To IISc with love July 31, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in KREC, education, india, reminisces-2000.2 comments
( that’s IISc - for those who may not know )
An quick-and-dirty letter to a friend from January 2003. I will just let you read it, produced here verbatim ( but for protecting identity of the recipient ) and hence you will have to forgive those dots.
I have come to love IISc….its seems like a romantic so far untragic classic. There is so much freedom here man. When I talk of discipline..its not something that is imposed..nobody is bothered about when and how I do things…. I have the keys to the lab….I can use any machine that is free…infact most of the time I am working on the main server…..I can go sit and chat with anyone who’s willing to anytime. I can use the phone without anyones permission as long as it is a local call…..
I spent my new year day in a party called together by some Ph.D guys….that involved professors and other students…it was something different…These are people who are learned ….with achievements in their field and its nice to brush shoulders with them….Some of them are really eccentric…I must agree…I am treated like a human being…a socially and intellectually responsible individual who is doing something serious…..which may not benefit the institution but it does benefit him…Its a true celebration of learning in its most virgin forms….and I havent seen this anywhere…..I dont deny that there may be better places than IISc…(not in India though)…but this is the best I have seen…..
On Jan 10th….I stayed at the IISc lab…just had some enthu….and stayed overnight…..was alone in that building….it was a new experience…just imagine man…this is the amount of faith that they put in you…..
It was great interacting with the students there…the Ph.D the tech guys….some of these are guys with good perspectives…..I actually came to know more about what reserach is like….what kind of effort it entails….perhaps this brought one of the bigger revelations that I have had here…yeah ..just the feeling that I am capable of reserch……that I can hang on long enough….that when you love your work…its not work anymore. I am beginning to feel it in a totally different way…..
Its a fresher mind…..free of most disturbances that would bug us at KREC. Somehow cant imagine being so much at peace with that place…although i will miss KREC once I leave…..it will be because of MY four years life spent there….and a few people i met …not because the [lace itself was great. On second thoughts it may be tough for any UG school to have the atmosphere that a research kind of place like IISc does…primarily because a UG school especially in India consists of any tom dick and harry who had a momentary lapse of reason during the post class XII period…!!….A research oriented place attracts people who are really motivated and believe me….THAT makes all the difference….
I am having thoughts of continuing in IISc as a research assistant for a year from June….if they are paying…Funds are scarce and it could be tough…but I would rather do something in my field ( DSP) that adds to my resume than hang around in Wipro ( VLSI ). Am not very sure ….but yeah……its on top of my mind right now…..
I don’t know if there is much to add to that except some background 
This was in the middle of my month long work in Dec 02-Jan 2003. For those of you who know me, I went back to the same lab for another year ( July 2003-Jun 2004 ) to work with Dr. T.V. Sreenivas at the ECE Department as an honorary research assistant with the explicit purpose of building research credentials. In the meantime I applied for graduate programs in the United States ; my work with Prof. Sreenivas at IISc ( 2 international conference publications ) may have made all the difference in securing admissions and scholarship for graduate studies. And I shall be immensely grateful to the IISc/”Tata Institute” (as its better known, at least among BTC bus conductors ) and my professor for the opportunity.
Growth, Inequality and trickle-down July 31, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in America, economics, statistics.add a comment
Almost every revolutionary technology that came in took some time to break the threshold of unaffordability. In fact much of it was so expensive that even the middle-class could not afford it to start with – long distance air travel, cell phone, automobiles, home computers etc. Over time however, as we all see, benefits – direct and indirect – are more widespread and to invent a word, ‘deepspread’ i.e. available to even poorer sections of the population. Then does trickle-down economics not work ? Perhaps not as much and as fast as we would like it to. But more than the virulent critics of GDP growth rate would suggest.
I am now treading into perilous waters – I don’t think its anyone’s argument that mere GDP growth rate is sufficient or that the growth rate is uniform across all economic classes. But I don’t know of poor countries that have reached high standards of living with low and uniform growth rates – say, to grow at 7% while maintaining a gini coefficient of say 0.3.
From this (very interesting) graph, advanced countries (France, Germany etc. ) have grown without exploding economic inequality. India going from 1950 to 1990 became more ‘equal’ ( arguably at the cost of GDP per capita growth ) and since 1990 has become more unequal as liberalization made available opportunities that a sizable section of the population (20% ??) could benefit from. Communist Poland was poor and ‘equal’ in 1990 and post-communism, it is rich with increasing, though not (yet) threatening, inequality.
It would be great (though highly unlikely) to have similar data for Western Europe and Japan of the 19th century. Even if one argues that the then prevalent order ( spoils from colonialism ) distorted the picture among other things by increasing growth rates, inequality would only have increased during that period. In fact, the source of growth is irrelevant for higher level picture, its the relationship between growth and inequality that we are interested in. And it often helps to remember that most of history, most of the world has been in abject poverty.
I am not economist and as such not competent enough to study data and discern the related nuances and second-order effects. Would be great to hear comments or have useful sources.
( Just found this graph for the USA : War and depression years sort of distort the picture )
Warning : Inequality is a hotly debated issue. Read more here and here.
Of falling frequencies July 31, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in blogging, economics.add a comment
In the early days of blogging as I discovered the joys of the medium and the treasures therein and as my obsession with economics and policy blogs grew, I wrote to Mankiw Chacha. (my very Indian way of referring to one of my favorite bloggers). Now nearly an year after, I have a feeling that one of these months Mankiw Chacha will stop blogging. I say this from just observing how he has been posting fewer and fewer posts over the last few months. Of course, I don’t have real counts, only a guesstimate. And even when he does post, very few posts are anything other than links to outside content. He is probably busy (but summer??) or perhaps the math (opportunity-cost! ) does not work out. Sad indeed.
I wonder if the following theory heuristic holds : When bloggers inform readers of impending drops in posting frequencies, they probably want readers to understand/lower expectations but still check back every once in a while. But when blogging rates dip without warning, its happening without them realizing or the blogger has resigned to the new posting frequency, which over time, might reach zero. 
