Introverts, Instagram and Twitter

 

tweet bird chick hatching

I have slacked off in the past few days. I haven’t done tangible stuff which must be evident from the sheer lack of writing material (and hence blog posts) for the past one week or so. It’s about time I returned back to being productive again and not repeat the gradual vegetation I go through every vacation.

That said, I finally got myself an iPod Touch. And for the money, it’s one of the few Apple Products that is actually worth it. The camera and the music are brilliant; pretty much the only reasons I got the device for. I read Nick Bolton’s Hatching Twitter which chronicles the history of the micro blogging site. Although it shared a lot of elements with Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires, it was nowhere nearly as good. But the book could be a symbol of hope to all those people who believe you have to be a prodigious programmer to build products that could revolutionize the Internet (and/or the world). Sometimes a good idea, perseverance and dedication towards bringing it to life can do the trick too.

My latest addition to my collection of read books is Susan Cain’s Quiet. I remember watching a TED Talk by Cain on the importance of introverts in today’s noisy world. The book was a genuinely interesting read and I was able to connect deeply with some of the things she had to say. Most of all, some of my traits which made me brand myself anti-social weren’t things I was supposed to be worried about in the first place. Cain says it’s perfectly fine if you refuse to socialize and prefer to shut yourself with a book rather than party with people. And for someone like me who has gradually shifted from people to books in the past few months, the fact comes across as extremely reassuring.

 

Irrationally Yours

 

It takes a certain amount of audacity to openly challenge the merits of a theory that has earned its creator a Nobel Prize in Economics. But that is exactly what Dan Ariely does in discrediting Gary Becker’s Simple Model Of Rational Crime (SMORC) in his book The Honest Truth About Dishonesty. I became a fan of the former MIT Professor’s writings, theories and experiments when I read his book Predictably Irrational a few weeks back (See Human Behavior and Irrationality). I was a little skeptic about reading his later works. For one, they had lower ratings on Goodreads and I had a feeling I wouldn’t experience nearly as many ‘Aha!’ moments if I read them. Going through more all of Malcolm Gladwell’s major works, Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast And Slow and Ariely’s Predictably Irrational, I thought I had covered the majority of ideas existing in the nascent field of Behavioral Economics. I was wrong.

The Upsides of Irrationality seemed like a sequel to Predictably Irrational. And unlike many of the ‘sequels’ in non-fiction, it had a set of ideas that were novel and different from its predecessors. And although this opinion is not shared by the majority of the 50,000 plus readers that rated Ariely’s books, I thought this was actually better than Predictably Irrational. But I’m probably being biased because of the kind of topics he covered. Ariely’s research on how online dating works and its failure to act as an effective medium gave  me a lot of insights into how to actually approach the concept of social discovery, something that I intend on working on as a long term goal.

As I had done with Predictably Irrational, I am going to summarize the major ideas presented by the book so that the reader (and later on, I) can look it up quickly when necessary.

• Although it may sound counter-intuitive, handing out large bonuses to senior executives decreases their performance. This is because performance v/s rewards follows an inverse U curve. Rewards entail higher performance only up to a certain point and then proceeds to actually hamper it.
• Even though people in the workplace work for money, it is incredibly important that they believe that what they are doing is meaningful and beneficial to a certain group of people. If made to do meaningless tasks, people will slack and perform below expectations, even if they are being paid for performing the task.
• We tend to overvalue the things we create or have believe had some part in its creation. This is probably the reason why we tend to love products which we have customized or had a small role in building (such as IKEA furniture).
• Similarly, we tend to think of ideas that we have generated to be vastly superior. This happens even if the ‘original’ idea has been subconsciously planted in our heads. Conversely, we have a hard time accepting the novelty and brilliance of the ideas of others, especially rivals. This is one of the reasons Sony refused to create its own version of the iPod and chose to stick, rather unsuccessfully, to its rapidly out-dating Walkman.
• We tend to exact revenge even if it ends up resulting in an economic loss to us. The rational economic model effectively disappears in the face of a scorned man/woman. We also tend to turn a blind eye towards who we are exacting revenge on i.e we are unable to differentiate between principal and agent.
• We adapt to happiness and pain faster than we think. Although this may sound counter-intuitive, it is best to experience pleasure over spaced intervals and pain all at once in one shot.
• The parameters on which dating sites match people or which we think are important are effectively useless in fostering happy, long lasting relationships. What people want in their partners and what they say they want are different things. A more effective method of online dating would be having prospective couples experience something on the internet (such as art, music or movies) together and see how they like spending time with each other virtually.
• We tend to be more responsive to pleas which have an emotional connect than statistics. People are more likely to donate for a little girl having cancer than donate for a tsunami relief fund which has claimed the lives of over 10,000 people.
• We tend to make bad decisions when in an unstable emotional state and that bad decision persists and eventually turns into bad habit as humans tend to recall past activities but not past emotional states.

