the possible as possible and the impossible as impossible
the results of actions (kammas) undertaken, past, present, and future, with ssibilities and with causes
the ways leading to all destinations (all the states of existence and nibbana)
the world with its many and different elements
how beings have different inclinations
the disposition of the faculty of other beings, other persons
the defilement, the cleaning and the emergence of the jhanas, liberations, concentrations, and attainments
Pu-Di-Ah (three kinds of “special” knowledge)
Recollecting His manifold past lives
With the divine eye seeing the beings passing away and reappearing, inferior and superior, fair and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate (understanding how beings pass on according to kammas)
By realizing for Himself with direct knowledge, here and now entering upon and abiding in the deliverance of mind and deliverance of wisdom that are taintless with the destruction of the taints
Zero has no value when it stands by itself. When a zero is placed to the right of a number, it increases the value N-fold (where N, say 10, is the Base or Radix of the Number System.
10 (Ten)
Ten stands for the number of fingers on our hands. It is used as the Base of the Decimal Number System. 10/10 (Ten out of Ten) is a perfect score in some contests (e.g. gymnastics, diving).
20 (Twenty)
Twenty is known as a “Score”. Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address starts with “Four scores and seven years ago”. In French and Pali, the number 80 is expressed as four 20s (instead of eight tens). A card name is known as Vingt-e-un (Twenty One).
Per Dr. Kyaw Tint] : Maybe because we have 10 fingers and 10 toes, altogether adding up to score.
60 (Sixty)
Sixty has many factors : 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30 … It is used as a Base for Time and Angles. e.g 1 minute = 60 seconds 1 hour = 60 minutes
Powers of 2
Two is used as a Base for the Binary Number System. Digital computers extensively use the system.
Four, Eight and Sixteen are used as Bases (in Computer Science).
In the early days, it was expensive to store and/or transmit data (e.g. text, sound, picture) in raw form.
Compression techniques were developed and used to reduce the size of the data.
“Lossless Compression” requires that the original data can be recovered without any loss.
“Lossy Compression” techniques are used to reduce the size of the data as much as possible (e.g. by stripping off minor details). The original data cannot be recovered fully. The recovered data would have some loss (e.g. in quality).
Messages
Telegraph messages (and subsequently SMS messages) have limits on the number of words (or characters). So, it makes sense to compress a message by
leaving out some letters in a word
combining words into a phrase
using abbreviations and acronyms.
For example, the following were first used by the military to report situations: SNAFU (Situation Normal. All Fouled Up.) FUBAR (Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition)
Examples of Data Compression
Run Length Encoding (RLE) is a simple and straight forward way to encode characters. A string of repeated characters can be represented by a pair (Character, Number of consecutive occurrences).
JPEG and MPEG (e.g. MP3, MP4) are commonly used to compress video and audio files.
Sadly, compression of Burmese words — for smart phones and messaging — had been taken to such an extreme that some no longer know or care about the correct spelling and usage.
U Khin Maung Zaw (KMZ) wrote: Our good friend Htay Lwin Nyo (EP74, UCC – GBNF), told me when I met him after he moved to SJSU, San Jose State University, that he made some killings either selling or licensing the data compression algorithm. Neither did he elaborate nor did I ask him more details at the time.
Couple of most sensitive data categorization are ‘Top Secret Ultra’ and SCI, ‘Sensitive Compartmented Information’ as defined in government/intelligent services.
In the business world, one of the most critical category is PII, Personally Identifiable Information. According to the NIST, National Institute of Standards and Technology, listed quite a few data as PII and possible PII, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personally_identifiable_information.
People should be careful not to expose his/her as well as anyone’s PII data on Social Media.
In our younger days, Opal was a decent car. But, when one jokingly calls someone “Opal” (or “O Pei“), then one is obsolete (good to be ignored for getting old).
There is T.O. (Technical Obsolescence). Some artifacts can be found only in museums, antique fairs (by die-hard collectors).
Some technologies are disruptive. Many automobile workers lost their jobs when robotics gradually displaced them. Those, who did not have alternate skills, were hit hard. Secretaries (experts in shorthand and typing) found that their skills have been marginalized by the word processors, voice-activated systems and similar advanced tools.
On the flip side, I would not have a reasonably good memory and a hobby of “connecting the dots” of seemingly diverse topics if I had early access to the wonderful world of Internet, AI, and Gaming. Slates, Chalk & Talk, Logarithm tables, Slide rules, Multiplication tables (up to 16), Grammar books, Pronouncing Dictionaries, and most now hard-to-find artifacts trained us to remember (not rote learning per se, but using visualization and tricks).
Many people thought that I am either “brain damaged” or have an “unusual brain”. One said, “You can write backwards faster than most of us can write forward”.
A few were not impressed. A professor said, “You cannot earn money by being an expert in History in general, and History of Computing in particular.” A manager said, “What is the use of knowing the Trivia (e.g. hobbies, awards) of your fellow workers?”
T.O. required me to unlearn some old skills, and to learn new “latest and the greatest” skills.
For me, it’s easy to remember and too hard to forget. I know thousands of names. After procrastinating for several decades, I had a wake up call to dump my Trivia. I have posted 3000+ articles and 220+ videos in the past few years. There will be few Oldies who remember and appreciate the good old days before the T.O.
“Raw data” is processed to transform it into information.
The processes typically include
validation / verification
collection
organization
analysis
summary
presentation
Technical papers are subject to reviews.
On the contrary, there are
misinformation
disinformation
fake news
deep fake videos
unreliable reports
rumors which can spread like viruses on the Internet and the Social Media.
Red Ribbon Campaigns are not effective against authorities who do not treasure Metta (Unbounded love), Karuna (Compassion) and Mudita (Altruistic Joy).
Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) is much more effective, but it requires the participants not to get distracted by fake news and false hopes.
HlaMin 