Viswanathan K's Thoughts

The Quantum Connection

2012-03-04T18:20:00.002+05:30

I’ve always wanted to introduce quantum mechanics into a blog without boring most people to death. Finally, I have found an opportunity: well OK, it’s a somewhat contrived opportunity, but what the hell…

There’s this testing team guy at work who was asked to work with me and write specifications for the system. I wasn’t sure whether he was unhappy or happy shifting from his original role (testing) to a new role (defining the system). Things were further complicated by the fact that he continued to report to his lead from his old role, and not me.

So even though I wondered whether he liked or disliked the new work, I never asked him because of, well, 2 reasons. The first one was that he reported to the lead from his old role, so technically, keeping track of his happiness was her responsibility. The second reason, a consequence of the first one, was that since he didn’t report to me, what could I possibly do even if he said he didn’t like the new role?

So this guy is like Schrodinger’s cat to me, both happy and unhappy with his role at the same time. Or to paraphrase the quantum quote, “shut up and calculate”, I prefer to “shut up and assign work to him”!

Power: Lessons from Superheroes

2012-03-01T19:23:00.000+05:30

The transformation from a David to a Goliath brings with it a huge number of changes in how one is perceived. Corporations like Apple and Google find themselves now being looked like 800-pound gorillas (which they truly are), not the struggling startups that they once were. And that change in perception reduces the sympathy and simultaneously increases the criticism that they face.

Israel is a country in a somewhat similar situation. Long gone is their underdog status: in fact, they are Top Dog in the Middle East today (actually, for several decades).

The common underlying theme in both of the above cases is power.

There are several superhero quotes that teach one a lot about power, how to deal with it and what it does to the one possessing it. Which is not at all surprising: after all, who has more power than a superhero?

Spiderman’s uncle hit the nail on the head when he said, “With great power comes great responsibility”. Because once you have the power (like He-Man’s “I have the power” line), you are going to be criticized for using it (think America in Iraq, or Russia in Afghanistan) and also for not using it (think how America is criticized for not getting involved in any place where genocide happens, from Yugoslavia to Rwanda).

While all powers undoubtedly deserve some (or much) of the criticism they face, I also feel it also has to do with our tendency to support the underdog and our sadistic desire to tear down whatever is successful or big. A sentiment that was captured well in yet another superhero quote, this time by Gotham City District Attorney Harvey Dent when he told Batman, “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

Changing Professions

2012-02-25T18:20:00.000+05:30

This friend of mine periodically says he wants a break from work, how he wished the company would allow him to go on a sabbatical but sadly, in India, companies don’t yet do that. The root of his feeling is something most of feel at some point or the other: the job sucks.

So if going on a sabbatical is not an option in India, are there any real practical options? Or do we just have to grin and bear it as a way to pay the bills? I found another trail on this topic on Slashdot which seems to confirm what most of us feel.

One guy suggested teaching as an alternative career where you could leverage your area of expertise, “If you have experience on a given subject, coding or otherwise, there is a market for books and teaching.” A recommendation to teach provoked the inevitable response, “He's already demonstrated that he "can", which means he's ineligible to teach.” A pretending-to-be-ignorant wag asked, “Is that a Star Trek reference?”

Another response trail was the just, well, suck it up: “I've seen too many people quit jobs 'on a whim' and screw up their lives (and their family's) permanently. All jobs suck at one level or another. Grow up, suck it up, and keep working. You need to learn to work to live, not live to work.” Another guy felt the married couples did have an option saying, “What kind of advice is that? You'd be surprised how little it costs to get by. And if you're married, you can divide the labor between you two.” Which got dismissed as impractical-unless-you-planned-this-before-you-got-married, “You are correct, but you apparently have no experience in a typical marriage with typical women and children. If you want to live the simple life, you can, but you have to find a wife who also wants to live that way, and raise your children up in that environment from the start.”

One guy backed up the all-jobs-suck line with data, “My brother's a jazz musician. He loves it, but he doesn't make much money and he STILL HAS SHIT TO DEAL WITH. All jobs have shit to deal with. Find one you like that pays well.”

Which pretty much left only the do-something-illegal option, “Spend a tour of duty with the Dark Side.”

The comment on this trail pretty much sums up what most of us conclude when we consider changing professions altogether. Looks like there is no magic bullet to solve the problem. Sad, but true.

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Indian Vampire

2012-02-20T21:22:00.000+05:30

The recent surge of interest in Sherlock Holmes (seen via recent books and movies) reminded me of my own memories about the star detective. When the TV series came on Doordarshan I was too young to understand any of it. Later when I was older, my dad bought me the entire Holmes collection. Even though half the stories had references to all kinds of ancient British terms that made no sense to me, I read on. The idea that people the victims knew (like their step-father) could put on a wig and some makeup and yet fool them completely seemed very far-fetched (note that such great makeup was a recurring theme in many of the stories) but I thought, hey, if everyone else who read the books considered it believable, maybe makeup could be that good.

Looking back, I think back then I was like the crowd in that fairy tale about the emperor’s new clothes, you know one of those guys who just like whatever it is that is acclaimed! Or to quote the wise Calvin who told Hobbes, “You know how people are. They only recognize greatness when some authority confirms it.”

A couple of weeks back, I ran into a scenario which reminded me of a Sherlock Holmes case that I genuinely like, The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire. In that case, a woman is found sucking blood from the neck of her infant (which is how the case got its name). The solution to that case? Turned out that the baby was being poisoned by his jealous (and psycho) step-brother, and the all the mother was doing was sucking the poison out of her baby. Now imagine this: a few weeks back, you’d have found my wife sucking blood out of our baby’s little finger. Guess what the solution to that mystery was? I had accidentally nicked my baby daughter while cutting her nails. The nicked skin bled and so my wife put the baby's bleeding finger in her mouth and sucked, the way adults do when we bleed!

Sometimes truth is just as strange as fiction. In case you are interested, you can read the Arthur Conan Doyle story for free on the net since its copyright expired ages back.

Paradox of the Monopoly Hater

2012-02-18T20:35:00.000+05:30

Some time back, I read this article in the Guardian on the pricing of eBooks v/s physical books. The argument was something like this: the value of the book, physical or electronic, is almost entirely because of the content ("text itself"). If you agree with that (and I can’t see who can disagree with it), then the article said that “the delivery method shouldn't matter much”. So, the article argues, the price of an eBook should be the same as the price of the physical book (after all, isn’t the content the same?).

The conclusion part, I don’t agree with at all. Because the article confuses 2 different things: value and price. Conventional, prehistoric thinking would suggest the two are the same. But, on the Internet, do you pay for Wikipedia or Google? And since you don’t, does that mean you don’t value those 2 sites?!

Then that article goes after Amazon, accusing them of using their monopolistic position to drive down the price of eBooks so that they can promote sales of their electronic reader, the Kindle. I am not sure what the Guardian is so pissed off about: sounds like just any other plan that companies come up to make money to me!

But it’s the closing line of that article:

“Was it wise to allow (italics mine) a situation in which a single company – Amazon – became market leader in terms of both a digital product (the ebook) and the hardware through which it's delivered?”

that just took my breath away.

“Allow”? Who exactly allowed Amazon to grow to what it is? That’s such a socialistic way of thinking: you know, the “Monopolies are always bad by definition, their actions are irrelevant to any such conclusion” mindset. This type of thinking ignores the fact that companies like Wal-Mart, Big Bazaar, Total etc actually drive down prices that the end consumer pays. So when the socialists rant against the Big Bazaar’s and Amazon’s of the world, it’s kind of a paradox: they are fighting against the low price the end consumer pays.

Me, I’m glad that Amazon opened shop in India recently under the brand junglee.com. There are so many movies and books that only Amazon seems to have. And usually it’s cheaper than the price I’d pay in any physical bookstore. So if the Market Gods “allowed” Amazon to dominate, I am not complaining.

It’s Complicated

2012-02-16T20:08:00.000+05:30

How India chooses to handle the bomb attack on the Israeli embassy official’s wife is a very complicated topic.

Israel has already blamed Iran for this and similar attacks in Georgia and Indonesia. Are they right? Possibly. On the other hand, would Iran risk staging an attack in a friendly country like India, now its largest oil buyer? Then again, is Iran banking on the fact that India would have no choice but to continue its relations with Iran since it won’t be able to find any alternative source for oil so fast?

A farcial investigation would not be acceptable to Israel. Or probably to the Jewish lobby in the US. It would also give a stick to the US sections that never liked India’s relations with Iran. The handling of 26/11 and the fact that Kasab still lives conveys so much to the Israelis as to how this investigation will be conducted. Which is why the Israelis want to be part of the investigation.

For the Congress government, the timing of the attack couldn’t be worse. Any investigation into the attack will most probably be construed as anti-Muslim and pro-Zionist in UP, the state Rahul baba has staked so much at. If by some miracle, any progress is actually made in the investigation, the chances are quite high that the suspects will be Muslims (Iranian or Indian). It would be hard to pass off an attack on a Jewish target as an RSS action. Even Digvijay has not blamed the RSS. Not yet anyway.

I’d love Israel to be allowed to conduct or be involved in the investigation. Because whoever they find responsible, in India or Iran or both, one can trust that the Israelis will hunt them down and kill them. If you feel that wouldn’t reflect well on our sovereignty, I am sure Sonia can shed a couple of tears on that count. When we allow Kasab to live, what are the odds that we will do anything to the people responsible for just an attempted murder and who finally caused just a handful of injuries?

Not Communal

2012-02-14T18:37:00.002+05:30

Salman Khurshid seems to be copying the kinds of things that Digvijay Singh says. And why not? After all, Digvijay Singh is considered to be the heir-in-waiting’s mentor, so Khurshid may be trying to send out signals that he is of the same mindset as the Prince and his mentor. For future growth prospects.

First Khurshid announces he supports reservations for Muslims within the OBC quota while the election code of conduct is in effect. In case you wondered, no, that’s not considered communalism. And no, the election code doesn’t apply to Khurshid because he went on to repeat his reservations statements even after the Election Commission had censured him.

Then the man showed how delusional he is by saying he’d continue to stand for the reservation-within-reservation issue even if the EC hanged him. Hanged him? Hey Khurshid, we don’t even hang Ajmal Kasab in this country, but we’re to believe that the EC may hang you for a violation of the code of conduct? Besides, the EC doesn’t have the power to hang anyone, even if they wanted to. You are the law minister, and you didn’t know that? Wow! I guess you think this is Saudi Arabia where people are hanged (oops, stoned to death) for frivolous reasons. Not yet, Khurshid, not yet. But with people like you, Digvijay and the Prince, I’m sure we’re getting there fast.

Khurshid also said Sonia had tears in her eyes when he showed her pictures of the Batkal House incident. So Khurshid, what was Sonia’s reaction to 26/11? Did she shed a bucket of tears then? Hmmmm…surprising you never said that back then, but for 2 Muslim deaths, she tears up. And does madam also cry everyday on account of the starvation deaths or accident deaths or just good, old death due to natural circumstances?

Now that your continued violation and belligerence to the EC has been escalated to the President, I am guessing you would call it a witch hunt and persecution of minorities. Oh wait, the Chief Election Commissioner is a Muslim too. But I guess you’d call him a kafir, right?

Bible, Meet Smartphone

2012-02-12T11:15:00.000+05:30

I read this Slashdot trail about this organization, Every Tribe Every Nation, (ETEN) whose aim is to produce and distribute Bibles in readable, mobile-ready formats in hundreds of languages including Norsk, Potawatomie, Bahasa Indonesia, and Hawai'i Pidgin. Never heard of most of these languages? Well, that’s the point: the aim is to spread the Bible among tribes, aka the old missionary impulse.

Like most Slashdot discussions, it’s the comments below the article that are hilarious. An old wine in new bottles comment was “You would think that people would be able to do away with these historic and completely ridiculous ideas by now. Instead they are still stuck in the dark ages, but now with shiny new technology”.

Others commended the effort, not for the missionary aspect, but for the fact the effort might result in some progress in rendering minority languages correctly on phones. Another guy responded to that saying “Well, yes. But I do not think that is actually a good thing, all things considered. For example, the crusades required a lot of drive but are among the most evil human undertakings ever”. To which another guy asked, “As opposed to the Muslims who conquered Palestine, North Africa, Iberia, Persia, Mesopotamia and southeastern Europe?”. Which in turn invoked the two-wrongs-don’t-make-a-right response, “Just because there are more morons out there with a different Book does not excuse these here at all”.

Another trail of comments was on the spirituality v/s religion lines: “We should all act like a compassionate person instead of worrying about how others believe and if they believe "correctly" - which is lost on pretty much every practitioner of the religions of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, Islam”. To which a response was on the evolution-and-memes line: “Indeed. And understandable. After all if people focus on compassion, then religion dies as it has become superfluous. And don't forget that each religion is a meme and such subject to evolution: Only those religions that propagate themselves well survive. Those that have allowed their followers to see morality without the crutch of some religious framework have quietly faded away”.

And once you bring in evolution, can DNA comments be far behind? Like this one: “I wonder how short a religious text could theoretically be, while still sustainably self-replicating between hosts. (i.e. religious believers). Much of the bible is akin to junk DNA”.

A précis writing expert wrote, “The whole bible translates to: treat other people the way you'd like them to treat you”. Which brought the sarcastic rejoinder, “With the occasional interludes into: but if they don't fit your world view throw rocks at them till they're dead”. Another guy pointed out the absurdity of the treat-others-as-you-want-to-be-treated line by asking, “So for some reason I want to be raped, killed with the skull of an animal wielded like a club, and then turned into a pillar of salt?”

A very practical guy reminded everyone of the pain in reading on (even the biggest) phone, “I really want to read a million-word document on my cell phone screen!”.

The best comment though, in my opinion, was, “What, no Klingon version? How will we ever conquer those mindless savages from across the galaxy?”

That’s Slashdot for you: bring up any topic and the comments will inevitably bring in some or all of these topics: evolution, DNA, Star Trek, Star Wars and Matrix into the conversation!

It’s All Relative

2012-02-07T20:10:00.000+05:30

I remember this part in one of Richard Dawkins’ books where he tried to answer the question as to how gradual evolution can give any survival advantage. Citing the evolution of the eye, someone had asked him what good is a partial eye? Doesn’t it have to be a fully functioning eye or nothing at all? Why would evolution favour a partial eye? Dawkins went on to answer that by stating that a 2% eye is better than no eye (blindness), and a 4% eye is better than a 2% (even a slightly better chance of spotting the prey or predator can make all the difference when it comes to survival) and so on all the way to 100%.

I just got another example from a totally different domain recently. My 6 month old baby can roll over and swivel a bit. I was getting impatient and wondering when she would make some progress beyond that. I got my answer when my wife visited a friend with a baby that was a month younger than ours. That baby (being younger) could not yet roll over. So our heroine, when placed next to the other baby, slowly maneouvered herself into a position where she could grab the other baby’s nose and bite. Since the other baby couldn’t roll or swivel, she couldn’t take any evasive action and ours, despite her glacial speed, could still mount her offensive successfully.

So there you go, it’s not only always two extremes: ninja speed or no speed. Even turtle paced maneouvering has its advantage when compared to someone with no movement!

The French Can Predict the Future

2012-02-06T18:31:00.000+05:30

Heard of this ruling by a French court asking Google to pay damages and a fine to a French map making company?

“A French court has ruled that Google's free Google Maps application is anti-competitive and has ordered the company to pay €500,000 to Bottin Cartographes, a for-pay map company, as well as a €15,000 fine. Bottin Cartographes argued that Google was only planning to give away the service for free until all the competitors had been driven out of business and then they would start charging.”

I don’t even know where to begin. So had only Google charged for its maps, there would have been no problem! Second, I thought justice is about punishing people who committed a crime, not punishing based on opinions about what they might do in future (Like Google first driving all mapmakers bankrupt by giving maps for free and then starting to charge for them). That sounds like a prediction to me. Have the French got some Minority Report style technology to predict crimes of the future? Or a low tech crystal ball, perhaps? Or maybe it’s one of Nostradamus’ predictions? Oh wait, if the French could read the future, they would never have joined the Euro, would they?

Apparently, capitalists are always evil, even when they give stuff away for free! So what's next, France? Sue Wikipedia for giving encyclopedias for free? Sue Yahoo!, Gmail and countless others for offering email services for free and driving the postal department to bankruptcy?

Lawyers and Legislators

2012-02-05T15:33:00.002+05:30

After the recent Supreme Court verdict canceling the 2G spectrum allocation, did you hear Kapil Sibal's defense? He claimed the verdict was against the first-come-first-policy used to allocate the spectrum, and not against that his government had done! Based on this “logic”, he then said the judgment was an indictment of the NDA, since they were the ones who had framed the policy.

Wow! That's how a lawyer would argue (the “if the law/rule is flawed, don't blame my client” defense), but hey Kapil, you are now a legislator (you know legislators, right? They are the people who frame laws). And so if the NDA rules were flawed, your bunch should have changed them. Or did you not know that you had that power, nay responsibility, once you were in power?

Oh wait, you do know that. Like when you started your crusade to censor the Internet to prevent insults to Goddess Sonia. Why didn't you continue with the non-censorship policy of the NDA on that one, you know, the way you followed the NDA’s spectrum allocation policy?

Population Inversion

2012-02-02T19:13:00.000+05:30

I overheard this fresh-out-of-college girl at office telling her friend that her everyone in her team was “so old”. Of how nobody seemed to kid around, of how nobody ever “pranked” each other. Of how she could talk to these people, but couldn’t relate to them at all.

That made me think of the time when I started working. Back then, almost everyone in IT was in the 0-3 years experience band. The only vehicle people had was a bike. For celebrations, everyone wanted to go out for dinner, not lunch (it could be a longer affair that way, and you could have drinks too). People looked forward to foreign trips: the longer, the better. Most of us came to office on weekends not necessarily to work but what else was there to do? Besides, in the pre-cell phone era, the office was the only place one could get together and then make plans for the evening/night. Even managers used to be unmarried back then: that was how young a team was.

