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.

A Reasoned Debate

on corporate social responsibility, here. What stood out for me, though not related to CSR, is this excerpt from T. J. Rodgers' essay:

If one goes beyond the sensationalistic journalism surrounding the Enron-like debacles, one discovers that only about 10 to 20 public corporations have been justifiably accused of serious wrongdoing. That's about 0.1 percent of America's 17,500 public companies. What's the failure rate of the publications that demean business? (Consider the New York Times scandal involving manufactured stories.) What's the percentage of U.S. presidents who have been forced or almost forced from office? (It's 10 times higher than the failure rate of corporations.) What percentage of our congressmen have spent time in jail? The fact is that despite some well-publicized failures, most corporations are run with the highest ethical standards--and the public knows it. Public opinion polls demonstrate that fact by routinely ranking businessmen above journalists and politicians in esteem.

I am not so sure if the public knows that or not, but Rodgers nails it well.

Nacil seeks route monopoly

State-owned Nacil has written to the Ministry of Civil Aviation to prevent Kingfisher from operating on New Delhi - London route. Excerpts from this piece of news:

The letter cited excess capacity on the India-UK sector and potential losses to Nacil should Kingfisher also be allowed to fly New Delhi-London...
...
“Adding more capacity on New Delhi-London route will result in further losses for all carriers operating in that sector,” one of the executives said.
...
Employees of Air India, claiming that excess capacity is the primary cause of the airline’s troubles, have appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for government intervention.
In a recent letter to Singh, they sought “directions and guidelines so that the domestic operators do not operate flights to one and the same destinations more than their requirements”.

Shivaji statue in the Arabian Sea

Came across this news today, quoting an excerpt:

... the Maharashtra government has announced Rs 350 crore for a statue of the Maratha warrior king Shivaji in the Arabian Sea off the Marine Drive.
...
The statue is to be 309 feet high, higher than the statue of liberty. It will also have a museum dedicated to Shivaji.

Each Maharashtrian will be forced to pay 32 bucks for the construction of this statue, though the report doesn't explicitly mention that. Well, that's where Rs 350 crore is going to come from.

Source for population data: Census of India Projection for 2009