Wednesday, January 6, 2016
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Day 5 - (ii)
So I just got off work, it's almost 11, and I thought before I leave I'll write another post. Mostly because, well, it's my blog, and who will stop me?
Yeah, that was just lame, what I just said. But so what, it's my blog, and I can be whatever way I want, and who will stop me.
Now that was really, really dumb, what's the matter with me? I think it's either because I'm stupid, or because I'm a Delhi boy.
Either way, I get to drive back home now, because it's my car, and who will stop me?
Yeah, that was just lame, what I just said. But so what, it's my blog, and I can be whatever way I want, and who will stop me.
Now that was really, really dumb, what's the matter with me? I think it's either because I'm stupid, or because I'm a Delhi boy.
Either way, I get to drive back home now, because it's my car, and who will stop me?
Day 5
Today is a long day. It's 9:30 PM and I am still at work, and likely to be here for maybe a couple of hours more. Tomorrow promises to be similar.
I have this compulsive habit of running up stairs. Normally, I'm a little lazy, but when there's a flight of stairs in front of me, I almost automatically start running in leaps of two stairs at once, and at great speed. My desk is on the 4th floor, and that is just as well, for any higher and I couldn't have kept up with this madness. As weird as it is, I don't even try to consciously change this habit, because at some level I think it's good for me. I may be erratic about exercising regularly, but I go to work everyday, and each day I'm at work I walk down to the cafeteria on the ground floor about twice, which means there's at least this physical work-out I'm bound to get, with or without any self-effort to stay healthy.
But why am I talking about it today? Because I fell hard on those concrete steps while running up after lunch, and in this sub zero weather, it hurt a little bad, turned my knee blue, and ensured that I won't go running for some days now. It was only after this that it even occurred to me for the first time that this habit of mine of always turning crazy at the sight of stairs, might not be as unequivocally good as I imagined it to be.
Time to get back to work.
I have this compulsive habit of running up stairs. Normally, I'm a little lazy, but when there's a flight of stairs in front of me, I almost automatically start running in leaps of two stairs at once, and at great speed. My desk is on the 4th floor, and that is just as well, for any higher and I couldn't have kept up with this madness. As weird as it is, I don't even try to consciously change this habit, because at some level I think it's good for me. I may be erratic about exercising regularly, but I go to work everyday, and each day I'm at work I walk down to the cafeteria on the ground floor about twice, which means there's at least this physical work-out I'm bound to get, with or without any self-effort to stay healthy.
But why am I talking about it today? Because I fell hard on those concrete steps while running up after lunch, and in this sub zero weather, it hurt a little bad, turned my knee blue, and ensured that I won't go running for some days now. It was only after this that it even occurred to me for the first time that this habit of mine of always turning crazy at the sight of stairs, might not be as unequivocally good as I imagined it to be.
Time to get back to work.
Monday, January 4, 2016
Day 4
Every now and then at work I zoned out thinking of mausa ji.
I chatted with Sambhavi after maybe a year.
A bunch of electronic things I'd ordered in December reached today.
It has got suddenly very cold around here.
I did not go running.
I did not study.
Sunday, January 3, 2016
Day 3
He was an unassuming man with a wry, understated sense of humour that was brilliant. For me, I'd say, he even had glamour, although I suspect that I might be a loner in having this opinion. I say glamour, because I always wondered if I could know him a little more. I always thought that he was definitely so much more than what meets the eye, but I had no way of knowing what that more consisted of.
He ran a shop of bags and suitcases in a busy market, and was known to never miss a day even if it meant taking 3 AM buses from Delhi after an extended-family function to return to his house and shop in Ambala. His shop was a favourite jaunt of so many other shopkeepers of this market, who would stop by to share a smoke and banter with him whenever business would be slow at their own shops, and he would generously give them his time and wit.
Three years ago he was diagnosed with cancer, and had been growing thinner and losing hair in the midst of numerous chemos and hospital visits.
Last March, when I went to Ambala during my holiday in India, he asked me if he could go to the US with me. He said he could help out with my brother's retail businesses in the States, after all he'd been selling stuff for decades! He'd said this while watching a cricket match on the same old small black & white TV in his shop that has been there for as long as I can recall life. At first I thought he was kidding, but when I realised he wasn't, it made me sad in a peculiar way, a kind of sad that didn't tear me up, but still one that I hadn't been before. If he wanted to leave this place, the very air of which, to me, breathed synonymous with him, I couldn't imagine what he must be going through, despite the ever cheerful front. That broke my heart. All of this maudlin business was happening inwardly, in him and in me, because on the outside, this conversation continued in a matter-of-fact and light-hearted way, and was soon broken by a nondescript call for a trivial chore.
He was a particular favourite of my brother for the longest time. A decade ago it used to be one of my brother's big thrills to oversee his shop for little bits of time in his brief absences, and imagine himself a businessman! And since a decade prior to that both me and my brother have always relished his characteristically crisp one liners as he went about his business of selling suitcases. Of course, we also enjoyed the other perks of hanging around there, which was hot dogs, chow mein, paneer pakodas and aloo poori from all the cool places close by. That he would ever say he'd like to leave that and work for my brother was unimaginable to me, until he said it.
A month ago I was told he was seriously ill. I asked my parents about him on our phone-calls every other day, but I didn't call him myself. What would I say, what will we talk about, I thought.
He passed away today. I wish I'd called him and told him that I loved him.
Bye Mausa ji. Hope you keep smiling. Hope maasi and your kids find strength to deal with the loss of you not being around. You were awesome.
He ran a shop of bags and suitcases in a busy market, and was known to never miss a day even if it meant taking 3 AM buses from Delhi after an extended-family function to return to his house and shop in Ambala. His shop was a favourite jaunt of so many other shopkeepers of this market, who would stop by to share a smoke and banter with him whenever business would be slow at their own shops, and he would generously give them his time and wit.
Three years ago he was diagnosed with cancer, and had been growing thinner and losing hair in the midst of numerous chemos and hospital visits.
Last March, when I went to Ambala during my holiday in India, he asked me if he could go to the US with me. He said he could help out with my brother's retail businesses in the States, after all he'd been selling stuff for decades! He'd said this while watching a cricket match on the same old small black & white TV in his shop that has been there for as long as I can recall life. At first I thought he was kidding, but when I realised he wasn't, it made me sad in a peculiar way, a kind of sad that didn't tear me up, but still one that I hadn't been before. If he wanted to leave this place, the very air of which, to me, breathed synonymous with him, I couldn't imagine what he must be going through, despite the ever cheerful front. That broke my heart. All of this maudlin business was happening inwardly, in him and in me, because on the outside, this conversation continued in a matter-of-fact and light-hearted way, and was soon broken by a nondescript call for a trivial chore.
