Is Spirituality for the weak?

As far as I can think back, I could never accept the fact that someone can advise me on what I can do or what I cannot. I don't know if it was the culture or the environment or the people I have been associated with, I always thought I knew exactly what the right thing to do was? I could never accept advices like, speak the truth or follow the path of god or accept failures as a fact of life and move on, etc.,... Well, there is some truth to any advice and in an ideal world, it all sounds good. But, I think there is a big fudge factor to every ideality and one cannot follow rules. What does this have to do with spirituality? one might ask... What about us that defines what is right or what is not? Why do I not seek a solution into believing in ideas which seemingly acts as a panacea to a majority of people ? Or, am I believing in certain ideals implicitly that I dont realise?

Fundamentally, I consider all living things as a big normal distribution with the stronger beings on one side and the weaker on the other. No wonder why survival of the fittest took control and continuously pushes the distribution to the stronger side. In such an environment, given that humanity comes under a single umbrella, what is the hope for the weaker side? I think spirituality solved the problem. Firstly, it gives hope for those who strive to be on the stronger side. Also, it says other things like, if you lead a good life (honesty, hard-work etc.,) , you will lead a great life in the next life and that, money is not everything and that dignity and life-style will make everyone remember you... I think these are ways to console oneself and attribute a reason to their weaknesses. Though I may sound sarcastic and blunt when I say all of this, I should also accept the fact that this is the only reason why the world still exists... One might say that law and order and other factors play a role in keeping us intact. I dont think so... Assume a case when there is always a war between the strong and the weak, the world may not be a good place to live in... One could argue that, there are still wars between the stronger group and the weaker group...But, I am talking about the micro levels...

I cannot stop but admire the vast majority of people who take up the most difficult of jobs and yet, hold on to their dignity and not divulge themselves into a multitude of other criminal activities they could do to break the system. If enough people start thinking the wrong way, I am sure the world wouldnt be a better place to live. Spirituality keeps them under control, which, even the strongest of governments cannot achieve very easily...I really do admire the hope in everyone...When I look down on someone, I also realise that there is someone stronger than me commenting on how contended and happy I am with the life that I am leading... Am I spiritually controlled? I dont know. May be, spirituality isn't something that is quantified as how religions define it.. Hmmm...Am I on the weaker side of the spectrum and am I just inventing a way to justify my beliefs on what I think is right? I dont know...

Complicated...

Not sure if I have written about this before. May be I have. But, one has to vent out their frustrations too in a mind sharing community like this..isnt it? And, chances are that, everyone will have a list of "n" topics in which they get frustrated. So, the manifestation of it in different forms do show up when one keeps it transparent...

Anyway, one of the common terms used in a company is that, some "xyz" is very complicated. I get annoyed whenever I hear that term. There are things that I understand and things that I dont. Not because I dont understand it after reading up on it, but rather the ignorance part of it. I think, just the ignorance aspect of a topic doesnt make any topic complicated. It just means that it may not make any sense when someone talks about it. But, once you understand, you know what it is... Here, the term "difficult" should not be confused with. Something that is difficult to understand could be termed complicated. But then, if something is difficult to understand, then it just shows that one is more ignorant in the topic talked about. For example, a brand new recipe for a chef is something that he can understand though it could be very difficult from a layman's perspective. When I say this, I do have to mention that some people just ride on terminologies. For example, they will use the term LRU instead of least-recently-used or LIFO instead of last-in-first-out when they talk to someone who is already ignorant of what the other person is talking about, making it seemingly difficult to understand hence move towards branding it as complicated. When you know the real meaning, a lot of it would make obvious sense.

I understand that people strive for publicity and being termed elite and so on. But, if the purpose of the conversation is to just prove that, like an interview or a marketing/sales pitch to another company, it makes perfect sense. But, when it comes to pure transfer of knowledge, it is not about telling people what you know, it is about telling them what they don't know in a language that they can understand. If that were the case, nothing is as complicated as it may seem. I do agree that, as you add more and more detail to a concept, it does get a little ugly to quantify in a simple statement. But, all concepts are built on basics and everything else is just an if-else condition within that basic theme. Bottom line, good speakers and good listeners can make this world less complicated...:)

Do you love Coffee???