Illustrative of couple representing online dating

Ariely’s third book, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty had him explaining man’s constant struggle towards balancing a cost-benefit analysis of every situation (as suggested by the SMORC model) and his efforts to maintain his self-image of an honest, wonderful person.

What may come as a severe blow to the SMORC model and traditional economics in general is the fact that humans don’t tend to be more dishonest in the face of a larger gain or if the probability of getting caught is reduced. Alternatively, it depends on a variety of psychological factors such as the ability to rationalize, the distance from cash, altruism, moral code reminders etc. I must confess my love for the field of Behavioral Economics increases by the day. I’m pretty sure I’ll be picking up more books on the subject in the near future. It has this uncanny ability of making you feel powerful, of giving you an image of yourself as a person who understands the other far more and far better than the vice versa.

The Struggle For Meaning

 

UNSPECIFIED – CIRCA 1948: Viktor Frankl and his second wife Eleonore, Photograph, Around 1948 (Photo by Imagno/Getty Images) [Viktor Frankl mit seiner zweiten Ehefrau Eleonore, Photographie, Um 1948]

I was blown away. Viktor Frankl’s semi-autobiography, Man’s Search For Meaning is probably the most moving book I’ll ever read. In fact, I’d be incredibly surprised if I came across a book, in my life, which inspired me as much as this one did. At the age of thirty seven, Frankl was imprisoned by the Nazis in the world’s most deadly and infamous concentration camp at Auschwitz. And as he narrates his experience there, he tries to convince us that the greatest suffering, the greatest pains could be borne if we could carve meaning out of it.

Frankl invented an entirely new field of psychoanalysis which he called logotherapy. The second half of the book explains logotherapy to the general audience. Unlike the existing schools of philosophical thought which stated that man’s life is centered around deriving pleasure (Sigmund Freud) or power, logotherapy states that it centered around meaning. We spend our entire lives trying to find the significance of our existence. And this significance changes from time to time but it is what makes us human. It is what keeps us alive. To quote Nietzsche,

He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How.

There are three possible sources of meaning: in working for something you feel is significant to your life, in loving another person and in courage during suffering that you cannot avoid. Frankl was one of the very few who was able to find meaning from the third source. In fact, it is what, he says, that allowed him to survive in a place where the chances of coming out alive were 1 in 28.

Some of the book’s quotes are hauntingly beautiful. In conclusion to this post, I’m going to list down the ones I’ve made notes about on my Kindle. For those reading this post, I would seriously recommend you get this book and give it a read. It’s short, will take no more than 3 hours to complete. But it will, more often than not, end up changing the way you look at life.

• The salvation of man is through love and in love
• Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases to be of importance.
• Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death
• No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same
• There is only one thing I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings
• What you have experienced, no power on Earth can take from you
• Suffering ceases to be suffering, at the moment it finds a meaning

 

Pop Psychology

 

I had stumbled upon Gladwell when I spotted his Outliers, as one of the few recurring books in most Business books lists on Goodreads. As a result, I ended up giving it a try. And as I had mentioned in The Secret of Success, it was a thoroughly interesting read. The book make me look into his bibliography and try out his other books as their themes were something I thought I’d be deeply interested in. Fortunately, my intuitions weren’t wrong.