He was a particular favourite of my brother for the longest time. A decade ago it used to be one of my brother's big thrills to oversee his shop for little bits of time in his brief absences, and imagine himself a businessman! And since a decade prior to that both me and my brother have always relished his characteristically crisp one liners as he went about his business of selling suitcases. Of course, we also enjoyed the other perks of hanging around there, which was hot dogs, chow mein, paneer pakodas and aloo poori from all the cool places close by. That he would ever say he'd like to leave that and work for my brother was unimaginable to me, until he said it.
A month ago I was told he was seriously ill. I asked my parents about him on our phone-calls every other day, but I didn't call him myself. What would I say, what will we talk about, I thought.
He passed away today. I wish I'd called him and told him that I loved him.
Bye Mausa ji. Hope you keep smiling. Hope maasi and your kids find strength to deal with the loss of you not being around. You were awesome.
Day 2
I planned to run a half-marathon this morning, but gave up after 8.73 miles. It's quite alright though. In fact, it is quite alright if I never manage to finish one. Running is something I do on whims, and save for future whims. I respect people who can run a lot, everyday, but the feeling that always accompanies respect is "why would they do it"? I really am not quite at the point where I really get it, why people do this. So why do I do it? Because they do it. Admittedly, that's not a good reason. And that's why it's totally cool with me if I suck at it.
In the highlight of the day, I called my grandfather after ages. I don't even remember the last time I had called him. I love him, but I'd never called him for so long. I don't know why, maybe I thought I wouldn't know what to talk about with him. He was a little pained, I could tell, when in the summer of 2012 I decided to move to the US for my masters, but he wished me well. He is about 90 now, and although old, he is fairly healthy for someone his age, but has been tellingly lacking color ever since I lost my grandmother in early 2012. That was the first time I'd ever seen him in tears. That did something to me, although I can't quite say what.
My grandfather was very happy to talk to me. Unsuspecting, he had talked to me for a few minutes thinking I'm my brother, who calls him more often, before I told him it's me. At that point, he sounded cheerful in disbelief. I promised myself to call him more often, it's not everyday that I'm able to make someone so happy like that with such little effort, and delight myself too in the process.
In another first, I picked my car and drove to a restaurant just to have tea, all by myself. I don't know why I'd never done it before, because it was awesome, especially in this chilly weather. There was also little bit of harmless flirting with the cashier girl; actually I wasn't even aware of the flirting until she started acting really "flirted". But it was cool, with its share of hahahas. That's never bad.
Alright then. Hopefully tomorrow, on the first Sunday of the year, I'll get some serious studies done.
In the highlight of the day, I called my grandfather after ages. I don't even remember the last time I had called him. I love him, but I'd never called him for so long. I don't know why, maybe I thought I wouldn't know what to talk about with him. He was a little pained, I could tell, when in the summer of 2012 I decided to move to the US for my masters, but he wished me well. He is about 90 now, and although old, he is fairly healthy for someone his age, but has been tellingly lacking color ever since I lost my grandmother in early 2012. That was the first time I'd ever seen him in tears. That did something to me, although I can't quite say what.
My grandfather was very happy to talk to me. Unsuspecting, he had talked to me for a few minutes thinking I'm my brother, who calls him more often, before I told him it's me. At that point, he sounded cheerful in disbelief. I promised myself to call him more often, it's not everyday that I'm able to make someone so happy like that with such little effort, and delight myself too in the process.
In another first, I picked my car and drove to a restaurant just to have tea, all by myself. I don't know why I'd never done it before, because it was awesome, especially in this chilly weather. There was also little bit of harmless flirting with the cashier girl; actually I wasn't even aware of the flirting until she started acting really "flirted". But it was cool, with its share of hahahas. That's never bad.
Alright then. Hopefully tomorrow, on the first Sunday of the year, I'll get some serious studies done.
Friday, January 1, 2016
Day 1
Yesterday night was spent partying and dancing in Manhattan. I already knew that partying and doing woo-hoo at turn-of-the-year moments was never much of my thing, but I was a little surprised to find that my marginal utility from dancing is also on a decline. Earlier, I used to enjoy dancing a lot, and I guess many a time I was responsible for dragging my friends along to dance at night. I've been doing it a lot more infrequently now, the last time before yesterday was in March of 2015. In any case, I realized that I didn't have nearly as much fun dancing yesterday as I used to earlier, especially back in 2013 and 2014. I still enjoyed it, don't get me wrong, but just a little bit. Mostly I was just happy to get some blood flowing and body moving after the highly calorific snacking throughout the evening.
This morning we roamed about for breakfast but all the "in" places had at least a thirty minute waiting, and who waits for 30 minutes for eggs? So we ate at subway, and then went back to one of our friends' apartments and watched BBC's exploration show "Planet Earth". It is just amazing the level of perfection these guys aim for, and the lengths to which they go to get us the rarest of earth's wonders. Highly recommend! Then we started watching Jim Gaffigan's stand-up special, which was good until I dozed off. When I woke up in the late afternoon, I was getting late for the train back to Princeton, but still managed to eke out enough time to run and grab Kathi rolls with Srinivas. The train ride back seemed shorter than it usually does.
After getting back home, I spent some time surfing the internet, and then remembered about Chinmaya Mission's cultural program for New Years day. So hastily took a shower and drove away to the temple. Some guy was singing bhajans and he was really good. A lot of volunteers had brought home-cooked food from their homes, and I feasted on so many delectable south-indian dishes with great relish. I feel like these guys do their best cooking when bringing stuff for the temple. Overall, the evening at Chinmaya was great. I always have a hard time talking to the resident Swamiji as I feel like he, being so adept at Yoga and mediation, would be able to see right through me to all my myriad faults. So I'm always shy around him, but I wished him happy new year today and he smiled back saying happy new year, which I'll be honest was a bit of a relief!
Anyway, that's it for today. I don't know that I learned very much, except that sometimes I'm nervous about things that are totally imaginary, and it might be worth it to be a little more carefree, maybe.
This morning we roamed about for breakfast but all the "in" places had at least a thirty minute waiting, and who waits for 30 minutes for eggs? So we ate at subway, and then went back to one of our friends' apartments and watched BBC's exploration show "Planet Earth". It is just amazing the level of perfection these guys aim for, and the lengths to which they go to get us the rarest of earth's wonders. Highly recommend! Then we started watching Jim Gaffigan's stand-up special, which was good until I dozed off. When I woke up in the late afternoon, I was getting late for the train back to Princeton, but still managed to eke out enough time to run and grab Kathi rolls with Srinivas. The train ride back seemed shorter than it usually does.
After getting back home, I spent some time surfing the internet, and then remembered about Chinmaya Mission's cultural program for New Years day. So hastily took a shower and drove away to the temple. Some guy was singing bhajans and he was really good. A lot of volunteers had brought home-cooked food from their homes, and I feasted on so many delectable south-indian dishes with great relish. I feel like these guys do their best cooking when bringing stuff for the temple. Overall, the evening at Chinmaya was great. I always have a hard time talking to the resident Swamiji as I feel like he, being so adept at Yoga and mediation, would be able to see right through me to all my myriad faults. So I'm always shy around him, but I wished him happy new year today and he smiled back saying happy new year, which I'll be honest was a bit of a relief!
