fair experiments

I was reading "The only guide to a winning investment strategy you'll ever need" by Larry E. Swedroe. A good book. I recommend reading it.

It started off well. Along the way, it got a little wordy, a little repetitive, but quite OK. Then came one story that disappointed me. In his attempt to deprecate technicians who try to predict future stock trends he came up with the following. A group of technicians were given randomly generated charts that were posed as stock price charts. The technicians made their predictions, and then it was disclosed that the stock trends had been randomly generated. HA HA. The author believes that this example will convince one and all that technical analysis is futile.

Perhaps it is true that it is impossible to make accurate predictions based on past stock price charts. BUT, the experiment does not show that. In fact, this prank is not an experiment. To give real stock price charts to the technicians and to compare predictions with what actually happens would have been an experiment.

A random number generator is capable of generating possibly any pattern. For example, I could have a random image generator that produces 2-D color pictures. Such an image generator is certainly capable of producing the Mona Lisa given enough attempts. Now, suppose that it does generate an image that looks like the Mona Lisa. I take it to an art expert and ask him what painting it looks like, and get the obvious answer. Then I reveal that the image was in fact randomly generated. HA HA.

Does it show that the art expert is an idiot? On the contrary, the person conducting such an experiment certainly is. The person is even insecure, scared of being proved wrong, so much so that he will take no chances, will ask no questions, will receive no answers, lest he receive the correct answer.

There are people with scientific temper, and then there are people who don't know the difference.

look before you leap

Good intentions are important, yet never sufficient to ensure that the end will be good. In the end, consequences matter. Think of the end before beginning. Sometimes the end is unpredictable, yet often we simply blind ourselves by confusing the intended outcome with the likely (sometimes inevitable) outcome. There will be no dearth of people telling you exactly where you went wrong, after you have gone wrong. Never indulge in post-analysis but for building your own foresight.

Desiderata

This poem has a quietly powerful calming effect. I first read it a long time ago, but I keep coming back to it.
http://hobbes.ncsa.uiuc.edu/desiderata.html

Things all grad students should do early on

1. Create a file system for printed papers that you have read in alpahbetical (or any other indexable) order. When you read a paper, write comments on it with a pen. Mark main contributions, shortcomings, a bad assumption, an ingenious proof, and anything else that catches your eye. When done reading, put it in its place.

Take it from a veteran that in time you will remember almost no details of a paper that you had once read in depth. Keeping a commented version makes re-reading much faster. Not to mention that disorganized papers are nowhere to be found where needed, and are responsible for much paper wate.

2. If your work involves simulations, use version control of some kind. Softwares are available for every platform.

3. Again, if your work involves extensive simulations, learn about reusing code. Tons of well-written code is available online.

That way, you will get much more work done. Or, if you prefer, you will get more time to spend on "non-academic" activities such as blogging :)

Would you?

Writing a chapter in a book is a lot like a marathon, where you start with a lot of enthusiasm and excitement, but the end drags...

So the book goes on. Right now I am making a glossary and an index. The index particularly inspires me to poetry.

"Let us sift through some more
Piles of manure
Lousy it may be
Our responsibility
But if the stakes were high
Would you? Would you?"

A matter of ethics, I will quote the original. Listen to the song. If nothing else, you will enjoy my poem more.

Inspired by: Would You?

Artist - Singin' in the Rain soundtrack
Album - Singin' in the Rain
Lyrics - Would You?

"He holds her in his arms.
Would you? Would you?
He tells her of her charms.
Would you? Would you?
They met as you and I,
And they were only friends.
But before the story ends..."

"He'll kiss her with a sigh.
Would you? Would you?
And if the girl were I
Would you? Would you?
And would you dare to say,
'Let's do the same as they.'?
I Would. Would you?"

"And would you dare to say,
'Let's do the same as they.'?
I Would. Would you?"

Cheers,

A problem with the pentacle

A pentacle consists of 5 straight lines as shown above. A node is where any two of these lines intersect or meet. Therefore, a pentacle has 10 nodes.

That was the notation. Now the interesting part. Assume that a huge pentacle is drawn on the ground, and on each of its nodes, we have a gun with which you can shoot another node that is exactly two hops away. For example, in the figure, you can shoot A from C or vice versa, but you cannot shoot B from either A or C. Once a node has been shot, you cannot use it to shoot at another node. The goal is to start from any node and to keep shooting (only one shot at a time) until only one of the nodes remains. Can it be done? If so, how would you do that?

Hint: The solution to this problem is based on a simple strategy. Can you prove or disprove that this strategy is the only way to solve this problem?

Never pity yourself

You cannot be among the top with a victim mentality.

