Happy Birthday, JK

Ignorance, stupidity, in great affairs of state is not something that is commonly cited. A certain political and historical correctlness requires us to assign some measure of purpose, of rationality, even where, all to obviously, it does not exist. Nonetheless one cannot look with detachment on the Great War (and also its aftermath) without thought as to the mental insularity and defectiveness of those involved and responsible.

Thus wrote John Kenneth Galbraith in his 1994 book A Journey Through Economic Time.

Today he celebrates his 97th birthday. Born in Ontario, Canada, in 1908, he has been one of the keenest observers of the 20th century. A profile the Guardian did in April 2002 called him the last of the old-style liberals. Continue reading “Happy Birthday, JK”

The Age of Superfluous Information — Part 2

Sorting and searching through information are uniquely human activities because only humans have an external store of information which needs to be accessed and acted upon. The notion of acting on information stored externally is not associated with non-human animals.

The larger the stock of information, the more expensive it is to search through it to locate the precise bit that is relevant at any particular instance. To make the task of searching more tractable, ordering the information in some fashion—called sorting—becomes paramount. Computer scientists have worked on the problem of sorting and searching for decades with phenomenally successful advancement in our understanding in this regard.
Continue reading “The Age of Superfluous Information — Part 2”

Bijoya Dashimi Greetings

Today is Bijoy Dashimi, the final day of the festival we Bengalis call Puja. Ma Durga–Mahishashurmardini–has returned to her abode after defeating the forces of evil. My greetings to you all on this joyous occassion.

Now it is time for me to sit and listen to Raga Durga, sung by Veena Sahasrabuddhe, to mark the end of Puja.

The Blogger and IIPM: If the cap fits …

Here are the facts, very briefly. A magazine called JAM, did a story on a management institute called IIPM. The story said that IIPM makes tall claims. Many Indian newspapers carry full page IIPM ads. A blogger, Gaurav Sabnis, blogged about that and basically called IIPM claims fraudulent. IIPM served a legal notice threatening to sue Gaurav for a huge sum of money. They also contacted IBM, from whom they buy laptops for their students, to convey to them that they may stop that business relationship. Why? Gaurav works for IBM. So Gaurav resigned from IBM. The word got around and everyone and his brother is now blogging about the story–a rich corporation threatened a blogger and somehow managed to coerce him into quitting his job. Continue reading “The Blogger and IIPM: If the cap fits …”

Famous Scientist: “Dr.” APJ Kalam

In yesterdays post on science and famous scientists, I had asked people to guess one famous Indian scientist’s name. In the comments so far, Praveen guessed Raja Ramanna. Nothing funny about that candidate. Sorry but no cigar. Sameer correctly guessed APJ Kalam but hedged his answer by adding Vikram Sarabhai. The latter would not have been so outlandish an example of famous scientists. Uday said it was very sad. Don’t know if he meant the choice of APJ Kalam or the books in general. Navin guessed APJ Kalam.

Sychophancy runs deep and broad in Indian society. Part of the feudal system. Even so called “educators” in the public sector are past-masters in brown-nosing. Indeed, when the Continue reading “Famous Scientist: “Dr.” APJ Kalam”

Science and Famous Scientists

As part of my interest in high school education, I have been checking out prescribed textbooks in Indian schools. Take for instance the Science and Technology textbook for the 10th grade. The book that I am examining is published by the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT).
Continue reading “Science and Famous Scientists”

Disaster Fatigue

First there was the Andaman-Sumatra earthquake which resulted in the Boxing Day tsunami in the Indian Ocean. South Asia suffered massively last December and now another earthquake in the Himalayas has led to the loss of tens of thousands of lives. As if the man-made disasters were not enough, natural distasters have added to the woes.

Lives in over-crowded poor parts of the world are really cheap. The death of thirty thousand lives lost will probably be associated with a total damage of one billion US dollars at most. Hurrican Katrina and the ensuing flooding of New Orleans cost about a thousand lives but the cost is a whopping $200 billion. (On Oct 2nd, I spoke with Prof James Reese where we compared the Katrina with the Tsunami — the podcast is available here.)

My word to god would be enough already. Disaster fatigue is setting in.

Postcard from Nagpur

Back in the old home town Nagpur. A nice laid-back sort of a city. Sometimes I feel that Nagpur had–and still does have–a lot of potential. Situated very close to the geographical center of India, it could have been a better capital for the country than New Delhi. As a trans-shipment hub, Nagpur will be perfect. A huge big international airport would not be a bad idea either. The idea would be to make Nagpur the hub and connect Nagpur to all the others cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, etc.

Had a bit of an adventure in Mumbai yesterday. Continue reading “Postcard from Nagpur”

The Government as the Big Daddy

I am surprised that the simple point I attempted to make in the post called Drinking and Democracy about adult universal franchise being inconsistent with treating adults like irresponsible children provoked so much controversy. Call me dense but I am at a loss figuring out what exactly the objections are. Continue reading “The Government as the Big Daddy”

The Age of Superfluous Information

“There is no more dangerous mistake than the mistake of supposing that we cannot have too much of a good thing.” Thus spake George Bernard Shaw. Excess is as damaging as shortage in most things that are considered good. More is better but only up to a point of satiation. Beyond the satiation point, the marginal utility of a good is negative, as an economist may put it. Particular instances of that generalization are not hard to find.

Food, for instance, is a good that in excessive quantities is a bad as the success of the dieting industry so starkly demonstrates. Yet tens of millions poor people around the world dying of malnutrition and starvation every year is the horrible demonstration of the problem at the other extreme.

The same holds for information. Continue reading “The Age of Superfluous Information”