Anyway, that's it for today. I don't know that I learned very much, except that sometimes I'm nervous about things that are totally imaginary, and it might be worth it to be a little more carefree, maybe.
Monday, December 28, 2015
New Year Resolution
2015 was a great year for me. In terms of outward achievement, there's not much to say here: I'm still working at the same job I was in at the beginning of the year, at the same role, same designation and largely same salary. But on parameters exponentially more important, this was a great year. I think I developed good, healthy habits, was able to exercise far more control on myself, my feelings and my actions, developed a bit of a knack for staying rather happy most of the time, and possibly as a result of that was able to learn a lot about some of my favorite subjects, and about myself.
For the next year, my resolution is to continue on the same path, maybe a little faster. I failed badly in 2015 to deliver on my resolution of updating the blog every day with new things I learned. I did learn a lot about a lot of subjects last year even if not every day, but was mostly lazy about updating the blog. For the next year, my resolution is the same. I will update the blog every day with new things I learn, as well as sometimes taking time to synthesize and organize some the old things as well. I do think that the quality of writing will take a backseat (as you would notice it did in my last post on learning about learning) as making sure to record things takes time, and doing it in well-formed sentences and paragraphs expands that time needed manifold. I just don't think I'm that productive to be able to do that, yet. If I succeed in 2016, that would be the goal for 2017.
And then there's one big project (other than work/career projects): I hope to be able to create a Khan Academy style course on time series analysis. In my own attempts to learn this stuff, I realized that whatever's available online for this is just not that good, and young students do really need and deserve better than what's available. I'm not saying that what I will make will be better, but I will try. I say Khan Academy style because I repeatedly run into lectures elsewhere where teachers just turn one powerpoint slide after another, and that just doesn't work. Anybody who's taken a khan academy course or even learned from a good school/university teacher actually working problems out on the blackboard knows that that way is a lot more effective, but sadly nothing of that type exists for time series analysis.
It already seems a little too ambitious of a plan given my schedule, my work-habits, and my smarts. But I guess if it weren't a little daunting I would never be bothered to try.
And then there's one big project (other than work/career projects): I hope to be able to create a Khan Academy style course on time series analysis. In my own attempts to learn this stuff, I realized that whatever's available online for this is just not that good, and young students do really need and deserve better than what's available. I'm not saying that what I will make will be better, but I will try. I say Khan Academy style because I repeatedly run into lectures elsewhere where teachers just turn one powerpoint slide after another, and that just doesn't work. Anybody who's taken a khan academy course or even learned from a good school/university teacher actually working problems out on the blackboard knows that that way is a lot more effective, but sadly nothing of that type exists for time series analysis.
It already seems a little too ambitious of a plan given my schedule, my work-habits, and my smarts. But I guess if it weren't a little daunting I would never be bothered to try.
Meanwhile my parents are increasingly focused on their own resolution, to get me married. So maybe I'm not taking into account the unknown unknowns, but when can we do that anyway.
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Notes on learning how to learn
If you saw my reading list I posted previously on my weblog, you
might know that I'm interested in how the mind works, how we learn. Based on my
often chaotic and unsystematic reading on some of the books on that list (The
Master and His Emissary, The Use of The Margin, Thinking as a Science, Thinking
Fast and Slow) and mostly, some reading and online videos ("Learning How
to Learn" course videos), I have compiled the following notes that I'll
share in this post. Recall that the last time I reviewed a couple of books, I
had expressed my misgivings about "reviewing" stuff, as I feel it
would be a little preposterous of me to review people far more learned than
myself. The best I can do is synthesize what I learned from them and try to
present that briefly on the blog.
Special thanks, in
addition to the authors of the books listed above, goes to Barbara Oakley (whom
my notes will sometimes copy verbatim) and Terrence Sejnowski who conduct the
course "Learning how to learn" on Coursera, which form the basis for
a lot of notes below.
A small note: the
notes presented here mostly cover the insights on this topic from the
perspective of what modern neuroscience and modern psychology have uncovered.
I'm also interested in the ancient Vedantic and Yogic systems that have done
immense work on these same things following a very different approach, maybe,
than what we call 'the scientific method'. But since much of what the modern
methods are uncovering had been articulated by these schools rather
impressively thousands of years ago, I'm convinced they were on to something,
and see great value in their approach as well. In my opinion, there's a lot in
that canon that is not yet uncovered by modern science, so it would be at one's
own loss to ignore it. However, I will only touch upon my takeaways from the
modern works discussed in the books and in the Coursera course in this post. In
case you're interested, you can see certain Vedantic ideas on these topics here and here. A Yogic perspective can be found here and here.
So here we go.
1. The Very
Basics
- When learning a
subject, learn a little bit every day rather than overwork on one day. The rest
period is when the neural connections form. The brain works in two modes - focused
and diffused. While the focused mode is important to learn new material
analytically, the diffuse mode helps form connections between a bunch of
separately learned things, and fosters bigger picture and creative thinking. It
is important to alternate between focused and diffuse modes. When you put your
head down and study you employ just the focused mode. Bring diffuse mode into
play by taking a step away from the study table to for exercising, walking,
train-ride, or a shower. During these activities what you learned in the focused
mode has room to roam around and form associations and consolidate a bigger
picture context, and offer 'aha' moments. One caveat: insights from diffuse
mode can be forgotten, so carry a notebook.
-
Context-switching or multitasking is hard. Human beings are bad at it. Don't.
If you do many things, serial-task. But at any given time, focus on one thing.
- Stimulating
learning environments are often better than solitude for generating new
neurons. If unavailable to you, exercise also provides this benefit.
- Pomodoro -
A simple cure for procrastination. The idea is to make sure to be completely focused on studying (don't do anything else) for 25 minutes, and then giving yourself a 5 minute break (use it to relax, draw a doodle, listen to a song etc) and then go back to another pomodoro, that is 25 minutes of uninterrupted study followed by 5 minutes to relax. Do 4 pomodoros before you give yourself a longer 15-30 minute break before jumping into another set of 4 pomodoros. This has proven to work in numerous studies. To help you stick to this, there are pomodoro device clocks available, or you could just download a pomodoro app on your phone. If you do that, make sure to keep your phone free of socializing apps, and on airline mode or you'll be distracted by incoming calls and messages.
- Know one thing about procrastination: that it is spurred by a feeling of impending pain (intellectual pain in this case, in contrast to physical or emotional pain). Know that the pain is far less once you’ve begun, than when you’re about to begin.
- Know one thing about procrastination: that it is spurred by a feeling of impending pain (intellectual pain in this case, in contrast to physical or emotional pain). Know that the pain is far less once you’ve begun, than when you’re about to begin.
- Practice and
spaced repetition make things learned permanent. Caveat, spaced shouldn’t be
too spaced.
- When you study
before bed and dream about it, it greatly enhances learning by employing the
diffuse mode to augment the focused learning you did. Sleep helps retention by
removing toxins, and creativity by employing diffuse mode. Salvador Dali and
Thomas Edison made use of this.
