Open Quote

"Look before you leap
Dare to make mistakes
Listen to your calm soothing inner voice
Live out loud
Love who you are
We are MadMag and we love it"

Prologue

Welcome back to the all new issue of MadMag.

Thank you for visiting this Mad Magazine and we hope we could provide a mad reading experience that you will cherish.

Since you are done with the open quote, it is mandatory to go till the close quote. We have made it as readable as possible.

Does equality exist in this competitive world? Macha tries to argue. Find out.
We present you a new section MadMag Recommends. We take a Mad's eye view of everything and rest assured we recommend only the best.

Happy Madding

~ Praveen

Equality is (not) a myth

e·qual·i·ty /?'kw?l?ti/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[i-kwol-i-tee] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun, plural -ties.
1. the state or quality of being equal; correspondence in quantity, degree, value, rank, or ability. 2. uniform character, as of motion or surface.
3. Mathematics. a statement that two quantities are equal; equation.

The intent and purpose of this article as the name suggests is to show that equality is not a myth.

Equality - The most amazing human ideal on paper. Since time immemorial, man has always strived to stamp his authority and superiority at everything. All human efforts in history have been to prove time and again that they deserve the bigger of the two equal halves.In a world where 1 American life is more important than a thousand Iraqi lives, where colonialization shaped the world, where Aborigines were treated as fauna and flora till recently, where human races have thrived in competition and supremacy (or gone extinct!), humans try to preach the great ideal - Equality.

Before getting into anything, what does equality mean? equality of what? for what? IS it a state of mind? Is it a process of progress towards the ideal human dream? Did i say "towards"? But isn't it true that competition, exams, interviews, elections and all such stuff exist to prove that all are not equal? So are we striving to move towards or away from it, thus making it more unattainable? Honestly, should we really try to attain it? Is it in our best interests and is it in human nature that equality should exist? Should everyone make efforts to establish equality everywhere? If so, when their effort levels might be inequal, when their involvement, intent and belief in equality might be inequal, the results of their efforts towards equality will turn out to be inequal thus rendering the resultant equality inequal.(is it confusing!!).

My thesaurus says that the opposite of equality is practical reality.

Lets face it. Equality does not and should not be practiced for everyone's best interests. Either its you or someone else. Either you put up or shut up. The world is such. Either you kick ass or someone else will. Bring out the killer instinct in you and fight or else the world will make a mince meat out of you and have you for lunch.

Oh wait wait wait.....Isnt this online magazine a public forum where people are brainwashed to be diplomatic and politically correct. Ok then...

Lets all shout in chorus "Equality is not a myth. Hail equality".
Wait. I didnt hear all of you... your voices are not equal!!.

~ Da Macha

MadMag Recommends

Welcome to the new series "MadMag Recommends". The first edition of this section brings you

The author's motto "My principal activity is to tease those who take themselves and the quality of their knowledge too seriously"

The book "Fooled by randomness" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb belongs to the genre of books that trivialise the important to drive home the point. His other book "The Black Swan: The impact of the improbable" belongs to the same category. Fooled by Randomness is one of the smartest and the maddest book i have read recently.

Let me tell you in advance that the book is quite abstract and that is what makes this book fun to read. It moves at a very slow pace because it makes you think a lot. What clicks is the author's approach towards the topic. Basically the author has gone mad.
If you haven't understood Probability all these years, this book is for you. It explores the concept of probability in a completely qualitative manner which might seem a bit bizarre.
This book is especially important for the finance guys who think the stock market moves as per their so called stock analysis.

Just a customary glance at the contents will get you hooked. Have a look at the following chapter titles
1. Randomness,Nonsense and the scientific intellectual
2. Survival of the least fit - Can evolution be fooled by Randomness
3. Monkeys on typewriters:It depends on the number of monkeys
4. Losers take all: On the nonlinearities of life

If the chapter titles are any indication, the book will make you sit up and look at life differently.

For its Mad intelligence, subject matter, approach and its ability to provide the reader a completely diferent outlook towards the world, MadMag recommends "Fooled by Randomness". Basically, it kicks ass.


~ Da Macha

This Day That Age

What was MadMag upto Last Year?????

November 2006 was an exciting month for MadMag with upto 5 authors contributing with their articles and poems.Take a look at some of them.

On a holiday - Rahul Pillai
A semester gone by - Richa
Imagine there is no heaven - Da Macha

Close Quote

"A Master is more dependant on the slave that the slave on his master"
Implication: India got freedom from Britain but Britain got independance from India