Have You Ever Wondered?

You’re totally entralled in the football match. Your hand is sweating from just holding on to your packet of Twisties. Mind you, the bag hasn’t been opened yet. You haven’t had time. Nothing is going to take your eyes off the pitch. Roberto Baggio has had 12 shots on goal, and yet a single Klinsmann goal is all that separates the sides. For now, that is. By some miracle the Italians, for all their dominance, have not scored yet this half. But surely that’s going to change now. It’s the final minute of the half, and Matthias Sammer has just brought down Baggio in the box, and Baggio is planning on taking the penalty himself. He calmly places the ball on the white dot on the green background of the pitch. He walks back a few paces. He takes a long deep breath, and the whisper of his sigh can be felt all around the stadium. He looks up at the goalie, who just stares back with dissent. A visible shiver passes down the spine of poor Baggio. It’s not, of course, the goalie that’s worrying him, its the twenty thousand Germans just behind the goalie that are just putting him off slightly. Baggio takes a look around, not wanting to forget to pay due attention to the other sixty thousand Germans around the stadium.
By this time then, Kahn, the German goalie, had seemed to double in size. Strangely, the goal  seems to be getting smaller by the minute as well. Baggio had better take the penalty before Kahn outgrows the goal. He takes a quick stride forward, strikes the ball as hard as possible towards the goal, but unfortunately for the Italians, straight to Kahn as well. The ball balloons away and the crowd goes insane. You are jumping off your seat and are thankful you haven’t opened that packet of chips. The referee blows the whistle for half time.
You sit back in your seat, trying to take it all in. Boy that was close! We still lead by one - nil. You try to settle down, to regain some energy for the second half. You look at your friends on your sides, and the extended family of your fellow fans all around you. Everyone is patting each other on the shoulder. Well done Germany!
Next thing you know, there is a loud roar on your left. By the time you look to your left, the roar moves towards your right, and then dissipates. A few seconds later, the roaring sound starts again on your left. It gets louder and louder and builds up to a climax, and as it feels like the sound is going to consume you, the people on your left stand out, put their hands up in the air and yell ‘Woooooo’. As the sound disappears to your right, your right neighbours stand up too, and start yelling. It’s clear : It’s a Mexican wave.
It’s a great display of eighty thousand people working in unison : they all know what to do, and when to do it. It’s not that hard really. You stand up when the person on your left stands up. But only after a short delay, so to give an impression of a wave going through the stadium. A wave of ecstacy, passion, and tribal emotions.
But, who starts the Mexican wave? Surely it can’t start spontaneously? There is no way this is co-ordinated before hand. There are just too many people involved. You need a large group of people to stand up at the same time, followed by another large group of people, next to the first group, to stand up after a short amount of time. No, surely there is another way.
Perhaps then, its a single person, or a small group who starts it? Possibly, but how can one person be influential enough to move such a large number of fans at the same time? I don’t know, perhaps he has a drum or something. Or some sort of visible cue. Perhaps that’s what those streakers are trying to do.
It must be one of the greatest mysteries of modern times though, because no one has ever seen a Mexican wave ’start’. It always either exists in its glorious dynamic form, or doesn’t exist at all. It never ever stutters, and it hardly ever dies before it gets fully started. And another thing : why do all Mexican waves go the same direction? They always end up counter clockwise (if viewed from above). Why ? WHY ?
You ponder this while eating your chips, but then are interrupted by some stirring on your left. You forget the question, and are just thankful you are part of it. And you had better get ready. Soon  it will  be your turn to stand up and yell again. Woooooo…..

A nice soft ‘ping’ echoes in the air. It breaks the ackward silence very well. Gravity starts to take hold of your feet again. Everyone stares at the red digits which presides above the door. Finally the number changes into a letter. The letter everyone has been waiting for - G. The aluminium door opens, such that the image you now see in front of you is not your shapely figure you previous saw in the reflection, but some random human being outside. The door slides open, and in anticipation of the full retraction of the doors, everyone shifts their weight into full throttle mode. The doors are finally open after what seemed an eternity of looking at the floor and holding your breath (amongst other sources of air). The moment of truth finally arrives! - but then no one moves. It’s only for a split second. Your right foot is in front of your left foot in preparation, and so is everyone else’s feet, yet, there is a sense of mild confusion. Who should exit the lift first? Which order should we exit the lift?

