I'm My Own Grandpa

Here's a hilarious song that explains quite logically for one can become his own grandpa...! Here are the lyrics.

William & Warren, Inc @ Columbia

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet talk to the Columbia Business School students. Here's the CNBC link.

20 years of extraordinary committment

Here's a very nice article written by Harsha Bhogle on Sachin Tendulkar.

I like these lines for they show that he is still a human - a fact conveniently forgotten when idolizing him.
"...His eyes were red and swollen; you could see he had been crying copiously. For the interview he put them on, and once the camera had stopped rolling, admitted he didn't want to return, that his mind was all over the place, that he felt anchorless..."

NYT Article - Genius: The Modern View

Here's is a fantasic article from David Brooks on the modern understanding on genius. Reminds me of what I read in the book "Outliers"

O' Reilly Vs Letterman

Whoa...am I losing my mind or is Bill O'Reilly actually making sense. Here and here are his recent interviews with Dave Letterman. Listen to what he says in Part (2) of the interview!

Lagaan in the making?

Here's an article on the Afghan cricket team that is making good progress in the ICC qualifiers

"We never saw outside the camp. We just felt that everything else in the world would be the same. But I realised later that I led a very, very simple life. For a long time there was no electricity, computers, phones, facilities or anything. Very hard, very difficult. It was so hot. Sometimes it was nearly 50 degrees [Celsius] and we had no fans or air conditioning. So maybe that's why we are a little bit strong. When we see these kind of facilities, it's just so easy. Playing in these temperatures is easy"

Nice car!

Here's the car of the future! Not sure if this would take-off but looks pretty cool...!

Is the price right?

Here's a TED talk by Benjamin Wallace on how price of item has an influence on happiness.

While the talk was interesting and I strongly agree with the general theme of the discussion, I wasn't impressed with the research and the narrative. In fact, as is mentioned in its comments section, it is a little bit manipulative.

In any case, here are some things which apparently if you possess, consume or experience, you'll attain some form of short-term nirvana!

• Kobe rib eye steak CUT, Los Angeles - $160
• Pasta with white truffles , Del Posto, Manhattan - $120
• Ty Warner Suite, Four seasons, Manhattan - $30,000/night
• Cor Soap, Plank, Boston - $120
• Jormos Jeans, 45 rpm, Japan - $800
• Per Me Olive Oil, Armando Manni, Italy - $33.50/4 ounces
• Five star golf clubs, Honma, Japan - $57,000
• Kopi Luwak coffee, Animal Coffee, Australia - $600/lb
• Neorest 600 toilet, Toto, Japan - $5,980
• Vividus bed, Hastens, Sweden - $64,950
• Veyron 16.4, Bugatti, Italy - $1,500,000
• 1947 Cheviot Blanc - Priceless (apparently)!
  

I have never heard of any of these things nor would I remember even if I had for I'm as brand blind as it gets!

Greed and Stupidity

Here's a very good article by David Brooks in the NY Times on two hypotheses that explain the causes and effects of the current crisis.

Here's the supporting article for the greed hypothesis and here's the supporting article for the stupidity hypothesis.The greed hypothesis is replete with facts while the stupidity hypothesis is bit more theoretical. I prefer the latter particularly from a conclusion viewpoint.

Following is an excerpt from the stupidity hypothesis.

"From the point of view of top management, the diversity of operations means that executives were managing assets and services with which they have little familiarity. This has led to the spread of pseudo-objectivity: the search for standardized measures of achievement across large and disparate organizations. Its implicit premises were these: that information which is numerically measurable is the only sort of knowledge necessary; that numerical data can substitute for other forms of inquiry; and that numerical acumen can substitute for practical knowledge about the underlying assets and services"

Numbers as a sole measure of performance...That sadly sounds very familiar!!

Superstar's super act

Here's The Boss at this supreme best!

A very creative AD with a nice touch in the climax

Shizzle My Nizzle

Here's an awesome song! Try to decipher it .Trust me it is in English - only it's lyrics are written by a slevered, perhaps waffi, sala!

