The importance of a peer group

I have to say at the start that people have different personalities, and consequently the kind of interaction that gives them satisfaction is a parameter that varies largely from person to person. I would like to divide people into two classes (neither exclusive nor exhaustive) - one who is extremely sure of what he wants to do, how he plans to do it, and what his opinions are on several issues. Such a person may be charachterised by an environment invariant measure - his thoughts and actions are seldom a function of where he is, or who he is keeping company with. Let us for the sake of simplicity call him a closed set. There is another class of persons, who are amenable (very highly) to draw inspiration from their surroundings. These surroundings mostly inlcude their sphere of interaction, available avenues for recreation and learning, etc. The latter person is in my opinion, one that I identify with closer. I should clarify at the outset, that this persona is NOT one who follows the herd, and has no mind of his own. This has more to do with the psychological metric known as Agreeableness (one of the Big 5 personality traits).
I find that my interests and curiosity are easily triggered by (interests/knowledge) of people i interact with. It is not up to you and I to categorize such behaviour under those broad clasifiers of good OR bad, but it may have its own merits and demerits on varying occassions. This ablity to inspire that a person has, has a very strong correlation with the interests and aptitude of the beneficiary of such inspiration. So, i value my peers very highly, especially those i like to interact with and consequently draw inspiriation , ideas from. Also, it is my humble belief that this interactive exchange of knowledge, ideas and more broadly perspective of opinion that we share - is mutual, and i feel very glad whenever i possess within me, the capacity to shed light on some topic, or obliviate my own ignorance on another.
A toast to all my friends, and a toast to the collective knowledge that we have helped each other attain and enrich.
cheers

(written a week ago i think, was too lazy to post )

IEEE down under

Yesterday I attended an IEEE lecture in bedford street north melbourne. It was evening, i was hungry, and it was raining. When i turned up, i was the youngest attendee, the average age being at least 50 ! I was mentally prepaered for an hour of boredom, reminising about food. The speaker is a certain Dr. Robert Hill, a very senior IEEE member having served in US army and navy as a radar specialist. "what the hell are you doing here on a monday evening in such a beautiful city? When you should be chasing women, or having a glass of wine, You chose to attend a seminar on the autocorrelation function !! the autocorrelation function for gods sake. Well, All i can say is that you all seem to lead pretty boring lives !!"
What ensued then on, was one of the most intersting and lively seminars i had ever attended. Starting from what his 14 year old grandson asked him at the breakfast table, at the end of 60 minutes, we were talking about binary phase coding, and the best ways to use radar systems to identify fast moving targets. In the process, i noticed that some of the portion was basic sophomore stuff : but each and every member in the audience had eyes and ears only for the speaker. Each one of them , so senior - probably knowing the autocorrelation function from the back of their palm, are so eager to take a fellow researchers perspective, and to revell in the basics of the subject - it became clear that these were men who loved every bit of what they did. The lecture also reaffirmed my belief - in the power of the instructor.
Having an immensly short attention span, it requires instances of such magnitude to stir me into action and fill me with a hunger that only the subjects that i love can satiate. There are several things that can be better at my college, but if at the end of my undergraduation - i can sustain an iota of the temperement and curiosity that i witnessed this day, i will be very highly satisfied. A toast to knowledge ! and all those who seek it !
Amen

PS: The melbourne journal is in the process of being written, readers are advised to keep checking this space :)

Of Information and Puzzlement

A couple of days ago, I came across this very interesting puzzle. What is more interesting about this puzzle than the usual ways in which all puzzles of this kind are interesting, is the information theoretical aspect of the solution, or a way in which the problem may be perceived. Information theory deals with quantification of information, and gives us those limits beyond which we cannot compress data any further. It is obviously of great relevance to all communication systems and computation paradigms.

