The Other Side of the Coin

Mother nature. It can be beatiful, breathtaking, wonderful, and enjoyable. However, it can be fatal. The past few months have seen some really horrible natural disasters in this world. And I am speaking only for India and America. There must be many more of them, which I have not even heard about.

First came the Tsunami. Then the rains and the floods. And the latest killer is the Hurricane Kartina on the Gulf Coast of the USA. It will be very interesting to find out if the Green House effect or the pollution is in any way linked to any of these. Even if there is a small possibility of that being true, then we, as responsible citizes of this planet, must take drastic measures to control pollution. It is for the good of our and our future generations. It will always be a raging debate as to how much pollution should we (and can we) avoid. Less pollution means more efforts and less comforts. While I agree that it is not possible to eliminate pollution completely, at the same time I also want to make the point that we need to devise smart and simple ways to avoid whatever little pollution we can. An example is to use a bicycle instead of a bike whenever commuting, wherever possible.

That having said, I want to show you an email that I got as a forward from someone regarding the comparison of Hurrican Katrina with the Mumbai rans. The email is pasted below. Below that is my response to that email. The email really made me go crazy. As I have said, this email was a classic example of how readers can be fooled by using skillful words, stats and an unfair conclusion. As we keep reading such things in the future, we must reserve the conclusion of the topic till we have seen both the sides of the coin. Thats the point I wanted to make.

The original Email :
Subject: Mumbai Rain Vs. Katrina Hurricane in New orleans
18 inches of rain in new Orleans due to hurricane katrina...
37.1 inches of rain in Mumbai (July 27th)

population of new Orleans... 484,674
population of Mumbai.... 12,622,500

deaths in new Orleans within 48 hours of katrina...1000s
deaths in Mumbai within 48hours of rain.. 370

number of people to be evacuated in new Orleans...
entire city.
number of people evacuated in mumbai...10,000

Cases of shooting and violence in new orleans...Countless
Cases of shooting and violence in mumbai.. NONE

Time taken for US army to reach new orleans... 48hours
Time taken for Indian army and navy to reach mumbai...12hours

status 48hours later...new orleans is still waiting for relief, army and electricity
status 48hours later..mumbai is back on its feet and is business is as usual

USA...world's most developed nation
India...third world country..

JAI HIND.

My reply :

Its easy to forward emails like this. You should do some more
research before sending this thing out.

Lets see what happened in Mumbai and then in NO. Mumbai got
rains. The record before July 27th was 300* mms per day. On
July 27th it was 900* mms. Thats a lot of rain-water. All
drainage systems choked and water level raised on the streets.
It was unplanned, unknown and shocking. Thats why lives were
lost on the streets.

On the GUlf Coast in the US there was a STORM. It was a
hurricane. Not just rains. What that means is very high wind
speeds. Winds that uproot houses. Winds that break glasses of
most of the buildings. Winds that carry with them (to a height
of a few meters) cars, trees, whatever they find. And worst of
all, winds that drive the sea water into the coastal cities.
It was known, planned and hence many people evacuated the
city. Those who were rich and had cars left the city before
the hurricane hit. The poor ones stayed and were drowned.

New Orleans has these Levis (I don't know the correct spelilng
but basically they are some very powerful and force-resistant
walls which protect the city from the sea water). These are
needed because NO is located BELOW sea level. Probably whether
or not - and how much if at all- Mumbai is below the sea level
and how much is NO below the sea level would have been an
interesting stat but not surprisingly, it is missing from the
email! So the Hurricane broke these Levis and the water from
the Sea entered the city - a city which is below sea level.
Note, this is not just the rain water, it is water from the
sea, driven by storm winds moving at a speed of hundreds of
KMs an hour. In Mumbai, there were only rain waters.

This email is a classic example of how to fool readers using
irrelevant stats. The stats are correct but they are not
enough and have been interpreted in a wrong way.

