Wrong Un
Interesting article in cricinfo http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/columns/content/story/228475.html
Its quite ironic! check it out, especially those in pursuit of cricket trivia!
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Oops-onomics
The December 7th issue of Economist had this article posted http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5246700
Let me start by giving a big thumbs up to Steven Levitt for his unorthodox take on everyday issues in his book "Freakonomics".
I am huge fan of the book, it makes interesting reading, but does not always make logical conclusions. I found Levitt's thought process fascinating and his approach refreshingly simple for a Chicago economist. Levitt has come up with some bold theories, but we should just leave it at that, they are just theories, open to debate.
The issue that is by far the most controversial, is Levitt's take that Roe V Wade was directly responsible for crime reduction. Messrs Foote and Goetz (two economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston) in their paper have shown flaws in the statistical model employed by Levitt and Donohue, I am no economist, but as a student of engineering, keeping 600 possible variables constant in a study of this kind seems highly questionable. Professor Ted Joyce from Baruch College says quite accurately that "this robs the data, of most of their variety, and of much of their ability to explain anything."
In grad school, I recall trying to convince my professor, as to why I had kept one of the terms in a mathematical relation constant. Finally, after close to an hour of discussion, I had to accept that it was at best an assumption, without any physics behind it. I think, the same is true for Levitt's theory, its provocative, but there is no sound basis for some of his conclusions.
Talking about controversial research findings, a paper by Prof. David Grier (Physics Department, University of Chicago) comes to mind. Using a combination of experimental manipulations and statistical mambo jumbo he had managed to prove that like charges "attract". This was eventually proved wrong by his peers, but it shows that if the laws of physics can be interpreted incorrectly, under certain conditions, with the right statistical model and design of experiment, a rather undefined correlation between abortion and crime rate can be formed, as long as the degrees of freedom tend to infinity!
The December 7th issue of Economist had this article posted http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5246700
Let me start by giving a big thumbs up to Steven Levitt for his unorthodox take on everyday issues in his book "Freakonomics".
I am huge fan of the book, it makes interesting reading, but does not always make logical conclusions. I found Levitt's thought process fascinating and his approach refreshingly simple for a Chicago economist. Levitt has come up with some bold theories, but we should just leave it at that, they are just theories, open to debate.
The issue that is by far the most controversial, is Levitt's take that Roe V Wade was directly responsible for crime reduction. Messrs Foote and Goetz (two economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston) in their paper have shown flaws in the statistical model employed by Levitt and Donohue, I am no economist, but as a student of engineering, keeping 600 possible variables constant in a study of this kind seems highly questionable. Professor Ted Joyce from Baruch College says quite accurately that "this robs the data, of most of their variety, and of much of their ability to explain anything."
In grad school, I recall trying to convince my professor, as to why I had kept one of the terms in a mathematical relation constant. Finally, after close to an hour of discussion, I had to accept that it was at best an assumption, without any physics behind it. I think, the same is true for Levitt's theory, its provocative, but there is no sound basis for some of his conclusions.
Talking about controversial research findings, a paper by Prof. David Grier (Physics Department, University of Chicago) comes to mind. Using a combination of experimental manipulations and statistical mambo jumbo he had managed to prove that like charges "attract". This was eventually proved wrong by his peers, but it shows that if the laws of physics can be interpreted incorrectly, under certain conditions, with the right statistical model and design of experiment, a rather undefined correlation between abortion and crime rate can be formed, as long as the degrees of freedom tend to infinity!
Monday, December 05, 2005
We need to grow up!
Check out this link in Outlook http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20051212&fname=Cover+Story+%28F%29&sid=3&pn=1
Anjali Puri goes back in recent memory bringing out instances that just make you want to shout out GROW UP!
For those unaware about the happenings that Anjali talks about let me give you an introduction to stupidity 101.
Kushboo, the erstwhile goddess (literally speaking) of the Dravidian world (though she happens to be a Punjabi!) made some remarks about pre-marital sex. To a non-Tamil, the entire episode might seem nonsensical, which would be completely rational, but anyone who has been acquainted with Tamil filmdom or politics will understand the impact of cinema and particularly that of Kushboo! She contested the notion that brides in India need to be virgins. I was actually quite surprised that the Indian media has stooped to levels low enough to report this incident on national television; but then again a Tamil film personality is no ordinary mortal! To be fair to her, I think she was just being practical. It is quite evident, that pre martial sex is widespread in India. All you need to do to verify this is to spend time with some yuppies from Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore or I might dare to add conservative Chennai. The self appointed custodians of Tamil culture that attacked Kushboo, have not come to grips with the changes in their society or maybe they have and its just some bizarre political move!
L.K. Advani found himself in a quagmire after his remarks about Jinnah. I thought he made an excellent speech and his statements were historically accurate. But like my uncle says, in India we don’t distinguish between history and myth. The typical Hindu believes Jinnah to be an evil person, so praising him is akin to have moved into the dark side. Advani, like Anakin Skywalker was suddenly Darth Vader to his party members. Advani assumed that Indian politics was mature enough for his speech, he was sadly wrong. The Jinnah speech will haunt him for years to come.