Meanwhile, Marginal Revolution seems all alive and well, whether its posting frequencies or activity in the comments section. So does EconLib. But over the last half year or so, a new blog – Overcomingbias has arrived. And it rocks.
Thats the economics blogs roundup.
Back to the gender debate July 30, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in india, politics.10 comments
Some interesting perspectives have emerged on the Kiran Bedi case. For many she is a role model and while I don’t consider her one, from the little I was exposed to from the electronic media over the years, I at least don’t have any negative vibes about her. But now this controversy about her being overlooked and a junior officer being appointed as the Delhi Police Commisioner. Read more on that here.
When I watched that video, I was more sympathetic to her cause and remember telling myself the usual middle-class rant about our corrupt systems and such. But I am beginning to wonder if I have jumped the gun by not listening to both sides of the story.
Here is an article that talks about Bedi’s not-so-great poor record as an officer and how she has exploited the gender aspect and the fact that she is India’s first IPS officer to her benefit. Not quite directly, but its quite likely that some of her actions may have motivated from the fact that she can get away with it because she is a woman. ( To be fair to Bedi, she has not alleged gender discrimination and we must wait to hear her response to media attacks on her track record). Another article here.
I will not be surprised if much of what the article says is true. For example, person A who belongs to a group that is generally discriminated by person B’s group can take advantage of the situation and do things assuming he/she can get away with it. This is because should he/she be criticized/censured, one can always suggest that he/she is being discriminated against. This is much like a politician always claims that the cases and charges against him are politically motivated. This works and is credible because it is sometimes true, but only sometimes.
A lady IIM student once said that the success rate of women in group discussions/personal interviews was much higher for women than men. This could partly be because the pool of women who clear the first stage of CAT exam is actually more qualified. This could also be that institutes are under pressure to have more balanced classes and hence they are forced to ‘clear’ more women than they would if they followed a gender-blind objective criteria. The same is true it is said when its time for placements where corporates have similar goals of gender-balanced workplaces.
I think this is a complex issue, there cannot necessarily be a correct answer to whether this kind of a sort reverse discrimination is justified or whether it can even be alleged as the undesirable kind of discrimination. It is a public policy issue and as with many others, it really depends on what is that ’societal function’ you are trying to optimize, your definition of ‘fairness’, all of which finally boils down to personal preferences. But the purpose of writing this post is to point out that in India and most certainly elsewhere, being a woman either sets you back from the start line or gives you a head start.
And that it is politically incorrect to point out the latter. ( and every way expedient to pay lip service to the former. )
Related link : Here is another one on discrimination, but this time of the kind where apparently using credit history in determining insurance claims is a ‘bad’ idea because minorities such as Hispanics and African-Americans have lower scores and thus end up paying more insurance.
Criteria for IIMs July 27, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in education, india, reminisces-1990s.4 comments
I like it when an independent body or the judiciary is able to arm twist a government body into doing what it would otherwise have never done. Here is an example -
But how well you do in CAT — after you have been shortlisted which means you have made it to at least the top 10% of all applicants — makes up only a fifth of your final score when it comes to securing an IIM admission. In fact, it’s your Class X and Class XII results that account for more — 25% of the final score; your Bachelor’s degree 15%. The factor with the maximum weightage is your performance in group discussion (GD), GD summary and personal interview — 35%. The balance 5% depends on work experience and whether you have taken a “professional course”.
Such details have been revealed for the first time by the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore which conducted the CAT last year after it was forced by the Central Information Commission to do so last fortnight. This direction came after 22-year-old visually challenged woman Vaishnavi Kasturi, was first refused information by IIMB. The institute declined to give details until the CIC intervened.
What are the possible reasons for not having done this earlier ? Or more generally under what circumstances should an education institution not lay down the criterion on which they admit students ? It would make sense if it is possible to ‘game’ the system by doing well on their criterion and nothing else.
For example, the IITs have been forced to change their exam patterns over the years because they believed that coaching is playing too much of a role and that selection procedure does not throw up the right pool of candidates. For the record, I have not followed this issue well enough to say if the current pattern has gone any distance towards solving the problem.
But in this particular case, it is unforgivable that they were not willing to reveal even the various factors that do matter. (perhaps even without stating the relative importance of each – much like US college/grad school admissions). This matters if a candidate who for some reason did not do well in Class X wants to improve his chances by focusing his energies accordingly. I know one might argue that a good candidate is good anyday and so one must always try to do his/her best irrespective of which factor is more important. But that would only be an artificial system because in the real world we are always faced with having to prioritize and fill gaps when we encounter them. By the way, I now have a feeling this might even deter some who did not do well in X, XII and their Bachelors to not even attempt the CAT ( with an eye on the IIMs at least).
I remember preparing for the IITJEE in the late 90s and not ever knowing what was the likely cut off – what mattered, what did not, whether one of the papers was more important, whether the number of attempts were a factor, there was no information about what branches you are likely to get at what rank and which IIT. Thinking back it might seem silly and its always silly for us ’somewhat’ grown ups to sermonize on how one must not study with the end in mind and just enjoy the process. It is also not funny for 17 year old planning out his time it really is not. And this only encouraged rumors and these rumor-monger flourished.
Also I don’t think its fair to weigh one’s Class X marks on similar footing as Bachelor’s degree scores. Further, how do they reconcile the not-so-standard grading systems across different colleges/schools/levels ?
Of course, I don’t want the IIT/IIM system to end up like this. Not everything should be laid out to such level of detail that you can game the system. But I am glad we are seeing what we are.
P.S : Prof. Abinandanan, a faculty member at IISc has been covering these and other higher education related issues on nanopolitan. I would be keen to hear his views on this.
Numbers in my life – Right/Left click edition July 27, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in CMU, numbers-in-my-life, statistics, weird.6 comments
First a question – depending on how numerical/empirical kind of a person you are, this will either make you ponder the question or perhaps the questioner.
Let us say for 10 working days (counting only days when you actually used the computer ) you logged the number of keystrokes and mouse clicks you made. If some software was doing it for you without your knowledge (you should not consciously manipulate them) and then you are required to wonder :
- Do you use left click more often or right click ? Of course, thats a no-brainer, but what is the ratio of your left clicks to right clicks ?
