer immortality. But the true elixir of life lies near to our hands, for it is the commonest of all liquids, plain water. -- Dr.C.V.Raman
Its been a undisputed fact of life and all of the scientific community is going crazy on the great discovery of water on the moon. Sure its nice to know it. But how happy should mankind be of this discovery? Already there are talks of making a settlement in moon becoming a reality in distant future. I may not live the day when humans have made moon their new home. But some part of me is just disgusted with the idea of man settling in moon.
I am a regular follower of "Cartoonscape" in The Hindu. The issue on September,25th couldn't have told the story better.
For me, humans have become a parasite devouring this planet. A handful of us have exploited, abused and raped out mother earth. Now they are in search of a new host to bear the scourge that they have already done to our natural home. We are just mute spectators to it. A mood very well depicted in the picture. I only hope not to see the day when humans have colonized another world. I rather prefer humans going extinct to leave this planet in peace, for other life forms to have their rightful share of space on Earth.
I had been using Eclipse for a long time now. But I had a chance to try out Intellij Idea lately. I instantly fell in love with it. Simply too good. Makes development lot easier and simpler. Though I am facing some problems with keyboard shortcuts (I keep using eclipse shortcuts by habit), I am really impressed. The integration it has with spring, subversion, hibernate, grails, groovy and lot more have made me a Idea fan. I have plans to buy a license for myself. Currently evaluating 9.0 milestone1. Sorry Eclipse, you had been good, but Idea is simply better.
Politicians especially those associated with Congress have a new fashion trend to follow. But just change in clothes in public does not make them Mahatmas. If congress people think they are doing a right thing to be austere, then should we consider that they were not doing the right thing for so long? Why be austere at all?
People are not fools. If a politician prefers jean against a dhothi, even if they cost all same, should any judgment be made on who is more austere? How does being austere have anything to do with the country?
So my dear Congress fellows, if you think that being austere is the way to go, just do it. Don't make a big fuss. All this could have been kept in low profile. But no!! They want people to take notice. Well we are noticing and we are not amused. Just think of making sure the public money is spent properly. We don't bother about how you guys look, or what clothes you wear everyday.
I tried out my friend's Bose Around ear headphone. I was really impressed and wanted to buy one for myself. I tired buying it online, but to my amusement when I search for "bose headphone", most sites are returning results of movies of Rahul Bose or books on Netaji. Its one thing to customize the search results according to the location. But its quite another to show ridiculous results. I finally went to Bose India website to buy the product. But the point here is that I do not have any option of comparing prices between vendors online something that most online portals in Europe and America provides. If the online retailers wants to attract more customers to their sites, they better pull their socks up.
Very neatly put. Imagining 10th dimension in a very simple way.
I am quite impressed with Jonny Lee's work to turn some of the cheapest hardware into some really useful and awesome tools. Simple but very very effective. TED rocks!!!
Pranav from MIT is developing a kind of a technology (that he and his professor choose to call Sixth Sense) to help people take optimal solutions. Whether the invention goes on to become the Sixth Sense is irrelevant to me. This device beats Microsoft's Surface table in all direction. Just awesome!!!
Having reduced the notion of God to a mere paradox in one of my earlier post Does God exist?, I found myself looking for more paradoxes. Here are few that I have come across.
Paradox of Enumeration
Are there as many natural numbers as squares of natural numbers when measured by the method of enumeration?
- The answer is yes, because for every natural number n there is a square number n^2, and likewise the other way around.
- The answer is no, because the squares are a proper subset of the naturals: every square is a natural number but there are natural numbers, like 2, which are not squares of natural numbers.
Suppose there is a town with just one male barber; and that every man in the town keeps himself clean-shaven: some by shaving themselves, some by attending the barber. It seems reasonable to imagine that the barber obeys the following rule: He shaves all and only those men in town who do not shave themselves.
Under this scenario, we can ask the following question: Does the barber shave himself?
Asking this, however, we discover that the situation presented is in fact impossible:
- If the barber does not shave himself, he must abide by the rule and shave himself.
- If he does shave himself, according to the rule he will not shave himself.
Part of fundamental mathematics, Russell's paradox (also known as Russell's antinomy), discovered by Bertrand Russell in 1901, showed that the naive set theory of Frege leads to a contradiction.