Gladwell’s books effortlessly covers a variety of different fields such as Psychology, Marketing, Economics and Sociology to give us intriguing stories and novel insights into the human behavior. Some have branded his writing as pop psychology because of the kind of reach he has despite writing on a subject that is relatively lesser known. His David and Goliath was an ode to all the underdogs who overcame great difficulties to triumph over their Goliaths. The story of how dyslexia actually helped Gary Cohn become the president of Goldman Sachs and how Frierich’s troubled childhood was majorly responsible for him pioneering an approach towards the treatment of leukemia shows us how our perceived weaknesses can often be turned into our greatest strengths. Everyone saw David’s size as his weakness. But his size gave him his speed which turned out to be the deciding factor in Bible’s most famous battle.

FILE – In this Aug. 15, 2014, file photo, a lighted sign marks the Goldman Sachs trading post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Goldman Sachs reports quarterly financial results on Thursday, July 16, 2015. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

Blink! strongly reminded me of the concept of System 1 proposed by Daniel Kahneman in his magnum opus, Thinking Fast and Slow. Essentially, Gladwell tries to educate us about the extraordinary power of subconscious cognition and how we can learn to control and use its power. Through case studies of the FACS, Blink! tells us of the remarkable story of Ekman and his lifetime effort to categorize facial expressions. By the time he was done, his subconscious could recognize with incredible accuracy as to whether a person was lying, flirting, had malicious intentions, faking etc. This, to me, was the zenith of the power of human intellect. Blink! also made a strong case about how our unconscious also tends to stereotype and create prejudices that lead to ugly outcomes.

The latest book I read, The Tipping Point, was an attempt at explaining the cause of social epidemics. Often, we are amazed by the meteoric rise of a product or a person over an extremely short period of time. Gladwell’s theory that epidemics rely on 3 phenomena: The Law of the Few, The Stickiness Factor and The Power of Context gives a very compelling explanation towards understanding epidemics. Personally, I feel this is one book every person in marketing must read. The insights into some of the biggest hits such as Hush Puppies shoes, Sesame Street and Airwalk will definitely serve as a good guide as to how to go about marketing a particular product. The last few chapters strongly reminded me of Freakonomics as The Tipping Point went about trying to understand the intricacies of suicide and smoking. Overall, these were books I thoroughly enjoyed. And I’ll have to admit that few books have given me so many novel insights and theories as this one has. It is genuinely refreshing to read something that surprises, especially when you’ve read most of the popular literature of that particular genre.

Turning Twenty

 

It’s my birthday today. And I suddenly realize I’m no longer a teenager. I’m in my twenties- arguably one of the most interesting and important phases in one’s life. To be honest, the prospect sort of freaks me out. I still don’t think I’m mentally eligible to be an adult. I’m not ready for adulthood.

The day was wonderful though with so many unexpected people showering me with their wishes. It was heartwarming, it really was. I didn’t celebrate or do anything special today. I got a brand new guitar – A Yamaha F310. It’s a beauty; far better than the smaller sized Jixing I murdered my fingers on. Hopefully, I’ll start taking guitar classes online soon.

I’ve also started reading Freud’s magnum opus, The Interpretation of Dreams. The first chapter, giving an overview on the existing literature on dreams was an especially difficult read. Freud’s original work is much more interesting to read though. That’s probably because of the macabre nature of what Freud writes. I like reading dark, disturbing things.

Since it’s been over four months, I had to redo the first few lessons of Udacity’s Intro to Artificial Intelligence course. And although I was doing it for the second time, I found it extremely interesting and involving. Thrun and Norvig are absolutely brilliant in their pedagogy. So far I’m done with the first three units: Introduction, AI Agents, Probability and Bayesian Networks.

Lastly, I decided on returning to Gladwell again. And I did not regret. David and Goliath was the just the book I needed now. It was inspiring and uplifting to read stories of how underdogs, misfits and rebels fought their way to glory in a world that worshiped the Goliaths. I’m reading Blink now, another of Gladwell’s works. That has to do with the System 1 Kahneman talks about in his book, Thinking Fast and Slow. I’ll probably dedicate an entire post to Gladwell’s bibliography. Once more, here’s to my twentieth birthday. Happy birthday to me.