Here's a BBC article on some lawsuit that this song was involved in. The judge's comments are very funny!

Are you lucky?

Here's what Michael Shermer of Scientific American has to say about it.

"Wiseman gave subjects the "big five" personality scale, which measures "agreeableness," "conscientiousness," "extroversion," "neuroticism" and "openness." Although there were no differences between lucky and unlucky people on agreeableness and conscientiousness, Wiseman found significant differences for extroversion, neuroticism and openness."

Shermer makes a reference to Lou Gehrig. If you are like me and don't know who Lou Gehrig was, here's his wiki page! Pretty inspirational character!

ADs galore

Here, here, here, here and here are a few funny ADs from the desh. And here, here, here and here are some classics!

Not sure if these products are/were any good, but the ADs most definitely are!

Extending John Buchanan's idea

John Buchanan came up a rather an unconventional idea of having multiple captains in a T20 game.

How about extending that idea and having multiple units within a team, with each unit having its own captain/coach - a la NFL type super-specialization? The team structure can be something like this - a batting unit, a bowling unit and a fielding unit. The batting unit can have about 6 members, the bowling unit can have about 5 members and the fielding unit can have about 10 members (including the wicket-keeper).

In any particular game, the members of each unit perform their task alone. For example, a fielding unit member only fields and does not bat and bowl; a batting unit member only bats and does not field and bowl etc. Similarly, a bowling unit member only bowls – at end of every over, a bowling unit member can come out of the pavilion to bowl the next over and goes back to the pavilion at the end of the over. Given his center position in the field, the wicket-keeper can act as the on-field coordinator with the bowling unit.

I strongly suspect that the super-specialization of tasks, particularly batting and bowling, will increase the efficacy with which tasks are executed, thus increasing the quality and the competitiveness of the game being played. There are couple other benefits that I can think of. Having lower number of wickets (batters) will increase the premium of each wicket and batters will have lesser incentives to take callous risks, thereby leveling the battle between bat and ball a little bit. Team management can use the fielding unit to introduce talented young players, who can possibly move to one of batting or bowling units, with relatively lower risk toward the result of that game.

While I realize that the above fundamentally tampers with the definition of a team in cricket, what are the big cons?

Broadband Speed

Here's a good way to test your broadband speed.

I get a download speed of about 1.8 MBpS when connecting to servers in India and about 0.8 MBpS when connecting to servers in US from my broadband at home in India. If you are in the US and happen to test this, can you please let me know your connection speed?

Articles on AIG

Here, here and here are a series of excellent articles that appeared in the Washington Post late last December.

The story spans about 15 pages and is divided into three parts. It traces the evolution of the current crisis starting from 1987 when AIG-Financial Products was founded. While I found some of the technical details a little hard to follow, it was an absolutely fascinating read!

Here's a Charlie Rose interview with a pretty good panel on the same topic. I liked the tone and demeanor of Hank Greenberg, the ex-CEO of AIG. I also think that Meredith Whitney was a rambling a bit off topic, especially toward the end!

Populism

Here's a very nice article that appeared in The Economist on populist rage AIG bonuses.

"Was the fuss over AIG a sign of a new populist mood in America? Or was it just a storm in a teacup? It is hard to answer this question in a country in which anger is a form of entertainment and where the political parties have turned partisanship into a fine art. Television personalities such as Bill O’Reilly are always angry about something or other. Many of the politicians who proclaimed their outrage at the “malefactors of great wealth” are delighted to take campaign contributions from the very same malefactors"

Change in the blog title

A minor change in the blog title ...Thanks, Ramesh! As a consequence of my rather irreverent attitude toward learning proper English grammar, I had misplaced articles, threw in a few more ellipsis than needed among other such nasty things!

These days, thanks to spell-check, my ability to spell has taken a beating as well! Well, that's how I guess I adapt to new technologies - by becoming lazier and lazier! I'm beginning wonder if the so called sixth sense will reduce the sharpness of the remaining five! I guess it is possible as I have heard and read that the absence of a "sense"tends to enhance the remaining ones. The converse may well hold true!

