Trust Distrust

I have often heard "Vishwaas pe duniya chalti hai.". As I think about it, I come to the conclusion that nothing could be more wrong.

Some game theorists (I don't remember who) did an experiment some time ago. The game involved two players. The first player was given 100 units of money and was supposed to divide the money between the two. The rules dictated that if the second player agreed to the division then the money would be divided between the  players in the manner set by the first player. However if the second player disagreed, none of them would be given any money. So, logically the players should be able to reach an agreement as long as the second player gets something (even if that is the smallest amount, 1 unit) because otherwise his gain would be zero. But what the game theorists found was that most of the time the second player disagreed even when the amount was greater than zero (but less than 50). They concluded that it is not utility (in terms of money) that is significant but envy. Hence, envy makes the world go round.

I learnt another fable in the famous TV series "Game of Thrones". There are three persons in a room. A king, a rich trader, and a valiant powerful soldier. The trader tries to convince the soldier to murder the king and he would make the richer in exchange. The king tries to convince the soldier to kill the trader. It is also plausible that the soldier kills both of them and becomes the king. So where does the power reside? Money, political power, or physical strength. This scenario could easily be modeled in a multi-player game taking into account the distrust factor between the players. Hence, a monarch rules over many powerful nobles taking advantage of  the distrust between them.

In the political scenario today Arvind Kejriwal is able to thrive because of the distrust between the other powerful factions.

Game theory's basic assumption is that the players in a game are not able to communicate i.e. there is distrust between them. And it has proven to be a very powerful tool in modeling real scenarios. So anyone who understands this important factor of social dynamics, has the capability to rule. Hence, the next time an auto-wallah gives you this adage remember this...

Why?

The purpose of GRE : identify potential candidates for graduate research. This begs the question, what does writing a impactful and coveted PhD thesis involve. Which leads universities to ask the question what should be the prerequisites for a graduate applicant. By a normal logical thought process, these should be qualities that are either innate, or cannot be learnt during the time interval when candidate does graduate research. These constraints themselves restrict the tested qualities (in the GRE) since doing a graduate research allows for learning and developing in a many different directions.

So what are the qualities/attitudes that lead to a prestigious PhD theses? First and foremost, the basic requirement that is reflected in the GRE test structure is a massive and prodigious vocabulary. This could have passed for a necessary requirement two/three decades earlier, when fast and easy access to online dictionaries and context information was not available while reading research papers or listening to conferences or even discussing a topic with a colleague. Today, technology has advanced to a level where an impressive vocabulary has become an extraneous skill for an impressive theses, where people with frugal or even a minimal knowledge of the working language (here English) can produce awe-inspiring works and answer profound questions in any field.

The second requirement that is apparent to me while preparing for the GRE is the criteria of familiarity/acquaintance with english/american culture. I would go so far as to say that the knowledge and familiarity of english/american culture required should be in accordance with a particular narrow world view. Consider for example the reading comprehension questions. A known and popular caveat while solving these problems is that the test-taker should never choose an extreme derivation of a theory suggested by the passage. To this I have to say that, the apparent constituents of an extreme reaction/response depend greatly upon the test-takers cultural background and many other things that should not ideally affect their scores. For example, in a recent passage that I read, the passage insinuates that political leaders frequently indulge in corrupt and immoral practices. Now, for an Indian to suggest that this implies that all politicians are corrupt/immoral would not be an extreme statement. So, this requirement is also not appropriate and is unable to identify potential candidates for graduate study. Also, a graduate thesis involves suggesting and testing theories which extend the existing human knowledge. How likely is a person, who always conforms to the average/normal explanation of phenomenon, to propose a ground-breaking theory?

There can be given many examples of questions that have appeared in the official GRE test that promote a particular interpretation of the given data. The purpose of the GRE is to identify people who can propose and prove unprecedented theories. How would a person that has  subscribed to a particular way of viewing the world, propose unprecedented and revolutionary ideas?