 

 

Poetry: Bukowski and Poe

 

I couldn’t have picked a more contrasting set of works to read in a single day. The poetry of Charles Bukowski and Edgar Alan Poe gives a glimpse into how dramatically the taste of the public for poetry can change over centuries. I’ve never been a huge fan of Bukowski. Some of his quotes and one-liners are really good, I’ll admit, but I cannot say I harbor the same feelings towards his longer works. In fact, the longer the work, the worse it is. His Women was one of the worst books I’ve read this year. I really don’t understand why so many people seem to love that book. Almost every chapter of that book had his sixty year old namesake ‘rubbing the cunt’ of different women less than half his age. I wonder why that qualifies as good literature.

Nevertheless, I decided to give his poetry a try since he claimed that he got all those women because of his poetry. I picked up Love is a Dog from Hell.  It had all the Women elements in it but was slightly more tolerable. A few rare pieces were actually very good. One thing I don’t understand about Bukowski is the kind of dissonance he has in his thoughts and actions. For instance, he begins Women saying “Many a good man has been thrown under the bridge by a woman”. Yet, throughout the course of the book, it is he who gives women shit. I think I may never understand the appeal he commands even two decades after his death.

Edgar Alan Poe’s poetry were an absolute delight. Being works in English written over almost two centuries ago, they are definitely hard to read but once you grasp the essence of what he’s trying to say, you’ll feel nothing but respect and awe for the man. Most of his works have a uniting theme of ‘death of a beautiful woman’. In the words of Poe, it is the most beautiful theme you can write on. And after reading pieces such as The Raven and Annabel Lee, I couldn’t agree more.

 

Some Fiction and Inspiration

 

In the past few days, I really haven’t done anything of substance. I have been a reading some fiction  though. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was one of the highest rated books on Goodreads. Austen’s commentary and satire of nineteenth century British gentry is considered one of the all time favorites of literature. Unfortunately, I cannot say I relate with the opinions of two centuries of readers on the novel. The writing was impeccable, yes, but the book on the whole was a bore. I cannot simply fathom why any reader would be interested in knowing the household affairs of upper class Englishmen. It was like watching an Indian soap with absolutely no plot. Austen’s writing style, though, enabled me to finish the book.

O.Henry’s The Gift of the Magi reminded me as to why this legend was one of my favorite authors in high school. The story of Della and Jim and the sacrifices they make to provide for their significant other is a welcome reminiscence of how wonderful and loving relationships couples were willing to sacrifice even a little for their better halves. And the most poignant message the story gives out is that money, status and power really dwarf in comparison to loving, nurturing relationships.

The Last Lecture was definitely on the emotionally charged side. And that is not very surprising considering the fact that the author wrote the book in the last few months of his life whilst dying of cancer. Rausch’s swan song serves to remind everyone how valuable and ephemeral our lives are. In his last days, this what he seeks to preach. Love everyone to the fullest. Live to the fullest. And let people around you know how much you mean to them. This is one book I’d certainly look up to whenever I find myself in distress or in need of advice.

 

The Invention of Religion

 

Alexander Drake’s The Invention of Religion is one of the most convincing account against the authenticity  of religion. Drake uses concepts of social psychology like conformism, authority and conditioning to make an argument as to how religion actually came into existence due to fallacies in our cognitive abilities. Meticulously building on concepts such as ritual, worship, deity, soul and afterlife, Drake convincingly argues that it is absence of knowledge that leads to the creation of religion. Although I do not consider myself a hardcore atheist, this book did manage to convince to look more deeply into the subject which I intend on doing in the near future.

After a long time, I read some fiction and what great fiction it was! The Perks of Being a Wallflower is one of those books you can read over and over again and not be bored by. There are few characters like the protagonist Charlie with whom I could relate so much with. And Sam’s message at the end of the book coupled with some of the best quotes in  literature (We only accept the love we think we deserve) makes it a must read for every teenager and young adult out there.

 

Mathematics

 

Fermat2.Donut.Simpsons.jpg

As a precursor to studying Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence in detail, I thought it would be a good idea to go through the lecture notes of Eric Lehman’s popular Mathematics For Computer Science class taught at MIT. And after giving it some thought, I decided that reading up some popular texts on math, especially number theory, beforehand would generate the kind of enthusiasm required to commit yourself to a class as rigorous as the one mentioned.