- Learning by
doing is way more effective in deepening and embedding the material in your
circuitry. When just reading or listening, try to aim for active listening (vs
passive), meaning ask questions, take notes etc.
2. Chunking
Most of us are
able to store only about four to seven different items in our short-term
memory. One way to get past this limit is to use a technique called chunking.
The idea is that by grouping several items into one larger whole, you'll be
able to remember much more.
A chunk is a
grouping of information sets bound together through meaning or use. To form a
chunk is mostly to employ your focused mode thinking to tie together
information.
How to form chunks? Steps:
1. Focus your
undivided attention on the information you want to chunk - remember that your
working memory is very limited. (On average can hold four items/chunks). Quiet,
no-distractions.
2. Understand the
gist of the thing, the basic idea of the chunk. For this step, it is useful to
alternate focus and diffuse modes. Note at this point while you have in a way
understood the concept, it is not yet a chunk, or a primitive that you can call
seamlessly.
3. Grasping a
concept or a solution by reading it ("aha" moment) is not sufficient
for expertise. Attempt and solve the problems yourself without external
help. This will help you focus not
just on how individual steps work but also the connections between the steps.
That will glue the steps together to form a chunk. Only
doing stuff yourself can create the "mastery" neural patterns in your
brain.
4. Context. Not
only getting how to use a chunk but also when to use the chunk. Practicing
related and unrelated problems helps you see when to use or not to use the
chunk. This makes sure chunk is not only firm but also accessible from many
paths. Step 4 combines bottom-up "chunking" process (Steps 1-3) with
the top-down "big picture" process. Complete learning happens as a
result of the top-down and bottom-up processes. One tip here is to skim the
whole chapter perfunctorily before you read it in detail, to have context. Also
see "Interleaving" later.
Illusions of
competence
Importance of
recall, mini testing and making mistakes
Simply rereading
is much less productive than “Recall what you’ve just read without looking at
the book” after each reading. This retrieval process itself enhances deeper
learning. (note to self: JEE screening less helpful than JEE main as a learning
aid as looking at options did away with the need to recall everything. But that
practice is important)
Re-reading is
useful only after some space in time, as a means of spaced repetition.
Glancing at a
solution and thinking you know it yourself is the most common illusion of
competence. Do it yourself to have the knowledge persistent in your memory.
Underlining/highlighting
also fools us into thinking we understood the material. Do it carefully, and
sparsely. Underline lines that synthesize key ideas, or note those ideas in the
margin.
Super helpful way
to make sure you’re learning and not fooling yourself with illusions of
competence, is to test yourself. In some sense, "recall" does that.
If mistake happens, it is a good thing. Mistakes help correct your thinking.
Recalling material
is extra helpful when you’re at various places outside your usual place of
study, such as while walking in a park, waiting in a line, riding in a bus.
Motivation
Know what
motivates you - if you’re genuinely interested in learning something, it’s easy
to learn it.
Chemicals in
the brain
- Acetylcholine -
for focused learning
- Dopamine -
controls motivation
- Seratonin -
affects social life. alpha males have high. Depressed people have less. Prozac
raises level of seratonin. Low seratonin also linked to high risk taking
behavior, e.g. among jail inmates.
- Emotions
intertwined with learning and memory. Be happy to be good learner.
The value of a
library of Chunks, Compaction, Transfer, Creativity, Law of Serendipity
Library of Chunks.
Transfer.
Once you have many
chunks. You see analogies between physics and business, language and CS. A
chunk is a compressor. Chunking is like winzip.
As you gain more
experience in chunking, you are able to create darker and longer chunking
ribbons, meaning more expansive chunks, and better embedded in your head. Once
you have a good library of chunks, you can easily get to good solutions by listening
to whispers from your diffused mode. The more you practice, the darker the
chunks. If you don't they're faint and will go away.
In building a
library, you're training your brain to recognize not only a specific concept,
but different classes of concepts.
There are broadly
2 ways to figure something out or solve a problem or understand a chapter:
Sequential thinking using focus mode, and holistic/global/gestalt using mostly
diffuse mode. Often, the most difficult concepts are grasped through the
latter. Small caveat, solutions provided by the latter are less reliable and
should be checked with the former.
Law of
serendipity. Lady luck favors the one who tries. Just
focus on whatever you're studying, you'll find that once you put the first
concept in your mental library, the second will go in a little more easily and
so on.
"Serendipity (or what Johnson calls “happy accidents”)
accounts for other breakthroughs. He includes dreams, contemplative walks, long
showers, and carving out time to read a variety of books and papers that might
lead to “serendipitous collisions” of ideas. "- Bill Gates.
Overlearning,
Choking, Einstellung Effect, Interleaving.
Overlearning
When learning a
new idea/problem solving approach/concept, you may do it over and over again
during the same study session. Some of it is useful, but continuing to do it
after you've already mastered as much as you can in a session is called
overlearning. Overlearning can help produce "automaticity" in playing piano, tennis. The fact that people can talk while driving between complex traffic is because they have overlearned it and "automaticity" has taken over. If you choke on exams, overlearning can be helpful in overcoming that.
But beware of
repeated overlearning in a single study session. It can be a waste of valuable
learning time. Once you have an idea down, continuing to hammer it down doesn't
strengthen it. Using a subsequent study session to strengthen what you learned
is just fine, it deepens your chunked neural patterns. Repeating something you
already know perfectly well, is, just, easy. (It rarely helps, for example, with hard math).
It also promotes illusion of competence that you've mastered the full range of
material, when you've only mastered the easy stuff. Instead you should balance
your studies by deliberately focusing on what you find more difficult. Deliberate practice is the difference between a good student and a great student.
Einstellung: Blocked thoughts due to your preceding
training.
Your initial
simple thought, or a neural pattern that you've already strengthened may prevent a
better idea or thought from coming, by creating a rut. Inertia. It is important to be
able to unlearn your old erroneous ideas while you're learning new stuff.
Interleaving.
Understanding and
mastering a new subject means not only learning the basic chunks but also practicing
jumping back and forth between problems that require different techniques. This
is called interleaving. Once you have a basic idea or technique down, start
interleaving your practice with problems of different types or approaches. When
you do the problem right after a concept in a book, you already know it's going
to use that concept, so it becomes easy and does not let you practice
interleaving. That's why it is very important to do end-of-chapter problems. Also, ask
yourself, why some problems call for one technique as opposed to another: knowing how to use a concept or technique isn't enough, you also should
know when to use it. Interleaving is hugely important when it comes to building
flexibility, creativity, or independent mastery. This is where you leave
practice and repetition, and get into ‘expertise’.
Learning by
teaching, and by doing:
very important methods in addition to learning by learning, and more powerful.
3.
Procrastination and Memory.
Procastination
& Memory are related. Why?