As for the analytical writing and the mathematical portion of the test, I think that these are necessary and inexpedient part of the test. But I can speak for a large number of people when I say that the mathematical portion of the test is irrelevant because almost everybody scores perfectly in these tests. For, the analytical part, even if you do not score a high score in this portion, it does not mean that you cannot think or present great ideas.

Thus, I conclude that requiring applicants to successfully  take the GRE test, defeats the very purpose  of educational institutions which  is to select candidates with a potential for graduate research. Hence, this unnecessary and expensive procedure should be done away with and the educators of today should embrace the new advanced society where everyone has the potential to succeed. (well, almost everyone)

Ten commandments

1. Eat healthy
2. Read
3. Sleep
4. Exercise
5. Listen to music
6. Fall ill
7. Invest in your dreams a little everyday
8. Hold on to ideas
9. Act on them :  someone aptly said "If you don't act on your ideas, they would only ever occupy the tiny brain cell from which they started"
10. Listen to yourself, and learn when to listen to others

The power of the internet

This post may seem a little unrelated to the title, so keep on reading. Those who know me, know that I like pizzas too much. And irrespective of the cost, I like to order Dominos pizzas almost every week. Whenever I can, I try to benefit from the discount schemes that are available online. But many a times you would have noticed that the website doesn't work. And when you phone to complain to the store, that you cannot get a specific discount because the website doesn't work, they make some lame excuses and you finally have to pay the complete 100% for your order.
Well sometimes when talking directly doesn't work, the little suggestion box on the website works wonders. I recently posted a large rant on the Dominos website about the shitty service they provide. Immediately, (5 minutes later) I got a call on my mobile from the dominos store . They wanted me to post an appreciation comment on their website and retract my comment about their service. The guy offered me any discount that he could manage.
This made me realize the power of corporate hard-assness combined with the internet. Hence the small post.

windows xp jugglery

After spending almost 5 years of my life on windows xp, I finally think I can get my way around it. Thanks to this (http://spacesniffer.en.softonic.com/ ) awesome software.

It analyses your disk usage and let's you view your file distribution in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

Things I discovered using this software:

1) Your windows system restore folder (c:\"System Volume Information") probably takes up too much of your hard disk and uselessly. Because who the hell uses this option anyway.

To remove system restore points and free up disk space see these article

a) use disk cleanup to remove old restore points-- http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310312#top

b) disable system restore all together-- http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310312

2) Following files were taking unusually huge space

a) this folder (C:\Documents and Settings\abhishek\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\) takes up too much space

b) some dc++ files

3) one interesting thing that i discovered is this file

C:\Documents and Settings\abhishek\Local Setting\History

It gives you detailed information of all the files you opened till the past month... interesting and powerful information specially if you are using a pblic/ shared computer.

4) Another interesting piece of software that i discovered was xcopy. This is a windows xp utility and it really makes it easier to copy/merge/update folders.

The following option was useful :

"xcopy source destination /E /D" : Copies the source to the destination while only copying files that are newer at the source than at the destination.

That's all. Most important this software got me curious and google helped :)

The drudgery of installing windows xp

I have a very old laptop. As in most of the laptops the first thing to stop working was the cd/dvd drive. So to install windows I always had to do it using a flash drive.

Installing widows 7 using a flash drive is easy , windows xp is a tricky task. So here I provide a list of resources I used to install windows xp (full with drivers).

1. Preparing the flash drive :

http://komku.blogspot.com/2009/09/wintoflash-guide-install-windows-xp.html

2. Installing : follow instructions on the aforementioned link

3. Installing drivers: This is a tricky part again. My laptop being an old compaq presario v6218, compaq/hp had stopped providing drivers for windows xp for my components. So after installing xp using the above procedure I had the following drivers missing :

1. ethernet controller

2. network controller

3. audio

4. touchpad

5. graphics acclerator.

Mainly, I could not connect to the internet using my laptop which was the source of all problems since every driver finder ..etc required a net connection.

The network driver was only found on the intel website after going through the specs of the processor.

Hopefully I won't ever need to refer to this blog again.