I have been a huge fan of Simon Singh since the time I accidentally picked up The Code Book from the local bookstore. By far, it is one of the best non-fiction books I’ve read and I’m pretty sure, one of best cryptography books out there in the market. A quick glance into his bibliography told me that he is very much into math and has authored too equally popular books on the subject.The first, Fermat’s Last Theorem (or Fermat’s Enigma in the US) tells us the story of a three centuries struggle to prove the most elusive conjecture in the world. And like The Code Book, it was a riveting read. It was just the kind of book I needed to rekindle my affection for the subject. From the time of Pythagoras and his triplets to the prince of Amateurs, Fermat notoriously refusing to put down a proof for his theorem to a Frenchwoman’s struggle to make a place in the patriarchal world of mathematics, the first half of Singh’s narrative set the stage for the kind of developments and sacrifices that were required to proceed towards the proof.

The second details two Japanese mathematician’s struggle to show the world the oneness of two apparently distinct fields of mathematics: the L-series of elliptic curves and the M-series of modular forms. This idea was almost as revolutionary as Maxwell uniting the fields of electricity, magnetism and light. Another mathematician, Frey, proved that if the Shimaru-Taniyanama conjecture could be proved, then Fermat’s Last Theorem would also be proved as a direct result. And proving this conjecture was exactly what Wiles managed to do and earn himself a permanent place in the hall of fame of mathematicians. I’ve written an extremely watered-down, layman version of the proof on Quora. You can find it here.

Extremely impressed by Singh’s narration of one of the greatest stories in Mathematics, I quickly proceeded to read The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets. Published in 2013, I didn’t find the book to match up to the standards of the other two books. A lot of information contained was repeated material. Nevertheless, it did induce me to give a go at watching the longest running TV show in America.

Shorly afterwards, I picked up William Dunham’s Journey Through Genius. I put the book down after going through the contents and a couple of chapters. The book was essentially a collection of some of the most famous mathematical proofs. Unfortunately, the proofs presented, such as Euclid’s proof to the Pythagorean theorem, Newton’s Binomial Theorem and Heron’s formula to calculate the area of a triangle were proofs that I’d already studied about. I thought it redundant to spend time reading stuff I already knew about.

So as a substitute, I started reading Strogatz’s The Joy of x. I quickly realized that this was a book intended for people with a non mathematical background but since it was a small book, I decided to go through it anyways. It did manage to give some valuable novel insights into topics I already knew about. All in all, I think I’d have appreciated it more if I’d read this back in high school.

The last book I read as part of my ‘Math Marathon’ was a fictional piece of work by Abbot titled Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. Singh spoke highly of the book in his The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets so I decided to give it a try. It was an extremely light read and a satire on the system of class in our society.

With this little warm up, I should able to descend into more serious mathematics. It is imperative that I develop an extremely strong understanding of Number Theory, Probability and Statistics. I’ll be updating about my progress in the aforementioned fields soon.

Writing

 

For the past couple of days, I’ve been reading about writing. There was a time when I fancied being a full time author. I do not anymore. Nevertheless, I thought the prospect of having famous writers tell their tales of how they came into the profession and how they carved a living out of it was pretty interesting.

Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird gave an insight into the things budding writers need to keep in mind. A message that stood out to me was writing only about things that you know first. Many a times I have tried writing stories of varying genres. And almost all the time, I failed miserably. I think I understand why now. In most of these failed stories, I had a setting which I had never visited or had no idea of: 18th century London, Africa, the Amazon Rainforest, to name a few. Describing these places was extremely hard. Most of the times, it was lackluster and left too much to the imagination. The result was poor writing with almost no substance.

Stephen King’s On Writing is a semi-autobiography of sorts. The final chapter, which shares its title with the book, was half the book’s length and contained priceless advice on writing. King is deeply passionate about his work. And getting a glimpse into how he worked and how he came up with the ideas of some of his most seminal works was a treat to read. It might be the case that I’ll probably never become a serious author like I once thought I would, but my respect for the profession remains at the same level, if not higher. Being a author must be a surreal, amazing experience. It is one of the few professions on the planet where the people actually do what they love.