- What about keystrokes ? You know your nature of work – involving more typing or browsing etc. How many key strokes do you think you do with per day ?
- Now if there is a person who uses the right click more than the left click, what is his most likely profession ?
~~~
Over the years I have promised several things on this blog – especially when I say something like – “will write on X another day/one of these days”, I have almost never done it (sheepishly yours) 
. Here is an exception. In this post on Oct 22nd, I said :
As a separate experiment, I have just downloaded the key counter that will help me “Keeps a running tally of all your keystrokes and mouse clicks. Shows how many keystrokes and mouse clicks you have made today, yesterday, and overall.” I will put up some data here in 2 months I guess
Okay, so I have the data, but will leave you to make sense of it. I have data for 12 days from Nov 9, 2006 to Nov 21st, 2006.
Average keystrokes per day – 41060
Average left clicks per day – 3250
Average right clicks per day – 490
So there, roughly 6.6 times more left clicks than right clicks, and 12.6 more keystrokes than left clicks.
I have the exact plot here, but rather noisy I would say.
At the rate of 40000 keystrokes a day, for 300 days a year, for the next 35 years, aah, makes it 420 million keystrokes.
I have to find a replacement now for “Maine baal dhoop main nahi sukhaye” ( not just because I am kinda balding ) to something that uses this chaar-so-bees-million keystrokes.
P.S : I know this data is probably of no real use to any of us, but without at least one measurement it appears to be me that is extremely hard to even give an approximate figure for how many times you use left click per day.
Randomized algorithms for Vice-President July 25, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in india, politics, rant.add a comment
When political processes throw up candidates like Pratibha Patil and now Mr. Rasheed Masood who has the CBI already investigating him, I wonder if the following strategy can be more effective in choosing largely inconsequential positions such as that of President and Vice-President.
Lets us have 4 steps ( not necessarily in this order )
- Choosing a person (any adult Indian citizen) in random
- Voting via internet poll (almost limits to tax paying citizens )
- Voting via SMS poll ( Laymen, homemaker women etc.)
- Voting by MPs and MLAs
What would be the best way to order these 4 steps ? Each of these steps have their own biases in the kind of candidates they throw up – but a proper ordering can go a long way in avoiding a poor choice.
Should we let the politicians have the final say ? Probably not. Should they have it first ? Well, then they would put up all questionable candidates and rest would have to choose among them – so not advisable. Ideally then the politicians should come in somewhere in between. Where would the random step come in ? Ofcourse, there is the question of where do the first set of candidates come in from ?
Interesting analysis, ain’t it ?
I think getting a reasonable ordering of the above 4 steps has a good chance of bettering our politicians’ choices which are often driven by compulsions such as like Mr. Prakash Karat’s ego. Maybe a Computer Science PhD student working on randomized algorithms and/or the mathematics of political science can write a thesis on this problem.
What ordering would you choose and why ? If you want to add a step or remove one what would that be and why ?
‘ve g@t j@b July 23, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in CMU, landmark-post, littlerockers.8 comments
Just to make this announcement which is long overdue (June 27th), I am joining the Applied Research Group, Search Monetization at Yahoo Inc. in Santa Clara starting Oct 2nd, 2007.
Thanks all for your concern, help and hanging around as my travel for these interviews kind of unraveled while this blog lay here unsaddled.
I will have more to write on this whole job thing in the coming days.
Disclaimer : My past views do not represent that of my future employer. Nor ofcourse will my future views represent that of my then past and now present employer.
Related link : School buddy Supreeth has a blog, where he gets metaphorical. ( Also in taking up the study of economics as a non-professional/non-academic endeavor , he appears to have taken up my advice to the 15 year old ( though of course he is an eligible bachelor at 25 ) ).
More balance in fighting terror July 23, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in America, geo-politics, politics.9 comments
This post is about this whole business of terror and fighting it and will only tangentially refer to Mr. Haneef’s case. therandomizer has raised some interesting points and the commenter on his post has taken the time to educate readers. If you have time, consider reading them before going ahead with this post – sort of sets the background for what I write here.
In late 1999 the Indian Airline plane was hijacked and a demand was made for the release of the terrorists. Those were troubled times, soon after Kargil. While this demand was being considered, thousands of family members of the over 200 passengers were on the streets in Delhi demanding that the terrorists be released and whatever ransom was demanded be paid. The government gave in and since then the then foreign minister Jaswant Singh is often made fun of for having ‘escorted’ terrorists to Qandahar to secure the release of the hostages.
What if the government had not given in ? Its hard to say what would have happened. There were suggestions that we do an Israeli type operation and send in commandos. And there were suggestions saying don’t give in, lets see what will happen. The commando operations don’t always work ( see what happened in Beslan, Russia) and even if they do, rarely do we avoid at least some casualties. How will governments cope with the aftermath ? Let us sit and watch policy is of course not practical because we have no idea what is the worst case scenario. Given that the Taliban knows that India is not in a position to do any hot pursuit/invade Afghanistan, they could have afforded to blow up the plane. Or maybe they wouldn’t, but we did not know then. (nor do we know now)
Why am I raking up a seemingly unrelated incident as we talk of racial profiling and the non-battleground aspect of the War on terror ? This is to illustrate that this war is heavily loaded against nation-states and their law enforcement agencies. As the popular cliche goes, the terrorists have to be successful just once while the law enforcement has to be correct every single time.
Take another example of 9/11.
One of the attackers involved in 9/11 apparently took flying lessons at a Florida training school. Apparently FBI had him on the suspect list for some reason and was aware of his activities in Florida, but they did not take action. Now imagine -
He was apprehended and his activities investigated. the media is informed and the left-wingers in the media step in and defend his right to learn to fly a plane and accuse the FBI and the Bushies of racial profiling and the like. The right-wingers demand tough action.
What actually did happen – nothing. He managed to get his lessons and be a party to the events of 9-11. Now the left-wingers accused the FBI of sleeping in the face of evidence or worse, of deliberately letting this through because Bush wanted to attack Iraq anyway. The right-wingers, as always, think the one can never be tough enough. They accuse the government of protecting the rights of the accused and in the process compromise the right of the general public to a safe society.