I was walking back from school today and started thinking about a simple choice problem. Let me start with the basic set up and assumptions. Assume that we are all part of organization X. The members of the organization are myself, mano, meera, brainwaves, saumya, mindframes and survivor (others are welcome to join and should not change anything, except the division of the pie). Let us assume we have a big boss "M". We are all coffee lovers and at present the office does not have a coffee machine. The machine will cost the firm $ "c". Now "M" being the kind of guy he is, decides that he will buy the machine only if his staff (we) value the machine sufficiently to justify the expense. Not buying the coffee machine will not lead to any loss of productivity is an inherent assumption. Therefore the only decision driver for "M" is that we value the machine sufficiently.

Each one of us have private valuations for the machine. The valuation is not the cost of the machine but what is utility that the coffee machine gives me or you. In other words, if asked to contribute to buying the coffee machine, what is my willingness to pay for the machine. Let each of our potential contributions be "x with a subscript i representing each of us". "M" does not drink coffee and his decision rule is that the coffee maker is worth buying if and only if the sum of all the "x's" is greater than or equal to "c". In other words, if the sum of our individual contributions is greater than the cost of the machine, the machine will be bought. Hence what we think about our valuations is important in the outcome and each one of us prefers an outcome where the machine is bought.

Question: What can "M" do in this situation?

Solution 1: "M" can call each one of us privately to his room and ask us for what is our personal valuation. If the sum of our revealed valuation is greater than the cost, the machine is purhcased! Sounds good but there is a problem.

Remember that though we are asked for our valuations, we do not bear any cost. Therefore, one or all of us can inflate our true valuations, because our objective is to get the coffee machine and since inflating the valuation is not costly, the mechanism achieves the objective. "M" being a smart person himself decides that this is not effective and decides against this.

Solution 2: Suppose "M" decides that each one of us will make a contribution equivalent to our valuations and then if our total contribution exceed the cost, the machine will be purchased. Any excess cash collected can be used to purchase say beans. Is this solution optimal? Again it sounds good but there is a problem.

Let us assume here that we are good friends, but do not want to contribute more than an equal share. Also assume that we cannot collude. Therefore our private valuations are known only to us. Now it is possible that some of us might try to free ride on the others. Therefore there is a possibility of understating our true valuation, because we want the same benefit with a lower contribution, expecting another person to subsidize. Hence, again the situation leads to a failure. Therefore "M" rejects this.

What would be the best strategy that "M" can use to resolve this problem? Any suggestions? Is the problem interesting or would modifications be better?? I'm thinking about building examples which can probably be used for teaching design of management control systems (which is something that I want to teach at some point). I presume that such situations probably do arise in real life when there is a need to buy some goods in an organization which are useful collectively. If yes and you were part of it, please do share your experience on how it was solved.

Summer Reading & Viewing list

Started this thread to get summer reading & TV/Moview viewing list.

First reading suggestion Blink is already in.

Bring on your suggestions

Attaching Kqed's summer list. Some of the things stand out on first glance are,
- The Assault on Reason, Al Gore
- The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai
- Finding an Angel to Fund Your Business, Joseph Bell

