Book Review: Bodies from the Library 5

Bodies from the Library is one of my most favorite series. Each new one is much awaited and instantly bought. 

The stories themselves are great, but the introduction to the author at the end of each story is really well written, and introduces us to some of the other work by the same author.. Which means if we like someone, we can read more of them. 

This compilation, however, does not meet the same high standards. 

Because every single story ever has been stellar, even a 'normal' crime story kind of appears to be falling short. 

Vacancy with corpse, though long, justifies the length. 

The Magnifying Glass by Cyril Hare and The Predestined by Q Patrick are the other stories that stand out. Both stand for natural justice. 

The year and the day by Edmund Crispin is a delightful, intriguing read. 

Murder in Montparnasse has to take the credit for being the most convoluted plot and somehow, magically, it still manages to bore the reader to death.

If you are a Bodies from the Library fan like me, do collect this one. its worth keeping in the library. But if you are just starting out on the genre of Golden Age of Crime Fiction, this is not the right book to start with. Start with Bodies from the Library 1, or the Strand magazine, which, I believe is now free to read somewhere on the internet. 

 

2 more book listings for The Small but Ultimate Book of Online Safety

Hatchards UK: 

https://www.hatchards.co.uk/book/the-small-but-ultimate-book-of-online-safety/nidhi-arora/9798893223002

Waterstones.com: 

https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-small-but-ultimate-book-of-online-safety/nidhi-arora/9798893223002

Behavioural Security

We readily acknowledge that humans are the weakest link in the security chain. 

BUT, people do not want to be conned. NO ONE ever said - Its ok to get conned. What's the issue?  

So, why are they the weakest link? 

I have been thinking about this very deeply. 

In one line, its simply that security has been projected as this esoteric discipline (rocket science) instead of making it a natural everyday thing to do. 

The second is that the approach to security in human behaviour has been directive - Do this, Don't do this, be Scared of this... 

This is never a good approach to take in behavior change. 

Presenting, a new discipline: Behavioural Security - the discpline that focuses on understanding human behaviour and creating models of change that lead to safer behaviour. Much like any other change management. 

Why do we need an entirely new discipline for this? For the simple reason that there is plenty of work to be done. 

I created one video to make it easy to create a complex password that is also easy to remember. And then it hit me - Why do we make it so hard for normal people? You are told to change  your password once a month, to make it Greek and Latin, but no one tells you HOW to do it! 

The education is largely directive, the verbiage fear-inducing rather than supportive. 

But the worst thing is the victim shaming. NO ONE wants to be duped. And yet, after every single episode, the victim is made to feel like a culprit. 

For far too long, companies and governments have focused on the tech side of cyber security - Bounty hunting programs, firewalls and AVs, zero day vulnerability assessments, VAPT... even the OWASP Guides and Top 10 are all tech. They do not focus on human centric security design. It is time to change that.  

So, let's get the work started! Let's research, create experimental models of change, verify those models, and end the era of humans being the weakest link in the chain. We are smart enough to deserve better. 

On victimhood

It just occurred to me that our religions are basically determined by our mindset. We may be born into the same religion, but we will practice it according to our own thoughts and emotional needs. 

For some people, their religion is victimhood. Whatever their birth religion, they will convert it to victimhood. 

I call it a religion bcs religion is basically a way of life. It percolates into every thought, action, and belief. It guides us. For these people, that keyword is victimhood. It is all pervasive -  in their thought, belief, and action. 

These are the signs of a follower of this religion: 

A. It is never their fault. It is always someone else's fault. They may kill someone, but it will be the fault of the victim, the society, or the person who stared at them when they first started assaulting the victim. 

B. They don't need AR. Because they basically live their lives in AR - Alternate Reality and Augmented Reality. In that reality, their own contribution to the world is greatly augmented in their minds and the world's contribution to their lives is greatly altered. 

C. No gratitude - this is the most telling symptom. A perpetual victim feels no gratitude, only a deep sense of being owed. Everyone and everything owes them (Read B above). 

If you find such a person near you, first: 

A. Do not marry them. 

B. Do not hire them if they are expected to be a part of a team. 

C. Do not work with them in the same team. Ever. 

D. Be aware of the level of AR that you want to deal with, and keep the friendship accordingly. 

PS: This is meant to be a funny post rooted in reality. Please don't kill me for the use of the word religion. I have already explained the reason religion has been used. 

On Ramachandra Guha, Romila Thapar, and other deemed historians

 Guha is not a leading Indian historian. He is not even a historian. He has written some books that he and his cabal thinks are history. The rest of us classify them as delirious fiction.

Platform rules

 I have just had a major realisation.

If you want your posts to reach more people:

Things that don’t matter:

Content

Presentation

Time of Posting

Length of post

Use of hashtags

 

Things that do matter:

The pleasure of the platform algo.

 

The posts that went viral were suggested by the platform to readers.

The posts that were ignored were NOT suggested by the platform to readers.

 

That’s it. That’s the epiphany.

******* 

What this means in plainspeak is that since we took our conversations and connections online, we created a layer that can control us - that platform. 

If you are on the old blogger platform, you will see a list of blogs you follow and their posts list, in reverse chronological order. Thats it. There is no filtering, no selection, no recommended posts. I am grateful for that bcs blogger is an old interface and no one wants to touch it at Google. (Thank God!) 

But there isn't a single other platform that brings the same honesty to the table. All other platforms - Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, etc., create an opaque, dense layer of control that determines whose posts we will see and whose we will not. This algo also controls which ads we will be subjected to, and how many. 

Why do we need a Census at all?

 The objective of a Census is 'almost' accurate population count.

But now, we have the Civil Registration System which tells us how many births and deaths there have been. The entire machinery has been tailored to ensure that no birth or death can go unregistered. Succession does not happen without death certificate. School admissions and even Adhar card does not happen without birth certificate.

There will still be cases of unreported or unclaimed deaths, unreported births in remote parts of the country.

So, can we not optimise the usage of national resources by using the CRS data for metros and urban centers, and using the state's Census machinery for remote areas, where there might be lapses in reporting?

What do you think?