- Aaz

Twelve Angry Men

An old man's testimony has the potential to put a youth (the accused) in the electric chair. However, his testimony seems to disagree with certain facts. But why would he lie?

text from:
http://classweb.howardcc.edu/jbell/ideabook/angrymen.pdf

"...Juror #9 then said that he had watched the old man for a long time in court. He noticed that he had a tom jacket and walked dragging a leg. He believed that the old man had never had any recognition, that nobody knew him, and that it was a sad thing to be nothing, so maybe he made himself believe it for his "15 minutes of fame". Juror #5 then changed his vote to not guilty..."

In the entire movie, I found this to be the most astute bit of reasoning. Why? Because very few people can perceive and interpret human nature as it is. It may not be easy to commit murder, but it is incredibly easy for an unfulfilled person to push a man to the guillotine for "15 minutes of fame". Doesn't the person feel guilty? Of course not! He has wiped out all memory, and overwritten it with belief. Why should he care for a world that does not care for him?

conserve your muscles

It takes seventeen muscles to smile and forty-three to frown,
and none to stare expressionlessly.

Make hay...

May hay when the sun shines.
When the sun is not shining, don't make hay,
but for god's sake do something else!

At the reception

We had a few uninvited guests at my wedding reception. Free food! At most weddings, they go unnoticed, since most people automatically assume that they are acquaintances of the in-laws, but our case was different. There were less than ten guests from my wife's side. So, these folx were easily identified.

What makes them easier to identify is that they eat voraciously, and if you stare at them, or approach them, then they try hard to disappear. In a place like Kolkata, it is not unlikely that they have been publicly bashed for this before. Poor people.

Anyway, three of them were cornered by the organizers of the event (none of this was actually witnessed by me). Two slipped and ran for their lives, fearing the worst. The third, we kept him seated under supervision of two of my biggest cousins, and let him go after most of our guests had left. Here is how the conversation with him went.

Who are you?

-I am related to your aunt?

What is the relation?

-I am related...

Where do you live?

-Tollygunj (a fairly large area)

What do you do?

-I am a driver.

What is your car's license plate number? (saying this my cousin pulled out a diary as if to check)

- W... (All license plates in West Bengal begin in WB...)

W... after that?

-(with a resigned look) X... Y... Z

Anyway, before we caught this fella, he had almost finished dinner. He was on the ice-cream. On the whole, he must not have felt too bad about the whole deal. Neither did we. :))

From J.K.Rowling

"People find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right." - Albus Dumbledore

On hunger and fishing

The other day, we were discussing how bad governments sometimes deliberately paralyze the education system. Chris came up with a nice way of putting it:
“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime. But if you can prevent a man from learning how to fish, then he will be very grateful if you ever gave him a fish.”

While checking my phrasing of this proverb, I came across this. Not quite so enlightening, but entertaining nonetheless :)
http://www.amatecon.com/fish.html

Peaceful Coexistence

Peaceful coexistence is a beautiful idea, but if I had to choose between peace and coexistence, I would choose peace.

History

In one of Satyajit Ray's stories, the following was the description of a 'wise man'.

"He had extensive knowledge of the past, and he was aware of the present. Using these, he could predict the future."

Indeed, human nature has not changed much in thousands of years. Nor has the fundamental nature of our problems changed. We are faced with similar tough choices to make. As a consequence, in the words of Mark Twain:

"The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes."

I think that the single most important reason to study history is to help us understand human nature and instincts, so that we can predict the future, and possibly take steps to prepare for it. Sadly though, history is never taught with such a goal...

The nature of nature
is not limited by the limits
of our wits.

Workplaces

It helps to have more than one place where one can work. Sometimes, working conditions in a place can become a barrier to productivity. A simple example is when you and your officemate(s) are comfortable at very different temperatures. Sound familiar? I have personally been lucky in this regard, but not everybody is so fortunate. Of course, temperature is a small issue. Bigger things crop up from time to time, making life miserable.

Ideally, a person should be able to work in any circumstance. But then, none of us is an ideal person.

Love her...

Love her the way she likes being loved, and she will love you the way she likes loving you.

Belief

Several movies have put forward the idea that if you can really believe that you can do something, then you can do it. The idea certainly appeals to our minds... such power... if only we could believe!

But untrue as the proposition may be, there is great power in belief. Indeed, a mathematician might say that although the existence of belief may not be sufficient to achieve an arbitrary goal, it is nonetheless necessary. That almost sounds pedantic :)

Time and again I have pondered over the nature of god, or a supreme power, and I have arrived at the same conclusion that such a power is unlikely to be interested in human affairs, and give instructions such as those given by most religions. God lives in our beliefs. We think of god subject to the limitations of our wits. God is as powerful as our beliefs. And the power of belief, although it may not enable us to violate nature's laws, is still enormous. It is the power of belief that enabled dictators to justify the killing of tens of millions of people, and it is the power of belief that helps billions of human beings to lead a reasonably honest life in a world where there is little other than human law to punish villains.

question and answer

Q: What would you like to be when you grow up?
A: I would like to be lucky!