And now? The IT industry has undergone a population inversion. Most people are in the 7+ years band. Innova’s and Scorpio’s are not at all uncommon. Teams prefer lunches over dinner (“I’d rather be home” is the new mantra). Unless one is in a service company, people don’t even want to travel abroad. And if they absolutely must, they hope it’s a short trip. Forget working on weekends, “Working from home” is the preferred mode. And most of us have a kid or two.

That said, when this girl from office asked me the other day how long I had been with the team, I pounced on the fact that she had included the words “the team” in her question and answered (truthfully) “around 3-4 years”! After all, population inversion or not, who wants to be seen as a prehistoric relic?

Becoming Like China

2012-01-26T21:01:00.000+05:30

Reporters Sans Frontiers just came up with their rankings of how much journalistic freedom is allowed in different countries around the world. As with any such system that tries to rank 180 odd countries around the world, a colour coded pictorial representation is what one cares about:

One thing I noticed was that the US and much of western Europe (apart from Germany) are graded as “Satisfactory”, not “Good”. Wonder if that downgrade has something to do with the inevitable price of countries facing terrorism?

The other thing to note is that India is rated as having “Noticeable problems”. But put that in context of what the rest of Asia looks like: either “Difficult” or “Very serious”, and we don’t look too bad. The road ahead though looks terrible. India’s role model, as per our government, is China. And no, not in terms of economic growth (which we just can’t seem to achieve) or in making Mumbai into a Shanghai. Rather, China is our government’s role model in censorship (remember Sibal’s attack on the Net and his threat to do what China does?). A great beginning in that goal of censorship was made with the Rushdie affair: the Rajasthan government lied about a non-existent death threat, and then prevented even a video feed of the man. Way to go indeed: soon we can become like China on the only parameters that our secular government can achieve: clampdowns, lies, denials and censorship. Give them some more time, and I am sure the Congress will add dictatorship to that list: after all, what makes you think that Rahul won’t take a leaf from his grandma’s book?

To Write a Constitution

2012-01-25T21:30:00.000+05:30

One always hears and reads about how the Brit constitution is the only one that was never written, and yet has survived for ages. We also hear about how smart the founding fathers of the US were to come up with a constitution that was radically different from the British one and yet proved resilient enough to last to this day.

With that backdrop, it was interesting to read the history of the Indian constitution: of how far before independence (almost 30-40 years prior to 1947), several Indians had already started thinking of how our constitution should be. Of how they had already evaluated whether it was better to frame a constitution via elected representatives who spoke on behalf of the majority (which inevitably meant leaving out the experts in the field) or via the experts (who usually would not be representative of the people’s preferences). Turns out we decided to do it with a bit of both types! If you wonder whether that made any difference, consider Sri Lanka’s constitution which was written only by experts: it’s been replaced 3 times already. Probably because most people didn’t feel it represented their views and aspirations.

A weird thing about our constitution was that clauses were not pushed through simply by the opinion of the majority of elected representatives. Rather, the policy was to get even the dissenters to agree by discussing and to the extent possible, making concessions, and thus get a universal agreement rather than just a simple majority. Of course, this slowed down things and the whole process took 3 years to complete!

Then again, despite the delay, ours is the only constitution in almost the entire non-Western world that has survived unchanged (in any major way) to this day. Maybe it’s time we start referring to our constitution in the same breath as the Brit and American ones.

Wordnik

2012-01-22T17:45:00.000+05:30

I have always wondered why some random authority gets to decide which new word gets to become a part of the language. After all, if enough people use the word, it is a part of the language for all practical purposes. Even if it’s only used in some parts of the world, it’s still a word in that part of the world, isn’t it? And isn’t that the purpose of language: to get the message across? So why should only some Brit or American agency get to certify that a word is now a part of the English language?

Many tell me I shouldn't care about this since people already use (and will continue to use) words that fulfill their needs, regardless of what the dictionary says. The problem with that approach is figuring out the meaning of a new word you hear (or more often, read on the Net) but that is not part of any dictionary because it has not yet been accepted by the Keepers of the Language? Are you supposed to wait until it becomes part of the dictionary? Who knows when (or even if) that might happen?

So I was very glad to learn that online dictionaries like Wordnik already address this issue. The site scans the Internet to make a list of all words used. Then it checks whether a word is getting used frequently or not. And the contexts where words are being used: polite or offensive, scientific or general etc. And before you question how an algorithm could possibly find the meaning of anything, remember that Google Translate is done entirely via algorithms and most of us find that pretty good.

It’s good to know that many others didn't want to wait for some language priest to confirm whether or not a new word could enter the pantheon and (unlike me) did something about it.

Hypocrite Nation

2012-01-21T20:16:00.000+05:30

So Salman Rushdie won't enter the country to attend the Jaipur Literature Festival. And this is a “victory for democracy”, as per the Islamic seminary, Darul Uloom Deoband. Wow! This wasn’t decided by a vote, at the general population level or in Parliament (you know Parliament, right? It’s that entity that our politicians say overrides Anna Hazare, er, decides the laws of the land) or even in some state assembly. But hey, this is Islamic style democracy: send assassins from Mumbai and get your way. I guess the kafir West, India and Japan never really understood the true meaning of democracy!

The Congress, the paragon of secularism and democracy (no, the 1984 riots and the Emergency never happened) started off sensibly at the Center by saying they couldn’t prevent Rushdie from entering the country since he was a PIO (Person of Indian Origin) and thus didn’t need a visa. Then, they did what all politicians do: backtracked through other channels. The Congress state government in Rajasthan said they couldn’t guarantee security for Rushdie. So we are to believe that Rajasthan can't protect a writer but don't be surprised if they claim to be able to give the PM or Rahul baba security tomorrow! Also imagine the response from the “secular” Indians if Narender Modi or the Shiv Sena expressed the same inability to protect a certain community!

The so called believers in freedom of speech who fought for MF Hussain won’t say a word for Rushdie. Apparently, Hussain being forced out of India was a national shame, a reason to hang our collective heads in shame, but what has been done to Rushdie since 1988, ah, that’s totally different. If that’s not double standards, what is?

Blackout

2012-01-17T19:13:00.000+05:30

Turns out the US too has a bunch of moronic legislators (like Kapil Sibal) who came up with their own version of bills to censor the Internet. As a sign of protest, several popular websites decided to take down their sites at different times. The latest on that list is Wikipedia that announced all English language pages will go dark tomorrow (Wednesday). To ensure people know why the site is down, founder Jimmy Wales, has decided the Wikipedia page will ask people to call their politicians and state their opposition to those bills. As Wales puts it, the aim is to “melt the phone lines”.

What if Google, Facebook and Twitter did something similar? And remember, no Google means no search, no YouTube, no Gmail, no Google Maps…It would pretty much be the day that the Internet went down!

As Wales said, “Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday!” Imagine what would happen without Google. As one of my friends said, it would take a hundred years to write any software program without Google! And he simply can’t imagine having to go back to the Stone Age way of reading books to get answers: which would also be true for most of us.

What’s in a (Last) Name?

2012-01-15T18:04:00.000+05:30

Taking on the husband's last name: is it only a sexist practice? No matter what the feminist brigade may say, it’s not that simple (Nothing ever is). And no, it is not just an issue in India or other developing (aka non-western) countries either.

Part of the problem is the attention and questions that not changing the woman’s last name draws. Most of your (and ever her) relatives will ask why she didn’t change her name. Some of the more orthodox neighbours will ask too. Some of your friends may ask too. Things are a bit easier for south Indians on this front since many of us don’t have a last name (just an initial).

In spite of the questions that it raises, many urban couples do have the wife retaining her last name. But that's often because of the practical hassle of changing all the documents and certificates.

But if you dismiss it as an Indian male attitude, think again: even the Queen of England had the same problem with her hubby wanting her to take his last name! And the comment in one of the American sitcoms where the groom tells his wife-to-be, “Sure honey, you can retain your last name after marriage. And we'll be one of those urban couples who are stuck in a loveless marriage.” captures another aspect that most guys feel at some level or the other: the name change conveys “ownership”. Like it or not, the caveman instinct still rules in most men. It's in the DNA.

And before you curse me for saying that, remember what Richard Dawkins wrote in The Selfish Gene: “…because I know I am in danger of being misunderstood by those people, all too numerous, who cannot distinguish a statement of belief in what is the case from an advocacy of what ought to be the case”.

China: No Social Skills?

2012-01-14T18:41:00.001+05:30

Lord Palmerston famously said that there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies; there are only permanent interests. A bit cynical, but that’s pretty much how nations act. And by the same principle, nations would be allies with others who share similar interests.

But what if an ally can’t pull their weight? Or is too poor or weak to act on those (common) interests? In that case, the stronger/richer ally could invest in the other partner. But only if the “What’s in it for me?” question has a worthwhile answer. Like the US did with western Europe during the Cold War: apart from ideological reasons, the (missile) flight time from Europe to Moscow is a lot lesser. Similarly, the Soviets backed the eastern Europe because (again, apart from ideological reasons) those nations served as a buffer zone between NATO and Soviet areas. Or it could be “the alternative is even worse” reasons like why the US backs Pakistan or other Islamic regimes.

China, however, I don’t get in their choice of allies. Try naming one rich or powerful country that is an ally of China. The countries that China supports include losers like North Korea, Myanmar and Pakistan. Sure, they share enemies, er interests, but how does it help China if they have to keep pouring money into their allies, most of whom barely have enough to survive on a daily basis?

Australia would have seemed to be the ideal candidate for a rich country that could have been either turn an ally of China or at the very least, stayed neutral. After all, China’s fantastic growth generates a whole lot of business for the Aussies since they supply so much of the minerals and other raw materials. But no, China can’t make an ally even of a country whose growth is so tightly coupled with them. Instead the Aussies just allied with the US, allowing them to station American marines in Australia. Not content with that, the Aussies even unilaterally announced that a loose military alliance between the US, Australia and India was in the offing. India denied it immediately, but it just conveys my point: why can’t the Chinese seem to make any friends except with pathetic countries?

Women and Food

2012-01-11T19:23:00.001+05:30

Funny thing happened over lunch today. One of my friends who opened his lunch dabba exclaimed, “Looks like I got the wrong dabba today!” He went on to explain that his sister-in-law was visiting and he must have brought her dabba by mistake. And how did he know that? Because it had eggs with the yolk. And his wife would never allow him to have the yolk. Cholesterol and all that. And so our man happily gulped down the entire egg, yolk and all.

Which set me thinking. About women. As grandmothers, they spoil you crazy with every conceivable goody, that needless to say is terrible for your health when you grow up. As mothers, they try and juggle what’s tasty with what’s good for you. Not always successful, but at least they try. Then comes the wife. She’s all business: “Eat this. Avoid that. Otherwise I’m the one who’ll have to take care of you when you are old and have all weird problems.” Yeah, yeah, I know they mean well, but hey, the heart wants what it wants.

I wonder how daughters are on this front?

When Military Met Civilian

2012-01-08T19:08:00.000+05:30

Recently I saw this Discovery documentary on how the Hummer, a vehicle built for the US army, went on to become a commercial vehicle. They even made a stretch version of it. And even tried selling it to the ladies by making a more feminine version! Yeah, that’s the same vehicle that MS Dhoni bought for Rs 1 crore.

That episode made me remember how many US military inventions and discoveries have gone to have extensive civilian use. For peaceful purposes. And not just fuel guzzlers like the Hummer. I mean stuff like the Internet and satellite based navigation. Physics and cosmology were beneficiaries too (the US discovered gamma ray bursts while monitoring Soviet areas for signs of nuclear tests). Another area was cryptography, which is used in so many Internet based transactions.

And so no wonder now, when the US military spending is being cut (mostly due to the recession and America’s declining clout), many wonder whether it would also mean a decline in (unintended) innovations that are so useful in non-warfare contexts! After all, the Pentagon spends 12% of its budget on research and some of that research could potentially have a pretty big peaceful impact, like their effort to reduce energy costs.

I am curious whether the militaries of other countries too have come up with products and technologies that eventually moved into the civilian domain and had such big impacts?

Superman

2012-01-07T19:35:00.001+05:30

I remember this CSI - New York episode which started with a guy (adult) dressed as Superman running in from nowhere and preventing a robbery. Next scene, this Superman is found dead in an alley. That scene stuck with me: aren’t superheroes supposed to be invincible?

A couple of weeks back, another guy (this time in real life) dressed as Superman came to the rescue of a bleeding, unconscious pedestrian who had been hit by a car in Melbourne. No, he didn’t turn back time and prevent the accident from happening. Rather, this Superman was a doctor in real life and he did the necessary medical steps! But the good doctor was almost prevented from doing his rescue act because bystanders felt that, well, anyone in a superhero costume must be a nutjob!

So why was the doctor in a Superman costume in the first place? Because he was coming back from a costume party, where, get this, he even charmed Wonder Woman! Even the comic book version can’t beat that story, can it?

Advices About the Baby

2011-12-29T21:20:00.001+05:30

When a baby arrives, the new parents get a lot of help and advice. Some of that advice is wanted, others not so much; some good, others bad; some wise, others funny. As with all advice, some you can ignore safely, others you ignore at your risk.

We had a lot of trouble burping the baby. My mother-in-law seemed to be able to do it effortlessly, but she couldn't teach us how. So we tried the Internet, first via articles, and when that didn't work, via a YouTube video with a woman in a German dress. And bingo! Turns out one should hit (trust me, “hit” is the right word) the baby quite hard, not pat it gently the way we were doing. My wife now says we learnt how to burp a baby from a German lady. Go globalization!

Turns out a baby is far more resilient than we imagined. Like how hot the water in which you bathe her. It can be really hot, way above the temperature at which we adults would bathe, as my mom showed us. But the baby has no problems at all bathing in the (what feels to us like) boiling, hot water.

To get or not to get a car seat for the baby? Some said Yes, others that it’s just a western idea. This one got sorted easily: one of wife's friends said she'd give us hers since her baby was now grown up. We never look a gift horse in the mouth!

But the greatest piece of wisdom was from one of my friends, who basically said that I should be careful what I wished for when it comes to the baby because it might come true! He said that when I told him that I wished the baby could talk, as otherwise we were so lost trying to figure out what she wanted. His point was that once she could talk, sure you'd understand what she wanted. But conversely, she'd understand what you guys are saying or planning and say No! His point was that at every stage you'll wish the baby was at the next stage, but once she gets there, you'll wish she hadn't graduated and how much simpler life was in the previous stage. So now every time I find myself wishing that the baby could roll over, sit up, crawl or talk, I imagine what horrors would follow if she did any of those things and then I feel happy with our current situation.

The Gita is Extremist? Really?

2011-12-28T19:20:00.001+05:30

The Bhagavad Gita trial in Russia on charges of preaching religious extremism is really the trial of the Russian edition of a particular translation/commentary of it, Bhagavad Gita As It Is. So is this an instance of communist persecution of religion? Partly yes, as seen in the way Russian authorities have gone after ISKCON in the past. But also it’s a fight among religions: the charges are reportedly instigated by the Russian Orthodox Church in order to restrict the activities of ISKCON.

So what is this book, Bhagavad Gita As It Is? It is the Russian version of the ISKCON founder’s translation and commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita. It was first published in, hold your breath, 1968! It has been translated into 80 languages, with over 100 million copies distributed globally till date. And nowhere else was it accused of fomenting extremism. So what did the Russians find extremist? Well, it contained claims of exclusiveness of Krishna religion, and used some unpleasant words against those who were not devotees of Krishna. Really, that’s the reason? And the Bible and Koran don’t do the same? Maybe the Russians should Google for the word “kafir”…

Our “secular” government, of course, will do nothing. But the same “secular” people will ban Satanic Verses and claim that MF Hussain should be allowed to paint Hindu goddesses nude. Well, ok, maybe that’s just votebank politics. But even non-political “secular” Indians will never cease to say Hindus are at par with the Taliban. Really? I don’t see any death threats issued against the Russians, any demonstrations outside Russian embassies. But I do remember how a certain religion reacted to certain Danish cartoons and to Satanic Verses.

Of course, the “secular” Hindu never lets facts and data get in the way. And then they wonder why another set of Hindu is being increasingly vocal, intolerant and “communal”. Well, maybe the “secular” brigade should look in the mirror: it’s partially a reaction to what is called “secularism” in this country.

Technology and Art

2011-12-27T19:49:00.002+05:30

Did you think that using technology to create images started with Photoshop and other photo editors on your PC? Guess again. It happened as far as back as the 1600’s!

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, because of his improvements to the microscope and being the first to observe and describe single celled organisms, was considered to have been an expert on gadgets that used light.

Jan Vermeer, a painter world-famous for his use of light and considered one of the Old Masters, was considered a good (but not great) artist until the mid 1660’s. Then Vermeer met van Leeuwenhoek, and soon his career took off. Which led some to suspect that van Leeuwenhoek gave Vermeer high quality lenses to make a camera obscura, a device that allows an artist to simply trace (or paint) an exact copy of an image. Like take The Girl with the Red Hat:

Notice the light on her nose, earrings, eyes and parts of the chair? That brilliance with light was Vermeer’s speciality. And also what a camera obscura could do!

But did Vermeer really use a camera obscura? Nobody can say for sure. But the fact that the executor of Vermeer’s estate upon his death was van Leeuwenhoek, who could have taken back any lenses he might have loaned his friend, was “proof” to some. And once you have a story going, then even the feeling that the man in a couple of Vermeer’s paintings (The Geographer, The Astronomer) was van Leeuwenhoeck suggests that they were close friends, which in turn fuels the story further.