In any case, here's how I found out how dependent I was on spell-check!Phew!

Sixth sense

Here's a link to an amazing new technology! It decouples you from the computer yet enables you harness the full power of the web real time in a very intuitive and an elegant manner. This, when commercialized, will be a huge thing.

And here's the website of the genius who designed it.

Ten trillion and counting

Here's a Frontline documentary on the mounting US national debt.

As is the case with all Frontline documentaries, very well researched but slightly dramatized

An interesting parallel

Here's an interesting and a scary parallel to the current economic crisis. Hopefully things wont be anywhere as bad as this one!

I seriously doubt it unless, ofcourse, someone says, "What if they got laid off, don't they get bonuses?" Now, that might get the aruvaal out, as they say in my parts.

"The next year, Jacques Necker, a foreigner, was appointed Director-General of Finance. Necker realized that the country's tax system subjected some to an unfair burden; numerous exemptions existed for the nobility and clergy. He argued that the country could not be taxed higher, that the nobles and clergy should not be exempt from taxes, and proposed that borrowing would solve the country's fiscal problems. Necker published a report to support this claim that underestimated the deficit by roughly 36,000 livres; and proposed restricting the spending power of the parlements. This was not received well by King's ministers and Necker, hoping to solidify his position, argued to be accepted as a minister. The King refused, Necker was fired, and Charles Alexandre de Calonne was appointed to the Directorship.

Calonne initially spent liberally, but he quickly realized the critical financial situation and put forth a new tax code. The proposal included a consistent land tax, which would include taxation of the nobility and clergy...."

An emotional goodbye email

Here's an emotional resignation letter from a Executive VP at AIG

"As most of us have done nothing wrong, guilt is not a motivation to surrender our earnings. We have worked 12 long months under these contracts and now deserve to be paid as promised. None of us should be cheated of our payments any more than a plumber should be cheated after he has fixed the pipes but a careless electrician causes a fire that burns down the house."

I was a initially little uncomfortable with caps on bonuses and compensation for the same reason. We may be punishing the wrong people! Are the US lawmakers now hyper-extending the guilt-by-association argument? Are there ethical and moral issues in not honoring employment contracts?

Leaders leaders everywhere.....

.......and not a decision made. John Buchanan thinks otherwise. Here's an interesting idea!

"I really think in the course of this 20-over tournament we have the capacity to have the team coach, Matthew Mott, running the batting side of things. If we have to change the batting order or change personnel to fit a certain situation, then that is something that could fall under his control. "Once on the field, we have some very good leaders there in Chris Gayle, Brendon McCullum, Brad Hodge and Sourav Ganguly. The laws of the game state that you need a captain for certain formal roles, such as the coin toss, but that aside, I see there is scope to challenge the way teams have been run in the past"

Dileep Premachandran calls it Politburo captaincy. Here's his article on cricinfo. It is perhaps fitting that it was introduced in Kolkata.

The IPL saga

Here's a very nice article that captures several nuances about the IPL saga.

My thought on this was that the incumbent party (UPA) in India wants to hedge its risks politically in case there is a terrorist attack during the IPL. Given the enormous popularity of the IPL and also the fact public opinion typically turns against the government during such attacks, UPA stands to lose enormously (and that is being hugely euphemistic). There is literally nothing to gain for UPA if IPL is successful as that is general baseline expectation.

With this simple cost-benefit analysis, it looks like the UPA wanted to appear as the paternalistic protector of India democratic institutions. Now that IPL is likely to be played in England or South Africa, UPA has more or less achieved its political objectives.

But what is lost here is the opportunity to show-case to the world that India can conduct world class sporting tournaments in India. Now this discussion on security will become a vexing issue for BCCI at the beginning of every home tour, especially after 26/11 and SL attacks.

But why did BCCI not spend money to hire private security providers with intelligence support from the government? The government would probably not agreed to that, but would have helped BCCI from a longer term credibility stand-point. But then, why would BCCI (a registered non-profit organization!!!) want spend any extra money when they were allegedly paying only about 3-4 lakhs per game for security? It is a sad (and a selfish) self-goal in India's fight against terror.

