Saturday, October 19, 2013

Meet the Avengers

A stunning exposé on the Avengers story that reveals how it all began as a technology project...

Nick Fury was just a nanosecond away from winning the game on his motion-controlled console when a holographic message popped up in thin air, filling the room with glowing letters and startling him. 'Go for SHIELD' it said. In an instant, it dawned on him - S.H.I.E.L.D, or Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate. It was now up to him to bring together all the members and get the team ready for action.

Nick would have loved to try out the Xbox, but an ambush marketing clause forbade him from trying out anything prefixed with X as another legion of superheroes had appropriated it. Suddenly a news item popped up on his crystal cube. A car had sprayed an invisible liquid called SmartWater - an odourless chemical with long-lasting effects - on a thief who stole a laptop and other items from it. And when he was exposed to ultraviolet light, he turned green under the glow. "I've found my Hulk," Nick whooped. But ‘Hulk becomes eco-friendly under UV light’ sounded wimpish - it had to be more dramatic. 'Hulk turns green when he gets outrageously angry' would be a more exciting way of putting it.

Nick then opened Google to further his search. A news item about the search engine giant caught his eye. In the mid-80s, Hewlett Packard had developed proprietary software which would serve as an Optical Character Recognition engine, but post-2006, Google had begun funding the project. The project’s name made Nick sit up - it was Tesseract, considered by many as the source of unlimited power! If he found the man behind Tesseract, he would find Captain America, for it was he who had battled Hitler's armies to stop it from falling into the wrong hands.

Nick then checked out for the weekly leaks, more popularly known as Wiki Leaks, to figure out if he could lay his hands on some confidential information. He stumbled upon TALOS - Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit, a miracle of modern technology that gave the US Army a suit that was not only bulletproof, but could also heal wounds. Besides, it would fire weapons, have GPS and contain magnetorheological fluids that would become solid when they come in contact with electric and magnetic fields. And of course, night vision, oxygen supply, temperature control and advanced communication systems were part of standard equipment. 'Just add Augmented Reality or Google Glass and this will give the wearer superhuman strength', Nick rubbed his hands in glee. His Iron Man was ready for combat.

Hawk Eye was pulled out of a game of cricket and the Black Widow, from an Animal Planet shoot. Now, Nick needed just one more member. He didn't have to look too hard. A giant with long hair and a weird helmet strode past, effortlessly carrying a hammer over his shoulder. "Are you after Loki?" Nick asked eagerly. "No, I’m just part of a low-key maintenance project, from the PWD," came the reply. "You'll do," said Nick excitedly. Thor was found and the entire team of S.H.I.E.L.D had been assembled.

Then came the second message. 'Check out Batman – Arkham City’. Nick was stumped. He had just assembled the entire team and now they wanted Batman? "How is he a part of S.H.I.E.L.D?” he vented his fury. "The Nvidia Shield, you idiot,” came the response. “Since you were a gaming freak, thought we’d suggest the Shield – a gaming device from Nvidia.”


Nick's face fell. Now what would he do with this team? He went back to Google again. After some searching, he came across someone named Stan Lee who was looking to create action comic books. He surveyed the battery of technology that he had painstakingly put together. Would all of them now be reduced to entertainment for kids? 'Is this what they mean when they say that technology is for future generations?' he sighed and began writing a long mail to Stan. 

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Who let the frog out?

The fascinating tale of how an ancient Indian folklore changed the way NASA operated.

It's a grandma’s tale about Ram and Shyam that we are all so familiar with. Ram was an honest, hard-working farmer while his neighbour Shyam was a good-for-nothing type who would always laze around in his charpoy, watching Ram toil hard in the fields. Ideally, this story should end with Ram bringing home the fruits of his labour and Shyam cursing himself for having frittered his time away. But that's where NASA stepped in - and the duo’s lives were never the same again.

NASA put out an incredible, too-good-to-be-true offer on various job portals – one that came with a pay of over $5000 a month to anyone who could spend 70 days in bed. The idea was to study the effects of microgravity on supine souls. During this time, the chosen candidates would be allowed to do as they pleased – watch TV, surf the web, read books, play games and even entertain visitors. They could have a bath in bed too. So, while Ram was sweating it out in the fields, Shyam had quietly logged into a job site on his smartphone and applied for the opening. NASA should have given him a wide berth, but looking at his credentials, they gave him a wide bed instead and sent him a terse message – ‘Houston calling Shyam, come in please!’

Ram was shocked. The biggest loser could win only in a reality show for weight loss. It couldn't happen in real life. What would happen to all the moral science lessons in textbooks? What kind of values would children grow up with? Who would extol the virtues of hard work? Ram had done all the hard work – and now, he couldn’t end up becoming the laughing stock of the village.

So he approached NASA and pleaded his case with them. After much deliberation, NASA decided that there was only one way out. The astronauts needed some fresh food that could be grown in space and consumed. Besides, space expeditions were getting longer and it was getting increasingly difficult to carry food for the trip. "What's the best crop to be grown this season?" they asked him. "Lettuce," he replied. "So be it," they said in unison and blasted him into outer space so that he could do some space farming. And that was how Operation Veggie – a vegetable production system that would facilitate nutritious salad crops for the space travellers – began. The system would ensure that the plants were under a constant stream of red and blue light so that they could carry out photosynthesis.

Ram carried everything that he needed for the job - seeds, sample plants, sacks of fertilisers, water hoses and even a tractor. Unfortunately, he had a stowaway on deck. A frog that had gone MIA in a sack of fertiliser managed to extricate itself and tried to jump ship just as the space shuttle was blasting off. And that was the famous photo of the frog that was seen during the launch of NASA’s LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer) spacecraft at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

The story ended with the rabbit on the moon becoming a space raider and searching for lettuce patches in the Milky Way. The frog, after its maiden space voyage, turned into a celebrity and is currently producing and starring in cool Crazy Frog music videos. Ram and Shyam gave up farming and are focusing on their current careers with NASA. However it was not a happy ending for all. NASA, despite turning vegetarian and trying to grow couch potatoes and lettuce, got into trouble with PETA for not having taken permission to send a frog into outer space.


Good Indian folktales always have a moral – this one has two. For oldies, no matter what, technology always pays. And for youngsters, the next time your folks curse you for goofing off, please let them know that you're busy preparing for a career at NASA.