Whether or not Vermeer used a camera obscura, many who saw the output of a camera obscura were so impressed that they felt this was the end of paintings. Huygens even said, “The art of painting is dead, for this is life itself: or something higher, if we could find a word for it.”

So if you curse technology for ruining art, don’t blame the tools on your PC. It’s been happening for ages!

Baby, Baby

2011-12-22T21:52:00.000+05:30

Everyone tells you how a baby changes everything. It’s hard to imagine how much until one actually arrives. You also don’t realize how much your patience can increase until the baby comes.

As a kid, I used to wonder how my parents seemed to be OK to watch parts of anything on TV whereas we kids felt the world would end if we missed a minute of anything. Now I know: a baby would have changed their normal viewing to a point where they no longer expect to be able to see anything continuously!

We’d wanted to see Mission Impossible 4 the weekend the baby arrived. Now we don’t know when we’ll see our next movie in a theater. Same for eating out. An uninterrupted night’s sleep is now a distant memory. The occasional puke and spit on your clothes is to be expected. Midnight feeds are now a part of life.

But a baby (girl) also teaches you a lot about women. Like why women can’t communicate clearly. Now I know: a baby girl has a single sound for everything: crying. And that’s when you realize what an advanced form of communication most women can do. Sure, we guys still don’t get it, but the female of the species sure has come a long way in her ability (attempt?) to communicate since baby-hood. Same with clothes: trust me, your girl friend/wife doesn’t change clothes as many times as a baby (girl). Bottomline, the next time you curse women, remember how far they’ve come from the time they were babies!

A baby also gets away with things we guys can’t. You burp a baby deliberately, but let a guy burp and see how the woman reacts! Anything a baby does is cute and adorable, specially to its grandparents. Even impressive at times. Unfortunately, the bar keeps getting raised as we get older.

A baby is also a great way to (finally) make your wife (and her parents) realize that she (the wife) is not a baby! Move over, lady, there’s a new baby in town.

There’s nothing like the sound and sight of a baby having fun. It’s so contagious and makes you so happy. Who needs nirvana once you’ve experienced this?

Intentionally Inefficient

2011-12-16T17:18:00.001+05:30

Given that everyone focuses on improving efficiencies, whether at a personal level or at work, it’s interesting to know that there are some situations where things are deliberately made inefficient. And not for the slow down to smell the roses reasons, but to actually improve the overall experience!

The most well-known example of a system that was deliberately made inefficient is the way the letters are organized on a keyboard (the QWERTY arrangement). Designed for the typewriter era, the idea was to slow down a typist so that he couldn’t cause the typewriter’s keys to collide and jam. Now, of course, we’re stuck with the inefficient QWERTY arrangement because that’s what everyone’s learnt and is familiar with!

Even in the realm of biology and life, there are advantages to being slightly inefficient. Like the pathogens that cause diseases. If they were uber-efficient and killed their hosts too fast, then they’d die out (along with the host) before they could be transmitted to the next individual!

Everyone curses the distance between the point you get off a plane to where you collect your bags. Guess what? That’s deliberate. Turns out an engineer once optimized the carousel allocation to be nearest to the point where you deplaned. And people hated it! Why? Because the system was too good: People were beating their baggage to the carousels and started complaining that they just kept waiting for their bags to arrive. And so airports reverted back to their older, inefficient carousel allocation system!

So the next time you curse a system for being inefficient, remember, it may actually be better that way!

The Internet Strikes Back

2011-12-10T22:01:00.000+05:30

Looks like most people felt the same way as me about Kapil Sibal’s attempt to censor free speech on the Net. The ignorant moron, Sibal, hadn’t listed Twitter on the list of companies that he wanted to “filter” content (he doesn’t even know the list of the most popular sites where people voice their opinions, but hey, he wants the Net filtered!). Maybe someone should tell him to read Shobhaa De’s tweet:

“Sibalsaab,such outrage 2 protect privacy of one ‘Madam’ in a country of 100 million internet users? We like our freedom and we shall have it!”

Maybe he will throw De into prison for that. Because jail is the “right” place for anyone in favour of free speech as per the Emergency party, er, Congress party. Sonia is definitely Indira’s heir! And Sibal could be her Sanjay Gandhi.

Then the enemies of India (no, not terrorists or corrupt politicians but the users of the Net) hacked the Congress party’s website on Sonia’s b’day and added porn messages. So Sibal, tell me, would Google and Facebook filtering content have prevented this problem?

And while you’re at it, Sibal, think of how to handle sites like the Wall Street Journal. Because they posted this article with a sarcastic code of conduct approved by your gang of thieves, er, government, that includes items like:

- “Only photographs that show Congress President Sonia Gandhi from the left (hereinafter referred to as “her good side”) shall be permitted.”

- “Any photograph of Bharatiya Janata Party leader L.K. Advani must show him with at least a week’s beard and a gob of phlegm in either corner of his mouth, while wearing a moth-eaten cardigan and holding up his trousers.”

- “Community standards of America will not apply in India. Those of North Korea will.”

Sibal, these are not comments posted below the article, they are part of the WSJ article itself. Your directive to Google and Facebook wouldn’t prevent news sites from mocking Madam. How would you handle that?

Maybe it’s time for geniuses like you to take a crash course on how the Net works before applying your caveman tactics to censor content. In the land of IT professionals, it shouldn’t be so hard to find someone who can teach even a dimwit like you.

Did This Blog Get Censored?

2011-12-07T19:08:00.001+05:30

When Kapil Sibal came up with this brainwave to demand that sites like Google, Facebook and Yahoo! pre-screen all user generated content to prevent “disparaging, inflammatory or defamatory” content from being posted, my first reaction was that Sibal is a moron: does he not understand that what he asks for is impossible? That the only “solution” is blocking out the Net altogether? Or is that what our great telecom minister wants? Is he anti-freedom of speech?

I am in total agreement with Mike Masnick’s comment on this and similar directives in other parts of the world, including the West:

“Seriously, we're seeing this kind of insanity more and more these days, where politicians, who clearly have absolutely no freaking clue about the technology they're regulating, are coming up with positively insane suggestions, with no comprehension about the ramifications.”

But surely even Sibal couldn’t be that dumb. The real reason is sycophancy: here’s what he did at the meeting with the guys from the Internet’s biggest companies:

“At the meeting, Mr. Sibal showed attendees a Facebook page that maligned the Congress Party’s president, Sonia Gandhi. “This is unacceptable,” he told attendees, the executive said, and he asked them to find a way to monitor what is posted on their sites.”

Really, Sibal? So your spokesperson, Manish Tiwari, is allowed to call Anna corrupt but we, the people that scum like you claim to represent, cannot criticize Sonia (and presumably Rahul too)? And then they ask why the urban middle class doesn’t vote or participate in politics. We like freedom of speech, we believe in the right to criticize and we love to surf the Net: obviously, we want everything that the “leaders” of this country don’t.

I am curious to see if anyone will be able to read this blog. Or if Sibal will get his way and suppress this blog?

Frenemies

2011-12-06T18:30:00.001+05:30

During the good old days of the cold war, the West could call a spade a spade, an enemy an enemy. Not so with the fight against terrorism where they have to call the very people who murder them their friends. So the Saudis are “friends” as are the Pakistanis. Most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, and the Pakistanis hosted Osama bin Laden in a military town. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Well ok, you could term those as the compulsions of oil and geography (also known as the ‘supply routes to Afghanistan’). But it’s not just the American politicians who practice this charade: even Hollywood does the same. Cold war era movies often revolved around rogue Russian generals, but today, they don’t make any movie on rogue ISI or Pakistani army generals.

And while Iran and North Korea are the “axis of evil”, there's deafening silence on Egypt (the other supplier of the 9/11 perpetrators). And while there is an increasing effort to build US alliances against China all over the Pacific, the Chinese are never shown as the bad guys in the movies.

How I like the simpler days when you could call your enemy your enemy, and get great movies and books in the bargain!

Religions and Matters Non-Spiritual

2011-12-03T14:41:00.001+05:30

What happens when religious institutions get involved in causes and issues that have nothing to do with religion? Like the anti-Wall Street protests in the West? Or the anti-nuclear power plant protests in Tamil Nadu?

Some churches, imams and rabbis supported the ongoing protests against Wall Street and “greedy bankers”. Those who favoured the involvement justified it saying that the underlying theme of the anti-Wall Street protests was equality, charity and justice, the same ideals that religions preach. Then it got messy (like all things in the real world): the Church of England decided to evict the anti-banker protesters camping in front of St.Paul’s Cathedral. Which is when the whispering started that the church was afraid of rubbing the bankers and the rich the wrong way for fear of having funds cut off.

As the protests against the Koodankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu went on, police charged a bishop and four priests for using a place of worship to organize protests (something not allowed by law). Others questioned why the church needed to be involved on this issue. Was it because most of the protesters were Catholic fishermen, they asked? And why now, others asked? (The agreement to build this reactor was signed during, hold your breath, Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure! And the construction has been going on for years). Was the church protesting because this was a Russian plant? Would they have protested if this were a plant built by a Western (read Christian) nation, ask some on the Net?

There are others who ask what is wrong in religious institutions getting involved in non-religious matters? You can question their motives, they say, but why should they not voice their opinion? I guess it’s their track record that causes so many to question any religious involvement in matters that belong to this world as opposed to the next world. Alan Shore said it perfectly during one of his speeches in Boston Legal:

“When did religion get such a good name, anyway? Be it the Crusades, the Reformation genocides, the “troubles” in Northern Ireland, the Middle East, mass slaughters supposedly in the name of Allah, and then, of course, the obligatory reciprocal retribution. Hundreds of millions of people have died in religious conflicts. Hitler did his business in the name of his Creator. 9/11 was an act of religious extremism. It’s our greatest threat today—a Holy Jihad.”

When Physics Met Geology

2011-11-27T20:21:00.001+05:30

C14 dating, as mentioned in my last blog, is based on carbon. Which means, as we learnt at school, it can only be used for dating organic materials. How then are does one find the age of inorganic (non-Carbon) materials? Like the age of the earth, for example?

That makes for an interesting tale. One always associates radioactivity with terrible things like cancer, nuclear bombs and Chernobyl. And yet, it was the principle of radioactivity that helped figure out the age of the earth!

Radioactivity is the decay of one element into another, along with the emission of the catastrophic radiation. The rate of decay for different radioactive materials is fixed. That property means radioactive materials can be used like clocks. The idea was simple: uranium decays into lead. So if you found the ratio of uranium to lead in really, really old rocks, you could derive the age of the earth.

The devil lay in the execution of the idea. How do you find uncontaminated really, really old rocks? Even if you found such rocks, how could you be sure that there weren’t even older rocks that you had missed? And that’s when Clair Patterson, who was working on his dissertation project in 1948, found that it was almost impossible to find truly ancient rocks anywhere on earth. This made no sense: where could all the ancient rocks have possibly gone? Man had even managed to step into space before that question could be answered: the answer was plate tectonics. But that’s another story.

So if you couldn’t find ancient rocks on earth, it would appear that you’ve hit a dead end. It required some inspiration to move forward and this is where Patterson made a bold, and as it turned out accurate, assumption. He felt that many meteorites are left over building blocks from the time the solar system was formed. And so their age must be approximately the same age as the earth. So he decided to find meteor samples on earth (from the meteors that had hit fairly recently and thus not gotten “lost” like the ancient rocks that were part of the earth itself). And then find the uranium to lead ratio in those meteor samples. It took Patterson 7 years to find such samples, and to perform the necessary measurements.

And the number he arrived at (4.5 billion years) is the accepted number for the age of the earth even 50 years after Patterson’s calculations.

It’s a tribute to physicists that they accepted Patterson’s number because the age of the earth exceeded the (then) accepted age of the universe (2 billion years)! Talk about synergy: physics, via radioactivity, helped geologists date the earth. And geology in turn pushed physics to re-evaluate the age of the universe.

C14 Dating

2011-11-25T13:32:00.002+05:30

At school, you’re told about C14 dating and how it is used to date ancient humans and their tools. So it came as surprise to learn about all the questions and criticism that surround the accuracy of this dating technique.

But first, one needs to understand a bit more about the background of C14 than what’s usually taught. And the first step in that path is to learn how C14 is produced in the first place.

The short version is that cosmic rays bombard the atmosphere with enough force to produce C14. And this is also where the first criticism of C14 dating starts: the earth’s magnetic field influences how many cosmic rays are deflected away from earth. Which in turn influences the amount of C14 that is produced. And here’s the kicker: the earth’s magnetic field changes over time! In other words, the amount of C14 at different periods of time varies. So how do you know the amount of C14 that was there in a sample that’s 20,000 years old v/s 3,000 years old?

When an item is alive, it absorbs this C14. But after death, it doesn’t absorb anymore C14. And as the C14 decays, it’s quantity decreases. So in theory, if you knew the ratio of C14 to C12 (regular carbon) in a sample at the time of death, then you can measure the ratio today, and the change in ratio gives you the age. And that’s the problem, say the critics: you can’t know the ratio at the time of death: you can only guess. To make matters worse, there’s no way to be absolutely sure that the sample did not get contaminated with other carbon after it’s death.

C14 is also very rare: only one in a trillion carbon atoms is C14. Which makes counting the number of C14 atoms very difficult. Worse, with that level of rarity, an error in counting even by a few atoms changes the ratio quite a bit.

Lastly, the composition of the earth’s atmosphere has changes over time. Some of the constituents, like water vapour, affect the absorption of C14 by organisms on the surface. And, similar to the earth’s magnetic field, the amount of water vapour has varied in the atmosphere over time.

As you can see, most of these criticisms are not about the technological limitations (except the one about counting C14 atoms) of this dating technique. Rather, they’re about the change in the “environmental variables” over time. Which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to refute those criticisms.

Why then does C14 dating still survive? Mostly because any date claim based on "scientific" techniques brings a degree of respectability and hence, believability. Many scientists feel that C14 based dates should be taken seriously only if other, independent evidence produces a date close to the one found via C14. In other words, use C14 for confirmation, not determination.

Socialism 2.0

2011-11-20T15:06:00.002+05:30

If you look at most of the things that we do via the Internet (checking mails, accessing information, downloading freeware, sharing stuff), they have one thing in common: it’s all Free! Dig a bit deeper, and you’ll realize that companies have found (Google) or are trying to find (Facebook) ways to make money on the Net. But the rest, specially the stuff put out there by individuals, is mostly free. With no intent (or ability) to make money of it at any point.

Almost sounds like socialism! But unlike, the pre-21^st century version, Socialism 2.0 is neither enforced nor an act of governments. “Digital socialism is socialism without the state”, to quote Kevin Kelly.

Socialism 2.0 even does revolutions better than the Marxist version of socialism. You have no clue who is behind the revolutions in the Arab countries or the occupy Wall Street movements or the UK riots. Things are so decentralized that it makes it impossible for any government to respond. There is no face of the movement who they can arrest or kill. How do they fight the multi-headed hydra when the next head can sprout anywhere?

At sites like Flickr, people put up photos they took, and another set categorizes and tags those photos. Which in turn makes it easy for the next guy to find the exact photo he wants. As Kelly said:

“…this proposition exceeds the socialist promise of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" because it betters what you contribute and delivers more than you need.”

Just goes to show that capitalists can do everything better than the communists, even socialism! And to see how far the circle has come, check out this remark by Jin Liqun, chairman of the board of supervisors of China Investment Corp on the crisis-ridden Euro zone:

“If you look at the troubles which happened in European countries, this is purely because of the accumulated troubles of the worn out welfare society. The labour laws induce sloth, indolence, rather than hardworking.”

Even the Chinese have given up on socialism, but digital socialism not only lives but thrives!

Largest and Smartest Empire

2011-11-14T18:25:00.001+05:30

When I was a kid, we once went to a town in Algeria to see the dunes and the desert. We’d gone on top of a minaret to see the view of the place and my dad had started taking photos with his camera. A couple of French tourists were also doing the same. Suddenly, a couple of cops came up and were screaming that photography was prohibited. Turned out there was a sign but since it was in Arabic, nobody could read it. When my dad explained that to the cop, he let us off with a warning. But he was harsh with the French tourists.

Much later, I understood that Algeria had been a French colony and unlike India, the Algerian struggle for independence was very violent and brutal. And so, the Algerians’ dislike for the French was extremely high.

That’s in sharp contrast to the British who were both smart as well as willing to forge long term relations with almost all their former colonies. As Seth Godin wrote in his blog:

“Or consider the excellent relationship that the UK has with both the United States and India. In both cases, the wars of independence weren't as nearly brutal or as drawn out as they could have been.”

And it’s not just with the US and India. The British have kept varying degrees of rapport with most of their ex-colonies via the mechanism of the Commonwealth.

The same can’t be said about either France or Spain. Because of the brutality of those 2 countries, neither could form any equivalent of a Commonwealth. The Russians tried to create their own Commonwealth of Independent States with the former constituents of the USSR, but they don’t fool anybody. Most of the former Soviet republics are falling over themselves to join NATO for protection from the Russians.

Not that I support colonialism, but one should give credit to the British for what they’ve done. Not only they did build the largest empire, they even managed to maintain decent to good relationships with so many of their colonies!

Bail Season

2011-11-11T17:11:00.001+05:30

Yeduyarappa is out on bail, so are the Satyam scamsters. Imagine that: Ramalinga Raju defrauded investors and cost so many employees their jobs, and yet he walks out.

So do all politicians and rich guys get bail always? The simpletons who still believe that’s not the case cite Kanimozhi as the counter-example. Sure, when Kanimozhi was denied bail, there was lots of news channel coverage on whether the courts had (finally) decided to do the right thing. But the fact remains that most of the people who cheered the denial of bail to Kanimozhi did so because they have such low faith in the judicial system that they felt eventually she’ll walk out free with a not guilty verdict, so whatever time she spends in jail is an unexpected bonus.