Lets us assume Sets can be divided into
a) Self-containing Sets : The set itself is a element of itself
Examples :
i) Set of everything.
ii) Set of every possible set
iii) Set of everthing except "Statue of Liberty"
b) Non Self-containing Sets : The set is not an element of itself
Examples
i) Set of all cars
ii) Set of all statues.
Now consider the following set.
Set of all Non self-containing sets. Is this set self-containing or non self-containing
- If it is non self-containing, then it should be an element of itself. So it will become self-containing.
- If it is a self-containing set, it should be an element of itself. Then it violates the definition that it is a set of all non self-containing sets.
This is a lovely paradox which took some time for me to understand.
(1) All ravens are black.
In strict logical terms, via the Law of Implication, this statement is equivalent to:
(2) Everything that is not black is not a raven.
It should be clear that in all circumstances where (2) is true, (1) is also true; and likewise, in all circumstances where (2) is false (i.e. if we imagine a world in which something that was not black, yet was a raven, existed), (1) is also false. This establishes logical equivalence.
Given a general statement such as all ravens are black, we would generally consider a form of the same statement that refers to a specific observable instance of the general class to constitute evidence for that general statement. For example,
(3) Nevermore, my pet raven, is black.
is clearly evidence supporting the hypothesis that all ravens are black.
The paradox arises when this same process is applied to statement (2). On sighting a green apple, we can observe:
(4) This green (and thus not black) thing is an apple (and thus not a raven).
By the same reasoning, this statement is evidence that (2) everything that is not black is not a raven. But since (as above) this statement is logically equivalent to (1) all ravens are black, it follows that the sight of a green apple offers evidence that all ravens are black.
Hangman's paradox
This is another lovely paradox that I have come across.
A judge tells a condemned prisoner that he will be hanged at noon on one weekday in the following week but that the execution will be a surprise to the prisoner. He will not know the day of the hanging until the executioner knocks on his cell door at noon that day. Having reflected on his sentence, the prisoner draws the conclusion that he will escape from the hanging. His reasoning is in several parts. He begins by concluding that if the hanging were on Friday then it would not be a surprise, since he would know by Thursday night that he was to be hanged the following day, as it would be the only day left (in that week). Since the judge's sentence stipulated that the hanging would be a surprise to him, he concludes it cannot occur on Friday. He then reasons that the hanging cannot be on Thursday either, because that day would also not be a surprise. On Wednesday night he would know that, with two days left (one of which he already knows cannot be execution day), the hanging should be expected on the following day. By similar reasoning he concludes that the hanging can also not occur on Wednesday, Tuesday or Monday. Joyfully he retires to his cell confident that the hanging will not occur at all. The next week, the executioner knocks on the prisoner's door at noon on Wednesday — an utter surprise to him. Everything the judge said has come true.
Drinker's paradox
The drinker paradox is a theorem of classical predicate logic that can be stated: "there is someone in the pub such that, if he or she is drinking, then everyone in the pub is drinking".
The proof begins by recognizing it is true that either everyone in the pub is drinking (in this particular round of drinks), or at least one person in the pub isn't drinking.
On the one hand, suppose everyone is drinking. For any particular person, it can't be wrong to say that if that particular person is drinking, then everyone in the pub is drinking — because everyone is drinking.
Suppose, on the other hand, at least one person isn't drinking. For that particular person, it still can't be wrong to say that if that particular person is drinking, then everyone in the pub is drinking — because that person is, in fact, not drinking.
Either way, there is someone in the pub such that, if he or she is drinking, then everyone in the pub is drinking. Hence the paradox.
Richard's Paradox in real numbers
The paradox begins with the observation that certain expressions in English unambiguously define real numbers, while other expressions in English do not. For example, "The real number whose integer part is 17 and whose nth decimal place is 0 if n is even and 1 if n is odd" defines the real number 17.1010101..., while the phrase "London is in England" does not.
Thus there is an infinite list of all English phrases that do define unambiguously a real numbers; arrange this list by length and then dictionary order, so that the ordering is canonical. This yields an infinite list of the corresponding real numbers: r1, r2, ... . Now define a new real number r as follows. The integer part of r is 0, the nth decimal place of r is 1 if the nth decimal place of rn is not 1, and the nth decimal place of r is 2 if the nth decimal place of rn is 1.
The preceding two paragraphs are an expression in English which unambiguously defines a real number r. Thus r must be one of the numbers rn. However, r was constructed so that it cannot equal any of the rn. This is the paradoxical contradiction.
