decision making

people think about making decisions under uncertain environments but with well defined objectives.

it seems that making decisions under poorly defined or undefined objectives is much harder (should i go eat good food or play .. how much do i value good food vs play?) .

joy is ..

finally getting rid of a can of shaving cream that youve had for a really long time that youve hated for ever but couldnt get rid of it because it would mean wasting resources

finally relieved of this misery ..

ADD

cant read any blog post more than 4 sentences long these days .. damn :-(

why do we have a predilection to eat crunchy things?

econ. books = treasure trove of nice quotes!

"it is said that figures dont lie but liars figure. perhaps a more serious problem is that honest people figure carelessly. the antidote is careful attention to exactly what is being measured and how it differs from what you would really like to measure if you could"

-- the armchair economist, steven landsburg

geek selling power

how would you like a large population of people who are willing to canvass and sell your product for little or no fee. even better if the opinions of these people are respected by others. pretty sure this is precisely the freebie ploy used by companies in colleges. im guessing that people would trust young/geeky folks on matters of technical advice and if these people are observed to be obviously flaunting some particular product (e.g. google t-shirts) then they are likely to trust the product even though the advertising media (the bearer of the freebie) is oblivious to the marketing ploy

ceo salaries and academic tenure

read an interesting argument in the armchair economist which tries to explain why the top ceos (even those in arguably failing companies) take home very high salaries and even if they are sacked are given very attractive severance packages. the argument is that most shareholders (at least the bigger players) have diversified stock holdings and the failure of one company doesn't affect them seriously. however they stand to benefit significantly if a particular risky investment pays off with huge returns. thus they have very strong incentives to encourage ceos to take on high-risk high-reward projects and the high salaries are essentially a buffer mechanism to assuage any fears the ceos may have of massive financial distress in the event of the project failing to yield the expected return.
couldn't help but imagine the parallels with the academic tenure system. faculty are evaluated after the tenure period and given academic tenure, essentially giving the guarantee the position for the entire lifetime even if they are absolutely unproductive. on one hand the system seems flawed, there is no real penalty for senior professors to become very unproductive. on the other hand the above economic argument would suggest that universities (the investors or shareholders) have massively diversified assets -- the non productivity of one faculty member does not devalue the universities reputation. but if a high risk high reward project succeeds bringing in huge visibility (and of course funding) the university stands to gain a lot -- tenure is essentially the buffer (similar to the high salary) to encourage senior professors to take on riskier projects (of course no one cares about graduate students, they are a low investment and low return of investment since they will graduate and go elsewhere!)

contradiction

http://us.rediff.com/wc2007/2007/feb/24kapil.htm

first half, says pick a young guy and groom him
second half, says pick sourav

as much as we would like it to be otherwise, sourav is not young.

one more quote via woody allen

The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless

-- leo tolstoy via "hannah and her sisters"

who funds chocolate research?

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/living/health/16732194.htm

wonder who keeps funding these studies that keep saying chocolate is good for you, however reassuring these are it leaves you in doubt as to the motives of the research :-)

update:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/19/AAAS.TMP says:
"Scientists funded in part by the Mars Inc. candy company"

qotd

So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.
- ben franklin (via "The Omnivore's Dilemma")

going where the bus takes you

waiting at the bus stop .. one of two options . .given the inability to decide on the destination the best option is to hop on the first available bus and go where it takes you .. thats life ..

batteries ..

the profit margins on batteries must be unreasonably high .. cant imagine any other reason why radioshack reps are hell bent on selling you batteries irrespective of the actual product you set out to buy!

hairy business ideas

suppose you are in the business of making shaving products (cream, aftershave etc) one possible business strategy is to add some secret ingredients to your product that actually promotes hair growth. it can increase your revenue and guarantee a limitless demand (until the nature of the secret ingredient in the product is exposed)

a cynic

someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing

--oscar wilde

nicetry's first law of ignorance

the less you know about something .. the more it entitles you to make the most outrageous strong-sounding statements and have strong opinions with no rational basis.

learning: from politicians, self.

when in doubt ..

use a chorus!

when a musical composition seems to be drab and going nowhere throw in a chorus .. with high probability choruses sound good..

on a related note i wonder if the nicesoundingness of choruses has anything to do with gaussians and the law of large numbers (if you throw in enough noise eventually something nice will emerge that will be appealing in its simplicity)

note to self .

diving head first into a wall has undesirable consequences.

I

I = union_x say(I,!x)
I = U - union_x say (I,x)
please solve for I.

moksha ...

the soul has been freed from its irritating existence.