So is there any politician who might not get the Get Out of Jail Free card? It seems to depend on geography. If a politician is ever imprisoned in the state where he wields influence, he’ll be out in no time. Kanimozhi must be wishing she’d been held in Chennai, not Delhi. She’d have had some chance of getting out, even if Jayalalithaa wouldn’t have made it easy.

Didi Does Have a Brain After All

2011-11-07T19:17:00.001+05:30

When Mamata Banerjee started yelling against the petrol price hike, I thought, “God! Is this woman insane or what?!”. As a sort of challenge, I decided I’d try and find something positive to say about her by the end of the blog.

Even though she’s part of the ruling coalition, she didn’t attend the EGoM meeting where it was decided to deregulate petrol prices. I am guessing her attendance record at EGoM meetings must be similar to most MPs’ attendance in Parliament!

If she didn’t understand what the word “deregulation” means, she should have asked. She had plenty time to learn what the term meant: after all, the decision to deregulate petrol prices wasn’t made recently (it was made in June last year). Didi apparently decided that ignorance is bliss. Typical.

I guess it’s too much to ask this genius CM of Bengal to look at some figures of the extent of losses on the still-regulated fuels like diesel, kerosene and LPG (she could ask the center or search the Internet, but I guess that’s assuming she’s even heard of the Net):

So where is this under-recovery to be filled from? Ah yes, hers not to provide solutions, hers only to scream and cry. Even more typical.

You might say that if she does care about the petrol price hike, and she doesn’t rule at the center, then she can’t do anything (other than protest), right? Wrong. The difference in petrol price between Kolkata and Delhi is almost Rs 4.50. She could reduce Bengal’s state taxes on petrol to compensate for the price hike.

Apparently, even she realizes the impact on state revenues if she reduced state taxes on petrol. Which is why she doesn’t do it. Maybe she does understand a bit of economics after all. See, I told you I’d find something good to say about her by the end of the article.

Ok Not to Care?

2011-11-05T17:51:00.001+05:30

I saw this caption to an article on the Net about the floods in Thailand: “Thailand is 20% underwater, and is second-biggest hard drive producer after China. Now do you care about the floods?”

Provocative caption indeed. Do we always need to be told how something affects us before we care? The answer’s not that simple. Sometimes, there are too many other tragedies and accidents closer home for us to care about something far away. At other times, the news we see is too vague: we don’t know how many died. Or how many are stranded without food or medicines. And sometimes, it’s just too tiring and draining to feel or care about everybody’s problems.

Dan Ariely wrote about a county in the US where firefighters are not available on-call to everyone. Instead, the right to firefighters is only for those who an annual “premium”. So when a house (whose owner hadn’t paid the fee) caught fire, the firefighters refused to come douse the fire. They finally came only when the neighbour’s house caught fire (and only because the neighbor had paid the premium). And even then, they didn’t put out the fire in the first house. Sound harsh? Even cruel, perhaps?

Before you get all judgmental and moralistic, consider the bailouts for most of the Western world banks, and now even for countries like Greece. It raises the same question as the firefighter incident. Should we rescue or care for people who choose to not get insurance? Choose not to be careful? Choose to throw caution to the winds? After all, can you really be sure that they didn’t behave insanely simply because they expected to be saved by others later on?

Are those people relying on your kindness and compassion to bail them out for all their follies? Are they just exploiting your goodness? And if so, is it OK not to care and to just leave them to their fate?

Language, the Final Frontier

2011-11-03T12:00:00.002+05:30

It seems to be the general trend in everything. The microprocessor-software combo seems to do most things that was done by humans much faster and way better. Except language. That’s one area that still resists the tech juggernaut. Items related to language, like translations and speech, seem too tough to crack.

Let’s start with translation. Word Lens, an app developed for the iPhone, became very famous due to videos like this:

Point your phone, take a picture and voila! The translated text appears. Awesome, isn’t it (even if it only worked between English and Spanish)? People certainly thought so and shelled out money to buy the app. Which is when the complaints started: the translations weren’t always right. Nor were they context sensitive.

Google Translate creates and scans (massive) databases, and then applies algorithms to decide (guess?) which words mean the same thing in different languages. Now Google’s taken it to the next level by combing translations with speech recognition:

Nice, especially when you don’t know the language of the place. But not perfect. But unlike Word Lens, Google Translate is free, so we’re more tolerant of its failures.

So then speech recognition that’s almost AI like should be far, far away, right? Well, Apple’s given it a shot. The iPhone 4S’s voice assistant, Siri, tries taking it to that next level:

But users say that Siri makes mistakes quite often. Apple knew that Siri wasn’t perfect, and even added humorous responses for some questions. Like if you keep prodding Siri to tell you a story, then (after repeatedly asking it), Siri’ll tell you this story:

The Road to Open Science

2011-11-01T16:58:00.002+05:30

Academics and even science seem to place a great deal of weightage on opinions of the big names. Like, in the 1920’s, when Ralph Kronig proposed an interpretation of quantum spin, he ran his paper by 2 big-shots, Neils Bohr and Pauli. Both dismissed the idea. And so Kronig did not publish his paper. A couple of other scientists did publish the same idea and walked away with the glory. Kronig was furious and cursed physicists “who are always so damned sure of, and inflated with, the correctness of their opinion”.

In private, Bohr said that Kronig “was a fool”, who should have published if he had been that sure. Easier said than done. In the academic and scientific worlds, a nod from a bigwig is necessary to get published. Kronig wouldn’t have stood a chance of getting published once it was known that both Pauli and Bohr had rejected his paper.

Fast forward to today. Were things any different nowadays, I wondered? Has the Internet changed the way scientific papers are published? Turns out it has. Like that famous news a month back that neutrinos were found to travel faster than light. It wasn’t published via a scientific journal. Rather, it was published via arXiv, a site that posts research papers before they're formally published in a scientific journal. Additionally, papers on arXiv are not peer-reviewed ahead of time.

So how reliable is arXiv then? Turns out its intent is different from a regular journal. arXiv is a way to announce early, “I think I found something. Have a look and tell me if I made a mistake or not?”. Since the neutrino paper, over 80 papers have been posted (again in arXiv) as responses, some criticizing the experimental setup and reliability, others offering explanations as to how the results could still co-exist with Einstein’s theory of relativity. Yet others have decided to conduct the experiment again and check for themselves.

If the paper passes all the checks and criticisms being hurled at it, then it’s that much stronger when it goes for official publication. And if it’s wrong, well, nobody wasted time and money going through the official process of publishing and retracting.

So is this the new way that science is being done?

Not quite yet. The entire academic system today looks at number of papers published. Reviewing or sharing ideas online is still seen as a waste of time or a channel that opens the doors for even non-scientists to find mistakes (amateurs can and do find errors in mathematical papers online). So until the academic system stops looking only at papers published, “open science” will continue to be the exception rather than the rule.

And Then There Were Eight

2011-10-30T16:07:00.001+05:30

Pluto has the dubious distinction of being the only one that got thrown out of the Planets Club. So why did Pluto get downgraded? It wasn’t a simple case of the telescopes back in those days not being sophisticated enough (although that did play its role too).

Rather, people were looking for a planet. Why were they looking for one? Well, because Uranus’ orbit appeared to be disturbed in the 1840’s. They suspected another planet beyond Uranus was the culprit. And thus they found Neptune. On further analysis, it looked as if Neptune couldn’t have done it alone. And hence the hunt for another planet started. Percival Lowell (of the family referred to in the ditty about Boston being the home of the bean and the cod, where the Lowells spoke only to Cabots, while the Cabots spoke only to God) assigned his observatory to finding Planet X, as it was called then. Clyde Tombaugh found Planet X after Lowell’s death. And that’s why Pluto got to be called a planet.

Then the questions started coming as better telescopes brought more data in. Did it make sense to call Pluto a planet when it was so tiny (a fifth the mass of the earth's Moon)? Wasn’t its orbit different from all the other planets (way more eccentric, and its orbital plane way too titled)? But these questions obviously weren’t enough to changes Pluto’s status.

Then, in 1989, Voyager 2 sent back data that revised the mass of Neptune. That revised mass meant that there was no disturbance of Uranus that needed to be accounted for (beyond that caused by Neptune). Ergo, the “need” for a 9^th planet no longer existed. This put Pluto on shakier ground.

Then astronomers began to find more and more objects of similar sizes in a band (now called the Kuiper Belt) around Pluto. Given that all the other planets had “cleaned up” objects in their orbital path, people began to wonder why Pluto didn’t have to do the same to be called a planet? On the other hand, if cleaning up the debris wasn’t a necessary condition, shouldn’t all the other Kuiper Belt objects be called planets too? Then came the knockout punch: in 2005, they found Eris, a Kuiper Belt object larger and heavier than Pluto.

At this point, astronomers had 3 choices: (1) Increase the number of planets to include Eris and Ceres, yet another large Kuiper Belt object, or (2) Keep the planet count at 9 (retain the status quo because what’s done is done), or (3) Drop Pluto from the planets list (and thus have a valid reason to exclude all the other Kuiper Belt objects as well).

In the end, astronomers voted to demote Pluto (and Eris) down to the newly created classification of “dwarf planet”.

Why Judge the Writers?

2011-10-28T19:10:00.001+05:30

I’ve never understood this obsession many have with evaluating a writer’s personal life. Like it has any relation to their work.

With a new Tintin movie ready for release (The Adventures of Tintin), the latest guy to get judged in this manner is Hergé. For his collaboration with the Nazis. And for writing a very racist Tintin (Tintin in the Congo). So much so, that they don’t even show it on the list of Tintin books anymore! So have people stopped buying Tintin’s for their kids, to voice their protest? No, but that doesn’t stop them from criticizing him.

Others like to bring up Wodehouse’s broadcasts on behalf of the Nazis. Did that make his novels less funny? Do you laugh less at Bertie Wooster’s crazy adventures because of that? Does it make his language any less brilliant?

Or take the endless discussions as to who wrote Shakespeare’s works. One author or multiple authors, would we quote Shakespeare (knowingly or unknowingly) any less for that? It seems such an idiotic topic.

Besides, a writer indulging in some cruel act or supporting an evil ideology is not the same as a Pope shielding pedophile priests. A writer writes, he doesn’t claim to be the most moral or just person on the planet. So why judge the writers on anything other than what they wrote?

Typewriters and Tablets

2011-10-27T13:12:00.004+05:30

Open up a car or a generator and it’s easy to see what Jack Zylkin, creator of the USB Typewriter (see pic below) calls the “muggle magic of gears and pulleys and solenoids fitting together in perfect harmony”.

Zylkin says one can’t see the same magic upon opening electronic gadgets up. True, but just because you can’t “see” the harmony in your phone or laptop doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. In any case, is it even worth anybody’s time to design an electronics gadget very well? After all, electronic items are born and die at Mach speed. It’s like evolution on steroids.

I find the combination of a digital tablet with an analog typewriter amusing: after all, the QWERTY keyboard was designed specifically to slow down typists (so that a fast typist on a typewriter wouldn’t cause the keys to collide), while pretty much every keyboard on a phone or a tablet today tries to speed up typing by predicting words as you type! Stone Age, meet the Digital Age.

Just Because it Sounds Right…

2011-10-25T14:34:00.001+05:30

I’ve read 2 different sets of people not agreeing entirely with some of Anna’s proposals. And no, I don’t refer to the politicians and bureaucrats. It came from other quarters and surprisingly, they gave reasons rather than just shouting in some stupid TV show.

The first instance was from a financial paper, the Wall Street Journal (India edition). Their reasons were two-fold: first, they asked whether it made more sense to knock off the existing system and replace it with what the Lokpal wants rather than having two parallel, bloated, bureaucratic/policing, expensive systems?

WSJ’s second argument was that the Lokpal addresses the symptoms (corruption) rather than the root causes (why is their corruption in the first place?). In WSJ’s opinion, the root cause is the red tape that surrounds everything, that takes forever to decide or execute anything, that places discretionary power in the hands of the politicians and the bureaucrats. WSJ’s preferred solution? Reduce the red tape.

The other example I saw was in the CEC’s arguments against the “Reject all candidates” option during elections. The CEC argued that if such an option was provided and exercised in a lot of constituencies, then what’s the next step? Do we hold a re-election in those places? Because that’s expensive, and there’s no guarantee that the next set won’t get rejected again. Are we OK with unrepresented constituencies?

As these two sets of arguments show, often there’s no perfect solution. It makes sense to evaluate the proposed solutions in terms of their do’ability and costs and consider where they lead to. More often than not, people just hear an idea that sounds “right” and “noble” and decide that’s the way to proceed. Life’s too complicated for such a simplistic, moralistic attitude.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any legislators who are capable of thinking things through or who can communicate well and explain their reasons for coming up with different options…

The Judicial System’s Poster Child

2011-10-22T20:24:00.001+05:30

From some weird reason, our judicial system has decided that Ajmal Kasab is the poster child to show that our system “works”. How? By prolonging his trial endlessly.

Imagine that: there’s the CC TV evidence from 26/11 that shows that he was killing people randomly. He is not even an Indian citizen. More than 160 people slaughtered by this animal and his friends and our system needs 3 years (and counting) to decide whether or not this is a “rarest of rare” crime that deserves the death penalty. And then it’ll go to our President’s desk who will let it lie unresponded to for years on end.

Bravo! Yes, we are all convinced by how (and for how long) Kasab’s case has been handled that the system “works”.

Could our system not find better candidates to show that it works? Like speeding up Kalmadi or Raja’s trials? Like not allowing Yeduyarappa to go around hospital hopping? Apparently not. Taking 3 years brooding over Kasab with the possibility of commuting or overturning his sentence: yes, that’s what inspires so much confidence and admiration in most Indians.

Or are we trying to impress the rest of the world (aka the West) with this trial? I guess the judges don’t read the papers or surf the Net. Last time I checked, the US assassinates people it knows to be terrorists with drones. And in Yemen, the US even killed an American citizen (terrorist) deliberately with drones. So is it Europe they are trying to impress then? C’mon, no matter how this trial is done, the Europeans will call us the bad guys for just having the death penalty. You can’t win them over…ever. So why waste time and money?

Put an end to this travesty and kill the s.o.b. And save our tax money that is used to keep this pious believer alive.

The Fight Against RTI

2011-10-16T14:31:00.001+05:30

Just when you think Manmohan Singh can’t drag the UPA any lower, he does. Like his recent suggestion to relook the Right to Information Act (RTI). One can see why he feels that way: after all, it was one of the RTI responses that brought to the fore Pranab Mukherjee’s allegation that Chidambaram was (also) responsible for the 2G scam. Another RTI reply cast doubts on the CAG’s assessment of the extent of losses in the 2G scam.

For a government that claims it likes and does things for the aam aadmi, it’s surprising that they want to focus their energies on muzzling RTI instead of providing protection to the aam aadmi who asks inconvenient questions.

Both politicians and bureaucrats claim that too much transparency hampers government functioning. Of course, it does. Never used to any kind of accountability, one can see how transparency can hamper corruption, incompetence and inefficiencies (or what they call “governance”). Manmohan Singh can be educated in the West and the guy who brought in liberalization, but at heart he belongs to the old school that doesn’t like open government, who believes he cannot be evaluated or questioned because he knows best.

As former chief election commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh, said, “Nobody can fully cleanse the system, but at least RTI is helping to do so in bits and pieces. It has put some fear in the system”. One can see why politicians wouldn’t be willing to tolerate any cleansing, even in bits and pieces.

Seeing the backlash against the “relook RTI” proposal, the Congress has backed out. Now let’s wait a day or two for the Congress sycophant to say that the idea to back out was Rahul baba’s or Sonia madam’s. Yeah, right: like the PM can say anything that wasn’t cleared by madam!

Italy’s Dumb “Hurts my Image” Law

2011-10-15T16:00:00.001+05:30

If you thought it was only dictatorships that had problems with the Internet, think again. In the democratic world, music and media companies blame the Internet for piracy and loss of their clientele (who wants to pay for a newspaper or a song when you can find the same free online?).

At least one can understand those companies’ gripe with the Internet. What’s harder to understand is the way some democratic countries still can’t come to terms with the fact that the rules of the Internet are/should be/need to be different.

Like take this proposal that the Italian government is considering whereby all websites would need to publish, within 48 hours of the request, a correction of any content that the applicant deems detrimental to his/her image.

That proposal is so idiotic that one doesn’t even know where to begin. For starters, one is not allowed to evaluate if what’s said is correct or not. The only parameter to consider is whether or not some nut job considers it detrimental to his image!

No wonder then that Wikipedia removed its Italian version stating that to “publish on our site the correction as is, provided by the named paragraph 29, without even the right to discuss and verify the claim, is an unacceptable restriction”.

Well done, Italy. I assume that their next target would be the printing press? And I guess it’s too much to ask the Italians to focus on more important issues, like, I don’t know, fixing their debt woes, perhaps?

Steve Jobs, CEO or Religious Head?

2011-10-08T16:55:00.004+05:30

Almost all of the reactions to Steve Jobs’s demise lie in one edge of the spectrum: the lavish praise to hagiography (worshipful biography) end. Yes, even hagiography. Kind of apt, given that the anticipation for his next, new product always bordered on religious fervor.

Take this byline in one of the articles on Jobs base on Apple’s logo (pic above), “Steve Jobs turned Eve's apple, the symbol of fallen humankind, into a religious icon for true believers in technology. But can salvation be downloaded?”

And it’s not as if only others talk about Jobs that way. Take these lines, for instance:
“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

Death? Dogma? Inner voice? Jobs said these lines at the famous Stanford commencement address he made a few years back. I guess that was the Zen Buddhist speaking.

Given how useful and easy to use Apple’s products were (iPod, iPhone, iPad), no wonder Rishad Tobaccowala said that Apple packages the world inside objects of Zen beauty. And so, as Jeff Jarvis wrote, Jobs probably went to iHeaven!