For committing to
long term memory "spaced repetitions" are a must. But you can only do that if you
don't procrastinate, otherwise you'll cram at the last moment. Building solid
chunks in long term memory, chunks that are easily accessible by your short
term memory takes time. It's not the thing that you want to be putting off
till the last minute.
Always remember:
Good learning is a bit by bit activity.
How procrastination happens and how to tackle it? (other than Pomodoro)
First things
first: willpower is hard. Procrastination, on the other hand, is easy, a
negative entropy process, if you will. We procrastinate about things that make
us uncomfortable, uneasy, things that trigger our pain centers (intellectual pain). You
funnel attention onto a more pleasant task and feel happy temporarily. But sadly, longer term effects of doing this can, in fact, be painful. For example, when you put off study for some time, it can become even more
painful to think about studying. The daunting thing that led you into procrastination just became more daunting with less time on your hands. Procrastination begets procrastination. Mark this: procrastination ia a monumental, a keystone bad habit. It shares features with addiction: you start to tell yourself stories to justify it.
Now, let's tackle
it. This journey of tackling procrastination is one from unconscious living to conscious living. You should be
making your decisions, not your unthinking zombies."Zombie mode"
means acting out of habit. A habit can be good or bad. "Chunking" is creating
good zombies, good habits. Procrastination is also a habit, a bad one.
Habits have four
parts:
1. The cue. This
is the trigger that launches you into zombie mode. Seeing a text message from a
friend is a trigger, a study-reminder is also one. What we do in reaction to these cues is what
matters.
2. The routine: the habitual response on receiving the cue. The zombie mode.
3. The reward.
Habits develop and continue when they reward us in some way. Procrastination is an easy habit to make,
because its rewards are so immediate and easy. But good habits can also be
rewarded. Find ways to reward good study habits.
4. The belief.
Habits have power because of your beliefs in them. To change your habit you
have to change your underlying beliefs.
Mental tools
and tricks to inspire and motivating yourself.
Its normal to start with a a few negative feelings about beginning a learning session, even when you like the subject. It's how you handle this that matters. Non-procrastinators put their negative feelings aside telling themselves "quit wasting time just get on with it once you get going you'll feel better about it".
Its normal to start with a a few negative feelings about beginning a learning session, even when you like the subject. It's how you handle this that matters. Non-procrastinators put their negative feelings aside telling themselves "quit wasting time just get on with it once you get going you'll feel better about it".
Another helpful
way: Focus on process, not product or outcome. "I'm gonna spend 1 hour
working" is a process-oriented goal vs "I'm gonna finish the homework" which is product or outcome-oriented. To
avoid procrastination, focus on process, avoid focusing on the product. Product
is what triggers the pain that causes you to procrastinate, because it puts you face to face with the question of whether you'll attain the product, leading to fear, escapism, and procrastination. Focus on the process
or processes, the small chunks of time you need over days. Calmly put forth your
best effort for a short period. That's easier. Focus "on the moment".
Pomodoro works because it rooted in the same idea. By focusing on process instead of product, you back
away from judging yourself and instead relax into the flow of the work. The key
is when a distraction arises, which it inevitably will, you want to train
yourself to just let it flow by. Setting yourself up so that distractions are
minimal is also a very good idea: think quiet spaces, switched off phones.
Harnessing your
zombies to help you.
Using our understanding of habits to form good ones.
Using our understanding of habits to form good ones.
The Cue: Since willpower is hard, let's minimize the use of willpower in the tackling procrastination. The only place you need to employ willpower is where you look to change to reaction
to the "cue", that is, when you go from cue to routine zombie reaction. Cues fall into 4 categories: Location, time, how you
feel, reactions. You can prevent the most damaging cues from striking you by shutting cellphone and
internet while you're doing pomodoro study sessions. For me food is a distraction/cue, understand what puts you into zombie mode and act to fix it.
The Routine: Key to re-wiring your reactions to the
cues is to "have a plan". Plan ahead to "leave your phone in your car
when you go to class" etc. By doing this, you took care of the hard part where you struggle with altering your reaction to the cue, by doing something easier: making a conscious decision to cut off the cue before it could strike you. Plans may not work right away but keep at it.
The Reward: Investigate why are you procrastinating,
for what reward? Can you substitute an emotional payoff even if small: a sense
of satisfaction, maybe? Make it a personal game, does challenging yourself to do 4 pomodoros, as though it were a game, work? You could reward yourself with something you value: an episode of your favorite show, a phone-call to some loved one, an ice-cream. A small caveat, here: stopping periodically
for rewards can hamper "flow". Don't be discouraged though, since it anyway takes
a few days of ‘pomodoros’ before "Flow" begins to
unfold.
Tricks 2.0: The better you get at something the more enjoyable it can become. Deliberately delay rewards until you get task done.
Tricks 2.0: The better you get at something the more enjoyable it can become. Deliberately delay rewards until you get task done.
The Belief: Most important part of overcoming
procrastination. A strong belief that your new system works is what can take you
through. Hang out with non-procrastinators, or people trying hard to be
non-procrastinators. Friends who believe in these values.
Juggling Life
and Work - Practical tips
- Make a weekly list of
key tasks to do (preferably process-oriented goals)
- Make a daily to-do list for the next day the evening before and go to sleep (only 5-6 items, mostly process oriented,
product oriented only if totally doable. Some of those can be diffuse mode
tasks - such as taking a walk. Get a good mix of tasks, let them not all be similar. Be realistic.) Having it written down the night before helps to internalize it while you sleep and precludes the need to carry the list in your limited working-memory.
- Important: In your daily plan, decide quitting time for the day!
- As you go along with this habit, make notes about
what works what doesn't.
- ALWAYS make time
for healthy leisure time, it's much better for your productivity than working all day! Preferably play,
movement oriented.
- Get at least one
pomodoro done as soon as you wake up, preferably the most disliked task.
Ways to access
your brains most powerful long-term memory systems.
Visual memory
-Tap into your
naturally great visual spatial memory system.
- The funnier and more evocative (i.e. using other senses than sight) the images the better.
- The funnier and more evocative (i.e. using other senses than sight) the images the better.
For something to
move from Working memory (WM) to Long term memory (LTM), first, the idea should
be memorized, AND two, should be repeated. Repeat not a
bunch of times in one day, but sporadically over several days ("spaced repetition").
Index cards
- Hand-writing
things more deeply encodes them in your brain. Ever noticed how you learn so much better from blackboard teaching than from teachers using power-point slides?
- Once you have several cards together. Try shuffling them and running through them all to see if you can remember them. This is practicing interleaving. Once you've given them a try, put them away. Wait and take them out again, before you go to sleep. Briefly repeat what you want to remember, for a few minutes each morning/evening. Gradually expand the time between repetitions as you become more certain.
- Once you have several cards together. Try shuffling them and running through them all to see if you can remember them. This is practicing interleaving. Once you've given them a try, put them away. Wait and take them out again, before you go to sleep. Briefly repeat what you want to remember, for a few minutes each morning/evening. Gradually expand the time between repetitions as you become more certain.
