Newsweek: We Are All Hindus Now

Newsweek says that Americans are adopting many Hindu ways of thinking, and moving from a religious to a spiritual society. Link

1. Americans are accepting of other ways to reach the true God
2. Many believe in reincarnation
3. Cremation is becoming more prevalent, compared with burial

The observation seems believable, and it is good that the negatives of Hinduism are not among the imported qualities. Seems quite a comeback for Hinduism after this and this.

How fast could Bolt have run?

This great article computes the time Usain Bolt would have taken for his 100m dash had he not decided to celebrate towards the end of the race.

The article has an excellent plot of Bolt's speed as a function of time, and the peak speed is a phenomenal 12.5 m/s. From the data in the article, the 9.5 second barrier is not far.

On this subject, another interesting entry on Freakonomics notes that the peak speed record is now held by the 200m race. The low speed in the initial 20m of the 100m dash keeps the average low.

The economics of auto dealers

Had my second car buying experience yesterday. The economics of buying a big ticket item is quite strange because of the small margins and customization options on cars. A 5% increase in price for the customer may translate to a doubling of profit for the dealer. So there is a natural incentive for the dealer to push high margin options to the customer. This makes the whole process of buying a car painful for the alert customer, having to say not a million times. Worse, for the for the unaware customer, there is plenty of ripoff. Given the tenacity of dealers in selling LoJack, Teflon Coat and other crap, it is quite likely they do catch a good share of unsespecting users.

Now the question is this. Honda is making a good product, and from what I know they have respectable business practices. They want to sell me a car. Why do they have these shady characters coming between me and them? Part of the answer is that under the current model, there is no incentive for any one company to clamp down on dealers. There will always be unsuspecting buyers, who can be parted with more of their money. Any car company that does not take the "stupid money" will end up with lower profits for its dealers, and in the end raising the price for the smart money.

But this trend is reversing, and I see great potential for sites like CardDirect.

Kobe Beef

On my trip to Japan, I got to try Kobe beef, possibly the most famous beef in the world. Yes, the rumors are true: Cattle are raised in small farms (20 cattle is considered a big farm), they are fed beer for fattening, and they are hand massaged to improve muscle tissue. And probably most importantly, the cattle are from a special breed called Tajima-ushi.

Kobe beef is extremely tender, unbelievably juicy and superb in taste. The presentation in Royal Mopr restaurant was in a traditional Japanese style. We sat at the Chef's table, which had a large steel hot-plate. First the chef fried some garlic slices in the oil to flavor the oil. Then he very carefully cut the meat into small pieces, and cooked them with a small touch of this oil. All cooking was medium-rare, to avoid the criminal penalties that should be associated with overcooking Kobe Beef. The meat was lightly seasoned with salt and pepper, and its natural taste did the rest.

The only catch is the price. The economics of raising such cattle makes gives a $100 price tag for a 150g cut, making Kobe beef one of the priciest foods in this pricy nation.

A Bollywood Tehelka

itwofs.com is a website that lists Bollywood's copying of song tunes from various sources: Korean to Hindi (Bhool bulaiya), German to Hindi (Dilbar mere), English to Hindi (Ek haseena thi), Rabindra Sangeet to Hindi (Chookar mere man ko), Polish to Hindi (Dil Tadap Tadap ke). And there are some which just make you weep (Akele Hain from QSQT).

As one can expect, Mr Inspiration, Anu Malik, has the longest list of all.

Diwali mela in San Diego

The "Little India" corner on Black Mt. Rd. in San Diego hosted a Diwali mela on Saturday. There were plenty of food stalls, some from the restaurants there, and some set up by volunteers for Shri Mandir. The food was pretty good, with the exception of the offerings of the Rainbow Restaurant that has now occupied the Kerala restaurant location. Unfortunately, there was no fried fish, seekh kabab, tandoori chicken, lamb tikka or keema paratha .... but one can't ask for everything in life.

There was also a little stage where some kids were dancing to the latest bollywood hits. The talent level was abysmal, and these kids were clearly goaded into this for their parents' attempt at Indian culture. But I found if quite appaling that 7yr old girls were dancing to Bipasha's Beedi song from Omkara. And then the parents complain about western society sexualizing kids.

Indirectly related to this subject, is this book mentioned recently on Instapundit: "Prude: How the Sex-Obsessed Culture Damages Girls (and America, Too!)."

Hey, what's that?

There is something to say about the print media after all when one can discover a fantastic new website through a Magazine. Through a reference in the Economist:

heywhatsthat.com is a website that plots a panorama of hills/areas that one can see from any particular point. For example, from Mt. Soledad in La Jolla, the most distant visible point is San Bernardino Mountain, 91 miles away. This site is a mashup, using google maps as the underlying data source.

The visibility cloaks and contours buttons are a nice touch, showing you the exact regions that are visible from any given point.

The process is a bit compute intensive, so it takes about 20-30 seconds for the profile to show up. However, once you enter a location, it becomes available to future users, and they can see the results right away.

Psychology of incompetence

An excellent point about the real estate bubble is made here. The post cites this insightful article from my alma mater (link is pdf).