Please tell me the address of the authour and the source of
this email. And do not draw conclusions unless you see both
sides of the coin.

Apologies for marking a reply-all but I just couldn't resist it.

- Ashutosh

My Ongoing US Visit

Hi There. Long time no posting!
Yeah I actually forgot about blogging :-)
Since the last few weeks I have been on a client visit to the USA. I am staying at Pacific Inn which is a nice little apartment. It does not have the feeling of being in an overly crowded huge hotel but has all the needed facilities. I had stayed at the same place for a few weeks last year too.

I am a member of an offshore team for a client based in Bellevue. They have a couple of products in the market. So far, my company Persistent was involved in working on the old product. Since this month, we have also started working on the second product, which is why I am here. Another colleague will join in a couple of days.

The climate here is changing fast. It was the last few days of summer when I arrived. The rains have now started. The fall will be showing its beauty in a few weeks. And I am hoping badly that I can see some beautiful colours of trees before I head off back to India. The weather in Seattle is generally cloudy for the next 7-8 months. It rarely sees sunshine during this period. Due to this gloomy and sad weather, Seattle has the highest suicide rate in the country! (I don't know if this is actually true!)

That apart, its a very nice place to stay in, as I have learned from a few of my friends here. Its a beautiful place with the snow covered Mount Rainier standing nearby. It is also not as expensive as the other happening cities in the US are. It houses many software comanies including Microsoft and Amazon and hence there are many Indian faces to be seen everywhere. An Indian store named Mayuri is very famous. Its the place from where we get the Rotis that are such an essntial part of the diet. This part of the country also has an awesome bus service which makes it very easy for non residents like me to travel.


Since there is not much else to do here, I will be blogging with much higher frequency than before. I already have a couple of subjects lined up on which I plan to start writing. My next few blogs will be on sports and books.

Till Then,
Cheers,

- Tosh

Hi There! 

Weekly Update

Here’s a log of what all happened in the current week.

STOCKS : Since I started investing in May 2005, this was the best week for my stocks. A lot of profit and an IPO subscription. My Allahabad Stock has been doing pretty well consistently. However, it shot up this week after it was ranked as the second best PSU bank. The good result also helped the boost. The most special was the leap of Radhe Developers. Just when I had started doubting my decision of buying this one, they declared results. A profitability of more than 70 % ! No wonder the stock rose almost 100% this week. I also subscribed to IDFC IPO. I am hoping that I get allocated.

Good news on the work front too. We had been working to optimize an OLAP query since the past few weeks. This week we got a small breakthrough.

The weekdays are over and the weekend now starts. A movie (most likely) Sarkar and a trip outside Pune is planned. Equally interesting is the cricket match going on : The first test between England and Australia. Though England did well in the first two sessions yesterday, Aus are well on top of the match right now. Kevin Pieterson played magnificently yesterday. Australia beat England easily in the last two one days to win the series and now look really confident to easily defend the Ashes.

I have been reading a book called “Vyakti Ani Valli” by P. L. Deshpande. An excellent book written by a great man! Highly recommended for those who haven’t yet read it. I actually hated the chapter “Ek chaukoni Ghar”, though. But overall, the book is a classic.

Philosophy

In a discussion that we had sometime back, we came across a situation where there was a comparison between two persons/families. Later when I thought about it, I found it extremely unfair to compare individuals. And the reasons are as follows :

- Different people have different expectations/objectives of their own lives. Given that, it is not correct to judge a person X from the point of view of person Y.
- Everyone sets his/her own rules that govern the way he lives. When the rules for two players are different, there cannot be a winner or a looser. The game is not at all a competition.
- Whenever a person X takes an action A, there are many reasons because of which he takes that action. These are his style of living, his preferences or definition of correctness and joy and also the constraints that he has imposed on himself. All these reasons for a person X can rarely be understood by a person Y.

While thinking about this I remembered a cool quote that I had come across sometime back. It says :
"Never get into a rat race. Because, even if you win, you are still a Rat!"

