Throw a Shoe

http://whatiswrongwith.me

1. Strongly invite feedback
2. Anonymity drives a different behavior. :-)

Views

Life has been a bit less hectic, the past few weeks which get me here. Won't stay long but will share a few quick thoughts!

1. ET went to B-school to ask people what they thought of women possibly losing their tax benefit. Aren't B-schools the last place where one should be wondering about this? Clearly, tax breaks aren't for women who earn 7-figure salaries.
2. However, learnt that 2001 census classified housewives in the same bracket as prostitutes / beggars. Nothing could be more appalling! Hope they correct it this time around (though I wonder how they could prostitutes [the normal ones, who are forced into the trade] in the same category as beggars in the first place)
3. I might be having the best non-corner room view in Mumbai! Can't count my blessings enough each time I see the rain in the distance (and clear foreground) and count seconds before the rain hits coast.

Celebrate the celebrated!

Over the weekend I heard more than a couple of graduating students complain of being short changed by IIT Bombay in getting a not-so-famous, only-a-professor as their Chief Guest!

Random thoughts:
a. Indians swell in pride while celebrating those who have already been celebrated, esp. if celebrated by foreigners

b. Lets face it - We would have had the identical comments if Vinay D was the Chief Guest (of course, before his now widespread fame)

c. Surprisingly not only the students but also IIT B seems ashamed of the Chief Guests name. The official release highlights Kiran Shaw but has no mention of this Prof.

d. On a similar note, the selective amnesia surrounding the award of Khel Ratna is disturbing. All kudos to Saina Nehwal but Gagan Narang has been at the very pinnacle of the game for a few years now.

Friends forever...

Reasons why I still watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S. whenever its showing :-)

1. The NY attraction
2. Because ppl. eat, drink coffee and sit around but don't put on any weight!
3. Rachel looks hot from Season 1 thru 10!
4. The jokes bring a smile to my face each time
5. But most importantly, it takes my back to H3#268 - the Maggi, the Coffee, the Pure Magic!

Ground-shattering revealations!

1. April 13 : Cleric puts forth an hypothesis on the origin on earthquakes.

2. April 26 : Women in universities across US, Canada expose data in an attempt to scientifically disprove the above.

3. April 27: A 6.5 earthquake strikes Taiwan.

One conclusion from the above sequence of events :
The rest of Asia gets hurt whenever an Islamic fundamentalist offends US.

Let me know if you can think of any others ;-)

Probability

This is a solution to a problem posed in Probability by Salim Dewani (H#3 02-06), mainly because blogspot comments don't allow insertion of images.

[I shall hope to post something interesting soon. In the meantime, I wrote something.]

If you have had your try, I present a solution.

Consider a rectangle with the horizontal axis representing the time the dad leaves work and the vertical axis the time you leave home. Each point in the rectangle has an equi-probability of occurring. The points in the rightmost region represent starting times of the duo in which they can't meet Similarly in the left most triangle, the father has crossed D before the son, hence the path chosen after D doesn't matter.

Net probability = 0.5(Fraction of area covered by leftmost triangle - ADEFC route)
                                   + 0.5(Fraction of area covered by the leftmost triangle and the middle area - ADGFC route)
                                   = 0.5(32/300) + 0.5(210/300)
                                   = 342/600 = 0.57

[It feels so nice to be doing maths :) ]

1. An eyelash landed right in front of me and for the first time in my stay at IIT, I didn't know what to wish for.

2. Absence of short-term goals makes one acutely aware that you never had any long-term ones as well.

3. I hate rationalizing. It takes the sharp bite of emotions away and how-much-so-ever you nibble, you feel emotionally hungry.

4. Haven't had a near-death experience, but before graduating I have my entire 5 years flashing before my eyes - in exquisite detail. The detail amazes me. Its like I knew this day would come - when my sins / mistakes would have to be accounted for.

On GDP:

.. does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our courage, nor our wisdom, not our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile, and it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans

-- Robert Kennedy                   

on the campaign trail in '68.

Yet four decades later, it continues to be the most watched number each quarter.

Pulp Fiction!