Thirdly, how many people in the days following 7/7 paused to remind yourselves of the unfortunate but immense naivete of that Brazilian man running away when challenged in the subway station only to be shot by nervous officers ?
~~~
In both the above cases, I am not really talking of the facts. We have no evidence either way about FBI’s attitude or the plans that the hijackers in the Indian Airlines plane had just in case the Indian government called their bluff. All we know is the attitude that we, as people completely unaware of the complexities of anti-terrorist investigation, demonstrate.
It is no secret that the human brain contains within it numerous biases of different kinds ( read this document please ! ). These biases are well on display in the attitude of the public to make judgments. Here we have some examples -
a) Hindsight bias – evaluating past decisions made using evidence not available at the time of making decisions.
b) Selection bias – blaming the government for that rare terrorist event, while not taking into account the fact that for several years there were not any. Surely it was not because the terrorists did not try. You thus pick the evidence that support your hypothesis.
c) Just as often that you find white Westerners alarmed by innocuous events such as the brown man with the camera, you also find brown people overplaying the race card and at every available opportunity. I don’t know what kind of bias this is, but it is one anyway.
d) Profiling is a part of life. We all do it, all the time especially in the absence of complete information. Institutional mechanisms such as law enforcement, insurance and credit card companies (age), self-defense (Indian women don’t undertake night journeys sitting alongside male strangers – remember that male stranger has a human rights too ), street-side bargaining (if you are in good clothes, you are quoted a higher price), that must make such decisions involving incomplete information must engage in some kind of profiling.
As for this whole hullabaloo about Islam and terrorism, another case of confusing conditional probabilities ! Probability of A being a terrorist given A is a Muslim versus Probability of A being a Muslim given A is a terrorist are two different things. The general public’s lack of understanding of ’simple’ probabilistic reasoning and its relevance to decision-making is further evidence for the need to compulsorily teach probability and statistics in high school.
In the light of all this, why are we expecting a system that is crime free, terror-free, has no profiling of any kind in its institutions, that is rich, healthy, that has no disadvantaged minorities and no aggrieved citizens of any kind, that is not the subject of envy and jealousy? The presence of these humanrights-wallahs and Jhola-wallahs of course helps check the excesses of the state, but taken to an extreme degree is perhaps the biggest impediment to fighting terror – be it Islamist/Marxist or counter-insurgency operations.
It helps to remember that of the millions of brown folks traveling through US and European airports everyday – and once perhaps in 6 months you hear a case of unfair treatment which makes some of you go on and on about racial discrimination. Personally, I think they are doing an incredible job.
It helps to remember that the law enforcement has a tougher job than most of us do – technology and special laws make their job slightly easier. On the other hand, terrorists have an easier job than many of us do and our technology and public vigilance go some way towards making their job harder. The number of terror incidents is a delicate equilibrium between how tough it is to catch them and how easy it is for them to get us. Mighty hard to have that equilibrium around zero.
P.S : On Haneef’s case, my position is that from the facts coming in Aussies have indeed majorly screwed it up – whether that is simply paranoia about security in a country that is yet to see its first terrorist attack (they lost several in Bali a few years ago) or religious profiling of the invidious nature is something I am not sure of.
Advice to a 15 something year old July 23, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in contemplation, reminisces-1990s.8 comments
….and just about everyone else.
Somewhere sometime about 10 or so years ago I gave myself a some kind of a suggestion ! As you see I remember nothing else about the suggestion ( “metadata” – data about data ) other than the content of it (which of course arguably matters most )
The suggestion belongs to the class of those that are extremely simple but rather hard to follow. It went along similar lines -
“Give yourself one year and one topic. And for the rest of the year, read on that topic, watch documentaries on that, visit museums if and when applicable, try to meet relevant people who know stuff, listen to people talk about it, talk about it, encourage other people to take it up. And maybe you will become an expert on it. Or maybe you won’t. But do it as long as it does not disrupt your day job/day school and other commitments.”
When I say spend a year reading about it, its not like you give everything else up. And then it need not be something academic alone, it maybe something more hands on – carpentry, running, restaurants in Bangalore are good examples – essentially something that is vast and exciting enough to hold you for an year. ( Don’t ask me how do I know its interesting enough to take it up unless I take it up ? )
Now imagine I had blogged about it 10 years ago and an idealistic 15 year old somewhere picked it up and religiously followed it. Imagine what kind of polymath she/he would be by the time she/he was 25 ? or 30 ? What would her/his breadth and depth of knowledge/skills/experiences be ?
I dig into my quote collection to find this quote attributed to Mark Twain -
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Of course, I will not read too much into the above quote – there is an inherent bias in the way we judge results of events that happened versus results of alternate scenarios. But that will not stop me from giving this advice to every 15 year old.
P.S : Then again, nothing sacred about 15, its never too late (only some things harder) to consider the suggestion. In fact, the closest I have come to following my own advice has been the past year. Surely, no points for guessing the topic though.
Life, liberty and … July 19, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in CMU, movies.2 comments
I watched the “Pursuit of happyness” this evening. It was an open air setting, the city of Pittsburgh sponsors free movies in parks every summer ( read more here ) and it kinda looked like this.
Movie was kinda okay and given thats about the 10th movie of any kind I have seen in the past 2 years, I don’t have too much to compare it with. For the same reason I am now judging the movie in a different way – was the time watching the movie better spent elsewhere ? Or in other words, did the movie bring more enjoyment/satisfaction/inspiration/break than my average Wednesday evening ?
Answer : Yes.
Twice in the movie he talks about the Declaration of Independence that the 3rd president of America Thomas Jefferson supposedly drafted. Thats ofcourse where the movie name comes from. He talks about how happyness/happiness has to be pursued n all that. The way I understood it was that man has the “right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” – i.e. right to life, right to liberty and right to pursuit of happiness and NOT right to happiness. . I may generally not be a happy person but protect my right to go after it uuh
Quite a few times during the movie I thought things were moving too slow. Or maybe be just I have lost touch with this whole medium. The thing about movies/videos is that rate of information you get is pretty much pre-determined (and denser, but more redundant). Its hard to meaningfully fast forward and sometimes impossible to ( if you are watching in a group for example ). With a book though its different and skimming and sampling is much easier. But of course when video and imagery does engage, it does better than books might. As we know there is so much a graph can convey that a table full of numbers or a couple of paragraphs cannot.
