Year: 2007

stockholm anthe

A colleague from my previous job writes

Life has consisted mostly of work; and a lot of traveling ? airport, car, (conference room, hotel)^n car, airport, and sustained high pressure on indefinite loop. The problem is, I think I?m beginning to get a kick out of the consultant lifestyle and there?s a certain element of enjoyment now. Call it the corporate Stockholm syndrome, if you will, but that is how things are beginning to shape up.

Interesting stuff!?? I mean – the description of love for that job as Stockholm syndrome is interesting (not the lifestyle!).

Secularism and Cricket

Three desis played for England in the game against the Irish on Friday, all belonging to different religions (Bopara ? hindu; saj ? Muslim; monty ? surd) ? making England the joint most secular team of this particular world cup. Actually the title is shared by three or four teams ? England, Sri Lanka, Canada (assuming Kevin Talwinder Sandher is Surd) and maybe India (I?m not sure of Uthappa?s religion ? India is in the list if he is christian).

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Nike and the techie

So with the indian cricket team out of the world cup, many advertisers are at a loss regarding the “made for world cup” ads. Hockey is not saleable (basically Dhanraj Pillay and Gagan Ajit Singh don’t look good), and there is no other sport which has a nationwide following. So Ashwin suggests that the number one “sport” in India is (hold your breath) coding, and they should be heavily exploited by advertisers!

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After all, I’m useful

Aadisht writes in:

BTW I forwarded your cricket and hedging post to R who is putting jobhunt these days. Got this mail:

Thanks folks.. I thought I must mention that when I had my interview with N, it went something like this:

Me: I like markets a lot
N: Do you find anything bad about markets?
.
.
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The discussion then turned to betting markets which I defended on standard libertarian grounds. He then asked me to explain the crucial difference between betting markets and the stock market. I told him that the difference was that in betting markets, incentives were not aligned, i.e. unlike stock markets, in cricket players did not have an incentive to perform better in order to increase the price on their team. He looked happy with the answer (because he was clearly anti-legalization of betting markets. )

Then he asked – do I have a good knowledge of hedging? I said yes. So Sony lost a lot of money because India was out of the cup. What could it do to mitigate the risk? I had my answer ready of course… It should have betted against India..
Thanks Aadisht!

I didn’t know that my blog is this useful! Hope R gets that job. I should then be able to bully him for a treat.??

Bangalore traffic

Check out this ad.


It looks like they are taking some short term measures after all to improve Bangalore traffic. They say that these measures can be implemented in six months. And it IS practically possible to implement all of them in that time frame. Considering that six months will mark the end of Kumaraswamy’s term as CM, it would be a fitting finale if he does manage to pull off whatever he has promised here.

Hoping for the best.

PS: The text in the ad may not be clearly visible in the image. You can read the whole thing here

thanks guys

Dear Rahul and Team,

I must thank you guys for sparing me the agony of at least six more sleepless nights over the next one month. I must thank you for saving me and my friends the countless hours spent at work talking about you guys, and which of you will do well and how. I must thank you for saving my evenings, which can now be spent in ways more productive than just watching some boring one-sided cricket on TV.

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Upset

I am writing this a few hours after two of the most shocking upsets in World Cup history. Both India and Pakistan have lost. India still have some faint hopes, with two games in hand. If they win both these games, and really heavily, there is still a faint chance that they may qualify. Pakistan, however, have no such hope. Having already lost to the West Indies, they are out of the world cup.

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My mistake or yours?

Yesterday I was telling that it takes a lot of balls to say “my part is clean. the mistake must be in your part”. He countered saying the opposite. That it takes a lot of balls to admit a mistake!

My argument is that if I know it’s my mistake, it is easier for me to say since I’m 100% sure that the mistake is in my part, and I also have control over it to correct it!

By saying that the mistake is not in my portion, I’m saying it with a certain confidence bound, and I can’t give a 100% guarantee that I’m clean. Also, in a way, I’m accusing you of making a mistake! And there’s the danger of falling flat on my face if it turns out that the mistake was indeed in my part!