Prime Minister Singh was not spared either. His now infamous speech at Oxford described by Leftist scholar Prof. Irfan Habib as “looking for applause from the sahibs” was a perfect case of misplaced jingoism. All the PM said, was we have to thank the Raj for some of the basic infrastructure in modern India, which could not be more historically accurate, yet people like BJP spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi seem to call it an insult to hundred million proud Indians. Who does Mr. Naqvi believe he represents? I agree there was a time when Indians feared the British, which is but natural as they were our rulers. I can recount an episode my grandfather talks about when he and his pals ran away from the English officer in Madras whom they called “vellakaran” (white man). I would like to imagine that things have changed now. India is a proud independent country and can afford to talk about its past in a proper historical manner. We need to acknowledge the work of a few noble Englishmen. My cousin will tell you that historians like Jones, Princep and other English bureaucrats introduced us to our past http://vijayblog.blogspot.com
We seem to still portray the image of General Dyer as the typical English officer, which is far from the truth and I believe our media, Hindi movies in particular have been greatly responsible for this misguided representation.
Anjali Puri, also brings about the case of the new Indian teen icon Sania Mirza. People (thankfully an insignificant lot) have criticized her attire. People like SM need to be applauded, she has been a path breaker and a fine role model for young women athletes.
Sania Mirza for her fashion choice, Shyam Benegal who was compelled to remove the part of an Austrian love interest in his movie Bose, the protest about a completely fictional and illogical movie like Mangal Pandey or the absurd ban on smoking in the movies, are all pieces of the same jigsaw puzzle. We just refuse to grow up. We need to rediscover our values for the modern times; we cannot afford to be stuck in some sort of time warp. U.R. Anantha Murthy puts it perfectly in his book Samskara when Naranappa (a pariah to the brahmin community) tells Praneshacharya (the learned brahmin of the community) “read the Vedas, read the Puranas, but don’t try to interpret them. Acharya-re, you are the one who’s studied in Kashi-you tell me, who ruined brahminism?”
Check out this link in Outlook http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20051212&fname=Cover+Story+%28F%29&sid=3&pn=1
Anjali Puri goes back in recent memory bringing out instances that just make you want to shout out GROW UP!
For those unaware about the happenings that Anjali talks about let me give you an introduction to stupidity 101.
Kushboo, the erstwhile goddess (literally speaking) of the Dravidian world (though she happens to be a Punjabi!) made some remarks about pre-marital sex. To a non-Tamil, the entire episode might seem nonsensical, which would be completely rational, but anyone who has been acquainted with Tamil filmdom or politics will understand the impact of cinema and particularly that of Kushboo! She contested the notion that brides in India need to be virgins. I was actually quite surprised that the Indian media has stooped to levels low enough to report this incident on national television; but then again a Tamil film personality is no ordinary mortal! To be fair to her, I think she was just being practical. It is quite evident, that pre martial sex is widespread in India. All you need to do to verify this is to spend time with some yuppies from Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore or I might dare to add conservative Chennai. The self appointed custodians of Tamil culture that attacked Kushboo, have not come to grips with the changes in their society or maybe they have and its just some bizarre political move!
L.K. Advani found himself in a quagmire after his remarks about Jinnah. I thought he made an excellent speech and his statements were historically accurate. But like my uncle says, in India we don’t distinguish between history and myth. The typical Hindu believes Jinnah to be an evil person, so praising him is akin to have moved into the dark side. Advani, like Anakin Skywalker was suddenly Darth Vader to his party members. Advani assumed that Indian politics was mature enough for his speech, he was sadly wrong. The Jinnah speech will haunt him for years to come.
Prime Minister Singh was not spared either. His now infamous speech at Oxford described by Leftist scholar Prof. Irfan Habib as “looking for applause from the sahibs” was a perfect case of misplaced jingoism. All the PM said, was we have to thank the Raj for some of the basic infrastructure in modern India, which could not be more historically accurate, yet people like BJP spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi seem to call it an insult to hundred million proud Indians. Who does Mr. Naqvi believe he represents? I agree there was a time when Indians feared the British, which is but natural as they were our rulers. I can recount an episode my grandfather talks about when he and his pals ran away from the English officer in Madras whom they called “vellakaran” (white man). I would like to imagine that things have changed now. India is a proud independent country and can afford to talk about its past in a proper historical manner. We need to acknowledge the work of a few noble Englishmen. My cousin will tell you that historians like Jones, Princep and other English bureaucrats introduced us to our past http://vijayblog.blogspot.com
We seem to still portray the image of General Dyer as the typical English officer, which is far from the truth and I believe our media, Hindi movies in particular have been greatly responsible for this misguided representation.
Anjali Puri, also brings about the case of the new Indian teen icon Sania Mirza. People (thankfully an insignificant lot) have criticized her attire. People like SM need to be applauded, she has been a path breaker and a fine role model for young women athletes.
Sania Mirza for her fashion choice, Shyam Benegal who was compelled to remove the part of an Austrian love interest in his movie Bose, the protest about a completely fictional and illogical movie like Mangal Pandey or the absurd ban on smoking in the movies, are all pieces of the same jigsaw puzzle. We just refuse to grow up. We need to rediscover our values for the modern times; we cannot afford to be stuck in some sort of time warp. U.R. Anantha Murthy puts it perfectly in his book Samskara when Naranappa (a pariah to the brahmin community) tells Praneshacharya (the learned brahmin of the community) “read the Vedas, read the Puranas, but don’t try to interpret them. Acharya-re, you are the one who’s studied in Kashi-you tell me, who ruined brahminism?”
Sunday, December 04, 2005
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