Different Incentives for Different Cultures

2011-10-07T20:04:00.001+05:30

Heard that story of how the native (Red) Indians sold the area known as New York today to the whites for a bunch of beads? Sounds crazy, until you realize that different cultures value different things. But if you thought all that was ancient history, think again.

Like take this example: in most parts of the world, a kid who wins an award gets a gold star, a certificate, a pat on the back or sometimes even cash. In others? Well, they win guns and bombs! No really, I mean it: A couple of weeks back, an Islamist insurgent-run radio station in Somalia said it was awarding guns, bombs and books to three children in a Koran recital contest.

I guess it’s stuff like this which led the Brits and Germans to announce that multiculturalism has failed in their countries. Because there is such a thing as too much tolerance.

Financial Theories v/s Real Life

2011-09-30T11:16:00.000+05:30

“Like all of life’s rich, emotional experiences, the full flavor of losing important money cannot be conveyed by literature.”
- Fred Schwed

Apparently, most academics in the field of economics have never heard the quote or known the feeling. How else can you explain why they come up with all kinds of theories, and yet we keep lurching from financial crisis to bubble to collapse?

Take one of their favourite recommendations/theories: diversification and buying securities (bonds, stocks etc) that are not correlated. Like all theories, they don’t get into the details of how to identify whether the securities you buy are correlated or not. After all, if they had spelled out the details, we’d never have had the financial crisis of 2008 where investments banks (and even a few countries) all ended up owning highly correlated securities and had to be (and still are being) bailed out.

To me, it just sounds like talk. It sounds good in theory, but nobody has a clue on how to apply it in real life. And once things go wrong, the academics are right there to tell you what went wrong. C’mon guys, everyone is a genius after the fact! Well actually, even after-the-fact analysis these guys do may or may not be right: after all, finance and economics aren’t physics or chemistry where one can try out the experiment again with the suggested changes to see what happens. There are just too many variables.

Where Co-Ed is Not OK

2011-09-23T10:37:00.000+05:30

Guess which sport is still being run by a bunch of dinosaurs? Athletics. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) recently decided to drop the women’s world record for a marathon because, hold your breath, it was run in a mixed environment! ‘Mixed’ means a race involving both men and women.

So what’s the problem with a mixed environment? Apparently, having men in the race sets a faster pace compared to an all-women race. Huh? If the pace set by the men is too fast for the women, wouldn’t the women just tire out? On the other hand, if the women are able to run faster because they can keep up, how is that not a fair record?

Even the dinos realized that they couldn’t completely bury the faster time set in a mixed environment. Their solution? Call the time set in a mixed environment the “world best”. Which, of course, would be different (and faster) than the “world record”. Wow! How dumb can you get?

Double Standards on Wastage

2011-09-21T10:57:00.000+05:30

A couple of days back, I heard that the government of Karnataka banned an event called “Le Tomatina”. What’s that, you ask? It’s a copy of a similar festival in Spain where people pelt (huge amounts of) tomatoes at each other for fun. You can also see it in song from the movie, Zindagi Na Milegi Doobara.

The reason for the ban makes sense: How can it be right to waste food like this, especially in a country where so many starve or barely get enough to eat? For once, a politician did something right. So far so good. A couple of days later, though, I saw a bunch of people performing sheerabhishekam (pouring milk) on giant placards of a Kannada movie star because it was his birthday.

I don’t get this: how can it be OK to waste food in one case but not the other? And while everyone likes to criticize lavish spending during weddings, pouring milk down the drain evokes no response. Wonder why? It’s almost as if wasting, per se, is neither good nor bad. Rather, the attitude seems to be to tolerate or condemn wastage based on the economic status of the person doing the wasting. So the rich and middle class shouldn’t waste, but the poor can. Seems kind of twisted.

The 9/11 Ad

2011-09-18T16:05:00.002+05:30

Guess which country put up a half-page ad in an American newspaper on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks? Jihadistan, of course (also known as Pakistan)! The ad asked, “Which country can do more for your peace?” and went on to list the “sacrifices” and “effort” by the Pakistanis in “fighting” terrorism.

You might ask hasn’t the story of Pakistan always been to “run with the hare and hunt with the hound”? Yes, and even they unintentionally acknowledge that by putting Benazir’s photo on an ad about terrorism. After all, wasn’t she the one who said she’d foster terrorism to bleed India to death by a thousand cuts? Yes, Benazir sure is the face of Pakistan’s stance on terror.

Very quickly, everyone realized that the ad had, well, bombed. Nobody was buying it. No wonder then that when the Wall Street Journal tried to find who’s idea the ad was, the Pak government said it came from the army’s public relations division. Who, in turn, said it came from the Information & Broadcasting ministry.

To see how ineffective the ad was, just look at the events less than a week later. After this week's assault on the U.S. Embassy and coalition headquarters in Kabul, the US says it is looking for evidence that directly links the ISI to the terrorists.

Propaganda ain’t easy when you try it on other countries. Even Goebbels was never able to convince the Brits or the Americans that the Nazis were the good guys. But try telling that to the marketing wizards of Pakistan.

Spot the Differences

2011-09-10T21:17:00.000+05:30

It’s a sickening sense of déjà vu. Another blast at the Delhi High Court within months. Since our bureaucrats and politicians practised their trademark inertia between the previous blast and now, there were no CC TV cameras in the vicinity. And the political parties have started trading charging of incompetence and unwillingness to fight terrorism.

So has nothing changed? Well, no, 2 things have changed. Firstly, the politicians got boo’ed when they went for their photo-ops, sorry, I meant when they went to visit the victims at the hospital. The other difference? Digvijay Singh hasn’t come out to blame the RSS or Hindus in general. Then again, maybe I am being too hasty; maybe Digvijay Singh will accuse some Hindu outfit in the next few days.

While the government always says that one shouldn’t associate a religion with terrorism, the United Colours of “Secularism” apparently doesn’t include saffron, as per Digvijay Singh.

Some Learnings from the Anna Episode

2011-09-08T13:29:00.002+05:30

I learnt quite a bit based on events, actions and comments made before, during and shortly after the Anna Hazare fast:

Pre-event arrests are easier than post-event arrests: It is possible to arrest guys who plan to lead peaceful protests at the speed of light. But it is not possible to arrest politicians even after the crime (think of how long it took to arrest Kalmadi or Raja). But even that comes up with a caveat: “political activists” who block highways and burn buses when they go on strike cannot be arrested before the bundh.

The right to free speech is selective: It’s OK for MP’s to do name calling (e.g. Manish Tiwari can call Anna to be “steeped in corruption”). But it is not OK for non-MP’s to call MP’s as illiterate or donning masks. That’s free speech, the MP version.

The meaning of “cut and thrust in a debate”: Manish Tiwari’s apology for calling Anna corrupt? It happened during the “cut and thrust of debate”, he says! Apparently, calling names is Parliament lingo for a debate. And a very high level of a debate, at that.

Wikileaks is right about Rahul Gandhi: Remember what happened when the Election Commission started acting against politicians during TN Seshan’s era? The government diluted its power by making it a 3-person panel and stating that all decisions had to be made by majority. After all, what were the odds that 2 people who intended to act would ever sneak through the top posts? So Rahul Gandhi announced that the Lokpal should be made similar to the Election Commission. That way, politicians can appoint ineffectual, powerless, corrupt people as the bosses of the Lokpal. Wikileaks was right: Rahul is no longer an “empty suit”, he is a seasoned politician.

The middle class is always wrong: As per the likes of Arundhati Roy, a Maoist who kills (random) people is morally superior to the middle class person who protests peacefully. And it’s OK for the poor and oppressed to not support the middle class on matters that the latter cares about. But when the middle class reciprocates the same attitude towards the poor, then that’s termed as lack of caring for others.

The Monarchy of India

2011-09-04T13:26:00.002+05:30

When Rajiv Gandhi overturned the Shah Bano verdict, he was just reaffirming that a uniform civil code need not be a part of the way we run our country. Turns out he has opened the doors for every group to say they can pick and choose which laws should be applied to them. It’s kind of ironical that the same “different laws for different people” policy is now attempting to be extended to require that his killers be left alive because they are Tamilians! Maybe we should amend the laws to state that Tamils and LTTE members cannot be executed.

And while we’re at it, let’s extend the “death penalty not applicable” list to Punjabis and let that other guy on death roll, Bhullar, live as well. Omar Abdullah is right: how can it be fair to allow the persecution of Muslim women to continue (which is what overturning the Shah Bano verdict was all about) and at the same time, go ahead with the killing of a Muslim man, Afzal Guru? So let’s add Muslims too to the groups that are exempt from the death penalty. Next, let’s exempt Maoists from any laws related to murder and terrorism. And the icing on this different-laws-for-different-people line can be when the Congress declares that terrorism laws shouldn’t apply to foreigners and voila! Ajmal Kasab can walk out a free man.

Such idiotic decisions and their (presumably unintended) consequences are inevitable as long as the Congress party insists on running the country via a hereditary monarch. As long as they don’t care if the new monarch has any prior experience with politics. As long as they don’t insist on the learnings that comes from hands on administrative experience at lower levels (with the inevitable mistakes along the way). But no, Rahul baba will be PM without ever having run a ministry. And no, his Youth Congress experience doesn’t count because he doesn’t have to deal with any opposition or the constraints of a coalition in that role.

I recently saw this Pranab Mukherjee interview on CNBC where he said that one of the reasons why the government can’t push through motions of its choice is its lack of a simple majority and what is generally called the coalition dharma (the compulsions of coalition politics). What Mukherjee said must obviously be true (at least to some extent). But only a guy like Mukherjee would appreciate the day when (if?) his party gets a simple majority. But the next monarch, Rahul baba, will take it as an entitlement (same as his dad) and will squander it away the way his father squandered the 4/5th majority back in 1984.

Selective Prosecution

2011-08-18T18:23:00.001+05:30

After the recent riots in UK, there was a lot of coverage of this 11 yr old boy who was among those arrested. And more importantly, among those who the British government said would be charged. I found that very surprising: was this the same British government that had leaned on Scotland a few months back to release the Libyan convicted over the Lockerbie bombing? So they want to release a convicted (by a Western court) mass murderer who is a foreigner but also charge a 11 year old who is a British citizen?

Back home, Kapil Sibal feels that Anna Hazare putting ultimatums to the government violates the “sanctity of Parliament”. So let me get this straight: as per the Congress, arresting Hazare for calling a spade a spade (saying that MP’s are criminals who won’t do a thing to prevent corruption) does more for the sanctity of Parliament than, say, weeding out corruption? Or how about hanging Afzal Guru, the man convicted of attacking Parliament in 2001. How launching a terrorist attack on Parliament is a lesser crime than anything Hazare may have done is something that only a Congressman can understand.

I just realized Sonia Gandhi is a lot smarter than I gave her credit for. She knew Manmohan Singh’s true nature long back. While the rest of us ignorant people had a good image of him, she knew his true nature: she recognized him to be an MP in the true Congressian mould, a man who believed that he doesn’t have to explain or justify anything he does, that his designation makes everything he does right, and who has a dictatorial streak in him. Great choice, Sonia!

Damned if You Do

2011-08-15T19:00:00.001+05:30

I didn’t realize how much dislike and fear that most of Europe still has when it comes to German influence until I read this article by Michael Lewis. The article itself is very long, gets quite vulgar at times and is still very informative.

While the rest of the Western world (Iceland, Greece, Ireland, the US) behaved like lunatics when loans were easily available at low interest rates, the Germans showed restraint. Commendable? Not entirely. Because the Germans lent their “own money to enable foreigners to behave insanely”. I guess that’s why they say “Neither a lender nor a borrower be”. (Of course, like any advice, overdoing that one isn’t a good thing either because it brings all economic activity to a halt).

Today, to avert financial Armageddon in Europe, everyone wants the Germans to bail out the Greeks (and presumably, the Irish, the Italians and the Spanish after that). The Germans, obviously, are not enthusiastic about doing any such thing. But even if they do agree, they want the Greeks to make some changes in the way they, er, operate. Set aside the half-serious suggestions in German papers like “Why don't you sell your islands, you bankrupt Greeks?”, the other, more pragmatic advice includes things like reducing salaries in Greece to German levels (yes, that’s right: the same kind of bureaucratic job pays more in Greece! To circumvent EU laws on such matters, the Greeks invented a 13th and 14th month and paid the excess as the salary for the non-existent months). Another advice is to increase taxes. And to actually collect those taxes. None of these things sound wrong, especially coming from a country that is bailing you out, right? That’s not what the Greeks feel. Why? Because what they hear in these suggestions is:
- Be efficient and productive
- Have laws
- Follow those laws.
Take a breath and you’ll notice that all these characteristics are what one associates with a German! How could a Greek possibly give up his identity to become more German?! This smacks of a European takeover by Germany…an imposition of German identity on the rest of Europe.

I pity the Germans: they are expected to bail out the riff-raff of Europe, and then they have to take a lot of abuse when they make perfectly reasonable suggestions! As Lewis wrote in his article, “Deutschland Unter Alles” is what every European expects from Germany, even when they do the rescue act. It’s almost as if the rest of Europe has decided to damn Germany for all eternity for past acts. I get why the Jews and Israelis may feel that way, but the sheer hypocrisy of imperialists-at-that-time Europe is just unbelievable.

The Knives are Out

2011-08-12T20:27:00.001+05:30

The knives are out in UK. In so many different ways. The rioters have taken out the literal ones. It’s surprising that it can go on for so many nights, with the police unable to do anything.

Then there all the other types of knives, the non-literal ones. Like from the people who’ve decided to attribute reasons for the riots. The reasons range from had-enough-with-racial-discrimination to feeling-excluded-from-prosperity to feeling-of-hopelessness to simply-looting. Based on their reasons, these people blame the riots on everything from discrimination to non-inclusive growth (sound familiar?) to the recession and cuts in spending to lack of good parenting!

When the British PM said that social networking sites like Twitter were partly responsible because they acted as tools for co-ordinating such riots, another set pointed out how, just a few months back, the Brits were so in favour of Twitter when it was used in the Arab risings. How quickly times change.

The Chinese took a shot saying that such a law and order breakdown didn’t bode well for the security of athletes during next year’s Olympics in London. Not to be left behind, our cricket commentators are pointing out how our cricket team has “magnanimously” agreed to stay on and play as opposed to the Brits who, they say, would have packed their bags and run if the same thing had happened in India. The shoe is truly on the other foot.

And lastly, there’s Internet humour. Like this photo on Flickr titled “Revised London Olympics logo, now with rioter!”

Some Thoughts on the US Downgrade

2011-08-07T15:06:00.001+05:30

S&P’s downgrade of the US government’s credit rating is all over the news. Will that be the straw that pushes the US into Round 2 of the recession? And if the US situation worsens, will it take down most of the world with it? Who can say? So I’ll just stick to some other aspects linked to the downgrade.

Even as S&P downgraded the US rating, the US treasury officials pointed out a $2 trillion error in S&P's math. S&P has acknowledged the error. So how reliable is the downgrade assessment then? (I don’t know how big an error that is with respect to the US, my only reference is that $2 trillion is the size of India’s GDP!). Secondly, the other rating agencies haven’t downgraded the US… yet. Then again, all these rating agencies were assigning high ratings to all the crap that the investment banks sold before 2008. So how much trust should one put on anything they say? Or are the rating agencies now in the “boy who cried wolf” situation? Maybe it’s a case of nobody believing them even when they speak the truth.

I remember reading a couple of my brother’s finance books a few years back and noticing how American government debt was always referred to as the equivalent of risk-free return. Now, with the S&P downgrade, maybe some of those text books have to be edited! And since pretty much all of risk v/s returns portfolio theory is built around the idea of US debt being the risk-free standard, wonder what’s going to be the new risk-free equivalent in those text books?

Then there’s the impact this downgrade on the Keynesian theory that the government-should-spend-its-way-out-of-a-recession. Now I realize that the Keynesian idea has a fatal flaw: theory v/s reality mismatch. Keynes never considered the possibility that a government could run out of money before the economy recovered! Kind of ironical given that he once said “The markets can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent” (He was talking about individuals, not governments).

Finally, this is also why I don’t agree with the way many who treat economics as a science. I don’t mean that in a contemptuous way, just in a it’s-a-fact kind of way. Like take US banking boss, Ben Bernanke (equivalent of the RBI governor): the guy was well read on the Depression, and yet couldn’t (or at least hasn’t till date) charter the way out of the recession despite all his learnings from all those studies. Why? Because there are too many variables, plus too many new variables that didn’t exist in 1929. If you can’t repeat an experiment and isolate the variables, how is it a science?

The Economist: How Dumb, How Hypocritical

2011-08-03T09:52:00.002+05:30

One of my friends pointed me to this article in The Economist that criticized India’s attitude towards its neighbours. It correctly pointed out that India has good relations with almost none of its neighbours (except the tiny and inconsequential ones like Maldives and Bhutan).

But some of the criticisms and reasons given in that article are just, well, what you’d expect of any holier-than-thou European publication. Like when it condemns India on its Myanmar policy because it “snuggles up to the country’s thuggish dictators”. I’m curious how we are any different from the Brits who snuggle up to Libya (until recently)? Or the West that mollycoddles the Saudis? As Kissinger said, "He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch". That’s realpolitik. And that’s the way all nations work. But apparently when India does the same, it’s time to be sanctimonious! Methinks The Economist is just being hypocritical.

Remember our dear neighbour, Pakistan, that even the Brit Prime Minister called the “global epicenter of terrorism”? It’s the great Western ally in the war on terror where bin Laden was living right in the middle of an army town...for years! The Economist wants us to talk to the same country and praises Manmohan Singh “who has heroically persisted in dialogue with Pakistan in the face of provocations and domestic resistance”. So the next time somebody bombs London, will The Economist urge the Brits to go kiss those murderers? Yeah, right.