=======Kqed listener suggestions ====
The Savage Detectives, Roberto Bolano
On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan
Atonement, Ian McEwan
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, Steve Coll
Lost City Radio, Daniel Alarcon
Amsterdam, Ian McEwan
The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright
The Butcher of Beverly Hills, Jennifer Colt
The Mangler of Malibu Canyon, Jennifer Colt
The Vampire of Venice Beach, Jennifer Colt
Liberty Falling, Nevada Barr
High Country, Nevada Barr
Lisa's Travel Diary, privately published, no author specified
The Medici Conspiracy, Peter Watson
A Journal of Ramblings, Joseph Le Conte, published by Yosemite Press
Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Vincent Bugliosi
Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
A Thousand Splendid Sons, Khaled Hosseini
Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Finding an Angel to Fund Your Business, Joseph Bell
The Terracotta Dog, Andrea Camilleri
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
Taking The War Out of Our Words: The Art of Powerful Non-Defensive Communication by Sharon Ellison
Power, Faith and Fantasy, Michael B. Oren
The Known World, Edward P. Jones
The Assault on Reason, Al Gore
The Yiddish Policeman's Union, Michael Chabon
The Gravedigger's Daughter, Joyce Carol Oates
Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989, by Michael Beschloss
The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai
Imperium, Robert Harris
Pompeii, Robert Harris
The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Betraying Our Troops, Dina Rasor
1968, Mark Kurlansky
Salt, Mark Kurlansky
Cod, Mark Kurlansky
The Basque History of the World, Mark Kurlansky
Providence of a Sparrow, Chris Chester
The Last Days of the Incas, Kim MacQuarrie
What to Eat, Marian Nestle
Kushiel's Justice, Jacqueline Carey
Halsey's Typhoon: The True Story of a Fighting Admiral, an Epic Storm, and an Untold Rescue by Robert Drury and Tom Clavin
West of Jesus: Surfing, Science, and the Origins of Belief, Steven Kotler
The Places In Between, Rory Stewart
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
The Magician and the Cardsharp, Karl Johnson
The Bread Bible, Rose Levy Beranbaum
The Pie Bible, Rose Levy Beranbaum
The Cake Bible, Rose Levy Beranbaum
Alice Medrich's Cookies and Brownies, Alice Medrich
Sweet Minature, Flo Braker
How Doctors Think, Jerome Groopman
The River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, Peter Hessler
Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The Short Bus, Jonathan Mooney
The Untold Story of Milk, Ron Schmid
Last of the Breed, Louis L'Amour
Ordeal by Hunger, George R. Stewart

Blink

I am reading this book called BLINK by Malcolm Gladwell, which was supposedly my gift to Suresh for his birthday...LOL.... It's a book about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye. It is a National Best Seller, not just “New York Times Best Seller”. I have read a couple of chapters so far and am already impressed. It is a book about instant conclusions that we come to, on meeting someone or while buying a car etc. There was a chapter talking about “Looking at Thin Slices” where the author talks about the conclusions that we come to after reading the thin slices about someone. In a nutshell, it says one does not have to be around a person for a long period to know about him/her. A few hours should be enough. I guess we follow this in arranged marriages in India. A few moments, knowing what interests a person helps us in our decision .The author cites Tom Hanks as an example. I have never come across a person till now who doesn’t like Hanks. Have you? When questioned, people always said that Tom comes out as a decent, trustworthy, down-to-earth, responsible human being, which is also true.

There is a dark side to thin slicing. You might make snap decisions by looking at a person and we all know appearances are deceptive. The book cites car salesmen and how they reacted to white males, white females, black males and black females in a particular experiment. All the participants were portraying as well educated professors and dressed the same. Invariably, the entire salesmen asked 552$ above invoice for white males, $1500 for white females and even higher for black males, with black women leading the pack. Are they racial? No. They are unconsciously associating women with less knowledge about cars and “woman and black” is the worst combination. Wonder what would happen if I walk alone into a car shop. :-) If you want to know how you would react to people, there are some cognitive tests at http://www.implicit.harvard.edu which are quite interesting and tell how you associate race, sex etc.

Some more interesting facts – Did you know that most doctors who get sued are not the ones who make lot of mistakes, but rather the ones who spend less time with their patients. Doctors who spent 3 minutes more with the patients and sounding concerned always got out easy in spite of their mistakes , where as those who sounded dominant, not even arrogant, were sued though they might have been good.

