Author: Atanu Dey

Economist.

Steve Irwin — RIP

Steve “Crocodile Hunter” Irwin died in a freak accident.

Australian naturalist and television personality Steve Irwin has been killed by a stingray during a diving expedition off the Australian coast.

Mr Irwin, 44, died after being struck in the chest by the stingray’s barb while he was filming a documentary in Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef.

. . . The stingray is a flat, triangular-shaped fish, commonly found in tropical waters.

It gets its name from the razor-sharp barb at the end of its tail, coated in toxic venom, which the animal uses to defend itself with when it feels threatened.

Attacks on humans are a rarity – only one other person is known to have died in Australia from a stingray attack, at St Kilda, Melbourne in 1945.

I enjoyed watching his show on TV and admired his commitment to the preservation of wildlife and his opposition to any kind of hunting.

It is one of those things that I am going to remember for a long while. My month long stay in Sydney is almost over. I had just finished dinner and switched on the TV and the channel that the TV was tuned on to was just getting started with the news headlines. I could hardly believe it. Life is a random draw and you never know when your number is up.

Steve will remain a great Australian hero.

The False Bottom of the Pyramid — 2

Following up on the post “The False Bottom of the Pyramid” thanks to Raja Sekhar Malapati once again for the responses of Prahalad and Hammond to Karnani’s critique of the Bottom of the Pyramid propostion.

Edifying Entertainment

Thanks to Ameet Deshpande, I was introduced to Ted Talks. TED is “Technology, Entertainment, Design.”

Ted Talks

Since then, I have delighted in listening to many of the talks. Here is Sir Ken Robinson (mp3 audio ~18 minutes): “Sir Ken Robinson is author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, and a leading expert on innovation and human resources. (Recorded February, 2006 in Monterey, CA.)” He is entertaining and instructive.

Then listen to Richard Baraniuk (mp3 audio, duration: 19:18.) “He is a Rice University professor with a giant vision: to create a free, global online education system. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA.)”

And to round up about one hour of absolutely enjoyable listening, listen to Jimmy Wales (mp3 audio, duration ~21 minutes.) “He is founder of Wikipedia, the self-organizing, self-correcting, ever-expanding, and thoroughly addictive encyclopedia of the future (Recorded July 2005 in Oxford, UK. )”

The False Bottom of the Pyramid

Apparently, to be a successful “public intellectual” one of the requirements is that one must invent a catchy tag line. The tag line must have emotional appeal through a reference to some deeply held belief or social conditioning. An example of one such is the title of the book by Thomas Friedman “The World is Flat” which attempts to upset your view of the world that it is round. Another example is “the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid” which the obvious connection to the phrase “the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”
Continue reading “The False Bottom of the Pyramid”

The Pleasure of Finding Out

I have never had the pleasure of meeting Richard Feynman (May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988). Reading the Wiki entry on Feynman is both humbling and delightful. What a prodigious brain, what a sensibility, what delight he takes in being alive and learning. But to get a better understanding of who he is, you need to watch an interview of his The Pleasure of Finding Out Things. It is 50 minutes long. I have spent too many hours watching that video. Here was a kindred spirit, I thought to myself, when I first saw that video on public television many years ago.

Watch that video. I am doing so right now as I write this. Here is a bookmark: around time-stamp 6:15, he talks about the distinction between knowing a thing and knowing the name of the thing, which his father taught him. That idea keeps bouncing around in my head. Much too often our education system concentrates on naming things and not so much on understanding the nature of the thing. Feynman was an absolutely amazing teacher because I think he was an absolutely amazing student. It was from his father that he learnt to observe and after observing, ask questions. Continue reading “The Pleasure of Finding Out”

“Free” Energy? Not Really — Part 3

[Previous Posts on “Free Energy”: Part 1, Part 2]

Keith Hudson, the author of the outstanding Daily Wisdom postings, recently commented on the matter of free energy. With his permission, I am sharing his post with the readers of this blog. Continue reading ““Free” Energy? Not Really — Part 3″

Happy Ganesh Chaturthi

OM Shri Ganeshaya Namaha!

Of the 330 million gods and goddesses of the Hindu pantheon, my favorite is Ganesh, the Lord of the Ganas. He is Vighneshwara, the Remover of Obstacles. The story goes that Shiva, the great god, had challenged Ganesh and his brother Kartik to go around the universe three times. While Kartik took off in great haste on his peacock to complete the task, Ganesh walked his portly figure around his parents, Shiva and Parvati, and declared that he had accomplished the task as his parents were the totality of the universe. Shiva was quite pleased at Ganesh’s strategy and granted that Ganesh will be invoked before the invocation of any other gods when anyone embarks on any task. Continue reading “Happy Ganesh Chaturthi”

“Free” Energy? Not Really — Part 2

Magical thinking and wishful thinking are fraternal, if not identical, twins. Both are cognitive traps that our emotional selves stumble into. Both are characteristically childlike. While childlike behavior and mentation is adorable in small children, when adults do it, it is childish and not cute. There is no law which says that adults cannot, or should not, behave childishly if they so wish. But they should do so in the privacy of their own homes, and I suspect most people do behave childishly occasionally in private with their significant others. If they do so in public, we are justified in telling them, “Sheesh, get a room.” Continue reading ““Free” Energy? Not Really — Part 2″