The most surprising condemnation in that article was about how India doesn’t trade much with its neighbours (“Just 5% of South Asia’s trade is within the region”). But are India’s neighbours (other than China) rich? Can India, with an economy size close to $2 trillion, really do much trade with its poorer neighbours who have tiny GDP’s? Didn’t Japan become rich by trading with the US, not its Asian neighbours? We are just doing what works. Maybe The Economist should take lessons in Capitalism 101, Globalization 101 and Trade 101. And to think, they are considered one of the best economic/finance magazines. Really? I think one of Murdoch’s tabloids could write more sensibly about economics than these guys!

The Infinite, the Void and Christianity

2011-07-31T18:00:00.001+05:30

Everyone’s heard of Galileo and how the Church persecuted him. But what I didn’t know was why. Sure, Christianity considered the earth to be the center of the universe, but was that such a central belief of Christianity that they’d kill a guy over it? I always felt like there was something more to it.

Like everything else in the Western world, the story starts in ancient Greece. Pythagoras believed the earth was at the center of the universe. The sun, moon, planets and stars revolved around the earth, with each pinned inside a sphere. How far did these spheres within spheres extend? To infinity? Or did they stop at some point? If they stopped, what lay beyond the last sphere?

Aristotle denied the existence of both the void and the infinite. As far he was concerned, both the void and the infinite were just constructs of the mind: and he felt there’s nothing in the real world (universe) that was infinite. So Aristotle’s answer was that there were only a finite number of spheres and that God lay beyond the last sphere.

But what’s any of this got to do with the Church? Well, the Church loved the Aristotelian model because it “proved” the existence of God (as the being beyond the last sphere). So now you see why Copernicus and Galileo were so “dangerous”. When they said that the earth was not the center of the universe, they were disproving the Aristotelian model. And thus attacking the proof of the existence of God!

Copernicus, being a priest, knew how his heliocentric (sun-centric) model was inevitably an attack on the Church. And so he didn’t publish his findings until he was dead. Galileo, not being a priest, didn’t know what hell he was unleashing. And that is why the Church went after Galileo with their guns blazing.

On a related note, the Church having adopted the Aristotelian model had to deny the existence of the void (because Aristotle denied it). Not only that, they considered the void as evil! Why? Because it was tied to their answer to the question as to why evil exists. God, they said, is omnipotent, so there’s nothing He can’t do. But God wouldn’t do evil. Combine the two statements and what do you get: evil is nothing. From there, it’s only a short journey (inversion, actually) to decide that void is evil. And that dislike of the void is the root of the phrase “Nature abhors a vacuum”.

Certified by the West

2011-06-11T19:56:00.000+05:30

What’s common about Arundhati Ray, VS Naipaul and MF Husain? Apart from the obvious “Creative people, Indian by origin” answer? They’re all admired by a section of India that feels an obligation to like and/or respect anyone who’s won recognition from the West. Don’t get it? Let me explain. Do you think most of the English speaking, liberal/secular gang would support a “murder is justified” stand? Or a male chauvinist? Or a guy who mocks others’ religion? Almost always they’d not, except when the person expressing those views was recognized by the West.

Take Arundhati Roy: she’s always ready to rationalize murders by the “poor” and “persecuted”. And yet, does she write in Bengali or Oriya, the languages of Maoists? Oh no, she’ll spew her venom in English. Really, Arundhati, you think the people you claim to speak for understand English? But I guess if you wrote in Bengali or Oriya, you’d never get a Booker or whatever prize you won. A prize given by the evil West! The people you love to rail against. You call yourself a writer and don’t see the irony in that?

Then there’s Naipaul. Always critical of India. But would still like to be granted an Indian visa without having to go through the process that he’ll claim India doesn’t follow. Ah yes, I get it: he wants to criticize us and be given special treatment. Talk about having your cake and eating it too! And now this guy deprecates all female authors. Me, I’d read JK Rowling any day over the India hating garbage this moron writes. But hey, that’s just me.

And lastly, there’s Hussain. The same Indians who support his artistic freedom to paint a Hindu goddess nude would advocate restraint from provoking others via their art when they, I don’t know, say draw cartoons of prophets?

So sad that so many Indians still feel that recognition by the West is what certifies greatness. I guess you can take the British out of India, but you can’t take the craving for Western approval out of many Indians.

Fast Against Corruption and Other Charades

2011-06-06T18:29:00.000+05:30

Take how all of this Baba Ramdev “issue” started. With Anna Hazare’s fast against corruption and his insistence on framing new laws. Technically, an unelected set of people shouldn’t have the right to “force” the creation of any law. The operative word in that last sentence, of course, is “technically”. Because, technically, the elected crooks…er, representatives of the poor people (note it’s always about the poor, never people like you and me)…are supposed to be framing those very laws. And they’re supposed to give the law enforcers the clout to enforce those laws. But since the elected representatives don’t do their job, somebody else had to step up.

Next, look at this Baba Ramdev’s aims. At least, Hazare and his group aimed at realistic targets. Demands many of us could relate to. Not so with Ramdev. This guy decides he wants to aim for everything under the sun: retrieve money from Switzerland, hang the corrupt, and oh yes, even unrelated demands like making Hindi the medium of education.

Let’s take his ridiculous demands. Hang the corrupt? Give me a break. We can’t even hang Ajmal Kasab in this country. What makes Ramdev think we’ll ever hang an Indian citizen, a politician no less? And why should we make Hindi the medium? What has that got to do with corruption? Most of this country doesn’t know or care for Hindi. And strangely, those very parts of India are the most prosperous states. The drivers of that spectacular GDP growth we so love to talk about. Besides, it’s knowing English that creates so many jobs from IT to call centers. So by bringing in a useless, unrelated topic, Ramdev has managed to divide the set of people who were united about corruption. Methinks Ramdev may have been sent there by the politicians to sabotage things from inside. Or maybe a Chinese puppet meant to sabotage our growth rate!

Of course, regardless of this nutjob’s aims, he should be allowed to protest peacefully. You know, all that Voltaire’s “I do not agree with a word that you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” principle. But that’s so not the Congress philosophy. Nope, they’re the party that believes in imposing the Emergency, Article 356 and every other suppression of our rights. But hey, they are still the good guys…after all they are “secular”. And no, the 1984 riots don’t count as per them and their supporters.

Mis-extrapolation

2011-05-27T10:49:00.001+05:30

Ever notice how people assume that people who did well till college are necessarily the smartest people around for the rest of their lives? Like look at how people talk about IIT’ians (I don’t refer to the IIT’ians who brag, rather I refer to the rest who talk about that guy’s IIT pedigree as a guaranteed sign of greatness in everything he does for all time)? Or the same thing, except replace “IIT’ian” with “IAS topper” in the previous line? Or “law school topper”?

I mean, sure, all those guys worked very hard at a certain point of their life. But how do you extrapolate from the fact that they slogged when they were 17 or 22 (or whenever) that they’re necessarily the smartest guys around till they die?

Do people seriously believe that our academic system teaches people skills that are relevant to real life or the workplace? If not, doesn’t it follow that those guys may not do well through the rest of their lives unless they learn new skills and adapt? And where does it say that those guys have to be ambitious for the rest of their lives? Isn’t it possible that some of them take their foot of the pedal at some point?

Popularity and Marketability

2011-05-20T21:39:00.001+05:30

You’d have to live in a cave to not know that MS Dhoni is popular. But that he was #10 in the most marketable sportspeople worldwide? That’s beyond imagination. Think about it: the guy plays cricket, a game followed only in a handful of countries (IPL notwithstanding). The others on the list are from football, athletics, F1, tennis…the usual suspects. Coming from games with huge followings. Playing sports that are popular worldwide. And yet, a guy earning in rupees beat the Euro and dollar guys. Wow! Maybe India is shining.

But if you think that it must be because of IPL or India winning the World Cup, then how come the cricketer so many Indians idolize, Sachin Tendulkar, is nowhere to be seen on this list? Even Yuvraj is ahead of Tendulkar!

Just goes to show that being good isn’t the same as being marketable. Tendulkar’s like Facebook: popular but with no clear idea on how to translate that into money. And Dhoni’s like Apple: the brand everyone wants to have a piece of.

The Need to Find a Reason

2011-05-16T14:20:00.001+05:30

As the election results started rolling in on Friday, it was amusing to see the news channels provide “reasons” for the wins and losses, close margins and landslides. Why did Jayalalithaa win? 2G scam and corruption. Really? Since when did Jayalalithaa become the poster girl for the opposite of corruption? Or why did Mamata win? General misrule by the Left. Really? It took 20 years and multiple elections after liberalization to figure out that the Leftist approach was taking Bengal nowhere?

Of course, this kind of insane reason providing doesn’t stop at the elections. We hear similar rubbish about why the Sensex fell or rose (the Euro crisis; the signs of an American recovery; RBI’s interest rate hikes). Isn’t it more likely that the market fluctuates because investors aren’t rational? With rational investors, we’d never have stock market bubbles and crashes, would we?

Even religions/philosophies insist on providing a reason: why do some people suffer? Why did so many die during the tsunami? Karma. There are even “answers” like “Those whom the Gods love, die young.”

And yet, the same people who provide these reasons will happily ignore the facts that don’t “fit”. The day Narender Modi loses, I’m sure they’ll say that the “people” (whoever that is) voted against communalism (whatever that means). But tell me, didn’t the same people vote him back repeatedly earlier?

It’s like the emperor’s new clothes: everyone can see the reasons are invalid; but nobody wants to say anything! So maybe, it’s an evolutionary thing: the ability to find a reason or a pattern gives the species an advantage when it comes to survival. (Isn’t it amusing that one can trace everything back to Darwin?) And unless you keep finding/attributing reasons, how would you ever stumble upon the “right” one? And so, I guess we’re programmed to keep indulging in this insanity that we see in news, business and religious channels…

Curiouser and Curiouser

2011-05-09T14:52:00.001+05:30

The Osama killing is very curious. I find two aspects of it that seem irreconcilable no matter what theory is advocated:
1) Osama being found so deep in Pakistan, so close to Islamabad, so close to an army town.
2) The “Why didn’t the dog bark?” question: since Pakistan was harbouring Osama, why didn’t they try and protect him? Or at least, to shoot down the Americans once the firefight started?

No matter which theory you consider, they can’t seem to explain both of the above facts. Consider these theories:
a) Pakistan sold Osama out: If they did that, surely they would have been smart enough to make sure Osama was found on the border. Which violates #1 above.
b) Pakistan had no idea that the Americans were coming in: Even if the Americans entered undetected (either due to massive incompetence of the Pakistani army and/or stealth technology that evaded the radars), wouldn’t Pakistan have sent soldiers once the firefight had started in Abbottabad to see what was going on? After all, the soldiers were just a stone’s throw away. Which contradicts #2.

Next, look at how the US and the West are behaving now: they refuse to ask the question as to how Pakistan could have had no idea that the man was living there for several years. If they didn’t want to raise this question, surely they shouldn’t have mounted such a raid? Why conduct the raid and then not ask this question?

Something is very fishy here…

Boy, do I wish the Israelis had conducted this operation: there’d be so much information on it by now. Maybe even movie rights would have got sold! The Americans are no match for the Israelis when it comes to self-glorification and building an aura of invincibility: even when their operations blow up (like the Dubai assassination recently where they got identified), the Israelis manage to leak enough information to impress you!

Intellect and Religions

2011-05-06T15:24:00.001+05:30

“The more refined and intellectual our needs become, the less they are capable of satiety.”

Is that the reason why most religions advocate belief over proof and intellect? I mean, is their reasoning (I guess they don’t like that word, “reason” either because it is an output of some thought process) that if the needs of the intellect are insatiable, then surely pursuing them can never lead to a feeling of fulfilment? Or at least, that’s the attitude most religions seem to take.

I think Arthur Schopenhauer noticed the same thing when he wrote, “All religions promise a reward ... for excellences of the will or heart, but none for excellences of the head or understanding.”

But is the alternative that religions propose (abandon the intellect) a fulfilling option either? Can one truly feel happiness if one has to suppress a natural tendency: to think, to question, to analyze?

What are the Odds?

2011-05-04T10:33:00.002+05:30

The development of probability theory has interesting origins: it’s all connected to gambling! Born in 1445, Luca Paccioli, a Franciscan monk, posed the problem that came to be called the puzzle of the points:

A and B are playing a game of balla. The first person to win 6 rounds wins. But the game has to be stopped when A had won 5 rounds and B has won 3 rounds. How should the money be divided in such an uncompleted game?

Finding a way to solve this problem had implications far beyond gambling. After all, this question involves factoring what may happen in the future. To put it differently, what are the chances that B catches up and overtakes A if the game continued?

Gamblers were always interested in this kind of question: which numbers show up more often in a throw of the dice? What are the odds of a particular number showing up when two dice are involved instead of one?

Like all smart people, the gamblers didn’t just do such analysis themselves. They even tried asking mathematicians to get involved …without much luck. Galileo, for example, did such an analysis (without any interest) only because his employer, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, hoped to benefit in his games via Galileo’s findings!

Then came the Chevalier de Mere, a French nobleman/mathematician/gambler, who coaxed Blaise Pascal and Fermat (of the Last Theorem fame) to try and find a solution to the puzzle of balla that had still not been solved 2 centuries after it had been posed. The two Frenchmen solved the problem, and ended up inventing probability theory along the way!

Whoever said gambling can’t lead to good things?

Man Without a Country

2011-04-30T22:44:00.000+05:30

I always felt that Superman was the most “unreal” of the superheroes. Ok, all of them are unreal when it comes to their powers, but Superman was the one good guy who was also perceived as a good guy. Contrast that with the other superheroes: Batman was notoriously dark and brooding; Spiderman always got bad press (which is kind of ironic given that Peter Parker is a journalist!).

Well, all that just changed: Superman renounced his US citizenship! Apparently, our superhero was supporting some protestors in Iran and was accused of being a stooge for the American government. So he felt the best way to refute the charge was to, well, drop his nationality. Apparently, even Superman’s physical powers are not enough in the age of tweets, Wikileaks and slander! Who needs Kryptonite anymore to take on Superman?

That’s so amusing at so many levels! Note how he has problems with Iran but not with Saudi Arabia or Bahrain? Now isn’t that the same policy the US government has? Me thinks Superman does protest too much!

Also it’s a sign of the times: the Superman comics series wants to go global. And he can’t be popular elsewhere if he’s fighting crime only in America. But if he retains American citizenship and fights crime, say, in the Middle East, it’ll be similar to invading Iraq (the “we know what’s best for you” mindset).

But his move to renounce American citizenship has provoked protests within the US. Suddenly, the Man of Steel becomes more “believable”: he isn’t the guy everyone likes. He faces the perception problem and is accused of having an agenda. Finally, a Superman I can like!

The Right to Food

2011-04-18T14:47:00.002+05:30

After the Right to Education, the government has a National Food Security Bill in the pipeline: simply put, it would make food a legal right of every citizen. I don’t have issues with the motive of it. Well, ok, let me add the qualifier: overall, I don’t have an issue with it…since it undoubtedly has a vote-gathering component to it as well. But let’s set that aside for a moment.

But first, the government should find a way to identify who is a citizen. In a country where “citizens” are imported from neighbouring countries to cast votes, why should my taxes be used to put food in some illegal Bangaladeshi immigrant’s mouth?

Next, do we have a food distribution system that can deliver? Does the government plan to fix the leaky godowns and clamp down on the hoarders and middlemen who siphon off the food today? "To use such a leaky bucket to carry a subsidy would mean the fiscal burden would be huge," says Kaushik Basu, chief economic advisor to the Ministry of Finance. I agree with Basu. Unless the government has any clear plans on how to support this new right, they’ve just cooked yet another vote gathering technique that will add to the misuse of our tax money.

To me, it sounds like (yet again) it’s the tax paying middle class that has to fund every hair-brained scheme and yet get abused as the section of society that “doesn’t care”…

Rana and the Nazi Defense

2011-04-14T15:05:00.001+05:30

When I heard that Rana, who is going to be tried in the US for his role in 26/11, tried to use the “I did something at the behest of a government or its official authority” defense, I was surprised that there is even such a provision in American law. And here I thought that this kind of “I was just following orders” defense was thrown out ever since the Nuremberg trials of the Nazis! But since the law exists, does it mean anyone caught spying in the US can walk free because he worked for the Chinese or Russian government?!

Talking of Nazis, guess where one of the IC-814 hijacking masterminds was recently arrested? In Chile. A South American country. The same continent where many Nazis “vanished” after World War II.

And once you think of Nazis, the next thought is inevitably about Israel. The Israelis went into South America and kidnapped a top Nazi. Sadly, our government will only make never-going-to-be-fulfilled requests for extradition in a similar situation…

The Afridi “Kind of Heart”

2011-04-07T15:03:00.003+05:30

Shahid Afridi seemed to have taken the semi-final loss to India as well as a guy could under the circumstances. But then once he reached home, he started shooting his mouth off. Apparently, he doesn’t know that we live in the Internet age where news travels at warp speed. The genius thought that what he said here wouldn’t reach there and vice-versa!

First he said, “If I speak truthfully, they (Indians) just can’t have the kind of heart a Muslim has or a Pakistani has”. If you look at that statement closely, he’s right. After all, we Indians don’t have the “kind of heart” which asks us to butcher 166 people in a country we’ve never been to. Not so for Afridi’s role model, Ajmal Kasab.

He also said, “It is a very difficult thing for us to be together or to have a long-term relationship.” So Afridi, I guess we should all forget 26/11 and the terrorism that people with your “kind of heart” practice?

Later, Afridi whined that “I think the value given to cricketers there is greater than what it is in Pakistan.” Someone sure seems to be missing IPL and all the glamour and moolah…so maybe, next time, Afridi, tell your “kind of heart” people to stop shooting cricketers. At least, they’d tour your miserable country then.