There was one more example about how people do things unconsciously. This was about flash dating where men and women get together and talk to each other for 5 minutes . Basically, the women sit in each of the chairs and the men take rotations and talk to each woman. You would have seen this in movies. There was one woman ,lets call her Jen, who liked Ron very much. When asked before, she had said that she was looking for a smart, intelligent guy. Ron was funny and charming, but not exactly intelligent. After those five minutes, when asked, Jen said she likes funny and charming guys. Looks like it continues for may be a month and then reverts back to smart, intelligent guys. All this is done unconsciously. Maybe, when we get married, since we make snap decisions after talking to a person for a few hours or minutes, there must be something that we find attractive and we unconsciously change our likings to make the marriage a success unless there is an overwhelming difference which makes the marriages fail due to the dark side of thin slicing.

Sivaji - can we go any lower?

The most expensive movie in Tamil cinema and what do we have to show for it? Absolute TRASH! I'm not a member of the "Superstar" hate club, but some level of logical consistency should be part of a movie. It was outright disgusting. The screenplay, plot, comedy, romance and yet another larger than life potrayal. It is amazing that one person has had all the success in the world without any diversification at all. Imagine a 60 year old guy running around a tree with a 20 year old girl. hmm what more can we say. For quite a while I was a die hard fan of Vivek, but this movie was a real let down. The chemistry and flow is completely missing. Wonder where all that money went?

One among the many ludicrous concepts used (spoiler warning!). Rajni is out after all the bad guys and takes away loads of black money from them. The next step is agonizing to watch. He exchanges Indian currency to US dollars in the United states (obviously it is a bad deal) and then distributes the money to his friends who will donate it back to India. Now surely this is gobbledygook!

Have you guys been to the movie as yet? Hardcore Rajni fans please excuse. I think time is better spent watching a nice cartoon. That is real entertainment. I would trade hours of Tom and Jerry for Sivaji any day.

BTW: I came across the blog of this unfortunate person who happened to write a bad review of Sivaji. His rejoinder to "Rajni Veriyans" is interesting. (lol)
http://ada-paavi.blogspot.com/

Labor Coach

Main Entry: pride Pronunciation: 'prId
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English pryde, from prud proud
1 : the quality or state of being proud: as a : inordinate self-esteem : CONCEIT b : a reasonable or justifiable self-respect c : delight or elation arising from some act, possession, or relationship pride>
2 : proud or disdainful behavior or treatment : DISDAIN
3 a : ostentatious display b : highest pitch : PRIME
4 : a source of pride : the best in a group or class
5 : a company of lions
6 : a showy or impressive group

In the begining:
Fathers walking their babies have no business sporting such a proud look. I mean from an effort point of view they have done very little to bring the child into this world. Yet, everytime a passerby goes "OOooo", I see the father's chest puff up immediately and his face fills up with a silly proud smile. Yes- mothers have a right to be proud, but dads? naw. Now for the other thing I never understood-- the term baby boy/baby girl. Isn't that redundant when referring to a baby?
stranger: Is that a boy or a girl?
parent: Oh thats a baby boy!!
me: *sigh*

Wednesday, June 20th 2007, 3:30 am:
We have been in this labor room since 9pm the previous night. Labor had progressed rapidly and painfully for Meera and I was sitting next to her doing my best to comfort her- more like piddling next to the Niagara falls though. She soon decided to take the offered epidural and that was the best decision for her, since she promptly went to sleep after that was given. Hours went by and suddenly the nurse walks in to our room with the much awaited anouncement, "You are fully dilated and ready to push".

It was 3:30am.

The lights were brightened, more nurses walk into the room as we help Meera push. It was more like waves in a beach. Each wave of pushing would bring a bit of Ayush's head out and as the contraction wore off and the pushing stops for the moment, the head will retract back a bit.
Suddenly a merry, rotund man with a generous mustache walked in with a loud announcement "I'm Dr. Medina, and you must be Lakshmi". He looks at the few micro inches of Ayush's crown that was poking out and announces "Your baby looks healthy". Even I could sense that he had no way of knowing from that small patch.

Some more pushing and the whole head was out. A Nurse called out for a stop to the marathon pushing session- and I almost let go of Meera's legs, when she announced sharply "No, I'm pushing all the way" and she gave a few more giant pushes.