Another
interleaving tip: study every subject every day, even if only for 15 minutes.
Meaningful
groups
- Acronymizing
lists. and assigning memorable alternates. e.g. in Trigonometry, "Pandit Badri Prasad Sona Chandi Tole har har
bole" to remember Sin, Cos, Tan formulas.
- Memory palace
is a powerful technique of grouping things, useful for remembering
unrelated items: Walking through a place you know well coupled with shockingly
memorable images of things you want to remember. The more you do it the better
it gets.
As you begin to
internalize the key aspects of the material taking a little time to commit the most
important parts to memory, you come to understand it much more deeply. The
formulas would mean far more to you, and you develop great flexibility in
slinging them around, and navigating through them flexibly, when needed.
4. How to
become a better learner.
Two basic tips.
Tip 1. The best
gift you can give your brain is physical exercise.
Tip 2. Practice
makes perfect but only when your brain is prepared. There are certain critical
periods in the development of your brain when sudden improvements occur in
specific abilities. Expect them to happen and prepare your brain for them. e.g. The
critical period for first language acquisition extends up to puberty.
Renaissance
learning and unlocking your potential.
1. Visual metaphors as aids to memory. Discussed before.
2. No need for genius envy.
Smaller working memory mean less Einstellung problems. Forming chunks may take
longer, but once done, you can use it with great versatility. Also, "deliberate
practice" makes gifted. Deliberate practice is the idea that you need to make your practice, the problems you attempt successively harder. Deliberate practice is doing everything to avoid illusions of competence, being meticulous about identifying your weaker aspects in a subject/skill and inventing methods to work and test that aspect. Of course, broader planning is necessary to keep this sustained.
3. Change your thoughts, change your
life. One, understand Fixed mindset vs Growth mindset. Two, the ability to change your mind and admit errors is another type of intelligence -
the virtue of the less brilliant, as Santiago Cajal calls it. Another virtue to imbibe is
taking responsibility of your own learning - referring, by your own choosing,
different books and videos for the same topic makes you realize the true
reality of the subject has more dimensions than what your teacher taught you. One more advice - with dispassion, know when to cut willful detractors out of your
circle.
4. Teamwork. The left hemisphere of your brain, which is responsible for focused mode, analytical thinking, also has a tendency for rigidity, dogmatism, clinging to ideas, and
egocentricity. For example, when you're absolutely certain that what you've done on a
homework or test is fine, and refuse to check it, it means that you are refusing to use your right-brain, the part that makes sense of the whole, the big picture. Be aware that this
feeling may be based on overly confident perspectives arising in part from the
left hemisphere. When you step back from a problem and recheck the solution, you're allowing for more
interaction between the hemispheres, taking advantage of the special
perspectives and abilities of each.
Teamwork is a great way
to overcome such blind-spots, as working in teams forces you to use your brain in various different ways - focused mode as well as diffuse mode. But group study sessions
shouldn't become socializing occasions, in that case you're best off to find
another group.
5. Testing. Take frequent mini-tests. Taking a
test you study for 3 hours seamlessly, compare this to how hard it is for you
to study with such concentration otherwise! Checklist before exams: did
you make a serious effort to understand the text? (Just hunting for relevant
worked out examples doesn't count) Did you work with classmates or at least
check your solution with others? Did you attempt to do every problem yourself
before working with classmates? Did you participate actively in group
discussions? Did you consult with the instructor when you were having trouble?
Did you understand all your homework problem solutions? Did you ask for
explanations for solutions that weren't clear to you? Did you attempt to
outline a lot of the solutions quickly without getting into details? Most
importantly, did you get a reasonable night's sleep before the test? Hot tip:
Start with hard - Jump to Easy. Activates both the focus and diffuse modes,
also avoids Einstulleng.
Another important note to myself
Always make sure to check your answers. If you tend to feel too lazy about it and usually skip it, know that you refusing to use a particular part of your brain (as a matter of fact, this particular part resides in the right hemisphere - responsible for making sense of the bigger picture). A tendency to not use specific parts of your brain can lead to sloppy work. You should use all parts of your brain.
"The first principle is you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool". - Richard Feynman
"The first principle is you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool". - Richard Feynman
Saturday, December 19, 2015
Antidote
Never do anything for want of vindication.
Things you do for want of vindication tend to happen in fits and starts, are doomed to be inconclusive, and have a way of lingering on like a bad taste. They are a sure shot way to persistent, chronic sapping away of your energy and creative capacity.
Often it is easy to fool yourself into thinking that you're doing something to make past wrongs right, when actually you're just seeking vindication. First, be very careful about deciphering what it is: the former or the latter. If you think it is the latter, tell yourself a hundred times that it is the latter, and stop right away. If you think it is the former or are just not sure, do everything in your capacity to make any probable wrongs as right as you can, and then, stop.
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
My wishes for 2016
1. That I can enhance, at a faster pace than before, my ability to just put my head down and study.
2. That I turn insights into habits, by internalizing if-then causal relationships and use it to forego instant gratification*. "Insight separated from practice remains ineffective" -Erich Fromm
2. That humility, that rarest of genuinely held qualities, becomes, at least, ever so slightly more pervasive in the world.
3. That when someone writes someone a letter, it is read by the recipient. I wouldn't go so far as to wish it is always replied to, but that it is read I do wish, even for the most unlikable of senders.
4. That I'm able to avoid all situations where I feel compelled to lie. That if I do face such situations, I stand for truth anyway.
5. That the cockroaches that I knowingly kill forgive me. More importantly, in case there's a provider-dependent schematic in cockroach communities, that their dependents can forgive me. Better still, that my apartment stays cockroach-free.
6. That I'm able to genuinely inspire someone. Inspire by way of being, that is, not by accomplishments.
7. That people who harm themselves, stop harming themselves. That people who harm others, also stop harming themselves.
8. That I exercise regularly (learn swimming!), and eat healthy. That others do so too.
9. That I can link my identity to my over-riding purpose alone.
10. That I meditate regularly.
*Through 9 and 10.
2. That I turn insights into habits, by internalizing if-then causal relationships and use it to forego instant gratification*. "Insight separated from practice remains ineffective" -Erich Fromm
2. That humility, that rarest of genuinely held qualities, becomes, at least, ever so slightly more pervasive in the world.
3. That when someone writes someone a letter, it is read by the recipient. I wouldn't go so far as to wish it is always replied to, but that it is read I do wish, even for the most unlikable of senders.
4. That I'm able to avoid all situations where I feel compelled to lie. That if I do face such situations, I stand for truth anyway.
5. That the cockroaches that I knowingly kill forgive me. More importantly, in case there's a provider-dependent schematic in cockroach communities, that their dependents can forgive me. Better still, that my apartment stays cockroach-free.
6. That I'm able to genuinely inspire someone. Inspire by way of being, that is, not by accomplishments.
7. That people who harm themselves, stop harming themselves. That people who harm others, also stop harming themselves.
8. That I exercise regularly (learn swimming!), and eat healthy. That others do so too.
9. That I can link my identity to my over-riding purpose alone.
10. That I meditate regularly.
*Through 9 and 10.
