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Quantum of Immateriality


A common theme in Asterix comics, is the philosophical pronouncements of Roman legionaries after a good round thumping from cheeky Gauls - Usually pictured with candles around their heads, some skinny legionary can be heard complaining - “Join up, they said! It’s a man’s life, they said!“  I, suddenly, feel the same way about knowledge - “Keep learning they said! There’s no end to knowledge they said“. Well, whoever they were, they were downright wrong! Turns out that knowledge today does have an end. And herein lies a new theory and I call it Jim’s Unsearchability Principle and it goes thus:

(Drumroll and sounds of Trumpet, and while we are at it why not some birds chirping and angels singing also yaar!!!)

And now the theory:

Quatum of human knowledge is today restricted to the  search results page of a  web-search engine like google or yahoo. If the result doesn’t show up what you are looking for, well it doesn’t exist; pretty much like the name of Geriatrix’s wife, it just doesn’t exist“.

So what might it be that has put me in this  advanced state of mind? Well I was turning the good ol’ net upside down trying to find out when can an overhead variance be called material and when immaterial. I came up with zillions of pages expounding on how to dispose a immaterial variance by adding or subtracting from COGS or when it is material how it has to be prorated over a bunch of weird looking numbers, so on and so forth. But on when can I safely call a variance immaterial - Zero, Zilch. So I conclude that this funda doesn’t exist within the realm of normal human knowledge and must require supernatural powers. CAs of the world probably use some black magic to point at an assorted collections of variances and say majestically to some poor variance - I proclaim thee, O insignificant overhead variance, that thou art immaterial. Go and spend your life meditating on thy immateriality. With same arbitrariness perhaps they would point to a more lucky one and  say “Thee with a orange colored Direct Labor Cost figure - I like thee - so from hereonforth thou shalt be material.”

Has to be that, for I am yet to see a science here.


Posted in Philosophy.



6 Responses

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  1. ThoughtWorks says

    Heard of the Paradox of Heaps? Immateriality of variance is a paradox somewhere similar except that it works in the opposite direction - In paradox of heaps, we reach the paradox by subtraction and in immateriality of variances, we reach there by addition..! I mean seriously, if you don”t trust me, ask Ramalinga Raju.. how material variance got built up from immaterial variances! ;-)

  2. KB says

    Oh Lord, where were Thee before the Internet Came?

  3. ice candy says

    hahaha, actually i disagree, this theory is applicable only if one is totally dependent on internet for knowledge

  4. bidisha says

    :)))))))))))))))))))))))))) … thoroughly enjoyed !!!!

  5. kim agrawal says

    Ek chintanpurn abhivyakti di hai aapane,badhai…………….kim.

  6. parthasarathi basu says

    Variance with what standard or budget? Its not a light weight staff …. a special recipe of Philosophy, accounting, management account and financial analysis! Good posting with dangerous combination!