First the puzzle -

A king decided to play a game. There are a bunch of 100 people, who are to be lined up and then a colored hat (Blue or White) is to be placed on their heads. Now the really sardonic king decided that he will walk up to the person at the back end of the line (who can see the other 99 in front of him) and ask him the color of his hat. This he would do for everyone. If a person answered wrongly, he would be silently killed, else he would be silently allowed to escape (those standing in front of him will not know if he answered correctly or not). What is the maximum number people that can be guaranteed to be saved if they evolve some strategy for this ?(the game is explained to them beforehand, and we can assume them to be sufficiently intelligent, self-less and whatever else you may want them to be)

Consider the obvious solution. Every alternate person yells out the color of the hat worn by the person immediately in front of him. That person, of course gets to live. In this manner at least 50 can be saved. But one gets the feeling that this can be improved upon. The interesting part starts here. Consider the sequence of 100 hats to be an ordered sequence of bits. It is clear that all 100 cannot be saved. Now, suppose I tell you that the answer is 99 (which is the case, as we shall shortly observe). Doesnt it sound absurd? Does this imply that through the answer of the first person (1 bit) only, 99 people are able to figure out their hat colors? Can the information of 99 bits be conveyed/compressed into a single one !? Admittedly, this perplexed me and my friend for a small second. From an Information Theoretical perspective this seems too wierd to be true. But then this statement is not correct after all. What took us some time to figure out was that the answers of K persons should contain sufficient information for the (K+1)th person to figure out his hat color. This seems logically sound, and the solution to our puzzle of the 100 wise men is as follows:

Let the man at the back count the number of White hats he can see, and shout out "Blue" if they are ODD in number, and "White" if they are EVEN in number. The person immediately in front of him will count the number of White hats 'he' can see, and based upon the first guys answer, he will know his hat color (how?). Subsequent people will know that the second guy onwards are correct in their response, and hence they will be able to figure out the color of their hats as well. In this intelligent manner they can save at least 99 amongst themselves.

Now this puzzle is probably like many others you have seen, but the bit sequence analogy aroused enough interest in me to write a post on it !! The whole idea of discussing this problem started when a couple of friends of mine (V1 and V2) were giving an interview (with a high paying oil company) for a lucrative summer internship. Incidentally they answered wrongly, and so did I and so did my other friend(P1) when they asked us the following question....

"There is a cold drink vending machine, with three buttons COKE, SPRITE and COKE/SPRITE. The COKE/SPRITE button can dispense either of the two drinks with equal probability. You are told that the labels are mismatched. What is the minimum number of coins you require to correctly label the buttons of the machine?"

PS : Read the question carefully. For those who are interested, my friends who couldn't answer this question in the interview got selected (:P), and another one who did answer correctly (P2) wasn't !!

And I obviously cant end the post without celebrating Chelseas total annihilation by Manchester United last night !!
Cheers ...

Of Careers & Choices

We are today , at that stage in our lives where the frequency of that question has reached a maximum. In retrospect, that question was temporarily suspended from conversation when I joined college in 2006, and I anticipate (in hope) that ten years down the line people wont embarrass by asking it again.
[By the way -> that Question : beta/bhaiya/dude/!@#!$!/(several other possible honorifics) , aage ke kya plans hain ?].
At any rate, Rolles Theorem guaranteed the existence of a maximum, and so it has been delivered. I might add that admitting this fact doesnt even come close to assisting us in answering the question.
The whole idea of writing this down, takes me back to a train journey earlier this year (Delhi to Lucknow Shatabdi - that part of the coach where we have two rows of seats facing each other over a small table). A slightly bored, cold and sick 'me' was accompanied by an engineer at Microsoft, some administrator in Seimens, a lady at Reliance and a Doctor who was giving post-graduate exams. (There was also this one other guy, who didn't utter a word, and was staring at everyone else with murderous intent .. but we'll let him be). The lady started the conversation by saying that money is not important, we have plenty of time to earn sufficiently later and that this is the time to follow your heart. She added that youngsters today realize this (at this point, i couldn't hold myself any longer and laughed out loud). I added after such an interruption that I hardly observe such a trend, and that from what I see in and around, money is the 'heart' today (or at least in aimless engineering graduates!) and I gave certain examples.Perhaps it was too cold, or they were too tired - but one thing lead to another and I wasn't thrown off the train for being rude. But i do believe that this whole notion of following your heart, searching for what you want is all very new. In the previous generation, I get the impression that the idea was to achieve a financial and societal steady state. A desire to establish oneself as early as possible with a greater stress on family, settling location etc. (with attraction to government jobs to boot). It is only recently that this idea has evolved to a newer definition of success where people are more open to having an opinion on what they really want. It has perhaps something to do with an increased influence of western culture, and an associated incapability to adjust or make sacrifices in this regard. Of course all this is simply a perception, and is only as true as the environment I have learnt from.
At any rate, we slowly converged to career options with several animated discussions on hypothetical scenarios, and how everyone is both satisfied and dissatisfied with what they have [ the Doctor said, "yaar engineering kari hoti to naukri to lag hi gayi hoti, MBBS is a waste"]- the discussion became philosophical : I recalled the whole incident by watching this epitomizing ad (and i love the jingle !!) on television yesterday --