Friday, November 13, 2015
Recent Reading
In breaking this blog's tradition of not delivering on promised posts, I will now write down my thoughts on the books, as some would recall, I had mentioned to be on my near term reading list a couple or so months ago.
(1) "On Thinking For Oneself" (Schopenhauer)
This essay is one I found very, very perceptive. And it's not even that long, so I'd highly recommend reading the essay itself rather than some random blogger's review of it. But in any case, let me restate the gist of the essay: The mind needs alone time. This insight is probably a lot more relevant today than in those presumably simpler times when Schopenhauer wrote the essay. For those who have read Schopenhauer otherwise, it is hard not to notice the patterns in this essay, too, that borrow ideas from Upanishads and Vedic philosophy (or Vedanta, if you prefer that term). He contends that making your mind work too hard and too often can be counter-productive: if you keep studying one thing after another, when do you think in peace about what you've read? The mind needs time to assimilate and mull over what it has consumed; it is only by this process that you internalize concepts to such level of comfort that you can think in an original way about them without distorting the fundamentals, and that is when you really 'own' or 'know' the concept; without it you merely 'borrow' it, or 'believe' it. Upanishads say something very similar when they state that the way to truly 'know' is by going through the stages of 'shravan', 'manan' and 'dhyaan' (in English: reading/listening, mulling it over in your head, and then meditating upon it). Anyway, I'll leave you with that. If you're interested: here's the full essay: http://insomnia.ac/essays/on_thinking_for_oneself/
(2) "Expected Returns" (Ilmanen)
If you're interested in Empirical Finance, this book is what I would call "most value per unit time", and it's no small feat given there are more than 500 pages here. To 'review' it would be rather preposterous of me, for I have studied finance not nearly as deeply as Antti Ilmanen, so all I can say is: I learned a lot reading this book. If you really want to understand at a fundamental level why prices of securities are what they are, and why they move in ways that they do, this I think is the best 'big picture' book for that I've ever read. It's not an introductory text, so if you're very, very new to this stuff, the CFA Level 1 material would be an appropriate pre-requisite for you before you start on this book, although I will say that you'll be surprised how much this book can magnify your understanding with even that little prior background. I would like to think that I have a much more rigorous education in Empirical Finance than what CFA affords, but even for me (and possibly those much more seasoned than me) this book is a treasure trove. There are pearls of wisdom on every other page. The book is probably not as mathematically rigorous as a text-book, but that is because it doesn't aim to be. It aims to develop intuition and understanding, and does an amazing job of it. Mathematical rigor is often more useful later on, once you have the necessary understanding to think of ideas, and are working on "testing" the ideas out. When what you seek is that level of mathematical rigour, a canonical book would be Cochrane's "Asset Pricing". But there's another caveat: To really be rigorous, you will have to get your hands dirty and collect, clean, organize data, write code, and run statistical tests on your own: merely reading Cochrane's book will not cut it for you. And that's nothing against his book: it is just that you can only learn by doing.
* * *
This is all I'm willing to say for now. I've also read 'Efficiently Inefficient', 'Fault Lines' and "Vivekachoodmani' so far, but haven't thought through them enough in leisure that I would feel sure I know something about their contents well enough to comment about them (refer back to review 1 of this post - now you know why I covered that first). I will write something on those books next. I'll most likely add stuff to the two books I already covered above as I 'mull over them' more as time passes.
(1) "On Thinking For Oneself" (Schopenhauer)
This essay is one I found very, very perceptive. And it's not even that long, so I'd highly recommend reading the essay itself rather than some random blogger's review of it. But in any case, let me restate the gist of the essay: The mind needs alone time. This insight is probably a lot more relevant today than in those presumably simpler times when Schopenhauer wrote the essay. For those who have read Schopenhauer otherwise, it is hard not to notice the patterns in this essay, too, that borrow ideas from Upanishads and Vedic philosophy (or Vedanta, if you prefer that term). He contends that making your mind work too hard and too often can be counter-productive: if you keep studying one thing after another, when do you think in peace about what you've read? The mind needs time to assimilate and mull over what it has consumed; it is only by this process that you internalize concepts to such level of comfort that you can think in an original way about them without distorting the fundamentals, and that is when you really 'own' or 'know' the concept; without it you merely 'borrow' it, or 'believe' it. Upanishads say something very similar when they state that the way to truly 'know' is by going through the stages of 'shravan', 'manan' and 'dhyaan' (in English: reading/listening, mulling it over in your head, and then meditating upon it). Anyway, I'll leave you with that. If you're interested: here's the full essay: http://insomnia.ac/essays/on_thinking_for_oneself/
(2) "Expected Returns" (Ilmanen)
If you're interested in Empirical Finance, this book is what I would call "most value per unit time", and it's no small feat given there are more than 500 pages here. To 'review' it would be rather preposterous of me, for I have studied finance not nearly as deeply as Antti Ilmanen, so all I can say is: I learned a lot reading this book. If you really want to understand at a fundamental level why prices of securities are what they are, and why they move in ways that they do, this I think is the best 'big picture' book for that I've ever read. It's not an introductory text, so if you're very, very new to this stuff, the CFA Level 1 material would be an appropriate pre-requisite for you before you start on this book, although I will say that you'll be surprised how much this book can magnify your understanding with even that little prior background. I would like to think that I have a much more rigorous education in Empirical Finance than what CFA affords, but even for me (and possibly those much more seasoned than me) this book is a treasure trove. There are pearls of wisdom on every other page. The book is probably not as mathematically rigorous as a text-book, but that is because it doesn't aim to be. It aims to develop intuition and understanding, and does an amazing job of it. Mathematical rigor is often more useful later on, once you have the necessary understanding to think of ideas, and are working on "testing" the ideas out. When what you seek is that level of mathematical rigour, a canonical book would be Cochrane's "Asset Pricing". But there's another caveat: To really be rigorous, you will have to get your hands dirty and collect, clean, organize data, write code, and run statistical tests on your own: merely reading Cochrane's book will not cut it for you. And that's nothing against his book: it is just that you can only learn by doing.
* * *
This is all I'm willing to say for now. I've also read 'Efficiently Inefficient', 'Fault Lines' and "Vivekachoodmani' so far, but haven't thought through them enough in leisure that I would feel sure I know something about their contents well enough to comment about them (refer back to review 1 of this post - now you know why I covered that first). I will write something on those books next. I'll most likely add stuff to the two books I already covered above as I 'mull over them' more as time passes.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Diwali wishes to those who read this blog
Happy Diwali everyone.
No, really. This is not a post. This is just to wish you guys.
Hope you have a lovely Diwali, and hope you eat lots of peanuts in the winter sun in the coming days. Of course, this only goes for those of you who are in India.
If you're in the US, on the other hand, although I don't think you are, I hope you find a parking spot under some shade so you don't have to shovel everyday to uncover your car from under the snow.