P.S : As I write this post – the word “happyness” is being flagged as a spelling error whereas it clearly is not. Few years down the line we might get to sufficiently intelligent spell-checkers that from the context derive that we are talking about a proper noun here.
Feedback on the feedback July 19, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in blogging, landmark-post.1 comment so far
I am really glad I took this break, and more particularly put this break to good use. (yeah Ravi, I probably even overdid it ). I will use this post to provide some feedback on the feedback I received.
Firstly, about why the survey was required at all. One might imagine that blogging especially of my kind is a recreational activity and hence there is no need to get an average opinion on that. Perhaps, but not so with what I think about blogging – I devote a fair amount of time on the blog and have never taken pleasure in writing something that none will ever read. Hence, but for a handful of them reading this would stop right now ! In such a scenario if I can make people’s overall reading experience a little more enjoyable with reasonable change in style and pattern, its a win-win and I welcome it. Hence the survey.
Coming to the feedback itself :
- Among the comments I got, one that appeared persistently was that there were far too many posts that were merely links and posts that include more personal touch are more enjoyable to read. ( “Decrease the percentage of your posts whose ‘central theme’ is the link to the huge article”, “the posts have just too much information to concentrate”, etc. ). This in some sense reinforces the notion I had as well – that some serious ‘quantity control’ was required – and I am happy it came out in the survey. At the same time there are those who really don’t mind having so much content since after all there is always a choice (“you can blog at your own pace without thinking too much about the frequency of posts”). I think I have found a compromise – I will cut down on number of posts that are merely an aggregate of links. However these links will still be available, except they wont appear within posts. I have a separate section called “Just been reading” which will link to my delicious account. I will instead write more personal posts, which obviously will mean a slightly less frequent posting.
- Another suggestion has been about having a “currently reading” list. Well, I am not that voracious an offline-reader anymore (more in a post ), but (and hence) maintaining that list should not be too hard.
- Also one of you wanted comments to open in a new window – I am trying to see how that is possible, could not figure out yet. Any ideas ?
- I am surprised none of you were pissed off with my constant changing of templates and layouts :p or in other words, I am not surprised people chose to be polite about it
- I have put up an updated list of blogs I follow regularly – that appears as “Now (and then) reading.
- I have a addition called Top Posts in the bar on the left side which collects some of the most linked posts in the last 48 hours or so. From my observation so far, these are not always the most recent posts and some of them are way into the past. I thought I will leave it there – hopefully it throws up some random posts deep into the past for your sampling.
- And my apologies, the survey software sucked or to put it more aptly – I sucked at using it.
That apart, thanks for all the nice words. I remind myself every now and then that its quite an honor that “you write something every now and then and people stop by to read it”. Over the months readers have drifted away, some drifted in and some just hung on. To all of you a big word of thanks.
Back to some ’serious’ blogging.
Your 6 minutes please July 14, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in blogging, statistics.13 comments
What do you think about this blog ? What are your favorite topics ? What about the layout, readability and such ?
504 days, 538 posts, 662 comments ( 331, assuming half are my own replies ) later, I pause. I pause to get some direct feedback.
I first thought I will just write a post asking for comments. But this sorta 9 question, 6 minute survey is easier taken anonymously n all that. Also thats the first time I am using that software to create the survey.
So please.
I will hold off another few days before I post something. Hopefully some data will have come in by then and I can incorporate survey results in future blogging. If the survey badly flops ( nobody replies or everybody likes everything about the blog), life will go on as usual
Misc. July 13, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in humor, india, sport, weird.5 comments
I am all but out of the job market but this job notice coming from everyone’s favorite country is scary. ( HT : Nanopolitan ). And then why should United States be the only government to fudge facts ?
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When we Indians have to explain to an ignorant outsider with an example about this thing about India being a land of contradictions, keep this one handy.
You cannot have your rosagulla/gulad jamun/gajar ka halwa/mysore paak. Nor can you eat any of those.
As an aside for several years I wondered how is not possible for someone to have their cake as well as eat it – afterall having the cake is the same as eating it !!
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I am not among those who would automatically equate commercialization with evil but this time I agree with my favorite Cricinfo writer Tim de Lisle comparing Wimbledon and the All England Cricket Club over the years.
On Thursday, I went to Wimbledon…
Centre Court wasn’t quite itself, as somebody seemed to have removed the roof…
Coming from cricket, I was very struck by something. No, not the presence of women on centre stage. It was the absence of advertising. There is a little, but it is very, very discreet. The manufacturers’ logos on the players’ kit aren’t visible from most of the seats. On the green-striped lawn, much wider than the court itself, there is plenty of room for billboards, but Wimbledon doesn’t have any. There are only two brand names in sight at all: IBM and Rolex. IBM appears on the little board that gives the speed of the last serve; Rolex is on the main scoreboard. And that’s it. Both these famous names appear in yellow, on the dark green background that is Wimbledon’s signature. Neither logo is big, let alone in your face.
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Yes, even I can get totally turned off by somewhat ‘macro-economic’/moral optimization functions for deciding which pet to have. I hate cats and almost absolutely nothing will make me put up with a member of that species.
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Indian politics – Worst of UPA edition July 12, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in india.add a comment
One of the most unimaginative solutions ever – the combined IQ of Renuka Chowdary and her bureaucrats may not exceed that of any randomly chosen exhibit from here. ( no offense to any of them )
( Hat Tip : Amit Varma )
After this statement from Prakash Karat, even adding him to the left hand side of the above equation, that random exhibit is still going to win !
Karat said his party was adopting a different stand for the vice-presidential election as compared to the presidential poll. “What we said with regard to the presidential candidate does not hold for Vice-President,” he said.
However, political observers feel that Karat’s argument is fallacious because the Vice-President has to run the Upper House and a non-political person may find it impossible to conduct the business smoothly.