After this ridiculously pointless digression, I would like to classify the range of careers I observe in people around me (in the finite interaction space that I enjoy). Perhaps this would be a logical way of going about the options that we have/have not, and attempt to make a possible decision. Civil services, generic jobs (software), specific jobs (still more software), other jobs (core sector, finance?, consulting ...), higher studies - CAT,GMAT,GRE.... yeah thats about it. So I was wondering whether it is possible to classify ones ambition (as a function of 'interests' and 'capabilities') into one of those spheres, and to decide in this current state of mental and physical existence .. which one to choose ?. The sad answer is no, and I should at this point apologize to the reader who expected anything sensible from this post. But what I do believe all of us require to get into the idea of deciding where we are and where are heading (if anywhere at all), is an amount of introspection. And this has been one of my agendas for the vacations, to think about stuff and gain a larger perspective of things such as these. But that was before I started watching Naruto, and yet another set of consecutive days with nothing to do passed away. Maybe next time...

arbit #1

I do not like to overwork. Stress is dictated by dissatisfaction. A person in general requires a set say X having certain attributes x_i, and a satisfaction quotient associated with each x_i, say s_i. We remain dissatisfied say if for certain i, we are unable to fulfill the satisfaction quotient. And as we overwork a particular attribute, the absence of another increases - leading to greater overall dissatisfaction. Now this attribute set is distinct for different people. The secret lies in correct identification of the various x's, and an appropriate estimation of the corresponding S tuple. Say for instance, I have an interest in mathematics, circuits and programming and these quotients are relatively well satisfied in the atmosphere that I currently inhabit. I also have in my set X: quizzing, trivia, movies, games and sports. Due to the finite nature of time and opportunities, it is almost inevitable that some of these get ignored and consequently the marginal utility of the satisfied x_i's reduces. This results in a general dissatisfaction (some may call it stress). The sense of lack of completeness prevails in your current atmosphere. As a reaction, some of us resort to coping strategies which either (in best case) satisfy the required attributes, or make us temporarily forget them (which is not really the case). The latter is what (in my very humble opinion) manifests itself in the form of blogs !!. Decreased social activity and interaction (increased time on your own, and lack of people to talk to ) are all causes leading to the effect. In fact, I am tempted to draw a correlation (or lack of it) between blogging frequencies and outdoor involvement. Being at home myself, I would possibly fit the scale, and am certain that my posting frequency shall be lesser in campus. But then, im an ameteur at these things. Now, ill probably be murdered for such atrocious generalizations, but c'mon man !! I am increasing my overall satisfaction in life !
The above model, is boring, and un-rigorous, but then thats the whole point of a blog - to write what you think?

Enough Is Enough

" Ours is essentially a tragic age ". When D H Lawrence began his controversial novel in such a direct fashion, a modern reader could hardly associate with the modernist lament of the early 20th century. The applicability of this specific phrase, in such a typifying manner today, strikes me as ominous - to say the least. The entire country is in anguish, and it is pent up anger and frustration within us that is manifesting itself in the forms of innocuous articles.

