Absolutely No one

Facing middle life crisis at the quarter

[Shashi Tharoor @ShashiTharoor]

An Open Letter to the Jantar Mantar protestors:

My dear young friends,

I address you today not as a politician or an MP, but as someone deeply troubled by what is happening to your generation of young Indians.

This is personal for me. I was born to a middle-class family: my father was a salaried newspaper employee, my mother a homemaker, with three children to educate on one income. For a family like ours, merit was not a slogan. Scholarships, fair examinations, honest results — these were the only way one salary could carry three children's dreams.

I went to school in Mumbai and Kolkata, to college here in Delhi, topped the University and earned admission into IIM — and chose instead to follow my passion for international affairs, in America, on a scholarship. Nothing was inherited; everything was earned by hard work and yes, Exams.

So I know that a fair, merit-based system is the only ladder for young people from lower and middle-income families to climb up. When that ladder is broken — papers leaked, examinations cancelled, trust destroyed — the children of the rich and powerful do not suffer. They have other ladders. It is your dreams, and your families' sacrifices (and tragically, in some homes, young lives themselves) that are betrayed.

To the young people gathered at Jantar Mantar, and those raising your voices peacefully across India: this country hears you. Your anger is not indiscipline — it is the anguish of a generation that did everything right and was still betrayed . You are not alone.

And to the millions of young Indians watching quietly: your generation is not a problem to be managed. You are the answer to India's future. Do not lose hope. This ladder will be rebuilt — by you, and by every Indian who stands with you.

To Shri Sonam Wangchuk-ji, my heartfelt appeal: please end your fast. You have awakened the conscience of the nation; that is what a fast is meant to do. India needs your voice for the long road ahead.

With Parliament in session again from Monday, we will have an opportunity to raise the students’ issues in the highest forum of our democracy. That’s where the problem should be addressed, not by fasting unto death. Please heed my plea.

And finally, to the Government: I respectfully urge you to reach out and engage in the dialogue our democracy owes its young citizens. That is not weakness; that is statesmanship.

[Oliver Kahn @OliverKahn]

If we're rewriting football history now, I have a small suggestion:
I'd like FIFA to rescind the yellow card shown to Michael Ballack in the 2002 World Cup semifinal, the one that ruled him out of the final.
And while we're at it, we might as well replay the final against Brazil.

[Joe Morrison @joefooty]

I’m NOT interested in:
- Your World Cup branded beer
- Your special fan screenings
- Shitshow Speed (and the other 50,000 influencers with their free tickets)
- Your ‘must buy’ 4K TV’s
- xG or other stupid stats
- Seeing (or hearing) Infantino

For ONE MONTH only give me STORIES and EMOTION:

[Absolutely No one @superabhi]

@burgerkingindia Not able to DM

[Absolutely No one @superabhi]

Just had a Chicken Whooper meal at @burgerkingindia. Absolute waste of 300 bucks. A cold soggy burger, fries were okay I guess, and a coke float that had more ice than anything. Imagine going hungry after spending this much. Better stick to your local joints.

[Absolutely No one @superabhi]

What is the answer to this AI chatbot madness? Ordered a roll from @Swiggy. It's way too late. I tried to cancel it won't let me. The driver isn't moving, not receiving my call. Chatbot reverts with the same recycled garbage. Ofc you can't go to court for Rs .300. what to do?

[Absolutely No one @superabhi]

@sudhirmehtapune They do this every Sunday. All hope is not lost. All we need is stricter enforcement to catch hold of the idiots without civics sense who spoil it for everybody.

[Absolutely No one @superabhi]

@sudhirmehtapune This morning I was with this commendable lot at Siddeshwar Vruddeshwar. The group was created on Reddit. The youth simply decide a spot. Arrive and start cleaning. There's one guy who distributes gloves and waste bags. 2 hours of cleaning and the place was significantly better.

[em m0shouris @emm0sh]

Dark Factories? Of course you thought there wasn't anyone on the floor. They were hiding in the offices while management pretended to turn the lights on for you.

Let me guess -- you just finished the McKinsey Quarterly deck on lights out factories, and now you think humans are going away because you saw a couple Fanucs feeding pallets into CNC mills while management waxed poetic about the future of manufacturing.

You're going to believe that right up until your first ECN comes through and you have to scrap fifteen hundred fixtures because a twenty three year old design engineer in San Jose wasn't taught in their overpriced engineering university that hard internal corners are stress risers and cause parts to fail in cyclic loading. Then it'll become your problem.

While you're dealing with that, you'll look around and notice that the lights in your "Dark Factory" have been on a lot dealing with these issues. You've had to hire more people than you thought for machine maintenance, and you don't even want to think about the very well lit shipping department in the back. Surprise -- another issue, the well staffed and well paid QC department is saying that half of your parts and assemblies are either OOS or failing ORT. You turn the lights back on.

Then you'll finally open up ASME Y14.5 and really read it this time, and not just skim over it again to figure out why an angularity tolerance isn't measured in degrees and see that the cause of your process capability going to crap was because a process two vendors upstream was slowly coming out of spec.

After that, you'll think you've figured things out and crack open Shigley's to read about Hertzian contact stress and realize that the super hard and expensive unobtanium carbide lathe tooling you forced down your vendor's throat was going to end up adhesive wearing away anyways despite the softer aluminum parts they were cutting because it didn't matter what your hardness differential was. Daddy Bharat Bhushan was always going to get you. You then implement a tool change schedule and then it hits you.

Dark factories aren't happening because dark factories aren't a robotics problem. They aren't even just a manufacturing problem. They're an operational, finance, and everything under the sun problem.

Recursive feedback mechanisms? Sure, pal. The only thing here recursive is this story. If I had a dollar every time I heard it, well, I guess I could afford an actual factory.

[Absolutely No one @superabhi]

@IndiaHistorypic We just had those many flags?

[Rahul Pandita @rahulpandita]

Sometimes sorrows not central to one’s life makes one break down. Montaigne writes of King Psammenitus who remained stoic when his family was paraded after his defeat, but broke down upon seeing one of his household companions among the captives.

[Absolutely No one @superabhi]

@NoContextHumans If this is the last time I see bob...go fuck yourself bob

[Zee @MhaskarChief]

One cloudburst away from becoming Aizawli

[Absolutely No one @superabhi]

@mohit_blogg As someone who has grown up in Goregaon... we're the most posh area ?!🥹🥹

[Absolutely No one @superabhi]

@dukhi_tsunoda I see your Rohan and Kannan...and raise Azeem and Ashish.

[Absolutely No one @superabhi]

@saffrontrail @amazonIN It's not just Amazon, but all the apps. It's keeps sending you back to the mindless FAQs and preset options. After a while you have to decide, it's either consumer court or give up the issue altogether.

[Pastor Kyle. @itsqail]

And to my children I leave 127 open tabs on safari

[gianmarco @GianmarcoSoresi]

My best joke about France

[Cedar You @our_decay]

Does running actually get easier if you do it a lot or is it that you just get more masochistic