Some feel Afridi’s comments were triggered by Gambhir’s remark after the semis that he would dedicate victory in the World Cup final to the victims of the 26/11 attacks. Why so sensitive, Afridi? After all, what’s wrong in that? It’s a free country (here): Gambhir can dedicate whatever he wants to whoever he wants. But I forgot: that’s an alien concept for people with your “kind of heart”.

We Are the Champions!

2011-04-03T18:20:00.002+05:30

What a way to win a final! With a massive six, at the end of a superb innings under extreme pressure. By the end, Dhoni had a swagger. Like when he hit the first 6. And he even did a twirl of the bat after winning. Beat that, Australia.

Bring on the pressure: that’s so not Tendulkar’s motto (at least not since Sharjah more than a decade back). MSD, on the other hand, seems to revel under pressure. As he said at the end, he took several decisions in the final that would have been criticized for all eternity had we lost…but we won. More importantly, MSD won it along with Gambhir. The guy can seem do no wrong when it matters the most.

After a bunch of (mostly) boring group matches, the knockout stage was great. The Australia match was tense for the most part and we pulled through. The Pakistan match wasn’t anywhere near in terms of how close it was, but it more than compensated in terms of the emotion it evoked. And the final was way better than the other two matches: big total to chase down, loss of early wickets and yet we won. With style.

MSD can now say “Been there, won that” to pretty much everything: first T20 World Cup, then IPL and now the ODI World Cup. And we’re the top Test team as well. Captain Marvelous seems to write his own fairytale scripts.

Compassion and the Nature (Mis)Analogy

2011-03-25T14:29:00.001+05:30

A lot of people who condemn the harm that we humans do to each other, on other species and on the planet often also state (in the same breath) that we should be like Nature. Which would imply that nature is compassionate, tolerant, forgiving and loving.

But just look at the data to the contrary. In most species, the runt of the litter is left to die or (in some extreme cases) even given as food to its fitter siblings. The overwhelming majority of species on this planet have died out already (more than 99%). And before you blame us humans for that, note that most of those extinctions happened before man appeared on the planet.

By all means, let’s be more compassionate and caring. All I am saying let’s stop pretending nature is any of those things. Nature is “red in tooth and claw”: nature’s all about the survival of the fittest, not some socialistic utopia.

Web of European Institutions

2011-03-18T14:29:00.002+05:30

The first time most of us realize that there is difference among EU nations is when one comes to learn that the Schengen Visa isn’t valid across all those nations. Until I saw the pic below, I didn’t realize that the continent which claims European integration is its ultimate aim had so many different institutions related to that goal!

Notice how many of them there are. And worse, how they overlap. Must be a bureaucrat’s dream come true! (On the bright side, here’s a very nice application of Venn diagrams).

So what are all these groups?

Eurozone: 17 countries that use the Euro as their currency.

EU-but-not-Eurozone: Members of EU but don’t use Euro as the currency. Among these, only UK, Denmark and Sweden opted out of the Euro. The rest in that group (later day Eastern European additions) are obligated to eventually transition to the Euro currency.

European Union Customs Union (EUCU): No customs levied on goods moving within this group. Customs are only levied on goods entering the group.

European Economic Area (EEA): Includes 3 non-EU members who get to benefit from the single market, but those don’t get representation in any of the EU institutions. Plus, they can opt out of agricultural and fisheries matters.

European Free Trade Association (EFTA): Vestigial twin of the EU. Dieing out as pretty much all of them are poised to join the EU.

Schengen Area: Cuts across all the previously named groups. No border controls within this group but has strict outer border controls.

Council of Europe: Encompasses almost all the other groups. Maybe they should this group the EU instead?

The one outlier to all these groups? The Vatican, whose only link to the EU is that it is allowed to mint Euros. With the Pope imprinted. Which makes it a collector’s item.

I have never understood the difference between United Kingdom and Britain either. Both seem to be made of independent countries, but the countries forming each group differs. But now that I’ve seen the different institutions of Europe, I am sure understanding the difference between UK and Britain must be a piece of cake…if and when somebody explains it!

Cash or Kind?

2011-03-15T14:34:00.002+05:30

In my company, they give gift vouchers as rewards. Sure, you get to pick the mall or store from which the voucher is issued, but it’s not the same as cash. When I asked why they don’t give cash, I was told that when the reward comes as cash (and hence as part of the salary), people don’t even realize they got an award! But with a voucher (or so they told me), you know exactly what you got as a reward. The association to the reward is clear, but not so with cash.

With that reasoning in the background, it was interesting to read about this reform discussion in the budget as to whether it was better to give cash (instead of subsidies) to the poor. Those in favour feel that cash can be targeted at the people who are poor, whereas subsidies end up getting doled out to even those who don’t need them. (Think of the amount you pay for that gas cylinder to see the point). Plus, the cash option gives the poor to use the money the way they want rather than having the government decide the items for which the price should be less. Those against the idea argue there is no effective way to identify the truly needy and poor. Plus, they say there’s the risk that the man of the house would just waste the money on alcohol!

For me though, cash is king. I struggle to decide which store voucher to collect and leave it to my wife. And even after getting the voucher, I often struggle to actually use it to buy something at that store! I would so like the HR at my company to wake up. Guys, even the government “gets” it. Aren’t you supposed to be smarter than them?

Maybe Innovation’s Not for Everyone

2011-03-10T14:22:00.001+05:30

Pretty much all companies talk about the importance of innovation, to be creative, to come up with new ideas. Google has its famous 20% Rule: employees can spend 20% of their time on activities/projects that interest them without considering whether/how what they do could benefit the company. The idea is that if people do what they like, then some of those ideas may hit gold. Possibly. Some times. I heard that Facebook takes it even further and allows pretty much everyone to do whatever they like all the time!

That seems outrageous at first. But if you stop and think, what exactly do companies like Google and Facebook really need their employees for? I mean, their algorithms are already written, servers deployed with redundancies and backups built in already. They are not manufacturing companies; so they don’t that need to build one more fridge or car (or anything else) to sell more. Since they provide everything for free, they don’t have service contracts to provide free upgrades or patch releases. So what exactly do they need employees for? To be creative, to come up with that next big idea.

Most other companies, on the other hand, are not in the same boat. They have to manufacture or they have contractual obligations or they operate in regulated industries. To put it differently, their business model is totally different. Maybe they should realize that and stop trying to try to be like Google or Facebook.

One company that gets this point is Apple. You never hear Apple saying that it wants every employee to come up with the next big idea. That job is left to Steve Jobs alone! Then again, maybe it takes the supreme self-confidence of a Jobs to know that his company can make money in a different way, not by copying what others do…

Name-Dropping

2011-03-07T11:11:00.002+05:30

I read this response by an English college professor to a question on which books he considered as essential reading for a young person:

"For what it's worth, I don't think what a young person reads is nearly as important as how he or she reads. Young people who learn to read with patience and care and long-term concentration, with pencil in hand to make notes (including questions and disagreements), will be better prepared for college than students who read all the "right" books but read them carelessly or passively."

This quote is an instance of the point I made in my previous blog about the education system’s emphasis on the “how”, not the “what”. But in this instance, focusing on the “how” is a good thing!

The unfortunate thing, though, is that that following this professor’s advice would only put you on the fast track to nowhere. How many institutes that you know of actually practice his philosophy? Are they not more likely to reject the kid who says he read Harry Potter instead of Dickens? To dismiss the kid who read into the shades of gray in the Mahabharata instead of some Greek epic?

This tendency to drop names (like who you have read) doesn’t exist only in the languages departments. The science streams and the corporate world do their own name-dropping with terms like “Nobel Prize winner” and “ownership”.

Half the people who do the name-dropping don’t have a clue as to what the term means, or whether it even applies in that particular context. Nor do they question whether just because some guy with authority or awards under his belt said something makes it true. Like that time in 1998 when a (Economics) Nobel Prize winner’s ideas were used to run a fund that went on to crash and burn spectacularly and nearly took down entire the Western financial system with it. How appropriate that the title of the book on that disaster was “When Genius Failed”!

Name-dropping in many cases is usually just a way to evade any analysis or questions about the idea or the concept being proposed. Or a way to sound knowledgeable because you have used enough technical terms. Personally, I think that Richard Feynman hit the nail on the head when he said there’s a huge difference between knowing the name of something v/s knowing something.

Means, Ends and Computers

2011-03-02T21:32:00.000+05:30

Means v/s Ends. When people say the means are more important than the ends, they are (usually) talking about ethics and morality. But when it comes to problem solving in the real world, shouldn’t the emphasis be on finding a solution? On finding ‘x’? Shouldn’t how one figures out the solution be irrelevant?

Taken to an extreme, rules and processes often blind us to what is the intended purpose of the whole exercise. Just look at a bureaucracy to see what I mean.

Unfortunately, our education system focuses on the “how”, not the “what”. That is almost always a bad thing, except maybe in one case. Computers blindly execute instructions without having a clue as to what was intended. Maybe our wavelengths match with computers when it comes to following instructions without a care about the ultimate intention, and perhaps that’s why we Indians are so good at IT?!

Indiscriminate Kill

2011-02-27T17:07:00.001+05:30

During the revolution in Egypt, when Hosni Mubarak flew his air force over Cairo, I was surprised. I mean, did the man really intend to bomb Cairo from the air? I had heard of the police and even the army going after civilians in dictatorships, but the air force? Not only did that seem like overkill, it is also indiscriminate-kill! After all, an air force will take out buildings, hospitals and roads just as effectively as it will wipe out humans.

One of my friends didn’t think the air bombing would happen. His reason was amusing: he felt that only communists indiscriminately slaughter their civilians. And that sounded right. After all, the rest only do targeted killings. And he turned out to be right about Egypt. But not Libya. Gaddafi has used his air force on his civilians. And Gaddafi isn’t a commie.

Hear the deafening silence from the Islamic world on the slaughter of their “fellow Muslims”? The same guys who rant about Palestine, Kashmir and the West won’t mumble a sentence about the killings in the Arab world today. Instead, we hear pin drop silence across the spectrum: from bin Laden to all the moderate Muslims. Where has all the caring gone, I wonder?

The Interest Free Road to Hell

2011-02-21T14:27:00.001+05:30

It’s amusing how religious edicts have had an impact on the banking sector through the ages. Both Christianity and Islam forbade the charging of interest on loans. This was done with good intentions: to prevent excessive interest charging by the likes of moneylenders and loan sharks.

But they seem to have forgotten to consider the practical impact of not charging interest. First, there’s inflation that eats away the purchasing power of money as time passes. Charging interest had been a way to compensate for inflation while issuing loans. Second, there’s always a risk of someone being unable to pay back the loan, willfully or otherwise. Charging interest was and is a way to compensate for that risk.

So when Christianity and Islam forbade their flocks from charging interest, they effectively killed the entire lending industry in their communities. Enter the Jews to fill the vacuum. Judaism only prevented Jews from charging interest from fellow Jews, so apparently the Jewish God was OK with charging interest from the Muslims and Christians.

So the Occident ended up with the Jews as the sole moneylenders, who charged interest, possibly even exorbitant rates. Plus, they were from a different religion. A volatile cocktail to evoke dislike and hatred, if ever there was one. That perception can be seen in plays like The Merchant of Venice and later when Hitler fanned the hatred towards Jews even further to unimaginable slaughter.

The butterfly that flapped its wings to abolish the charging of interest had sown the seeds for the whirlwind centuries later. The road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions!

Politicians and the Dumb Things They Say

2011-02-18T12:11:00.001+05:30

When Manmohan Singh finally came out and talked about the corruption scandals that are all in the news, boy, did he make a complete mess! Now I can see why he didn’t want to face the media all this while. It just goes to reaffirm that the guy is not a politician and that he is a very poor liar.

Like when he said corruption is inevitable in coalition politics. Really? Didn’t Bofors happen without any coalition? Oh wait, as far as the Congress is concerned, Bofors never happened since it involved their royal family.

And in what way were the Commonwealth Games and ISRO spectrum scams connected to coalitions?

Did you hear Rahul Gandhi’s take on all the (Indian) black money lying in foreign banks? It belongs to the poor, he says. Really, Rahul? I thought it belongs to all Indian citizens, not just the poor.

Manmohan said that the 2G loss is notional and similar to losses due to other subsidies. Wow! That “reasoning” really takes one’s breath away! But see how the Left reacted: they weren’t outraged by the nonsense Singh had said. Rather, their reaction was that subsidies for the poor are fine whereas subsidies for the middle class and rich aren’t. And here I thought that India’s tele-density has indeed increased. And naïve me thought that must mean that a lot of poor people must be getting cell phones. But I’m sure I am missing something here and the economic wizards of the Left can explain how the tele-density could have increased without the poor buying cell phones! But hey, forget why the USSR collapsed, why China has shifted to capitalism, and how the maid and auto driver have cell phones: instead listen to the Left when it comes to the economy and subsidies.

Why the Middle Class Doesn’t “Participate”

2011-02-14T14:51:00.002+05:30

Every time people like us complain about the kind of politicians we have or doesn’t bother to cast our vote, we’ll find a bunch of media commentators and politicians criticizing the middle class. For not participating. For not caring. For just complaining and not doing anything about it.

That seems kind of dumb. After all, if someone doesn’t like the medical services they get, we don’t tell them to become doctors or come up with new drugs. Nor do we tell people who complain about the quality of construction of their houses to become architects or engineers!

Other than the fact that we have jobs, the other reason “people like us” don’t care is that it seems like all our MP’s or ministers come from political families. And that’s not just a perception. In his book, India: A Portrait, Patrick French pulls up some statistics on the hereditary nature of Indian politics. Take these for example:
- Every MP in the Lok Sabha under the age of 30 had inherited a seat.
- More than two thirds of the 66 MPs aged 40 or under are hereditary MPs.
- Nearly 40% of the 66 ministers who are members of the Lok Sabha were hereditary members.
- Nearly 70% of the women MPs have family connections.

Most of us may not have known the exact numbers, but we had a strong feeling that inheritance was the way the political system works. It’s obvious politicians will want to pretend things are not hereditary, but it’s surprising that the media guys too talk the same way when they criticize us. Oh wait, I’m sure now they’ll tell us to become journalists!

Cracking the Hieroglyphics

2011-02-09T14:22:00.004+05:30

With all the news around Egypt these days, it was fun to find a story that was non-political and non-current about the place: deciphering the hieroglyphics script.

The scholars of the 17th century who tried to decipher the hieroglyphics script of the Egyptians were unwilling to consider the possibility that it could be a phonetic script (a script where each symbol/character was associated with a sound/syllable). Instead they assumed that the Egyptian hieroglyphs were semagrams, i.e., each symbol/character was an entire idea or a word, not a syllable.

A part of the reason for this belief was the Egyptians-were-too-primitive-to-have-a-phonetic-script mindset of the Europeans. Another reason was that, well, the hieroglyphs do look like pictures, don’t they? And to put a seal on that belief, Athanasius Kircher, a highly respected Egyptologist and an author of a book on cryptography published a dictionary of his translations of the hieroglyphs. The man’s name carried so much weight that his view ruled.

And then the Rosetta Stone was discovered. The Rosetta Stone had the same text written in 3 languages: ancient Greek, demotic and hieroglyphics, one below the other.

You’d think the Rosetta Stone would have split the hieroglyphic script wide open. Unfortunately, scholars were still looking at hieroglyphs as semagrams. And so the Rosetta Stone didn’t quite help crack the “code” as fast as it should have. And then came Thomas Young who studied the Rosetta Stone and realized that the hieroglyphs were syllables. He even correctly identified the sounds associated with many of the hieroglyphs. And then Young stopped. Abruptly. Why? Because Young was convinced that Kircher was right and what he had found just proved that the ancient Egyptians may have used a few syllables to spell out foreign, non-Egyptian words (like the names of Greeks)!

Jean-Francois Champollion, a Frenchman, took up from where Young had left off. And Champollion went on to build a whole lot on top of what Young had done. And so Champollion walked away with the entire credit for cracking the hieroglyphs.

Before you feel too sorry for Young, remember it was Young who chose to stop because he assumed Kircher’s hieroglyphs-are-semagrams view was correct. And besides, Young is still remembered as the scientist who established the wave theory of light, by his famous Young’s double-slit experiment, by the constant (Young’s modulus) and the equation (Young-Laplace equation) named after him, and as the guy who figured out how we perceive colours (via 3 kinds of nerve fibres in the retina). So yeah, Young lost out on the hieroglyphs credit, but he sure didn’t lose out on all fronts, did he?

Absorb a Word, Get an Idea Free!

2011-02-07T11:01:00.002+05:30

“The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for.”
- Ludwig Wittgenstein

If what Wittgenstein said is true (and it sure sounds right), then by extension, a language that absorbs words into itself readily is indirectly absorbing the ideas that are associated with those words. On the other hand, a language that refuses to absorb words from other languages and instead coins new words loses the context and associations that were part of the source language.

To see the point, imagine whether English speakers would have got the same ideas (philosophy?) that comes with words like karma and nirvana if they had insisted on coining new words for them, instead of taking them as-is.

So the speakers/custodians who “safeguard” their language by not letting it get “corrupted” by foreign words end up losing the idea-set that comes with the original words. It’s like cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face! Maybe the French should wake up and take note.

Of course, the tendency to use only native words can make for good humour as in the movie, Chupke Chupke, where Dharamendra used the phrase, Sahasra Chakra Louh Path Gaamini, when talking to his staunchly Hindi loving brother-in-law. The brother-in-law, like most of us, didn’t have a clue what that meant. (It meant a train!)

The Dangers of Being Good at Something

2011-02-04T10:04:00.003+05:30

Can being good at what you do work to your disadvantage? Seems illogical. But consider this. How do most of us value a person’s effort? Based on his ability and skills? Or based on the time he put in? Check out this video for an example of how the same locksmith was perceived differently as he got better at his job.