What has happened in Mumbai, has not left us short of words -- we always have words : curses hurled at politicians - pseudo governors of this 'great democracy', limitless ponderings by the media, and ordinary citizens such as myself. While everyone continues to give mumbai a pat on the back for 'bouncing back', -- many of us wonder, till when will we continue to fool ourselves into believing that we are having the last laugh over our enemies? Till when shall we continue on the basis of this hypothetical cushion we call 'spirit'? The inevitability of livelihood dictates that we cannot sit on our behinds as a response to repetitive carnage. I have lost count of the number of times the news have carried such headlines of killings, bloodshed and blasts. I wont be surprised, if a couple of years down the line we have a column in every national daily (in that vacant space between the international and the sports pages) titled 'Blasts Today'. Certainly ! unless something is done about this. Which brings us to another key strength of our country's. Our secularity and our Democracy. The very democracy where rival parties cant wait for incidents like these to point out the inability of the rulers to govern. The very same democracy in which X, who is in charge of the coutry's finance is asked to go and take charge of internal security while Y will come and replace him, just because Z resigned his responsibilities - as an attempt to apologize for what transpired.
Of course, some variables in between are too busy checking out the Taj Hotel with directors and actors -- heres hoping that 'Another Wednesday' fares just as well. How much effort would it require, for the Manmohan's and the Advani's to stop their defence-attack game for one second - and to show the nation a common, unified face of leadership - putting aside for once their political barriers in the face of such a national calamity? The helplessness suffocates me.

The question remains - what can be done about this ? At all costs, the first thing the government of India should do is take matters into its own hands. Lots of people tell me Pakistan is not to blame. It is as much a victim as India... and what not. The point remains that as long as we have militant training camps where these creatures (for want of better word) are bred and trained - there can never be an end to this. Fact remains that only the Pakistani government has judicial and military authority in the region and therefore it is imperative that they act. Inaction, leaves them as guilty of terrorism as these organizations themselves. If they do not have the will or means to do so, then please let our government do it for the betterment of this world.
Today, technology has developed to the extent that a handful of people can tear through the heart of this nation at their whims.One cannot stress enough, the importance of inculcating religious tolerance in the generations to come. What kind of convoluted logic can we apply to people like Azam Kasav - who believes he has earned his ticket to 'jannat' by doing what he did. The ugly face of 'religious terrorism' (the oxymoronic status of this phrase almost amuses me) is burning the very fabric with which this nation was first knit together.
The intelligence failiure in the wake of these terror attacks is appalling to say the least. If a tenth of what is reported is to be believed, Indian authorities had been warned of possible sea entry into mumbai by LeT terrorists in Novermber; of smuggling of weaponry into the city and that 'The Oberoi Trident' and 'The Taj' were primary targets. Add to this the extraordinary delay in assessment of the situation leading to wastage, literal wastage of priceless lives.

One cannot be grateful enough for our defense forces, the NSG commandos and everyone from top to bottom who risked their lives so that our country could be a bit safer.

I believe that our role as the youth of today is of paramount importance. It is we who govern what the generations to come shall be. A shift in position from that of cynic to an active participant in governance is warranted. Let us teach them, though channeling of this multitude of thoughts - the way to govern a nation.

As I was following the American elections - I couldn't help but appreciate the transparency involved. The extremely open debates between the presidential candidates on their stands on economy, defense, foreign affairs and internal governance was invigorating to say the least. And what we have a here is a complete mockery of democracy. We elect someone without knowing who will be chosen to lead the nation (not to mention gallant last moment stepping-downs and handing over the reigns to a shocked economist). Inevitably, a coalition is formed (the trade of party seats being no better than prostitution) and we have people up there playing a tug of war, swaying left and right.

The incoherent blabbering that I have indulged in was spontaneous, but this incident has left a scar, and all of us are watching in wait - for action, for action , for action.