The end of an Era

My badminton racquet broke tonight. I never thought such a thing could happen. I am terribly upset about it and no amount of telling it to other people has led me to feel any better, so here I am, updating my estranged blog, to vent.

The racquet has been with me since I was in 10th and it has survived many a harsh clashes whilst play. It has been with me for so long that I practically couldn't imagine life without it. (Pardon the cliches) Have played so many games with it and mostly won those that mattered to me, that the loss of my weapon makes me feel powerless.

Of course, it is a material thing, but is it really that hard to understand how and why someone could get attached to objects? Everyone I told this to said that you can always get a new one. But no new racquet can ever replace this one. I don't mean it only from the sentimental point of view, but also from the fact that whenever I tried out racquets of friends with the latest technology, I always found mine to be superior to theirs (mostly in terms of the weight, as I found it lighter than any racquet I've ever held)

So many things have changed in my life, and I am happy about finally getting somewhere, but still there is a huge factor of uncertainty of being in a new place with few friends. I expected my racquet to always be there with me. It's loss only adds to that uncertainty and my melancholy.

Hot air worth Rs. 70,000 crores

The Income Tax Department of India had the chutzpah to put out an ad today proclaiming the success of the Commonwealth Games (see below, published in Mint - Page 29, Oct 6 2010).











Is the public memory of the events that unraveled before the games so short, that a government agency can get away with declaring the tainted games a success only 3 days after the opening ceremony?

PS: Don't miss the text in the left-bottom corner - a subtle warning towards the consequences of not paying your taxes.

What college graduates should get in to

Jobs for college graduates should make them gain knowledge in at least one of these three areas: how to make something, how to sell something or how to support something.

That's Guy Kawasaki in an interview with the NYT. He makes some excellent points there, so if you are in college right now or a recent graduate, go read. He also has a bit to say about work in consulting / investment banking / private equity. Some of the best parts:

The issue with consulting is that if you go straight to work for a consultant, you develop this perspective that the hard part is the analysis and the decision. In reality, that’s not the hard part. The hard part is implementing the decision, not making it.

[...]

You can develop an absolutely incorrect perception of yourself as a great manager when, in fact, you haven’t implemented anything. You haven’t fired anybody. You haven’t introduced a product. You haven’t supported a customer. All you’ve done is make spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations.

You can also throw venture capital into this pile. Going into venture capital straight out of school is a big mistake because entrepreneurs start sucking up to you and ask you stuff you know nothing about — like how to run a company.

Entropy

Everyone wants to achieve something in life. (Well... almost!) One studies all night to score well, the other runs a marathon to be the first to cross the ribbon, still others wake up early to go out to earn a living just to make ends meet. They all do things which would enhance their chances of getting closer to where they see themselves.

Lets take the example of CAT. There are a million factors which affect how one does in the exam. e.g. your temprament on that day, the test centre, the strictness and impartiality of the invigilators, the traffic, the interviewer's mood, the bugs in the question paper, the small set of questions which finally comes in the paper and your level of preparation. [of course, there are many factors, but that's not the focus of this post!] Out of these things, the only thing which you can control is your level of preparation. Isn't it strange, that out of the gazillion things that can make a difference, you have control over only one factor? Doesn't that make you feel that there is alot of randomness and again, (I hate to say it! but....) alot depends on luck!

Serious CAT aspirants work on the ONE factor that they can control- their level of preparation. Imagine a case where none of the students were to study for CAT then all the students appearing would be at the same bar. There would not be any solid distinction to be made between the students. Meaning, all the aspirants were equally likely to make it to the IIM of their choice. That's randomness!

So in order to tip the scales in their favour, students study and those who prepare better reduce the amount of randomness affecting their outcome. Similarly all the ambitious people mentioned in the first para of this post, and in fact, each and every person who lifts even a finger with an aim in mind, does so to reduce the randomness. So basically, all that we do in life, I mean ALL the things that we do in a focussed manner, help us reduce randomness [as opposed to just sitting on your a**].

As the second law of thermodynamics says : "the entropy of an isolated system which is not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time" and it is upto us (and our actions) to reduce that.

Eight penguins

From yesterday.

Everyday fallacies

MichaelSmith's comment on this post at Cafe Hayek, is a pretty good list of fallacies we witness in daily life. I quote it here to make a note of the fallacies (though I am pretty sure that either I will commit one of them in my very next conversation or mostly tend to ignore them whenever I come across them).

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc -- plus the fallacy of exclusion (cherry-picking attribution of positive results while ignoring negative results) -- plus argumentum ad verecundiam -- plus the non sequitur that the truth of a proposition is a function of the number of its adherents.

(Note to myself: The list is not MECE)

Eulogizing our politicians

Swaminathan Aiyar wrote this in 2004, after the general elections. An excerpt:

... For many years after, YSR's barytes mining operation was the subject of one scandal after another. Through the AP Mineral Development Corporation, he obtained a sub-lease on the land of one Vivekanandam, who got a court injunction against the lease. Nevertheless, YSR continued with the mining and took away minerals worth Rs 5 crore. A maternal uncle of Vivekanandam went to the then chief minister to protest. He was set upon by a gang, who broke his hands and legs. After that, few dared quarrel with YSR in the Cuddapah region.

There is more there on the rise of the 'Lion of Kadapa'. Link via India Uncut.

And while we mourn the death of a politician, lets not forget to read what Professor Boudreaux has to say on this.