Best headlines today describing more than aptly the latest initiative from our insomniac Prime Minister.
And finally a pathetic choice for president.
Oh yeah and funniest lines today :
“Let’s avoid presumptions,” said Daud Abdullah, deputy secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, when asked if Islamists were behind the car bombs in Glasgow and London. “It can be the work of Christians, Jews or Buddhists,” he added. It’s not surprising that the Prime Minister does not stay up nights agonising over the plight of Pandits forced to flee Kashmir. Who knows, their tormentors may have been Buddhists from Ladakh!
Sanjika, remember our discussions about what such a hypothetical thing as a Buddhist suicide bomber might look like !
Computer Science – reflections July 11, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in contemplation, education, littlerockers, reminisces-1990s.2 comments
2 sentences that baffled me today :
1. Web search engines have become fixtures in our society, but few people realize that they are actually publicly accessible supercomputing systems, where a single query can unleash the power of several hundred processors operating on a data set of over 200 terabytes.
Thats coming from Randy Bryant, Dean, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
2. The year 2004 was the first year that human beings produced more transistors than grains of rice (~10 quintillion).
From Ed Lazowska, University of Washington and Chair, Computing Community Consortium
Reading more such facts and looking through the abstracts of the talks here you get feel for something that computer science is about and where it is going. And there is nothing like having an idea about the history of the field as well where it is going and where the medium term challenges lay (something to which I cannot make a claim). And then of course there is a need to make a distinction between Computer Science and Software Engineering (I am not talking about new programming languages).
Consider our Chemistry class in Class XI back in Little Rock, Brahmavar. We were taught Dalton’s model of the atom and then the next class we would told something was wrong with it and then Rutherford came along whom Bohr proved wrong and then great Max Planc along with other quantum physicists (which included Bohr himself) proved it all wrong or incomplete. It was amusing to see that much of the quantum theory developed even before the neutron was discovered (in 1934). I remember thinking what was point of learning about everything that was already proven wrong and incorrect. That science is a thought process rather than a mere set of facts or theories was something that missed me.
I am interested in education and make no secret of it. No, not just in the process of educating myself, but in looking back critically at my own education from primary school in early 90s. As a Computer Science student in high school and secondary school, our idea of the field of the Computer Science was rather limited – the science was often confused with programing and technology. I don’t know if things are too different today.
In fact I don’t consider myself much of a CS person, nor infact an EE person. Hence for those who still don’t know what I am talking about, this entry will be useful. (Try finding the word “C++”/”Java” on that page )
Ex-defence n all July 11, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in assorted, india, weird.add a comment
A brilliant post on the IE blog about ex-defence officers seeking out corporate positions and the weird incentives they face :
An intriguing aside. Most ex-military officers claim that the CTC of a military officer with around 20 years of service, including all the freebies and perquisites, is around 18 lakhs per annum. The corporate world, however, doesn’t believe it to be true and is not ready to offer a similar deal to them. This argument of CTC is self-defeating. The defence forces are crying hoarse with the government that their salaries are abysmally low and they deserve a massive hike. The corporate world dips into these reports and believes them, rather than a military officer who has no evidence to support his claim, other than a monthly salary slip of 30,000 rupees. As a wag saw it – God forbid, if the sixth pay commission were to consider this claimed CTC for military officers, it would have to bring down the military salaries instead of hiking them!
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Oh drunkards, now you may drink more, and more often ! ( Thanks to MR for the pointer )
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One of the most interesting but weird surveys I ever took.
Problems that solutions to problems breed July 11, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in economics, ideas.add a comment
One of those things I like about economics is just how complex the system under analysis typically is. Often, the effects of our actions are unintuitive, or are described incorrectly and/or incompletely. The second order effects – the effects of the consequences of our actions or the problems that our solutions create are worse that then problem being solved. This makes economic analysis complicated but at the same time the cumulative and second order effects also enable one to devise simple solutions to complex problems. Here is an example, something I don’t personally endorse but serves well as an example nevertheless :
America has far more second-earners than most other advanced market democracies, and most of these second-earners are women. Americans work very long hours. It should thus come as no surprise that Americans rely far more heavily on prepared meals, professional child care, and other services purchased on the open market that used to be provided by parents in the home. A lot of this work, in restaurants for example, is low-wage work that is a magnet for low-skill migrants.
If we sharply increased marginal tax rates, second-earners on the margin would be a lot less likely to engage in market work, and they’d have less disposable incomes. …
Jobs that have been “outsourced” to immigrant labor would dry up.
Thanks to Jane Galt for the pointer.
Assorted stuff July 10, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in assorted, geo-politics, humor, politics, weird.5 comments
Here again now – with every passing day my ability to discern Onion-kinda news from real news is being lost. I don’t know if its Onion that is gotten that good or the world thats gotten that weird.
Consider these 2 gems :
Looks like the dogs, my last hope so far, have lost it
US military proposals over the decades. Incredibly funny, innovative.
I can’t imagine the once scientific advisor to the Vajpayee and now President and soon to be a former president Dr. Kalam presenting such suggestions. ( or his reactions on being presented such suggestions by his sub-ordinates )
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This article underlines the now familiar theory that terrorism is a mostly educated/ruling class enterprise. The following part stands out :
There is also an argument that Asians who go in for a technical degree often don’t get oriented to any history or social science and so are more vulnerable to odd explanations of the world they may encounter later. Then the information explosion exposes young sharp minds to all kinds of propaganda…
‘Modernity’ in our societies is now limited to acquiring degrees and is just a way of enslaving one to the fruits of technology without imbibing the spirit that is central to ‘modernity’ — acknowledging the right of all citizens on this planet to co-exist as equals.
Of course this is just a theory, there is no data to support this yet. But if at some point some such relation is established, we will come back to rue our education system. Liberal arts education is a marathon, a long term investment – its hard to point out at the end of a history/sociology/psychology course and pin point at the end of it about the value added. It accrues over a period of time that few policy makers have a vision to comprehend or care enough to act on.
