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Sankara's monism is a form of Hindu philosophy. In fact, it is one of the most popular ones. It emerges in the Hindu Scriptures and was developed by the Hindu philosopher and theologian Sankara in the 8th century. Sankara, it has been argued, made the theory cogent and intelligible, consistent with other scriptural claims and even used it as a tool in an attempt to try and convert recalcitrant Buddhists.

Briefly, Sankara's monism, or Advaita as it is called, says that there is no distinction between mind and body, and besides, that there is only one mind in the universe. This non-dual mind is identified with our Self, which is our thinking soul, and also with god. Everything else, including your and my individuality, is an illusion, called Maya, in this mind due to its intrinsic ignorance about the nature of things. There need be no cause for ignorance, Sankara argues, as it occurs naturally. Only wisdom needs to be explained. Thus there is no need to posit any further entities to back this ontological thesis.

Now, post-vedic Hindu scriptures contain ample references also to the doctrine of karmic rebirth.¹ That is, every being is caught in an unending cycle of births and deaths. As you sow, so you shall reap. Thus, our "sins"² will eventually catch up with us causing us (our souls) to be reborn in our next lives and eventually (after an infinite time) experience exactly what it is we did to other creatures in this and our previous lives. This has been proposed by some as the Hindu solution to the problem of evil. A very simplistic interpretation of this doctrine (folk-rendition) says that if you kill a butterfly in this life, then you will be reborn as a butterfly in one of your future lives during which this butterfly will be born as a human who will kill you, thus evening things out in the final reckoning.

As a young boy in India walking to his school, I used to wonder how drivers could tell if they were on a one-way street. It was ok for vehicles trying to enter the street from the wrong end --- A no-entry sign will prevent them from getting in. But that is not enough, of course. Vehicles coming in from the other side need to be told that they are entering a one-way street too. What if a vehicle on a one-way street suddenly wanted to turn around and go back? But in the city where I come from, the transport department must have wisely decided to save money by relying on people's observational skills. There were no signs at the entrances to one-way streets. There were only ``No-entry'' signs at their exits. I guess it makes sense because the traffic was usually so dense that you can tell one-way streets by just looking at them. There was no chance of traffic ever making it an inch ahead in the wrong direction. However, there is a fine line between impossible and illegal and that is precisely what I set out to exploit. I decided to expose the loophole in the legal system by showing that I couldn't be prosecuted by law although I had done something obviously illegal.

Way to go!

In Tokyo, Katsuo Katugoru, a commuter, caused havoc in a crowded tube train when his inflatable underpants suddenly and unexpectedly went off. The rubber underwear was made by Katsuo himself. He designed it like a car airbag to inflate to 30 times their original size in the event of a tidal wave.

``I am terrified of water, and death by drowning is my greatest fear'' said Katsuo, 48. ``Unfortunately I set them off accidentally while looking for a boiled sweet. They were crushing everybody in the carriage until another passenger stabbed them with a pencil.''

Some of us go to great lengths to ensure that we don't die in particular ways that we deem especially unpleasant. Like Katsuo in the commuter train incident, we may take pains to ensure that we don't, for example, die by drowning. Some others, like LeFrevier below, will spare no effort in making sure that we do die in particular ways of our choosing.

In France, Jacques LeFevrier left nothing to chance when he decided to commit suicide. He stood at the edge of a tall cliff and tied a noose around his neck. He tied the other end of the rope to a large rock. He drank some poison and set fire to his clothes. He even tried to shoot himself at the last moment. Just as he jumped, he fired the pistol. Unfortunately, The bullet missed him completely and cut through the rope above him. Free of the threat of hanging, he plunged into the sea. The sudden dunking in the water extinguished the flames and the shock made him vomit the poison. A kind fisherman dragged him out of the water and took him to a hospital where, however, he died of hypothermia.

It seems Ken Thompson, one of the people who wrote Unix, was asked what he thought of the date-rollover problem in Unix (In the year 2038, the Unix date value wraps around to 0). His reply was that he didn't care as he was going to be dead by then. A speaker at the UniForum NZ 97 conference at Rotorua quoted this anecdote. When I mentioned this to a friend, he said that this speaks a great deal for Unix since the questioner implicitly assumed that Unix was still going to be around in 2038. Well is it? Is it worthwhile learning Unix skills and still be employable in the decades to come?