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.

The flip side of this view, of course, is that fools can sometimes succeed at what the experts call impossible. And one could also link this to the Lake Wobegon Effect and the liberal educational philosophy of every child is special.

Coffee designs

The excellent design on my cappuccino at Empark Hotel, Kunming, reminded me of this link to coffee design I had seen earlier.

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Latte-Art
It is quite an interesting read.

Starbucks should do this, it would almost justify their price. Or you could forgo your daily coffee and be a millionaire.

Kunming, China: Reflections on Economy and Culture

It does not take much time for a visitor to see the construction boom. Highways, overpasses, malls, office buildings are coming up in great numbers. There is a six lane highway from Kunming to that matches the American Interstate system. There are plush malls selling high end fashion and many multi-storied condo blocks are coming up. Only time will tell if this is a speculative bubble, or just a natural part of 10% growth. At this stage, it is difficult to say if the freeways are being built because of the growth, or the growth is because of the freeways :)


Another interesting part of the Chinese economy is the low prices. An elaborate meal at the Empark Grand in a private dining room with three waiters for just for the six of us cost us only RNB700. A cab ride of about 45 minutes cost only RNB40. This low inflation again is part of the great Chinese growth miracle.

Our hotel (Empark Grand ) was located in a newly developed area of the city, and is part of a local Chinese group. The hotel was luxurious with wooden paneling, deep plush carpeting, fine tiling and excellent service, but lacked the polished design touches of the established brands. For example, the wardrobe was tiny, though the room was huge. The bathroom had a sunked bathtub and a huge tropical downpour of a shower, but the shaving light was too dim and the shower floor sloped away from the drain. The elevator buttons were configured funny, and hitting one button summoned only half the elevators in the set. I saw this as typical of a centralized planning approach where some boss in Beijing decreed a hotel be build with a huge budget, but no multinational expertise, and ended up producing a product with irritating design flaws.

Another interesting this about the hotel was the number of employees lining the hallways ready to help and open doors for us. Thankfully, tips were neither accepted nor expected, except the cab drivers. Actually, the cab driver did not take tips either, but the word play was fine, no? I guess this no tips culture again is part of the top-down nature of Chinese capitalism, where enterprise is not encouraged in the lowest rungs of the working class.

Another refreshing example of a lack of supply-demand economics was on a hilltop we reached after one hour of hiking. There was a woman there with a small inventory of water and juice bottles laid out on a bench. The bottle of water was only 2RNB (30 US cents). At that point, we would have easily paid ten times that for a bottle of water, but probably the capitalist bug of price gouging has not yet reached this remote part.

A morning in Hong Kong

We (me ans some colleagues) were in transit at Hong Kong airport for six hours on Sunday morning, and we decided to make bold use of the time to visit Hong Kong. The airport is very efficient and getting through customs and immigration was very quick. We left our carry-on luggage at the airport luggage storage, and saved some money by stuffing three laptops into one bag.

The train from the airport to Downtown takes only a half hour. From the train we could see steep green islands jutting out of the water, with pencil thin high-rises dotting the coast. I guess that is the signature look of Hong Kong. We landed in Downtown Hong Kong and the place was quite deserted on the Sunday morning. The first thing we noticed were the lines of young women marching along the streets, sitting on makeshift sheets on sidewalks, and just chatting in small groups. These women clearly did not live on the street, they were too well dressed for that and Hong Kong's laws are too strict to allow that. Thew were not hawkers either because they had no merchandise. All we could tell was they were not chinese, rather they looked south-east asian.

Finding no immediate answers to the mystery, we continued exploring downtown. There was hardly any restaurant open at 9am, and we ended up eating at a small cafe that was serving only breakfast menu. We ordered the exotic sounding "pasta with butterfly", but it just turned out to be bow-tie shaped pasta. Anyway, we ended up having a hearty breakfast for under $30 for four of us.

As we walked on, the hordes of mystery women became more abundant, occupying entire streaches of side-walks. One of us had to give in and ask them. They said they were expat workers (mostly maids) who had left their families behind for work, and were just enjoying a sunday morning picnic. So we learned that to have a picnic, you need no garden, no beach, no nature, just some friends, and a footpath in Asia's financial centre.

American Society

I read two interesting articles in NYT.

The first one is about the hidden rules of classes: Upper, Middle and Poor. This is a theory developed by Ruby Payne based on simple observations.

In poverty, the present is most important. In the middle class, it’s the future. In wealth, it’s the past. The key question about food in poverty: Did you have enough? In the middle class: Did you like it? In wealth: Was it presented well?

A lot about this theory seems true. For a more details, read one of the pdfs here.

The second one is a thesis about the unique achievement of the human condition in America, based on a book "The Age of Abundance: How Prosperity Transformed America’s Politics and Culture". Regarding the material abundance of America, the author says

... in the second half of the 20th century, America left the “realm of necessity” and entered the “realm of freedom.” Americans “live on the far side of a great fault line” separating them from all prior human experience.

Two very interesting theses.