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My understanding of politics ( which may be cast as naive given my claim ) is that almost every vote should be a conscience vote. I think the (faulty but for want of a better alternative) premise of democracy is that MPs are representatives of the people first, the party only later. I find it amusing that politicians are criticizing the call for ‘conscience vote’ as being inappropriate. Does it imply that when MPs vote they are supposed to suppress their ideas and just toe the party line ? I know there is a problem with indiscriminate voting but so is the idea that someone can belong to a particular party – how can you find a handful of smart guys that agree ( not appear to agree) on every major issue ?
Meanwhile, I continue to think that Abhishek Manu Sanghvi has the worst job in the world. More BS from him from here :
Congress spokesperson, Abhishek Singhvi joined issue with Shekhawat and dismissed as “misapplied and inapposite” NDA’s plans to seek a conscience vote in favour of Vice-President Shekhawat in the presidential election as had happened in 1969. According to him, “1969 was a case when the ruling party was itself divided and conscience vote was sought because of the division.” To buttress his argument Singhvi claimed that this time the ruling UPA “was completely united and all constituents had signed the nomination papers for Pratibha Patil”.
Uh, so ? That argument is about as valid as saying :
1969 presidential election is different from 2007. That was the 20th century, we are now in a completely new century. So …
The problem is that either he has to be really stupid or has to make statements that make him look stupid anyway.
Orkut observations July 10, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in CMU, littlerockers, statistics.2 comments
Orkut seems to have steadied in its growth – at least thats true of my friends’ list. I am not sure about overall growth since observing the Little Rock community growth indicates otherwise. Here are approximate numbers for Dec 2005, June 2006, Dec 2006, June 2007 respectively.
Number of friends : 100, 517, 690, 720
Size of Little Rock group: 70, 517, 1050, 1578
Yeah, for about 1 day around June 20th, the two groups were equal in number (517)
So I guess pretty much anyone I know in the 22-28 group from school, college and grad school is on Orkut. Or at least those are who are not yet here, will not be here for a while to come. Meanwhile, the Little Rock group continues to add 3 people a day on average.
Abhaya, my colleague at CMU has an even more interesting observation about Orkut :
I see patterns, very vague ones and in almost all the cases, false ones owing to the nature of human brain which does a selecting strengthening of evidence. But they are interesting anyway. One of those observations is that a good looking person also seems to have on average, good looking (or photogenic if you want to be technically correct) friends. Another one is that often people who have not put up their own picture in profile , will have more friends of similar kind.
What do you think ?
Breaks – then and now July 10, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in contemplation, ideas.2 comments
As kids, young lads, maybe even as teenagers, the thing about vacations ( or perhaps shorter breaks ) was that hangover when you get back home – back to the same routine, same streets, buses and the same handful of faces in the neighborhood. But somewhere that has changed and the change reminds me that I am not one of those younger lads anymore.
Today, staying away from home for more than a few days – whether staying at hotels or friends’ places and however nice they may be – gets to you. And you long to come back home, where you can just be. No matter how small/hot/untidy your place is, its still yours.
For those who believe that freedom is just an idea or a figment of George Bush’s imagination, go away, stay in airports and bus-stations or at your relatives’ place, or other places, public and private where prior to every act committed questions of appropriateness, neatness and mannerisms abound. And then ask yourself what is it that you have lost.
You kinda get an idea about where I am now and how I feel about it.
Weird things few July 4, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in CMU, contemplation, science.add a comment
In America, this can happen only in a University.
For the last four years, Elizabeth Okazaki has attended graduate physics seminars, used the offices reserved for doctoral and post-doctoral physics students and — for all intents and purposes made the Varian Physics Lab her home.
The only problem is that Okazaki appears to have no affiliation with Stanford and, according to physics professors and students, no real reason to be there.
One might view this as negligence/incompetence or apathy and in fact the rest of the article is quite critical of the authorities for their behavior. But to me the whole episode in some sense an evidence of just how open the general atmosphere is at (some) universities.
I remember being in a class here at Carnegie Mellon and suddenly a person who I had never seen before walked into the class, told the professor that he liked the topic and if he could sit in for a while. Professor had no qualms letting him be. All that really happened was that he was walking down the corridor and happened to see the title of the powerpoint slide in one of the classrooms and decided – “Hey, this is interesting, lets check this out !”.
However, I am aware that the university model is not portable for example to corporate/government settings and they often have reasons to do what they do. Hence, I won’t rant against organizations that are secretive about their work.
Link via Scott.
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A random cute couple. (no, not an image)
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I saw this blog a while ago, managed to retrieve it via Google thus :
About a couple of months back, I remember reading that he was probably joining MIT, he had a conversation with someone during a flight about existence of god n such, he was a quantum phyicist from some Canadian university. I chose Waterloo because it has one of the best theoretical Computer science departments out there. Because I did not know this name, I used the keyword combination “quantum waterloo mit god” and bingo ! – his blog was the first link. I don’t know if its me the super-searcher or its about Google.
Anyway, I don’t know Scott Aaronson, but reading this post I feel so good for him. Good luck Scott.
Assorted links now July 3, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in assorted, humor, india.add a comment
The LA Times on the Indian Ambassador (to nowhere in particular).
About 600,000 of the cars still ply the roads. Fans invariably cite its spacious interior, so capacious that police in north India once stopped an Ambassador with 27 people on board, according to Baig.
Owners also say that Ambassadors, with their heavy rear axles, weather India’s rutted roads better than other cars. And when an Amby does break down, even a village mechanic will have the parts and know-how to fix it.
The car is so fraught with historical significance, aficionados note with pride, that Singh’s photos of the Ambassador spent months on display at the Smithsonian Institution in 2003.
Critics say that’s where the car belongs.
27 people ! Thats the whole of my Class XII, leaving out one person. ( If they had to leave out person, maybe it would be me )
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Without China : This is an interesting self experiment. Like I did with Google, except like a true Indian I did not document my findings. ( HT : Marginal Revolution )
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I like this fella’s list here. Feel free to add more to that one.
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Apparently, “rats do unto others as they have been done to”. Further evidence of non-religious and evolutionary basis of morality ?