If you're neither in India, nor in the US, who are you and why do you care about Diwali? Let me know. For you, I don't know what to wish, except recount the famous words of the great modern day philosopher and sage Salman Khan: "do whatever you want to do man".
No, really. This is not a post. This is just to wish you guys.
Hope you have a lovely Diwali, and hope you eat lots of peanuts in the winter sun in the coming days. Of course, this only goes for those of you who are in India.
If you're in the US, on the other hand, although I don't think you are, I hope you find a parking spot under some shade so you don't have to shovel everyday to uncover your car from under the snow.
If you're neither in India, nor in the US, who are you and why do you care about Diwali? Let me know. For you, I don't know what to wish, except recount the famous words of the great modern day philosopher and sage Salman Khan: "do whatever you want to do man".
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Important news that the popular media omitted - 1
In the past couple of weeks, there have been developments that IMHO are rather important but that, not all that surprisingly, aren't anywhere to be found on the news channels, even though they do have some modest print and digital representation. I'm thinking since this happens on a regular basis, I'll make this a regular feature on the blog.
So the 2 things I find most under-represented this week are:
(1) India started accepting gold deposits as if it were money, that is, you can earn interest on it. Gold had lost much of its legitimacy as money globally after the abandonment of the gold standard, but it looks like it is making a comeback, and India is at the helm! Now Warren Buffett can no longer say that there is no way to value it (the interest payments take away the abstraction by a great deal), or that 'civilized people don't buy gold'. Well, he still might say that. In any case, it is a very interesting experiment and deserves to be watched closely.
(2) India's states can now issue debt in the capital markets accessible to foreign investors. I believe it opens many doors, though prudence will be needed on the part of the state governments as not every open door should be walked through. I'll be watching closely.
Thankfully, TV channels did report the move away from China's well-known one child policy.
Sort of tangential, but since I'm vaguely criticizing news channels, here's an astute piece on why news can be harmful. Though, unlike me, it isn't quite concerned about errors of omission.
So the 2 things I find most under-represented this week are:
(1) India started accepting gold deposits as if it were money, that is, you can earn interest on it. Gold had lost much of its legitimacy as money globally after the abandonment of the gold standard, but it looks like it is making a comeback, and India is at the helm! Now Warren Buffett can no longer say that there is no way to value it (the interest payments take away the abstraction by a great deal), or that 'civilized people don't buy gold'. Well, he still might say that. In any case, it is a very interesting experiment and deserves to be watched closely.
(2) India's states can now issue debt in the capital markets accessible to foreign investors. I believe it opens many doors, though prudence will be needed on the part of the state governments as not every open door should be walked through. I'll be watching closely.
Thankfully, TV channels did report the move away from China's well-known one child policy.
Sort of tangential, but since I'm vaguely criticizing news channels, here's an astute piece on why news can be harmful. Though, unlike me, it isn't quite concerned about errors of omission.
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Aha!
Read this today:
'Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery's the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit.
- Swift, "Cadenus and Vanessa"
'Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery's the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit.
- Swift, "Cadenus and Vanessa"
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Postlude
Some truths can only be said in jest and some necessarily in verse;
and then there are some nutcases that must come out in a curse.
Which one of these I'll use today should be evident to you by now:
it's only fair that the mode I choose be one that really was hers.
There are those who always want back what to them is dear;
to champion them is not in me, despite how it might appear.
It's rather late, anyway, to want, but there's scope, still, to fear:
what if unlike so much else, love would not disappear?
[February 23, 2015 | Princeton]
and then there are some nutcases that must come out in a curse.
Which one of these I'll use today should be evident to you by now:
it's only fair that the mode I choose be one that really was hers.
There are those who always want back what to them is dear;
to champion them is not in me, despite how it might appear.
It's rather late, anyway, to want, but there's scope, still, to fear:
what if unlike so much else, love would not disappear?
[February 23, 2015 | Princeton]
Thursday, September 17, 2015
A sweet memory
It was the summer of 1993, I was 7. I used to study in class 2 B in The Air Force School. We lived 10 kms away from school, which, by New Delhi standards, was a school very far from your home, at least in the early 90s. So we had a school bus fetch me from a stop close to my house, and a school bus would drop me back there in the afternoon. My dad, who served as an officer in United Bank of India in those days, would come home at around 6:30 PM everyday, and that is when I would see him after 7 AM in the morning, when I boarded the school bus. Most other kids in my class were children of Air Force Personnel who worked in the vicinity of the school, and therefore, came to the school to get their kids at 2 PM when the get-outta-here bells rang. Since I had a bus to fetch and drop me, my dad never came to school. It was nothing too bad, for it was the same for everyone who stayed far away. But for some reason, on this particular day in the second term of standard two, while sitting in the classroom for the last period of the day, I really really really wanted for my dad to come too. It was stupid, of course, and it was out of the blue. This day was just like every other day of the last one and a half years since I had joined this school, except for my sudden, silent, inexplicable urge to have him come pick me up. When the bells rang, and the class teacher organized all of us in a queue to show us out to the main gate of the school, my urge intesified. I remember distinctly how much at that moment I felt like I would hate, hate, hate to step into the bus, find an empty seat, keep my bag on my laps, and look out the window. I just couldn't bear to do it that day, for reasons unfathomable to me even today. The queue started moving, and approached the main gate in a couple of minutes. My dad was standing there. I don't merely use a figure-of-speech when I say that I closed my eyes and opened it again to make sure who I was looking at was my dad. There was no discernible reason that of all the days in the last one and a half years, today would be the day that he would show up randomly. To this day it ranks as one of my happiest few moments, those microseconds in which I felt ineffably infinite.
For many days that followed, I wondered to myself during quiet moments. Did I really bring him there by sheer will of urge? Some months later, I tried really hard to "re-want" him there. At around 1:30 PM I started doing "God please make Papa come fetch me today" repeatedly in my head, but it didn't quite work.
For many days that followed, I wondered to myself during quiet moments. Did I really bring him there by sheer will of urge? Some months later, I tried really hard to "re-want" him there. At around 1:30 PM I started doing "God please make Papa come fetch me today" repeatedly in my head, but it didn't quite work.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Dude!
Sometimes, I come home, put something on the TV (it doesn't even matter what) and then go straight to the kitchen, rummage the fridge and the cupboards for anything edible, and manage to eke out a diverse collection of distinct eatables with little compatibility with each other, and go back to the sofa in front of the TV. Then just as I am sitting down, I stand back up, and bring a can of Pepsi, and come back.
And then I eat. And I eat, and eat.
Today was one of those days.
Yeah, and then I feel guilty. Sometimes, I feel so guilty I decide to put it on the blog to shame myself as punishment. Oh, yeah, no kidding.
And then I eat. And I eat, and eat.
Today was one of those days.
Yeah, and then I feel guilty. Sometimes, I feel so guilty I decide to put it on the blog to shame myself as punishment. Oh, yeah, no kidding.
Friday, August 28, 2015
Leverage and Volatility
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