Nonetheless, don't underestimate the relevance of holding IPL in England (if it turns out to be the case.) It is a snub on the boorish behavior of the ECB and, more importantly, a full house Chennai Vs Mumbai in the heart of London in many ways re-enforces the ever increasing reverse cultural colonization!! At the risk of being a lil' melodramatic, I'm tempted to quote the saying that the sun never sets on the Indian dispora!

As far I am concerned, it's go Dhoni and go CSK to the championship title this time around.

Obama on Leno

Check it out here, here and here...

"Being President is like being on American Idol, except that everybody is Simon Cowell"

"Smart kids coming out of school, instead of wanting to be an investment banker, we need to them to decide that they want to be an engineer, they want to be a scientist, they want to be a doctor and teacher...."

The Obamas were supposed to get a dog for their daughters when they moved into the White house.

"Leno: When is the dog coming? I keep hearing about the dog. When was it supposed be there by? I thought it was as soon as you moved in (to the White House)"
Obama: Well....listen, this is Washington and that was a campaign promise......."

Bugs in our moral code

Here is an excellent TED talk by Dan Ariely on why we think it may be okay to cheat and steal. Here is a link to very creative home page.

In his speech Dan mentions about one thing that strikes me as particularly interesting – the existence of “personal fudge factor” in our moral code.

Dan suggests that all of us lie, cheat and steal to a certain small extent – to an extent where we can look at ourselves in the mirror and still feel good. This is what he calls as a personal fudge factor in our moral code.

My hypothesis is that this fudge factor is a function of time and is more likely to expand for a larger proportion of people as they grow older (maybe until a certain age). Many times we are aware of our expanding fudge factor. But we tend to rationalize it as a reaction to our current situation, to the personal affronts we have faced, to the perceived behavior of our peers among several other reasons. Thus, conveniently cloaked in self-righteousness, we continually condone relaxing our moral code and as one direct consequence, we become increasingly self-centered.

At the same time, we also delude ourselves in believing that no one is noticing. But, I strongly suspect that everyone is noticing. They are, perhaps, just bound by a basic decency and also by the fact that in this world of excessive political correctness, there aren't too many socially appropriate mechanisms to communicate their observations. I'll stop here as I think I have digressed a lil' bit from the original subject, which ofcourse is a fantastic TED talk by Dan Ariely.

Of Dodo Birds and the Maltese Falcon

Here's a TED talk that Vivek sent me. Fantastic speech. It's so pointless yet so passionate that it is hard to be not infected by the enthusiasm. (you will need to listen to the whole speech ~ 15 min!)

Nandan Nilekani on the Daily Show

Here's Nandan Nilekani on the Daily Show.

There's a major cultural dissonance in this interview! Nandan was super uncomfortable and Jon was close to filibustering!

Here's a review of his book, Imagining India, by The Economist.

I'm currently reading it. The book is very informative. Perhaps, it could have easily been a li'l shorter for the same message!

Pak Passion

Here's an interesting thread on a popular Pak website. It was on the day of the SL attack

Retraining the business school

Here's an interesting article on businesscu school education

Jimmy Joned..!

Here, here and here are the videos where Jon Stewart toasts Jim Cramer.

Now, I'm not a fan of CNBC, am a big fan of Jon Stewart and am of the opinion that Jim Cramer is generally an idiot. But isn't Jon Stewart doing the exact same thing now that he accuses Jim Cramer of doing, which is pandering to his audience to boost his own GRPs?

He essentially accuses Jim Cramer and the CNBC network of incompetence or even unethical journalism. But when asked about his own journalistic credence he hides under the fact that he just a comedian and runs an unfair and a mostly meaningless show! But I don't find that explanation entirely credible. If we are talking about Drew Carey's 'Who's line is it anyway?', I'll agree. It is mostly meaningless and mostly funny. But Jon Stewart dabbles in mainstream politics and finance, has the most influential policy-makers on this show and is a hero of the liberal pseduo-intelligensia! With his type of content, audience reach and policy-maker access, it is quite irresponsible to claim that he just farting around yet at the same play the role of a self-appointed news media regulator.