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Kenyan Economist on AID to Africa :
Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa’s problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn’t even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.
More in the interview here. Other viewpoints covered in this article. My previous post quoting Gary Becker on foreign aid.
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Oops, a PR disaster.
Education in political philosophy July 3, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in America, intellectual, politics.1 comment so far
Every sentence in this article looks worth reading to me, if you like the topic that is. Infact, its more of a book review than an opinion piece ( well, actually book review is one kind of opinion piece … okay, whatever ! ). I will paste some interesting bits :
In polls taken since 1945, a majority of Americans have been unable to name a single branch of government, define the terms “liberal” and “conservative,” and explain what the Bill of Rights is. More than two-thirds have reported that they do not know the substance of Roe v. Wade and what the Food and Drug Administration does. Nearly half do not know that states have two senators and three-quarters do not know the length of a Senate term. More than fifty per cent of Americans cannot name their congressman; forty per cent cannot name either of their senators. Voters’ notions of government spending are wildly distorted: the public believes that foreign aid consumes twenty-four per cent of the federal budget, for example, though it actually consumes about one per cent.
Gets more interesting.
Even apart from ignorance of the basic facts, most people simply do not think politically. They cannot see, for example, that the opinion that taxes should be lower is incompatible with the opinion that there should be more government programs. Their grasp of terms such as “affirmative action” and “welfare” is perilously uncertain: if you ask people whether they favor spending more on welfare, most say no; if you ask whether they favor spending more on assistance to the poor, most say yes. And, over time, individuals give different answers to the same questions about their political opinions. People simply do not spend much time learning about political issues or thinking through their own positions. They may have opinions—if asked whether they are in favor of capital punishment or free-trade agreements, most people will give an answer—but the opinions are not based on information or derived from a coherent political philosophy. They are largely attitudinal and ad hoc.
I find this amusing – the level of political discourse in a matured democracy like the United States is rather poor for all the above reasons. Think about countries with high illiteracy rates, no history of democracy, multi-ethnic composition, poor, almost landlocked.
I have said this before and say it again – I find it hard to understand that here we have this great question of our times and of the last 200 years perhaps – that of the relation between the citizen and the state, one that encompasses political rights and freedoms, allocation of economic resources and one that has a huge bearing on the nature and quality of our lives. Yet, not one minute of my secondary education was spent pondering this question. And it is questions like these and the exposure to such ideas that ensure that a democracy can function meaningfully. It may sound over-rated at a stage when billions don’t have the most basic of skills, but I feel that in the long run for an advanced society to be able to make optimal public policy choices such an education is necessary.
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Alex asks a rather provocative question. And folks in the comments section match the provocation with their uuh…provocative thoughts.
John’s tantrums n all July 2, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in humor, sport, videos.add a comment
Meet Alan Mills :
The match referee at The Championships of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club from 1982 until 2005, he had the task of deciding when to stop play.
Thats not the most interesting part of course.
Mills was the assistant match referee in 1981 when McEnroe blew his top and called umpire Ted James “the pits of the world”. The referee had a more polite exchange after McEnroe hammered Connors 6-1 6-1 6-2 in the 1984 final. “I then went towards John, who had just come back from celebrating with his parents. I said, ‘Congratulations, John. That was the finest display of tennis I have seen. In my thinking you only made four unforced errors.’ He looked at me with his usual cheeky grin and said, ‘Alan, I think you are right but I make it two unforced errors and two bad bounces.’ That’s the sort of relationship we had at the end of it.
Here are some videos on what Mcenroe used to be like.
Pictures and locations ( and times maybe ) July 2, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in technology.add a comment
3 parties – A, B and C.
A has the photographs and the information about the locations where the pictures were shot.
B has place to storage space online to store these pictures.
C has the infrastructure that enables the linking of the pictures to the locations they were shot.
A – YOU ; B – Panoramio ; C – Google
Such a simple, beautiful idea. Visit Panoramio, search for your favorite city/town and find out more for yourself.
For example, search for Empire State Building and get several pictures shot by random people. Then use the map to see the neighbourhood, sort of non-walking tour of area around the Empire State.
A somewhat similar service from Yahoo, where Yahoo maps is integrated into Flickr.
Web 2.0 rocks !
I imagine that now that the location aspect has been covered, time should be next. Say I want to see how the MG Road in Bangalore has changed over the years/decades. Being able to tag pictures ( infact digital cams have this information as part of picture already ) with the date that it was shot and having people retrieve is cool. Ofcourse, its probably not as exciting as location based retrieval to most people, but those with an interest in history will relish such a service.
On being different July 1, 2007
Posted by Sharath Rao in America, education, india.4 comments
Daphne Merkin’s apprehensions about her daughter, who through high school is seen taking stands and making decisions that involve breaking away from prevailing trends, swimming against the tide. I like this paragraph :
Although as a culture we bemoan the perils of groupthink, it can be very cold once you move beyond the circle of warmth that is the reward for adding your voice to the collective chorus. We celebrate loners and visionaries, but we tend to do so only after the fact, when the class nerd who sat by himself in the lunchroom ends up writing a best-selling software program. Defiant individualism is fine if it succeeds, but for every misfit who becomes a Charles Bukowski or R. Crumb there is one who becomes Jeffrey Dahmer or the Unabomber. Striking up a different tune has always come with certain costs, beginning with ridicule and ending with social ostracism. A famous loner of a British poet once noted that “our virtues are all social” and that there is always the lurking possibility that what you stand for on your lonesome is nothing more than “a compensating make-believe.”
Not because this in any way relates to a personal experience, which in fact was quite the opposite.
I find it a certain paradox about America – in the land where individuality is valued most, I think everyone’s effort to be different ends up with everyone moving lock in step. For instance, I imagine whether girls that hate the pink color have a tough time in American schools .
From my experience, being different in India costs you your relations with the authorities – whether at school or with adults in the family/neighborhood. However, peer groups are more accommodating of mavericks. I wonder that in America it is the opposite – mavericks are seen by authorities as someone with promise, while they are viewed as a threat to one’s own popularity by peers.
Not an expert on the topic, really appreciate your opinions.
