Author: Atanu Dey

Economist.

Saturday Silliness: Cat Listening to Music

Some people have way too much time on their hands. Of course, you have got to admire their creativity. Only on the internet can you find such a potent mix of silliness and creativity. Cats listening to music. My favorite is the one listening to Stevie Wonder.

Hell and Censorship

News from Abroad

Gordon Dryden emailed me an update on the Hell billboards which I had written about in August 2005.:

Hell Pizza

Thus wrote Gordon:

Today, the New Zealand Council of Advertising Standards upheld, in part, a complaint against Hell billboards – with the photo of George W Bush, and saying “Even hell is too good for some bastards”.

Its ruling (seriously) did not find anything wrong with the reference to George B in that context but felt that the term “some bastards” might be offensive to some people.”

I think that putting the word “bastards” on a billboard where one may inadvertently see it is perhaps a bit much. Therefore I do not think removing the word amounts to censorship.
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Air Indian

Imagine a restaurant where the number of employees exceeds the number of seats. Would be a very expensive restaurant indeed. Now imagine an airline where the number of employees exceeds the the number of seats. Actually, you don’t have to imagine that one as India has two such airlines where all the employees cannot be seated in the planes simultaneously. When the two state-run airlines merge shortly, they will have about 132 airplanes — my estimate is around 20,000 seats — and 35,000 employees.
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Markets work

You know what the secret of a great economy is? Markets. Why? Because voluntary trade is beneficial and welfare improving. As if you really needed to be convinced of that, here is an item that my friend Saheli from Berkeley alerted me to: free lodging in exchange for breast milk.

Markets rule. And not just in Berkeley. Everywhere.

How to be an expert

Legend has it that Arthur Rubenstein was once asked on the street for directions to Carnegie Hall. “Pardon me sir, but how do I get to Carnegie Hall?” He said, “Practice, practice, practice.”

Here’s something you may enjoy listening to. A Scientific American podcast (mp3 download ~9.5 MB) on what it takes to become an expert. Anyone can provided one puts sufficient sweat into it and does so smartly over an extended period of time. So all of you who have small children, pay special attention.

The Expert Mind and the Interplanetary Bicycle Ride

In this episode, Phil Ross talks about what scientists have learned is necessary to achieve expertise in virtually any field. Ross’s article on the subject, The Expert Mind, is in the August issue of Scientific American. And Sheldon Schafer, who sports the title of Curator of the Solar System (a huge model of the solar system centered in Peoria, Illinois) discusses the Interplanetary Bicycle Ride, coming up on August 12 and 13. Plus we’ll test your knowledge about some recent science in the news. Websites mentioned on this podcast include Spectrum.IEEE.org; http://www.lakeview-museum.org; and the Scientific American Digital Archive, http://www.sciamdigital.com.

Some are Born to Sweet Delight

Hi from Mumbai. Been here for a couple of days, and tomorrow I go to Bangalore for a few days.

Mumbai is not too unpleasant at this time of the year weather wise. Spent last evening in Colaba meeting with a friend. Best way to get there from my office in Lower Parel is to take a local train and then a cab from Churchgate station to Regal theatre.
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Roger Waters in the Flesh

It began with

So ya thought ya
Might like to go to the show.
To feel that warm thrill of confusion,
That space cadet glow.

I’ve got some bad news for you sunshine,
Pink isn’t well, he stayed back at the hotel
And they sent us along as a surrogate band
We’re gonna find out where you folks really stand.

darksideofthemoon

I was there to see Roger Waters perform yesterday at the Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai. He is the creative genius behind the lyrics and much of the music of The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall. He sang selected songs from The Wall in the first half of the concert and then performed The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety in the second half. Just before the intermission, the huge pink inflated rubber pig took off for the skies. Painted on were the usual political slogans and on its butt was “Impeach Bush Now.”
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Challenge to Indian Entrepreneurs

SaaS: How About a Middle Ground?
Guest post by Sramana Mitra

Last Fall, I wrote a widely read piece called Venture Capital in India, in which I pegged the Indian venture boom to be largely in Real Estate, Retail, and to an extent in Consumer Internet, not much in actual technology.
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