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!

Continue reading “Nike and the techie”

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.

Continue reading “thanks guys”

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!

In search of a petromax

Right now, at times, life seems quite meaningless. I have frequent bouts of depression, and I believe that having a woomaan should help. However, I believe that the set of problems because of which I’m depressed is temporary, and in due course of time things should become better and I should be fine.

Now, if you remember, basic finance says that terms should balance – the tenure of a liabilities and assets should match. To explain it in English, if I need to fund a long term (say 10 year) investment, I should ideally take a loan for ten years. If the need for money is immediate but short-term (say a couple of months), I should raise short-term capital.

You can clearly see that my problem is short-term, rather, I think that my problem is short-term. Hence, a long-term liability (such as a girlfriend) is not the ideal way to fund it. I’m better off taking on something short-term. In other words, I need a petromax!

So, if you are a girl approximately my age (24) and live in Bangalore, and are looking/willing to petromax, get in touch with me with detailed CV. If you are lucky enough, and not enough people apply, I take you out quickly enough and interview you. If, however, I’m hotter than I think, and lots of people apply, I might be forced to have a Group Discussion.

Update: For those of you that don’t know what petromax is, it was introduced by the Anant Nag starrer Golmaal Radhakrishna (circa 1990; sorry, it’s not there on IMDB). I introduced the concept to the readers of this blog in this seminal post, about a year and a half back.

A petromax is a lamp which uses Kerosene. During the infamous power-cuts in Bangalore in 1980’s and 90’s, most homes had a petromax which used to be turned on during power cuts.

Figuratively, petromax is the light you use for a short term, typically when the light of your life is away. However, in cases such as mine, there need not necessarily be a long-term light-of-life. To summarize, petromax is a short-term romantic relationship.

Schrodinger and career

Juniors at IIMB got placed last week, many of them with fairly fat salaries. This leads me to ask myself what I am worth, and whether I am being paid as much as I deserve.

Now, the only way to actually figure out how much I am actually worth is by putting myself up in the market. By putting myself for “transfer”, and interview with a few firms, and negotiate and then find out how much they are willing to pay me!

The selection of firms to interview with presents a dilemma – if they are firms I actually would want to work for sometime, I can’t bump them after they’ve made the offer. If I interview with firms which I’m never going to want to join, I don’t think the valuation is accurate!

In other words, I can’t measure my “worth” without disturbing the current situation. Doesn’t that remind you of Quantum Mechanics?

Another post on the implications of Quantum Mechanics