San Diego County Fair

We visited the San Diego County Fair at Del Mar Fairgrounds on Sunday. We got there around 230pm, and parking was a breeze. The ticket initially seemed a bit steep at $12, but given the amount of stuff inside, it was worth it.

As per one friend of Prachee, this fair is a redneck oriented event. Our initial impressions were quite consistent with this. As we entered, we saw a display of farm animals, including a very large pig, a barnful of goats and cows and this ostritch race. And there was also a camel race with some white guys calling themselves Mohommad and Ahab, trying some fake-Arab accents and with a shabby colored "Arab" dresses. Quite lacking in taste.



Anyway, after this we ran into the San Diego County's exhibits from local artists. The paintings, photographs and wood-craft were particularly impressive. And the gems display added a touch of science to the art, with some fossils and pretty mineral formations.

The fair also had (as every fair must) a lot of food stalls, including corn-on-the-cob, funnel cake, apple fries and all others one may expect at such a show. But the only healthy stuff to eat was the grass that the goats were eating. Everything else was a calorie bomb dipped in LDL syrup. Did I mention the redneck part?

There was also a section with small roller coasters, bungee jump from a crane, and other miscellaneous ways to get your internal organs thrown around. These rides were set up temporarily and move around every month to a new fair, and it seems shameful that the much hyped Appu Ghar can not do any better.

Talking of desh, there was a phenomenal lack of desis here. You can hardly go to any tourist spot in San Diego without seeing the customary aunty in saree. Be it Walmart or La Jolla or Wild Animal Park, desis are everywhere. It may take a separate post on the class-consciousness of desis to explain this.

Overall, the fair visit was very good, and it is certainly a good way to spend a day. And if you divulge your address and phone to local telemarketers, you get a coupon for one more entry. Maybe I will take that up to check out one of the music concerts or maybe embrace my inner redneck and see a bull-riding contest or giant truck race.

Cous Cous restaurant

Ate dinner at Cous Cous in Hillcrest today. It has a nice ambiance and the food is pretty good too. About $50 for two, with no wine and no dessert. The Lamb Cous Cous was quite good, but the Pita that came with the appetizer was a bit burnt.

And a nice list of San Diego restaurants is Good Eats San Diego

Mt Palomar

Went to Mount Palomar State Park and Mt Palomar Observatory on a glorious Sunday afternoon. It is a nice 2 hour drive from San Diego, with the last 15 miles quite steep and winding.

The observatory has a 200 in reflector, which was the largest telescope in the world for a long time, and a source of may important discoveries. Looking at the beast from the viewers' gallery is quite impressive. This thing was made 60 years ago, and that was quite a feat. This telescope has adaptive optics, in that it is possible to adjust for atmospheric thermal fluctuations.

The state park is the usual quiet alpine woodland with okay views, but once you get to the western edge, there is the spectacular Boucher view point. From here, we could see the ocean at Carlsbad about 35 miles away, and Catalina Island about 100 miles away! Quite impressive. Probably the farthest distance I have seen the ocean from (barring airplanes).

And don't miss the great food at a small cafe at the intersection of S6 and S7 (where the roads to the observatory and state park branch off).

Trip to Miyazaki, Japan. June 2006, Post 1

I went to Miyazaki, Japan in June 2006 for a meeting. Miyazaki is a small coastal town on Kyushu Island in South Japan. This was my second trip to Japan, the first one being to Tokyo/Kyoto/Yokohama in July 2003. Photos of the first trip will probably get scanned after retirement :)

We went to a great Chinese restaurant, very cheap and great food. For about $80, we could order enough great food to feed 6 people. Of course, there were only three of us, and half the food went uneaten. This is a photo of the food after we finished.

 

At this place, we ordered an interesting type of egg, Peking duck egg. The “white” of this egg is a transparent dark brown, like stained glass. And it was quite tasty too.

 

Miyazaki has one famous attraction, an indoor swimming pool at Seagaia. When I visited, the tourist season was low, so the place was almost empty. It’s one of those only-in-Japan kind of things. This place has a giant surf making machine too.

 

And finally, a nice sunset that I caught from my hotel .

 

Test post from Word 2007

This is a test post using Word 2007.

BTW, Wikipedia has a good summary of Office 12.

Office 12

Just installed Office 12, beta 2. It was a free download.

Finally, ten years too late, Word 2007 has a good Equation Editor. Type \Delta, and it automatically becomes Δ. And the equation editor has many other improvements too. Going from floating menu to ribbons UI has really helped.

Office 12 seems to be a positive step for Microsoft.

Showing off where you have been, enhanced

Okay, so tagzania lets me add a list of places instead of countries/states. Excellent use of the Google Maps API.

Man, Web 2.0 rocks or what. And there is also a bigger map



Tagzania: Items by this user

Showing off where you have been

This site allows people to tag countries and US/Canadian states they have visited. It's a nice start, but what I would like more is to be able to put flags at all places visited. That way, one trip to canada/russia will not make you look like a Marco Polo competitor :)

Update: Another site 43places allows a list of countries/states. It has a slightly better map than the one above.



create your own visited country map with world66.com.