Freakonomics: The Initial Impressions

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt




Very Interesting, from the very start when the author gives a basic definition of the subject economics to the examples cited from multitude of fields to show what actions people perform based on the incentives present is really intriguing. Will be finishing it soon.



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Travails of finishing The Black Swan

Few months back I picked up a book called The Black Swan. I must say I was quite excited to read this considering the fact that it spoke about subjects such as unexpected events, luck factor, changing society and other such interesting topics. Considering the fact that the book was quite small in size, around 280 pages I was sure to complete it in couple of weeks, a month at the most.

The book started pretty well, with 9/11 example cited to explain how the things which are most improbable make huge impacts on our lives. This was continued with another fictitious example(a good one though) about how a turkey which is to be devoured on thanksgiving is kept well fed before it's sold. From the turkey's perspective everything is going on well, and with each passing day it gets sure and sure that the things will continue to be the same, except that it gets sold and eaten on the thanksgiving. This was the example given to show how an unexpected event can bite you when you are least expecting it.
The above two good examples along with few more of these set the tone well, but after few tens of pages the books get redundant, the author(Nassim Nocholas Taleb) seems to be on a mission to disgrace statisticians of all forms and he is most critical of those who use bell curves for their studies. The argument given by him is that the bell curve reduces our insight of unexpected events and we tend to live in a normal world where there will be normal events, a fair enough argument I must say but NNT is adamant to beat this point to pulp and bore his readers by bringing it up again and again. He is also on the lookout of people who predict things and severely criticizes them.
Due to all these shortcomings(IMO) it took me around 3.5 months to get close to the ending of this book, but with couple of chapters still remaining I don't have courage to pick up this book again, would like to surprise myself sometime by finishing this book.

However, that said there are many points which are really based on some good insights, like:
1) The 80/20 rule(my favorite): roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. This can be applied in other areas as well such as: world's 80 pc of wealth in hands of 20 % of people etc.
2) The narrative fallacy : Our predilection of summarizing and simplifying things which may leave out some crucial nuances. We do this to reduce the dimension of the information as more the randomness the more is the dimension of the information to store. NNT brings out interesting perspectives on this point.
3) The silent evidence: A very good example to bring out this point: There is a ship about to drown and some people are praying to their gods while others don't believe in GOD. Some people are rescued from drowning while others could not be. Its found that all the people who were saved prayed during the ship was drowning and one can argue that those who prayed were rescued, but a good observer will note that "what about people who prayed and drowned".



GoodReads link : http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242472.The_Black_Swan

Hooking onto Tom Sawyer

Have started reading Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer. With only a couple of chapters finished, I am hooked. Mark Twain has established a gusty kid in Tom Sawyer's character. The book promises to be a roller coaster ride from what I have read till now, and will soon update the blog after I have completed it.

Checking the files pending to be checked into VSS by a user

Found a way today to identify the checked out files by me from the VSS:

Inside your VSS folder go to win32 folder. Paste this path to cmd and run the command:

ss status $/{project folder} -r

This will give you the list of files currently checked out by you.

Note: Before this make sure to set your database folder by using :
set ssdir={srcsafe.ini location}

The Curious Incident of Dog In the Nighttime

Recently I read this little book by Mark Haddon about a simple enough story of an autistic young boy named Christopher Boone. The premise is interesting, a first hand tale from the autistic boy indeed gives you a deep insight about how his mind functions and how he strives to keep things simple and under control, also how he gets overwhelmed when faced to situations which are inherently complex(human relations) or places involving lot of people.
The hand drawn pictures and graphics along with some dose of mathematics problems are a treat.
Overall a good book and you get to take a lot from it.

Thoughts on 'The French Connection'

I came to know of Gene Hackman around an year back from the movie "The Crimson Tide", in which he played "Captain Frank Ramsey" opposite Denzel Washington. In that movie Gene clearly overshadowed Denzel in few of the key scenes,and that was when I decided to explore more of his movies. But it wasn't until recently that I have had a chance to watch two of his greatest movies : The Conversation(on which I expressed my thoughts in earlier post) and The French Connection.
The French Connection in many ways reminded me of another classic : Serpico(Al Pacino), both
build their story slowly at first but with a sure footing, and after a certain point the movie
begins captivating you with series of breathtaking chase sequences, explosive performances from leads(in both movies protagonist plays a passionate cop) and in The French Connection there is a powerful villain too who till the end is a step ahead of the hero.
When I came to know of The French Connection, I was told that it is the mother of all cop movies, and after watching it I surely am convinced of that title. What makes it a stand-out movie in its genre is the detail which has gone to each chase sequence in the movie, most of the key elements of a tense chase are shown to perfection. The movie has around 50 percent time devoted to these chase but towards the end I was expecting for one more of those.
All in all if you are in a mood for a tense action flick with great central performances just go for this one.

Khan Academy

Recently I have come to know about a website www.khanacademy.org created and maintained by Mr. Salman Khan, the site offers a range of videos on various educational topics ranging from economics to differential calculus. The videos are on KISS principle(keep it short and simple) mostly.
Mr Khan has also supported his lectures with fun exercises which keeps a viewer involved. On a special note Mr Bill Gates is said to be in the long list of fans of this website.

Thoughts after viewing The Conversation

Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation is the movie I was really looking forward to watch after his dark and stunning "Apocalypse Now". Like Sidney Lumet, Francis Ford Coppola has presented us with diverse stories and have not treaded a similar path twice, be it story development or movie treatment.
The Conversation starts with a bird's eye view of the town in which the protagonist Henry Caul, played superbly by Gene Hackman resides and makes a living by recording conversations for which he is paid. Henry is best in his line of work, as a result of which he is asked to record the conversations of such sensitive nature, which may put the lives of the people he records in grave danger. Initially he is shown to be uninterested of the subject of the conversations he records, so that he can detach himself from the guilt of putting these people he is recording in danger, but over a course of period he realizes that his latest recording(done expertly by him and his team), may put the life of two lovers in danger he begins having pangs of guilt which have multiplied over the course of his career. The movie shows how this guilt and his aloofness with the rest of the world drives him to insanity.
The story structure may remind some of the movie THE SHINING, which was although of genre horror, had a similar treatment to the story and a slow buildup to a powerful climax like The Conversation.
Gene Hackman is very convincing as Henry Caul and delivers a solid performance. The most striking scenes in the movie are when his vulnerability is shown, like when his secret lover confronts him to open up his secret life to her, or when he is fooled by his competitor. Gene is amazing in these scenes and ofcourse at the end when you are not sure as him what are the events he is actually witnessing or is imagining them.