The following shocking video is a marketing pitch to India by Israeli firm Rafael for Python missiles in Aero India 2009 show. The following video is picked from a defense blog Livefist. Hope you all find this amusing as I did.
The following proof to the non-existence of God is given by Melbourne philosopher Douglas Gasking. This is a funny counter-proof for the ontological ‘proof’ of the existence of God devised by St Anselm (1033–1109). Though Gasking has not proved the non-existence of God (Anselm had not proved the existence either) it makes an interesting read. The Gasking's proof is given below.
(1) The creation of the world is the most marvellous achievement imaginable.
(2) The merit of an achievement is the product of (a) its intrinsic quality, and (b) the ability of its creator.
(3) The greater the disability (or handicap) of the creator, the more impressive the achievement.
(4) The most formidable handicap for a creator would be non-existence.
(5) Therefore, if we suppose that the universe is the product of an existent creator, we can conceive a greater being – namely, one who created everything while not existing.
(6) An existing God, therefore, would not be a being than which a greate cannot be conceived, because an even more formidable and incredible creator would be a God which did not exist.
Ergo,
(7) God does not exist.
God a Paradox
Incidentally, omniscience and omnipotence properties that are normally associated to God are mutually incompatible. If God is omniscient, he must already know how he is going to intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence. But that means he can't change his mind about his intervention, which means he is not omnipotent.
For example, let us assume yesterday God saw the state of the world on 31st December, 2099 by using his power of omniscience. And today, for some reason God wants to change the state of that future world through his power of omnipotence.
a) If he manages to change the world, then what he saw yesterday was not correct. So it negates his omniscience.
b) If he does not manage to change the world (since it violates the power of omniscience as stated above), it would violate God's power of omnipotence.
So a God, who can see everything and can do anything reduces to a mere mathematical paradox. Can such a God exist?
It was half past ten in the morning a typical lazy Sunday when I got out of bed. Surprisingly, Saddy was already up and was watching movie songs in Sun Music. Half an hour later, with usual morning duties complete, I joined him in our usual Sunday morning siesta. Shankar, my other roommate, came out of his room with his helmet in his hand. Put in a nutshell, Shankar was a guy who wanted to project himself as a DUDE. As he had a helmet and going out, we prompted him.
Me : "Dey!! Where are you going?"
Shankar : "Machi, very bored da. Simply going on a ride."
Saddy was surprised.
Saddy : "Rideaa... Where?"
Shankar : "Chumma jolly.. No particular place.. Wanna join?"
He gave us the usual look that a teacher would give to his class expecting an some reaction at the end of a boring and sleepy lecture.
We were just too lazy to do such a thing.
Me : "Poda.. Not interested. You go."
Saddy agreed with me.
Shankar : "Ok machi... I will see you guys later."
With this he left. We then occupied ourselves with our usual non-occupation. Half an hour passed with nothing particular to remember when I received a call. It was Shankar.
Me : "Hello.. What da?"
Shankar : "Machi petrol over. I am stranded in Ring road."
I was amused. I told Saddy. He started laughing his heart out.
Shankar : "Machi bring some petrol da. I will be waiting for you. Please hurry."
Me : "Ok da. We will start in 10 minutes."
With this our conversation ended. Saddy was still laughing.
Me : "Saddy we need to go NOW!!. I cannot drive holding a bottle of petrol in one hand."
Saddy : "Dey! I thought of going for an Oil massage today. Its 11:40 now. I will come back in a jiffy then we will go. We can have our lunch while coming back."
I have to admit that till that second Saddy had not uttered a single word about "Oil massage" as a part of his morning itinerary.
Me : "Machan, it will be late. Shankar will be waiting."
Saddy : "Machi, you worry too much da. I will be back in a jiffy."
With this Saddy left the house in a renewed enthusiasm. After Twenty five minutes he was back.
Me : "Shall we go?"
Saddy : "Dey, after Oil massage one needs to take head bath in warm water. That's what Boger had said before dying."
I really did not want to argue with Saddy about Boger. So I let him have his say on things. Meanwhile I was getting missed calls from Shankar, and the interval between two missed calls was decreasing. I have to confess those calls were deliberately missed by me.