Ayush slides out smoothly in front of my eyes, all shriveled up and pale. The umbilical cord is cut with such speed and precision, that only experience and countless deliveries can impart. Ayush is handed out to one of the army of nurses waiting behind. They all move like clockwork- each busy with some task. Somebody weighs him, while somebody else is draining the fluids from his lungs, somebody else measurs his lung capacity or something like that, somebody else is taking down his Apgar scores.

I suddenly realised that I was the only person in the room without a clear job to do. My title 'Labor coach' was gone with the end of labor. My role as husband was minimal now with so many members of the medical profession catering to Meera's comfort and health. My role as Father... well I had no idea what to do about that yet. It all seemed so surreal and I was in a trance from sensory overload. The doc snapped me out of it with a very simple question, "where is your camera?". I repeated back his question "camera?". "Yes, you do have one don't you". I go "ofcourse, but its in the trunk of my car". "Well, shouldn't you be taking pics of your newborn son?".

Monday night (just about 24 hours back) I had run about 17 miles and my feet were aching, but it didn't matter. I ran as fast as I could to the parking garage and grabbed my camera bag with all its contents:
- 1 digital SLR with a vertical grip
- 1 tripod, just in case ayush decides to pose like a model, holding himself perfectly still.
- 1 pocket tripod, I have no idea why I packed this in.
- 2 flashes for creative lighting. Somebody once said, photography is painting with light.
- 1 70-200mm f/2.8 telephoto beast of a lens. Just in case I wanted to take pics of my newborn from a mile away.
- 1 1.6 multiplier telephoto convertor. To increase the reach of the 70-200mm
- 1 wideangle 12-22mm f/4 lens. For those wideangle shots of my baby.
- 1 17-80mm f/3.5-5.5 lens. The only lens that I should have really had.
- 1 High-def mini DV video camcorder. For that perfect movie in Hi-Def.
- 1 polarising filter. Take the edge off harsh sunlight- just in case I needed pics of Ayush by noon.
- 1 Neutral density filter. Part of my filter kit, just got a free ride to the hospital.
- Lens cleaners
- extra batteries for camera, flashes and camcorder
- 1 Laptop to process the pictures after they are taken
- laptop charger to perform above task without being at the mercy of the battery's life.

Anyways, All these were packed into one rather largish heavyish bag. I slugged it over my back and ran back to the labor room as fast as I could. As I entered, everybody stopped what they were doing for a minute. The shock of seeing me with all that equipment in a labor room wears off quickly and its business as usual. I walked around the room taking pics of Ayush from different angles.

Soon the delivery was over and it was time for Meera to move to the maternity room and for me to walk Ayush to the nursery where more tests would be run and he would be bathed/cleaned for the first time. Just outside the nursery, the nurse instructed me to press a button. When I pushed on it the corridor was filled with some lovely lullaby. The nurse told me that everyone in the hospital would be able to hear the music and will know a baby was born. What a cute idea...

Once inside, they cleaned him up, swaddled him and stuck some needles into him. Soon it was time to sign some forms. As I filled in the various lines, I came to a line that said "Relation to baby:" and without missing a beat, I wrote "Father". I looked at what I wrote for a bit while the significance of the word sank in. The word gradually blurred in my vision and I realised my eyes were welling up. Quickly I let out a mock sneeze to justify the strange moisture in my eyes. Damn! the long hours in the labor room was playing havoc with my emotions.

Later as I walked out wheeling my baby in his bassinet. A passing couple cooed at him and congratulated me on my cute little new born. The lady asked "Is that a boy or a girl?" and instantly I replied, "Thats a baby boy". As they walked by, I caught a reflection of my face on the glass walls of the nursery-- it was filled with a silly proud smile.

Momentary Puzzle...

Today, I looked at something in the time that puzzled me for a moment. Thought it was interesting enough to share. I was looking at a set of start and end times (wall clock time). I saw something that started at 12:33PM and ended by 10:24PM...Hmm...for a moment, I thought there was something wrong. Shouldnt the end time be always greater than the start time unless ofcourse it was the next day? As you can see, it is not. If the start time lies in the 12:00-12:59 domain, the end time will be smaller than the start time... One can probably build a puzzle around this...