Surely the easy answer is : In the reverse order that you came into the lift. But that’s not easy. In the time it took coming from floor 20 to G, the lift has stopped a number of times, and people have been coming in and out. Places have been reshuffled, some have formed a nice ‘crystal lattice’ molecule like structure where people are organised in zig-zags. Some are facing the door, some are facing the walls. Some have one foot planted behind the guy in the corner, who, ultimately, knows he will end up last no matter what.

So what’s the big deal? The person nearest the door should exit first. Uh huh. Yup. What happens if there are TWO people at the same distance from the door? Or, what happens if everyone has stuck themselves to the walls, with no one ‘floating’ in the middle? Who exits first? The guys at the side are closer to the door, but the guys at the back have the best line of sight. They can just walk straight out without turning.

Perhaps the ‘women and children’ first rule should be applied then? Oh no. There is even greater room for confusion then. The lady with the kid and shopping cart - should we let her go first, because she has the greatest load to deal with, or should the rest of us go first, leaving her with enough space to get out of there? No no, too many ifs.

I know the answer : The fastest wins. The person who moved towards the entrance first gets to go first. Yup, we are getting closer here. The person who shows intent on getting out first should have the right of way. This intent can be shown floors in advance - leading to a nice pecking order of who should go out first.

So, the general methodology of setting a nice order of who should exit the lift first is as follows:

Firstly, the person closest to the door exits first. Duh. In the event of a tie, the person who gets into gear first, wins. The person in front can’t see the people at the back, so, he doesn’t care what they do of how much intent they show. They will need to wait. Once the main front dudes are out, the pecking order system is in play. Dudes that are facing the wrong way are weighted negatively, or penalised, so that even if they moved early, they still fall down the pecking order. Once the main body of people are out, its left with the wall-clingers to fight amongst themselves. Its hard for them to judge the pecking order, since they can’t see who moved first. It’s then the case of who is closest to the door the earliest wins. In the event of a tie, we do a countback - whoever came into the lift first exits last. And then, finally, its the dudes at the corner who exit, usually fighting the now annoyed group of people outside waiting to come in. But we’ll have the last laugh, because we know they are going to have to go thru all of this all around again.

Ah, smokers, the bane of human world. Why do they exist? They are like cockroaches, everyone hates them but we still can’t seem to get rid of them, no matter how hard we try. I wonder, why do people want to try smoking in the first place? You see, existing smokers give out a very clear signal to others, an aura you may call it. A cigarette in the hand says a lot about that person. It says :

1. I am stupid for continually putting stuff into my body, stuff that’s obviously bad for me.
2. I am selfish because I don’t give a crap that my cigarette is not only polluting the environment that every single living creature on this earth has to live in, but also poisoning the other 20 people in this bus.
3. I am a weak minded buffoon because I cannot say no to smoking even if I wanted to.
4. I was not loved as a child because now I need the attention that smoking so freely brings to me.
5. I have low self esteem because I need to hold a cigarette to feel important.
6. I am a person not generally liked by others (basically a loser), so I need to smoke to feel part of a bigger collective.

Now, with all those messages in mind, which idiot will still want to try that first cigarette?

No, not rulers of a nation, but the kind you put on the ground to measure distances, or the kind you draw out of your pocket, make neon sounds and yell to your friend, the time has come for you to die young Pada-Wan!

Anyway I’ll get straight to the point (what a brilliant pun!) : I have always wondered, how did humans create the first rulers? How did they draw straight lines back in the caveman days? Or back when they were building the pyramids. How?? Surely to make a straight ruler you will first need a straight ruler?

Furthermore, in modern times, how do you create more accurate rulers? To build an accurate ruler you will need accurate manufacturing tools, which, you guessed it, require accurate measurement equipment, AKA rulers. Besides, once you have created your accurate ruler, how will you know its accurate without measuring it? But how will you measure it accurately enough without an accurate ruler?

It’s the modern day chicken and egg I tell you.

But, seriously, if I had to guess, I bet the early rulers were created from strings in tension, while modern super accurate rulers are created by coaxing atoms to align themselves in a straight line.

If that fails, I’ll give a call to rock stars. After all, they’ve had plenty of practice drawing straight lines…

From time to time I tend to come up with questions out of the blue. Some of these questions I have answers to, some I don’t. Some may not even have answers. Some of these questions are downright silly, others are controversial. Some will inspire, others make us laugh. The best , I like to think, are all these things.

Here, without trying to sound like a script from an Academy Award show, I will attempt to share these questions with you.

And if you have the answers to these questions, feel free to let me know! And yes, I have tried google-ing the questions but to no avail!