Why do so many people value the time and effort put into the task more than knowledge, skill and efficiency? (Except for those rare cases where the person can visibly demonstrate those qualities).

At some level, I think that mindset is a legacy from our childhood where effort and sincerity were valued highly. Nothing wrong with that in childhood, of course. But as adults, we forget that we are expected to be somewhere between good and excellent at what we do, not hard-working-but-unsuccessful at our job!

The other reason could be because the activity itself is invisible to us. So we never realize that the guy who did it faster may have come up with a new way of doing things. Or that he could be extremely good at what he does. Instead we just assume that if it got done fast or looks effortless, then it must be easy.

So the next time you feel you’re good at something, beware that there’s a downside to it as well. And that you may need to talk a bit to make sure the other guy realizes that your being good at something doesn’t mean it was easy. Being good at what you do and humble at the same time is often a dangerous cocktail!

Learning from History

2011-01-28T11:48:00.001+05:30

“Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Don’t think too many would argue with the quote above. But what exactly does one learn from history? Surely not the dates of battles and the names of emperors that are rammed down the throats of school kids! And that’s when you realize it’s a surprisingly hard question to answer.

If you learn a very specific answer, it often proves to be useless because the situation never repeats itself. Or when it does recur, your learning is too specific and fails to address Version 2.0 of the event. Like when the French built the Maginot Line as their defense against a German invasion after World War I. While the French were indeed prepared to prevent a recurrence of what the Germans did the first time, their preparation proved to be of no use ultimately since the Germans just went around the Maginot Line in World War II! The French had only learnt a very specific lesson from history.

You can see the same pattern today. Every time a European country feels a terrorist attack is imminent, they use the phrase “Mumbai style attack”. Sure, they may be prepared to deal with a “Mumbai style attack” better than we did, but I hope they also remember that the 26/11 style of terrorism was totally different from the previous major terrorist attack (9/11).

Conversely, if you generalize your learnings from history too much, then you can end up being “too theoretical”. And find what you claim to have learnt to be totally inapplicable in the real world!

Like in most cases, it’s easy to make a negative statement (like the quotation at the top of this article). But making a positive statement about what to do as opposed to what not to do: now that is hard.

Knowledge and the Tripartite Account

2011-01-25T11:47:00.006+05:30

What does it mean to know something? More specifically, what does a person mean when he says that he has knowledge of something?

In science, the answer to that question involves 3 parts (the Tripartite Account):
1) Belief: You should believe what you claim to know. After all, if you don’t even believe it yourself, how can you say you know it?
2) Justification: You should have valid reasons for your belief.
3) Truth: What you claim to know should, in fact, be true.
This seems very tame and oh-so-obvious at first. Until you consider cases that violate one or more of the items of this Tripartite Account:

So the Tripartite Account sounds like a good way of defining knowledge, right? Unfortunately, no. There is a whole class of counter-examples called Gettier counter-examples that shows the inadequacy of these 3 conditions. Here’s an example: it’s afternoon, you look at your watch and it says 3 o’clock. So you believe it is 3 with valid reason (your watch says so) and let’s say it is indeed 3 PM. So far so good, but what if your watch had stopped working and has been showing 3 PM regardless of what time it is?

You met the Tripartite Account conditions, but surely you can’t say you know it is 3 PM? And so the hunt is on for that 4th condition to add to the Tripartite Account conditions to define what it means to “know” something. Who knew that defining what it means to know could be this hard!

Imitating the Movies, But With a Twist

2011-01-21T14:49:00.001+05:30

Stuxnet is a computer worm (a malicious computer program that spreads by self-replication). So what’s so special about one more computer worm/virus? Well, for starters, unlike normal viruses and worms that spread indiscriminately and don’t care who they hit or hurt, Stuxnet only targeted systems that met certain specific configurations. And those specific configurations mapped to the controls systems used to monitor Iran’s nuclear centrifuges.

And it seems to have succeeded: in November, Iran acknowledged the hit to its nuclear program due to problems with its centrifuges. So what did the worm do? It sent Iran’s nuclear centrifuges spinning out of control. But wouldn’t a reactor shut down or give some other feedback to indicate something was wrong? Normally, yes. But this worm got around that problem very ingeniously:

“The computer program also secretly recorded what normal operations at the nuclear plant looked like, then played those readings back to plant operators, like a pre-recorded security tape in a bank heist, so that it would appear that everything was operating normally while the centrifuges were actually tearing themselves apart.”

Wow! That’s like the inverted version of Ocean’s Eleven: in the movie, Brad Pitt uses fake footage of the casino vault to convince Benedict that a heist is in progress. Stuxnet uses fake sensor data to convince the operator everything’s all right!

Nokia 1100 and the AK-47

2011-01-18T11:34:00.009+05:30

With all the hype around smart phones (iPhones and Blackberry’s and Android based phones), it’s easy to miss the fact that the world's most popular phone, by many miles, is the humble Nokia 1100! It has no speakerphone, no camera, no radio. It monochrome (did you even know they still make such phones?). So what does it do? This pic tells the answer:
And yet, it outsells every other phone in the world. Because it sells in the populous regions of South Asia and Africa.

Foreign Policy magazine said, “the Nokia 1100 will remain the telecommunications version of the AK-47 -- humanity's most rugged, efficient calling machine”.

Nice analogy that! It reminded me of Nicolas Cage’s dialog in the movie, Lord of War, on AK-47’s:

"Of all the weapons in the vast Soviet arsenal, nothing was more profitable than Avtomat Kalashnikova model of 1947. More commonly known as the AK-47, or Kalashnikov. It's the world's most popular assault rifle. A weapon all fighters love. An elegantly simple 9 pound amalgamation of forged steel and plywood. It doesn't break, jam, or overheat. It'll shoot whether it's covered in mud or filled with sand. It's so easy, even a child can use it; and they do."

Does the similarity between Nokia and the former Soviet Union end there? Cage also said in the same movie:

"Since the end of the Cold War, the Kalashnikov has become the Russian people's greatest export. After that comes vodka, caviar, and suicidal novelists. One thing is for sure, no one was lining up to buy their cars."

Nokia, on the other hand, is trying to sell models other than the 1100 as well. Will it succeed? If not, Cage’s dialog could just as well apply to Nokia.

Not-Invented-Here Bias

2011-01-13T15:05:00.001+05:30

Most companies run into the Not-Invented-Here (NIH) bias among their employees. NIH refers to the tendency of people to ignore or undervalue ideas that come from outside, simply because it’s not their idea.

In academia, the same tendency is known by another name: the “toothbrush theory”. It means everyone wants a toothbrush, everyone (usually) has one, but nobody would ever use someone else’s toothbrush! A gross analogy for sure, but it does convey the point.

Scientists encounter the same tendencies in their field. Max Planck, the founder of quantum theory, put it well when he said:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

I read somewhere that one way to overcome this bias when you want your idea to be accepted is to make it sound like it’s (at least partially) the other guy’s idea! Lead them along until they get to where you wanted them to be in the first place. But that’s very hard to do. A slightly more sophisticated (and easier) version of that could be to deliberately leave a few gaps in the idea and let the others fill them in. That way, the others feel it’s their idea too and buy into it a lot faster. Of course, you should ensure the gaps you leave are aspects you are not too particular about!

Then again, as this conversation in the movie, Inception, indicates, people may catch onto you:
Arthur: Okay, this is me, planting an idea in your mind. I say: don't think about elephants. What are you thinking about?
Saito: Elephants?
Arthur: Right, but it's not your idea. The dreamer can always remember the genesis of the idea.

But you may still succeed with this strategy at the workplace: after all, people’s hunger for (part of the) credit at the workplace will make it easy for them to ignore the true origin of the idea!

Capitalism as Creator and Destroyer

2011-01-08T20:27:00.003+05:30

Facebook was in the news because Goldman Sachs’ investment in it valued the company at $50 billion. That’s $50 billion for a company that makes $2 billion a year in revenues (not profit). So why pay so much for it? One of my friends said people are willing to pay so much because they expect (hope?) Facebook will figure out a way to generate money via advertising. Or they’ll find a completely new way of making money directly or indirectly from their 500 million members. After all, who can predict the ways of the “brave new world”, my friend asked. And that’s capitalism: creating new ways to make money.

Capitalism, of course, can also destroy existing ways of making money. Like when Google started offering free navigation services on its Android OS for cell phones in late 2009, Nokia had to follow suit and stop charging for its Ovi Maps (Who’d pay for Nokia’s navigation service if they could get it free from Google?). And with both Google and Nokia making navigation directions free, the entire driving directions industry was wiped out! In that context, another friend commented that while he is a fan of capitalism, he’s glad India’s not “that capitalistic”. Thank God, he said, that kind of churn via capitalism only happens in the US, not India.

On a humourous note, I like this picture since it captures both the competitive spirit as well as the illegal side of capitalism. The yin and the yang of capitalism? Just kidding.

The One Time Wasting was Good

2011-01-06T13:52:00.000+05:30

Can the act of deliberately wasting anything ever be a good thing? We all know of examples to the contrary: cutting down too many trees, excessive use of plastics, not turning off that tap etc etc etc. Sure, we all know of items to add to that list. All of them result in unpleasant and disastrous results.

And yet, there is that one spectacular example where wasting one particular item resulted has produced spectacular results. In a good way. That item is the transistor, the ingredient of every electronic chip we see in everything from PC’s and cellphones to microwave ovens.

But where’s the connection to wasting anything? As the cost of manufacturing transistors fell rapidly in the late 1970’s, a Caltech professor, Carver Mead started telling programmers to waste transistors. But what does it mean to “waste” a transistor? It sounds like a Zen question! Alan Kay, an engineer working at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970s figured the answer. He started doing playful things on the computer screen: he added animations, drew pictures, steered pointers with a mouse. Did he have a purpose in mind? Nah, he was just wasting the it’s-so-cheap processing power. For the fun of it. To give it a cool look. It was all just purposeless eye candy.

But others saw what Kay had done and realized that all the eye candy suddenly made computers usable by pretty much anybody. You no longer needed to learn arcane commands to operate a computer. Just point and click. And thus was born the PC market. And eventually the Internet. After all, if the Internet could only be operated by typing some weird commands instead of pointing and clicking, how many of us would be using it today?

And to think it all started because one guy encouraged programmers to waste!

Contrafreeloading

2010-12-31T15:19:00.000+05:30

In a set of lab experiments involving rats, the rodents were taught to press a lever to get a reward, usually food. Once the rats had learnt this technique, a cup of the same food was placed in a cup inside the cage. The cup in the food was there for the taking: unlike the press-lever-for-food mechanism, it didn’t require any action by the rats.

This is where things get strange: even after the rats had discovered both ways of getting food (by working on the lever and by doing nothing), the majority of rats preferred to “earn” their food by pressing the lever! And this just didn’t happen with rats. Fish, birds and monkeys behaved the same way preferring to “work” to get their food.

Maybe the preference to work is something that is hard wired into all species for survival reasons. I mean, in nature, one can’t get food for nothing. And a species that expects to get food without effort will go extinct soon enough.

We humans behave the same way. Even though people curse their workload, most of them feel begin to feel uncomfortable during prolonged periods of no work. That’s because people know that one of two things will happen sooner rather than later at such a workplace: either you’ll be assigned work or you’ll get laid off.

This tendency to not freeload, even when it’s an option, is called “contrafreeloading”.

But there’s one animal that does freeload given the chance, as in the lab experiment. Yes, it’s the cat. And the cat is also quite happy to lap up affection without ever feeling the need to reciprocate. So it looks like the contrafeedloading gene isn’t there in cats.

Universities Can Learn New Tricks

2010-12-23T11:15:00.002+05:30

In the backdrop of the current financial crisis and all the criticism about ridiculously oversized bonuses for bankers, an American university decided to conduct an experiment to check the impact the size of the bonus had on performance. So they decided to give 3 different bonuses: a small bonus (equal to one day’s pay of the participant), a medium sized bonus (2 weeks’ pay) and an extra-large bonus (5 months pay).

Obviously such an experiment would require a huge budget. Definitely way beyond the amount given for a university study. So the university decided to conduct the experiment in India: after all, what could be cheaper? I didn’t even know they outsource even such studies these days. I used to associate outsourcing with IT, BPO’s, KPO’s, pharma and call centers!

I’d have happily signed on for such a study but the university was smart: they decided to conduct their study in rural India, where costs would be even lower than in, say, Bangalore. Who says universities can’t learn from (and even better) companies?

Prime Minister in Waiting

2010-12-19T20:51:00.000+05:30

Rahul Gandhi, heir-to-the-throne, is a reclusive figure. He doesn’t give interviews. What are his views on different issues? What does he believe should be India’s priorities? How he intended to solve any of our problems? No idea.

And now we get a hint about the man’s views, thanks to the WikiLeaks cables. He believes “radicalized Hindu groups” pose a greater threat to India than even LeT. And yes, he made this statement in 2009, i.e., after the 26/11 attacks.

So let’s look at what Rahul Gandhi is really saying here. In terms of body count, did the 26/11 attacks kill more people than any other terrorist attack or religious riot in India? Obviously not: many religious riots have killed far more people. On the other hand, did any of those riots push India (even slightly) towards war with Pakistan? Of course not. But hey, to Rahul Gandhi, the prospect of a terrorist group pushing 2 nuclear armed countries towards war is less scary than those Hindu groups. Now at least we know how brave the guy is: he is not even scared of nuclear war!

Thanks to the leaks, we also understand Rahul Gandhi’s definition of the term “secularism” now. He and his party object to associating a religion with terrorism. So he used to say that don’t refer to it as “Islamic terrorism”. But Hinduism is not a religion to Mr.Gandhi. Otherwise, why would he refer to other terrorists via their religion (Hinduism)? So we learn that Hinduism is not a religion to Rahul Gandhi.

We also now understand how much this man cares about our nation’s security. He believes all threats are internal, none are external. After all, Rahul Gandhi couldn’t be saying anything good about the LeT (even if only be comparison) just for votes. Last I heard, the LeT cadres don’t have voting rights in India. Besides, he said it in private to an American diplomat and couldn’t have known it would ever get leaked, could he? Which leaves us with the only explanation that Rahul Gandhi genuinely believes what he said.

And we can now also gauge where things are headed. Since the king-to-be doesn’t believe LeT is a major threat to this country, and even goes around saying the same thing to the Americans, we can stop expecting any other country to pressurize Pakistan into reining in terrorist groups.

Extrapolating from all this, I guess, Mr.Gandhi, your first act after becoming PM would be to release Ajmal Kasab? With full apologies, of course. And while you’re at it, I am sure you would want to pay Pakistan damages running into trillions of dollars for defamation?

Yes, India does have a very bright future indeed!

Responses to WikiLeaks

2010-12-12T20:46:00.001+05:30

The aftermath of the WikiLeaks saga hasn’t caused any major country-to-country relationship breakdowns. I guess that’s because most of the information has only been titillating, not surprising. After all, how many people are really surprised that that the Sunni Muslim countries want America to attack Shia Iran, to “cut off the serpent’s head” as the Saudi king put it?

The events following the leaks show the true face of European countries. Like Switzerland. Always happy to take money from every criminal, crook, murderer, swindler, drug lord and terrorist. But hey, Julian Assange puts the wrong city as his place of residence and the Swiss bank blocks the WikiLeaks account! Or take UK. They’d never extradite a terrorist out of their country, but Assange, now that’s different. The Brits are falling over themselves to extradite him for a sex crime! Australia, which would normally defend its citizens (including Assange), has suddenly developed “confidence in the British legal system.” Maybe the Aussies should invite the Brits back to rule them next!

Of course, the blame-America-for-everything brigade will say the US is arm-twisting Europe into doing all this. Yeah, of course, the Europeans could never do any evil, right? Forget imperialism, slavery, 2 World Wars and the Holocaust. Innocent Europe can do no evil.

The Russians and Chinese are having a field day pointing out how whistle-blowers about the government are persecuted in the West. Maybe they should all compare notes.

The Pakistani press has gone one step further. They have cooked up stories about what’s there in the WikiLeaks cables and declared there’s “proof” of Indian atrocities of every kind. Plus, they claim there’s “proof” in the WikiLeaks cables that the ISI is innocent of 26/11. The sites that have the entire WikiLeaks docs deny there’s any such doc. Who cares about the truth when you have declared yourself a pious nation?

Not much has come out about India yet. As one magazine put it: “The WikiLeaks revelations about Pakistan mostly just confirmed how both governments not-so-privately already feel about each other. In the case of U.S.-India relations, there's a lot more to lose.”

And now there’s the leak that the US ambassador to India called the Congress as resorting to “crass political opportunism” by trying to attribute 26/11 to Hindutva terrorists. But I guess that’s called “secularism” in the Congress manifesto.

Should be interesting to see what else comes out. After all, nobody could have gone through all 250,000 documents so fast. There are even dedicated sites that give a summary of the docs as they read them everyday. So you can go there daily to see if there’s a topic you like: for instance, see Foreign Policy magazine’s summary site.

Puppets and their Masters

2010-12-06T14:25:00.000+05:30

(Some of) The recent Wikileaks revelations make for fun reading. I liked the one where the Americans refer to Russian President Medvedev as Robin to Vladimir Putin’s Batman role!

There’s nothing new about that power structure for us though. After all, Bal Thackerey made the remote-control-style-of-ruling famous years back in Maharashtra. Sonia Gandhi continues the practice at the Center. Across the border, Pakistan’s generals have been doing the same thing for ages.

But all of those are instances of a guy (or gal) ruling his own country. But George W. Bush’s took it one step further when he was able to rule Britain via his own poodle, er, puppet: Tony Blair.

Trust the West to outdo the rest of the world on all fronts, even proxy-rule!