If Jon Stewart is serious on holding people accountable, he has to cover why the rating agencies gave a AAA rating to subprime bonds, the drastic change in the situation before and after Lehman was allowed to fail, the reasons why Federal Reserve kept the rate too low for too long, the impact globalization had on masking this crisis and why Joe the plumber decided to buy a frekking townhouse when was he only employed part-time. But, that ofcourse, is serious journalism and Jonny aint doing just that. He is no different from a bully picking on people when they are vulnerable.

I just think Jon Stewart is playing as much to the gallery as Jim Cramer was doing for the best part of this decade. The only difference is that Stewart is funny, Cramer was painful!

Laws of Demand

And here's Calvin explaining it eloquently!

Do you take rational decisions?

Here's an interesting article by David Brooks that talks about that question (as applied to the current economic environment)

"In this new body of thought, you get a very different picture of human nature. Reason is not like a rider atop a horse. Instead, each person’s mind contains a panoply of instincts, strategies, intuitions, emotions, memories and habits, which vie for supremacy. An irregular, idiosyncratic and largely unconscious process determines which of these internal players gets to control behavior at any instant. Context — which stimulus triggers which response — matters a lot."

VaR

Here's an excellent article by Joe Nocera on the role Value at Risk (VaR) played in the current financial crisis. It is like a story on VaR.

"In peacetime, you think about other people’s intentions. In wartime, only their capabilities matter. VaR is a peacetime statistic.

The big problem was that it turned out that VaR could be gamed....To motivate managers, the banks began to compensate them not just for making big profits but also for making profits with low risks. That sounds good in principle, but managers began to manipulate the VaR by loading up on what Guldimann calls “asymmetric risk positions.” These are products or contracts that, in general, generate small gains and very rarely have losses. But when they do have losses, they are huge. These positions made a manager’s VaR look good because VaR ignored the slim likelihood of giant losses, which could only come about in the event of a true catastrophe."

Satyam Scandal

Here's a pretty comprehensive article that appeared on Knowledge@Wharton on Satyam

My Genome, My Self - NYT Article

Here's Steven Pinker's article that appeared in the NYT on Personal genomics. And here's a direct-to-consumer company that interprets you genetic information for about $100.

And below are some interesting excerpts from the article

"The very fact that I had to think so hard brought home what scholars of autobiography and memoir have long recognized. None of us know what made us what we are, and when we have to say something, we make up a good story.

An obvious candidate for the real answer is that we are shaped by our genes in ways that none of us can directly know. Of course genes can’t pull the levers of our behavior directly. But they affect the wiring and workings of the brain, and the brain is the seat of our drives, temperaments and patterns of thought. Each of us is dealt a unique hand of tastes and aptitudes, like curiosity, ambition, empathy, a thirst for novelty or for security, a comfort level with the social or the mechanical or the abstract. Some opportunities we come across click with our constitutions and set us along a path in life.

This genetic roulette must be even more significant in an organism as complex as a human, and it tells us that the two traditional shapers of a person, nature and nurture, must be augmented by a third one, brute chance.

Direct-to-consumer companies are sometimes accused of peddling “recreational genetics,” and there’s no denying the horoscopelike fascination of learning about genes that predict your traits. Who wouldn’t be flattered to learn that he has two genes associated with higher I.Q. and one linked to a taste for novelty?

It is a question of the most perspicuous level of analysis at which to understand a complex phenomenon. You can’t understand the stock market by studying a single trader, or a movie by putting a DVD under a microscope.The fallacy is not in thinking that the entire genome matters, but in thinking that an individual gene will matter, at least in a way that is large and intelligible enough for us to care about."

The social logic of Ivy League admissions

Here's a very interesting article by Malcolm Gladwell on some surreptitious history in Ivy league admissions

A culture of enough

Here's a good article by Rohini Nilekani that appeared on Live Mint.