Inventions S2E01: Alfred Wallace Moment

Definition:

An Alfred Wallace Moment is when you come up with an interesting original idea and share it with the world when someone points out that a similar thing has already been said by someone who is more popular and suddenly you look like an asshole who stole someone’s idea (or worse a tweet) for no fault of yours!

A bit of History:

When I say Theory of Evolution, who is the first person who comes to your mind? Charles Darwin? See that is the problem. Alfred Wallace, a contemporary of Darwin, has independently come up with the same thing around the same time. Yet Darwin got all the credit (and all the heat) solely because Darwin had a Victorian age equivalent of having more Twitter followers compared to our poor Al (Alfred, I call him Al) Wallace. 

This is not a one-off incident. History is full of Alfred Wallace characters if you look carefully. Engels and Marx both came up with the whole communism thing together whereas it is now known as Marxism (In Marx’s defense, Engelsism doesn’t sound like something you want to try, does it?)

In Twitter-speak:

An Alfred Wallace Moment happens when you think of something very funny and make that wisecrack on a trending topic on Twitter only to realize that someone has already tweeted some variation of the same thing and then your fellow tweeple will suspect you of plagiarism and you drown in shame.

How to deal with it?

It can be quite a delicate situation. It happened to me a few times, most notably with this gultrage comic and it happened to Flawsophy too!

When you face these kinds of Alfred Wallace Situations, immediately go into damage control mode. Remember, the onus is on you to convince your followers that you’re not a loser who steals other people’s tweets!

Bonus

Kashi Yatra

My new post published in The NRI... Check it out.

Kashi Yatra

Bike

In case you have trouble visualizing Newton's argument, this is what Newton meant by "hands acting as a natural suspension drastically reducing the contact area"

P.S:
Aristotle and Plato sketch by delboysb91
Newton's caricature taken from http://bit.ly/9ZscX
The Telugu comic by Bnim: http://www.telugucartoon.com/bnim.php 

Same to you

Thank you. Same to you

It is that time of the year when everyone wishes me a Happy New Year. And my most usual response for their good intentions is a nod of acknowledgement. If I am in a fairly good mood, which I usually am in, then I may even add an assertive “okay!” to go with the acknowledging nod.

You see, “Thank you, same to you!” doesn’t come naturally to me. I have to make an effort to remember to wish them back after having received the other person’s best wishes. And you know how I feel about work! 

Isn’t it interesting that there is no such thing as selfless Happy New Year wishes? People always expect you to wish them back soon after they wish you. If you don’t wish them back, they even go to the extent of prolonging the small talk till you utter something like “Wish you the same”.

It is almost as if the only reason they wish you is to get wished back which makes me think that at a deep level. As if all they are interested in is accumulating as many wishes for themselves as possible and in order to achieve that, they are willing to do anything – even smile at a stranger in the elevator! Now are you really comfortable being used like that?

The Timing

When it comes to wishing, I have been told that the timing is just as important as the wishes themselves. I partly agree with that because it makes no sense to wish someone Happy Birthday in July when her birthday actually falls in March! I am with you on that.

But a lot of people take it too far. They strive to achieve poetry through a phone call. You know like

As the clock strikes the midnight hour

I want to wish you a happy whatever

Where whatever can be a birthday, an anniversary or New Year! 

For birthdays, I can give you that. After all, it just lasts for… a day during whcih they’d probably be busy with the birthday party etc. if they are normal people (or busy practicing to sit with their bottoms at a 45 degree angle if they are engineering students) but midnight wishes for a new year? What is the hurry there? Don’t you have like A YEAR?

In an ideal world, the last date for submitting New Year Resolutions and making New Year wishes should  at least be March 15th!

But unfortunately we don't live in that world!

P.S: I have been quite grinchy this New Year's eve: http://on.fb.me/rMuJ1U