Month: August 2007

When Smart People Have Stupid Ideas

The co-author of Freakonomics, the celebrated economist Steve Levitt, who recently moved his blog to NY Times asks in his Aug 8th post “If You Were a Terrorist, How Would You Attack?” He states that his general view of the world is that simpler is better (and I agree with him on that) and goes on to wonder about simpler, more efficient ways of creating terror. He asks his readers to think creatively about how they would go about the business of terrorism.

I would love to hear them. Consider that posting them could be a form of public service: I presume that a lot more folks who oppose and fight terror read this blog than actual terrorists. So by getting these ideas out in the open, it gives terror fighters a chance to consider and plan for these scenarios before they occur.

As can be expected given the lethal combination of a widely-read newspaper of record, a highly visible best-selling author, an extremely important topic, and a very controversial stance, nearly 600 comments poured in (further comments are disallowed now.)
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The Hard Picture

So the story goes that there was an amateur photographer who would every year bring his crop of new pictures to an old man who was a master. Every year the master would go through the pictures and sort them out into “good” and “not good” piles. Funnily, the amateur would keep bringing back an old picture which invariably ended up in the “not good” pile.

Finally exasperated, he challenged the master, “Every year I bring this picture to you. Why do you keep putting it in the not-good pile?”

The master said, “Because the picture is no good.”

The amateur replies, “But it has to be good. I had to climb a very high mountain and endure bitter cold for five days to take that picture!”

Pathetic

“If you take all the pieces of Bollywood out of our lives – the celebrities on the billboards, the songs in the nightclubs, the stars on Page 3 – Indians would find their lives to be completely empty,” said Shuchi Pandya, a jewelry merchandiser in Mumbai. “It’s subconscious. Even if you don’t enjoy Bollywood movies, it becomes a part of your life.”
[The concluding lines from an Iinternational Herald Tribune article “Can Hollywood make a Bollywood movie?“]

I don’t have a very high opinion of the Indian masses (and that goes for the vast majority of humanity — Indians are not special) but this is simply untrue. Shuchi Pandya should speak for herself/himself and not generalize that all Indians lead lives of such pathetic and unrelieved shallowness that the only matter animating them is Bollywood movies. The writer of the article is an idiot sensationalist willing to convey the impression to his firangi readers that all Indians are empty-headed morons.

Yet Another SSRS Letter

In a few days, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living will be right outside my door for an entire week. The AoL is having a huge gathering not just within Magarpatta City but in the common area in front of the building I stay in. I will have a bird’s eye view of the proceedings from the balcony of my 11th floor apartment. Lucky me.

SSRS’s followers continue to send me unsolicited mail. Lucky me once again.

They don’t seem to understand that I express my views on my blog; I don’t write emails to people I don’t know forcing my opinion on them. So if they want to express their views, there are dozens of options in terms of blogs. They should avoid sending me mail. Else I publish their idiotic rantings just to underline my case that some of SSRS’s followers are brainwashed retards that don’t have a clue and are clearly unable to comprehend written material.

Here’s one that I got yesterday, posted in its entirety for the record.
Continue reading “Yet Another SSRS Letter”

Eggcorn and Just Desserts

Thanks to all who wrote in with the suggestion that it should be “just desserts” and not “just deserts” as I had written in “Just Deserts for Mr Dutt.” Actually, it is “just deserts” and “just desserts” is an eggcorn.

Internet Crash 2007

http://www.theonion.com/content/themes/common/assets/videoplayer/flvplayer.swf
Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

Pragati — Rejuvenating India

The Aug 2007 issue of “Pragati” — the publication of Indian National Interest is out. This special issue is called “Rejuvenating India” (pdf download 2.3MB).

I have two pieces in there. The first is a reprint of an op-ed piece for Mint which I had with Reuben Abraham. The second is a piece I titled “The Age of Profound Ignorance.” I try to make a case why India needs to liberalize its education sector.

I must say that Nitin Pai and the team have done a fine job. I am sure that the Indian policy establishment will find much of value in Pragati. Please feel free to pass it on to the movers and shakers within your circle.

The Age of Profound Ignorance

We find ourselves in the midst of a transition, from the industrial-value-added analog world to the information-value-added digital world of the future. The relatively static world of the past is giving way to a dynamic world that defies comprehension and easy descriptions. The institutions that worked in the past are losing their relevance in an accelerating and rapidly changing world economy – one that is getting more interdependent and interrelated. This change is more radical than that which accompanied the transition from a primarily agricultural to an industrial economy.
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Just Deserts for Mr Dutt

The vilest deeds like poison weeds
Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
And the warder is Despair.
Continue reading “Just Deserts for Mr Dutt”