After following all good advices of Boger, Saddy was ready to leave. I checked my watch. It happily showed 1:00 PM. With little remorse we went out to help our friend. Poor Shankar was stranded for almost 2 hours waiting for help from us. We made up few excuses for our delay on our way. It was 1:20 PM when we met him.
I was expecting Shankar to screem at us. On the contrary he was very calm and collected, even though he was shooting venomous looks at us. Five minutes later, with the petrol in his Hero Honda Splendor, he sat down to kick his engine to life. He made few attempts.
Kick. No response.
Kick.. Kick.. Kick.. Again no sign of the engine getting started.
Saddy and I were unusually silent. I was little disappointed because Shankar did not scream at us for being late. We had made some brilliant and comical excuses to tell him, which became useless. Anyways, everything was alright by then.
Kick.. Kick.. and this time the engine sprang to life. Shankar was a very relieved and happy man. He looked at us and thanked us.
In return I went up to him and asked, "So.. How was the ride?"
We should be proud of our country. We should protect the integrity and sovereignty of our republic. I bet every person in this world would have heard of their responsibilities towards building their nation. Much would have been said and heard about their country and its founding fathers. Here in India there is so much said about how Mahatma Gandhi through his sheer power of non-violence moved this country from gloom to brightness. Nationalism is rooted into out DNA in almost all phase of life. JFK's words "Ask not what the country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" epitomizes the idea of nationalism. Every citizen should pitch in and contribute to national building. He/she should feel proud of their mother land.
I have to admit I was one of those who believed in all this. Until I got to think about it after 26th November, Mumbai attacks.
Let me give few cases to convey my message
Case A
Consider a remote town in South Africa in the mid 1980's when Apartheid was the norm in the land. A white kid in those times would have been told to be proud of being a WHITE. He/she is superior than a black kid because he belongs to a more divine race.
Case B
A group of teenagers in some remote village in Pakistan are recruited by some terrorist outfit whose main aim is to cause harm to any other communities which does not recognize their faith as the undisputed law. These teenagers are trained and constantly reminded of being proud of being a Muslim and a Jihadi.
Case C
Group of soldiers of Israel army are trained to cause maximum damage to any of Israel's neighbors under order. Similarly the Palestinian group are to proud to be Palestinian and oppose foreign oppression.
My question is simple. What difference is there in the ideology of these cases.
i) when a kid is made to feel proud of being a white in South Africa (OR)
ii) when a kid is made to feel proud of being a Muslim in Pakistan (OR)
iii) when a kid is made to feel proud of being a Israeli or Palestinian
People are made to feel proud of a divide under which they fall and have been categorized. I find this disturbing. How different is "Nationalism" stripped out of all the decorations, jewelery and euphemism that surrounds it be any different from "Racism"? Is it not the same about any division asking to be patronized?
Why is the world divided like the way it is? May be men are attracted to power and money. Men need to have a sphere of influence. When some elements want to gain more power, and to protect their sphere of influence, they engineer/promote a divide. For example division based on faith, language, state, race etc are engineered to satisfy only a handful of people who gain power, recognition and may be money out of it. Kids are easily influenced by the surrounding and so are easy targets. If a conducive environment to propagate this kind of partisan feeling are established, any kid groomed in that kind of environment would would certainly believe what is told.
State, religious outfits, political parties want to establish and maintain this divide to exist and thrive. I am not saying we should turn a blind-eye to all these divisions. A black kid is black and a white kid is white, because there is a division in race through natural cause. Why should the community recognize this division? A Muslim is different from Christian who is different from a Hindu only on the basis of faith. Why should there be a need for a political party based on faith/race/language/caste? On one had we say that all races are equal. But on the other hand we are made to be feel proud of our mother country. Isn't this contradictory? Why should I feel proud to be an Indian? Why can't I just feel proud to be what I am as a person and nothing more?
Why is the world not Ideal? I wonder if it ever was (ideal) and it can ever be...
It takes an innovation to make a difference in the world. Many corporate gaints come out of disaster because of an innovation. Mustang for Ford and Pulsar for Bajaj were life savers.
Similarly cinema industry has seen many films made from time to time which had caught public imagination there by becoming part of a rich cinema history. But are these path breaking films really innovative? Typically in Indian context, a film is defined by its Hero. Likes of Amithabh's dialogues, Ranjini's style, Hritik's moves has been the USP for films in many era.