Breakfast

I have a unique experience with breakfast everyday.

An experience cannot be unique when it happens everyday. Here's the thing: it is unique because it probably seldom happens elsewhere.

First of all, I make and eat breakfast at work, in the break room. Most of us do. Our office is in the city, and most of us live in the suburbs. We have some archaic kitchen devices to use. Have you ever seen a plain jane toaster give you the mental satisfaction of making toast, burning toast and making pancakes all at the same time?

Our toaster does it all and more. A judicious mix of perseverance, grogginess and lack of enthusiasm to get to work is what keeps us all going to the poor toaster everyday, though the toaster begs retirement. So, this is how is starts:

1) We pop in the bread, and select the darkness level.
2) Twiddle your thumbs and wait (maybe I'll time this one day)
3) It pops noisily and the bread slides back into the toaster (yep it does)
4) You lift the toaster and shake it upside down to extricate the slice of bread
5) It is either too light or too dark, and only 1 side is toasted.
6) This is where you get the pancake feeling because you have to flip the toast and wait for the other side to get done!
7) Depending on the result in step (5), you adjust the darkness level
8) Repeat steps (2) through (4)
9) It is either too dark or too light now
10) End result doesn't matter because the taste would cancel out the burnt portion and not toasted enough sides of the toast

That, with a hot cup of coffe somehow nudges the old brain awake, and I start work!

Runner's wall

No I'm not referring to the dumbass runner smacking right into a wall after being suitably distracted by other attractive trail runners (though that happens too). I'm talking about the much dreaded physiological wall that most amateur runner's hit when their body literally runs out of fuel. Before I get into that- a mild diversion to better understand the context.

For most runners, there has been that perfect run. I'm talking about those long runs where it feels like nothing can go wrong. The sun is warm with a gentle cool breeze tickling every sweat inducing pore. You are running fast but you just feel like you can keep going on and on and on. Your lungs breathing with perfect rhythm, much like a locomotive cruising through. Your body is in complete cruise mode and your mind is elated and free to wander about filling itself with happy thoughts. Your legs are like powerful springs, rebounding the moment it touches the ground and springing your body into air for that brief moment as it sails forward until your other leg touches the ground but only briefly as it recoils and springs forward for another powerful sail through the air. Yes, nothing can go wrong.

Now to understand what it feels like when you hit the runner's wall- imagine the exact other end of the spectrum of the above run. The weather is either too hot or too cold, never right. Every step is slow and you feel like your plodding through. Your back is hunched and your body is overheating. You either feel dehydrated or you feel nauseous. Your legs are all cramped and every time the feet lands on the ground, the muscles are unwieldy and stone hard and as it tries to flex and absorb the shock, a sharp pain registers in the foreground of your mind. Happy thoughts? you must be kidding. It takes every ounce of your will power to keep moving.

Now what exactly causes this? Here is a clip from wikipedia:

Carbohydrates that a person eats are converted by the liver and muscles into gylcogen for storage. Glycogen burns quickly to provide quick energy. Runners can store about 2,000 calories (KCalories actually) worth of glycogen in their bodies, enough for about 30 km or 18-20 miles of running. Many runners report that running becomes noticeably more difficult at that point. When glycogen runs low, the body must then burn stored fat for energy, which does not burn as readily or as fast as glycogen. When this happens, the runner will experience dramatic fatigue. This phenomenon is called 'Hitting the wall'. The aim of training for the marathon, according to many coaches, is to maximize the limited glycogen available so that the fatigue of the "wall" is not as dramatic. This is in part accomplished by utilizing a higher percentage of energy from burned fat even during the early phase of the race, thus conserving glycogen.

Well today after a long long time, I experienced hitting the wall again during my 18 mile run- which after some unexpected cramping and nausea was cut short to about 17.2 miles. Good thing is that hopefully my next week's run will be easier. Phew!