Some similar thought is also expressed in the Interview with God, a nice presentation, I think. Many of the quotes in the presentation are my favourites.

Cheers,
- Tosh

C r i c k e t : Latest

Hi Guys,

With Wimbledon and the Confederations cup over, all eyes are set on
the most awaited Ashes series in the history. Australia proved why
they are a champion side in the Natwest Championship after coming down
from two straight defeats from England and Bangladesh. However, there is no
doubt that they are playing far below their potential. Its the first
time for the past few years that this best and dominant team appears
to be losing its shine, slowly but surely.

While batting has been Australia's better department always, they have
failed miserably with the bat this season. This could be a temporary
lack of form from the big players like Heyden Ponting and Gilchrist,
or it could also be the start of end of the older players in their
team. The relatively newer players like Hussey and Symonds have been
stealing the show of late. Clarke, who was a big hit last season is off colour
nowadays.

Bowling has been a common weakness of this team. McGrath and Warne are
on their way of ageing out and Warne's reluctance to play in the ODI
puts a question mark over their bowling strngth - as could be seen from
the recent one day matches.

Its a funny game this, Cricket. A few days ago Australians had made
lots of comments about the England openers. They had specifically
pointed out Trescothick saying he had never fired against Australia.
Come Thursday and he cracked a smashing century! I saw the yesterday's
match and it was totally and completely dominated by England. It just
goes on to prove that England is now a huge force to reckon with in
International Cricket, the first time it has happened in more than
10-15 years. It has made the remaining two matches of the Natwest
series very interesting since Aus will go all out for a kill.

All said and done, its a perfect setup for the Ashes. I just love it
when someone kicks the Aussies, because they had become a giant and
unbeatable force for way too long. Thanks goodness England are
challenging them this big! Its good for the game.

Some comments about the recent changes in the One day rules by the ICC

1. The reasoning put forward is to bring some change in the age old
rules and also to increase the popularity of the game. I have lots of
objections here. The game is already gaining in popularity. Popularity
of ODIs has really not been an issue. Record crowds attend one day
matches at almost every venue in the world. Regarding the test
matches, their popularity has soared over the past few years I think.
The number of draws has reduced dramatically in the 4-5 years which
has led to a steady rise in the Test matches' following. Then were
these changes made just for the sake of it ?

2. The Powerplay. Now the field restrictions will be on for 20 overs
instead of 15. This I think is totally ridiculous. All they are trying
to do is to make life difficult for the bowlers and easier for the
batsmen with the hope that the audience will love the scoring. But its
simply not fair to the bowlers. All the rule changes in the past few
decades have been in favour of the batsmen. While the 15 over
restrictions makes it a lot of fun, 20 overs is a bit too much I feel.

What say others?

Cheers,
- Tosh

The First Posting...

Hi People.
I have been reading up a few blogs of some friends, relatives, etc. Thought of starting a blog of my own where I can post my thoughts, stories, favourites, experiences, advices and so on.

From the last few years, I have been experiencing a strong desire to write and write something meaningful. In this aspect, I think Blog is an excellent place to start with. Keep watching for a lot of serious stuff here in the future.

I love Cricket and there will be many postings here on Cricket. Other areas of interest are Politics, science, astronomy, Stock Market, Books, Sports in general and so on...

In the meanwhile, let me refer the people whose blogs I have been reading and who introduced me to this amazing virtual world. Here's the list :
http://namoona.blogspot.com/ [Mahesh Soundalgekar]
http://www.blurty.com/users/ashutosh [Ashutosh Joshi]
http://hitagooj.blogspot.com [Vivek Shende]
http://letsreason.rediffblogs.com [Rhishikesh Agashe]
http://outsourcee.blogspot.com [Sudarshan Purohit]
http://kharadpatti.blogspot.com [Mukul Joshi]

Thanks to you all,
- Tosh