Viewed from a broader perspective, Indian audience love their cine heroes and the villains are equally disliked. Kids remember Rajini as Baasha but how many would revere Raghuvaran as Mark Antony. It goes without saying that hero worship has been a part of the semantics of word "Entertainment" in India. Annals of cinema history would reveal many actors who have determined a films success in box office relying on their popularity and a huge fan base. If movie industry is to be personified, it might just say
"Heroes may come, Heroes may go
But I go on for ever because of them."
Such is the effect of heroes on the success and failures of projects of Indian film industry.
Why should only heroes are acclaimed most of the time? The role of anti-hero is not very popular among audience. But why aren't the actors playing anti-hero as popular as their counterparts?
It may be because of Hero is the Last Man Standing. The villain may have an army of hit-men, an over-flowing inventory of all the gadgets and weapons (which even Osama Bin-Laden would love to possess), but he is still not worshiped. In contrast the hero born in a poor hapless family struggles in life and in the end defeats the villain against odds like one in a trillion is adored. Reason is villain typically is beaten in the end and our hero will be named the crowned champion as always. Public loves underdogs. And if the underdog is made to look like a normal middle-class public, its become a irresitable combination.
It may also be because it always the Hero who gets the girl. Though the villain has many girls to satisfy his carnal itches, only the hero will have a soul-mate. The hero gets to sing songs in the rain, endure group dances that the heroin would demand but hey, he gets his girl. Almost all the famous love songs portray the hero. I can't think of a single famous love song for villain and his mistress. Whenever villain is portrayed, the back ground music is switched to an ultra pitched devil of a noise. But when hero woes his girl, industry has produced some wonderful songs. In the end hero saves the girl from the evil clutches of the villain, but the villain loses his power, dignity and mistress in a swoop of 10 odd minutes climax. The writers are not generous enough to make the villain rot in hell but in the company of his mistress.
The entire genre of "Goodguy-beats-Badguy" films or stories essentially portray the good nature of the hero and bad nature of the villain in an emphatic way. But has the good nature of villains has ever been discovered by a typical movie audience. Ravana in Ramayana is a ulitmate bad-ass. He is abominable with his 10 heads. Did anyone observed that Ravana was as wise as person as to be described as a person with intelligence of 10 people? He could have been master of 10 different fields. But no, the audience want to watch a Ravana with 10 heads.
Isn't there space in the story for a villain to retain his self-dignity? There are legendary villains like Gabbar in Sholay, Mogambo in Mr.India. But they have to run like a beaten mice in the end. Atleast Ravana in Ramayana had the dignity. He says to Rama before dying "Rama, whenever people remember you, they will remember me". Only handful of villains enjoy getting their ass kicked with dignity.
It all makes me wonder, is the Indian audience atrocious in its demands or are they deliberately manipulated by the industry to shape their taste of entertainment? Why doesn't audience get to see a more good-looking, very intelligent anti-hero? The greater the villain's acumen, the sharper his plot the hero who eventually will have to rise all the more higher in stature to overcome him.
Agreed that hero has to take care of his family, pay fee of his siblings education, struggle in life and does not lose hope when broke. But isn't it odd for a hero to have a family and villain to be a loner? Even if villains do have family, why should their children be side-kick villains?
In all likelihood, the actors playing villain would get lesser paycheck than his counterpart. The audience should make judgment of a movie based on performances of its various elements, rather than just dumb hero-worship. I find some movies which were box-office hit (especially some Tamil movies and SRK movies), based purely on the heroes popularity. Movie industry like any other industry had become a money squandering industry. Profit is the decision maker. Lot of questions have been asked in this posts. Questions for which we all know the ready made answers to. The general public will always be served with the same desert with different toppings. Its left to the audience to decide what they want to eat. Its like Henry Ford saying
"Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black"
In a country where movie industry has a profound impact on its political history, where the next Chief Minister could easily have come from movie industry, shouldn't the audience be more aware and sound in its judgment? For all its history, only heroes have become popular. Wouldn't a corrupt politician use this to his advantage and pull-up a popular hero to canvass for him? Would any politician ever call villains to canvass for him? How easy is it to use this Hero-Villain divide to move mass popularity?
When will the audience judge their villains based on the performance? I would love to see the day when an anti-hero actor gets paid more than his adversary mainly because of his performance. Or an anti-hero actor becomes the next Chief Minister, based on just one criteria. He should be a good leader. That would mean that the public understands the real definition of a hero.