1. Notice the excitement run through your body
2. Feel the firmness of the pulp
3. Pull off the shirt in a single motion
4. Use plastic protection
5. Squeeze in rhythmic motions until;
6. Liquid froths at the tip
7. Lick the liquid and enjoy the experience!!

This is how a good boy has his virgin Alphonso :-)

A for Apple

The following was posted as a comparative analogy in the debate involving IIM A vs. IIM B vs. IIM C. Smashing read eventhough it might not make too much sense nor help anyone take a decision on the ground :) [Donno who the original author is .. but what the heck!!]

An MBA is like a marriage. You're happy and excited when you're getting married, but it doesn't take much time to realize you were better off as a bachelor.
So in that sense the institute is like your wife. You are stuck with it once you're married.
In this case... your spouse is always going to be more famous than you and as much as I hate to say this "you shall be using your wife to further your career!"

Continuing this analogy a little further... since most of you have met your wives not more than once or twice, this essentially is an arranged marriage for you. (The smart ones ofcourse believe in love at first sight),

So the people in this group are lucky enough to have the option of marrying A or B or C. My friend from IIMC compared these to Aishwarya Rai (A), Bipasha Basu (B) and Celina Jaitley(C). The choice is yours whom you want to marry. However there are a couple of small little issues:
1. You have to share your wife with 300 other people.
2. You can't marry all three of them,

But that essentially is the choice between A, B or C. You could marry Ms. A and introduce your wife as being world famous in India. One who is undoubtedly "the most beautiful woman in the world". One whose face is recognised throughout the world. Essentially she represents the Indian woman to the world. Or... you could marry a certain Ms. Basu with whom you could have a lot of fun! But you'd often end up saying "Well.. she's beautiful in her own way." Or... you could marry Ms. Celina. No doubt she's beautiful but one for whom you would have to say "So what if she can't act. She has the potential!"

Series

Find the next number in the series:

a) 10001, 122, 101, 32, 25, __ ?

b) 10³, 10⁹, 10²⁷, 10², 10⁰, __ ?

First should be routine, the second is nice. Post answers in comments!
(Courtesy Jose.)

Change!

The widget on iGoogle that spouts daily Bush-isms, today underwent a change. While it hardly affects me - in any direct way - am really positive abt. the Obama guy :D !

But amidst all the change, Sachin scores yet another Hundred! His 10th against Australia, alone.

Often there is no rationale for telling the truth;
but we still believe in the virtues of virtue & keep fingers crossed for the best!

Monsoon Primer

Once a season, rains decides that the city should have a day in. July was ushered with one such.
Its been raining like, well, Bombay - for the past 10 hours or so. (I was warmly tucked in for the 1st 6, though). So after two cups of Coffee, one Bhutta & plenty of getting wet - heres what I did :).

Take a square bit of paper & fold it into a quarter. Well, simple enough.


Take the end with 4 leaves and fold 1 of them to a side and 3 to the other to get something as seen in the second image!


Open up the central region of the design to get a diamond with vertical creases as seen in the next image. Pull the creases to have a boat - that does floats!


Well, while what I might have heaped on you might be KG stuff, its good to practice ones' skills once in a while :P & make your own boat. Once that is done; its great joy to watch your creations go down the drain!:D

Allah ke Bande

I am as secular as the come in a Sena Heartland. Hence, for any pre-IPL cricket fan brought up on the Inzamam-Waqar staple lines of "Inshallah the boys played well!!", it was expected (even if out of place) to hear Kamran Akmal and Sohail Tanvir mouth the standard invocations.

What was an ear-sore was Yusuf Pathan too lauding Allah for everything that went Jaipur's way for the past 5 weeks!! In all honestly, I believe that Yusuf (& bro, Irfan) are lauded and loved by every Indian as much as Yuvraj & Dhoni, in a complete nationalistic passion. I ask anyone who reminds me of the brothers' religion to shut up (it felt pretty much the same for Azhar as well), so I would really like it if they themselves don't remind others of what religion they belong to!

Personal freedom is completely granted, but in view of their home-state and the fact that Jaipur was blasted just a few weeks ago -- it kinda creeped me out!

As an aside, this was really good to hear!

More the merrier ...

One of the many populists measures of Union Budget 2008 - was the setup another 8 new IITs in states like Bihar, Orrisa, Andhra Pradesh etc...
In another related measure, aiming to provide the IIT education to a wider section of the society; the government also plans to implement the OBC Quota starting this very year.
While the issue of reservations is something I am pretty skeptical about;
unlike many of my friends, I really don't mind setting up more IITs on the pattern of the existing ones.

A simple fact check:
In 1961, when the country had 5 IITs (Kharagpur, Bombay, Chennai, Delhi and Kanpur) its population was 0.44 billion. In 2011, the country's projected population is 1.19 billion. Assuming the same percentage of IITians are as intelligent today as back then, we have a problem.
To guarantee linear increase we need atleast 14 IITs by 2011. Add to that the fact that more people want to graduate as IIT engineers - we need even more IITs.

Its pretty clear that the governments helps IITs much more than any other engineering college. IITs are provided with much better infrastructure implying that every thing else remaining constant - IITs are a better place to learn for an average student than say Dyanba Moje College of Engineering Pune and realistically, a Somaiyya etc.

Now we have to answer a few important questions for ourselves...
1. Are the issues that dog the current IIT system (dedication of students / finding good faculty / students toeing the technical line / serving the country etc.) really just pangs of scaling stuff up?
2. Are insufficiency of seats good enough grounds for denying an AIR ~1000 a degree in CSE B.Tech in any IIT?
3. What is the IIT brand anyway?

I think the answer to first 2 questions a pretty clear NO!!

IIT brand : With 7 IITs at the moment, I hardly think any one rates IITB close to IITG, be it prospective employers or faculty in foreign universities. And just like every market driven phenomenon that corrects itself, if CSE IITG closes higher than Aero IITB on the average -- it means that the prospects after graduating from CSE, IITG are better than those of Aero IITB. Period.

If the overall brand of IITs as we perceive it today goes down, as is pretty possible, it would be time for the older / better IITs to dissociate itself from the others. There is only as much IIT Bombay can / should hope to gain from the IIT brand. Since, it is at the top of the heap now, it makes sense for IITB to make a planned forge of the IITBombay brand. Good foreign companies make a intelligent queue for graduates of only certain IITs (or more specifically - certain departments of certain IITs), even now. They are less driven by the IIT brand created largely by the batches of the 70's (who are big names in '08) and more by their IIT employees in the last decade.
Honestly, in the University of California brand there are 10 distinct identities and while Berkeley is by far the most famous, I genuinely doubt anyone speaks of UC Merced (if you have heard of it) in the same breath as UCB. [UCB was founded way back in 1868, while Merced was founded in 2005 and the others sometime in between.] Something similar can soon happen to IITs as well.

So almost the only thing we lose are the claims of statistically exclusivity / lowest acceptance rates, that newspapers / Asok / CBS love to trump about a lot.
While I agree that there might have been political motivation to pass such resolutions, its still a decently positive move.

Can a guy & girl be just friends!?

They were strange post-midnight discussions between friends - when we stumbled on the Ladder Theory. Google for it or check out www.intellectualwhores.com .
2 ladders diverged at the first look,
I took one .... & that has made all the difference.

Becky vs Robin ?!

Its not like my life's boring when I don't post on the blog;
but its worth mentioning when half-asleep realization dawns that you have a cute thing in your heart for women newscasters ...
While Melissa Theuriau is a global favorite & Barkha Dutt inspires national awe;
I can't figure out whether I like Rebecca Donaldson or Robin Scherbatsky more.

Apparently, its not like all my 21 years have been wasted ...
While she was sure I was no where close to 21, my mom did wonder which of the two I resembled more - a 2 yr. old or a 1 yr. old!!

My good deed of the day :-)

I donated 4000 grains of rice at www.freerice.com . Now I have no idea where the rice comes from & where it goes, but was a pleasant post-GRE exercise nonetheless. Have been swinging between a low of 31 & a high of 43!