Suresh Chandrasekaran's Blog, page 40

This game called Bridge

Ever heard of this card game called Bridge? One of the stupidest games I have ever heard of, let me tell you. I mean, yes, I know games need not necessarily be about real life. Like, nowadays, people seem to play about in dungeons with dragons and all, so, yes, it can get real weird with games but...here is the thing...there ARE some common factors in games...you know, some...human elements.

Acronyms

You know, it is difficult to imagine what the world would be like without acronyms. Especially in the social sciences. I rather fancy that 90% of the work of social scientists is devising the acronyms to capture the attention of people. It certainly seemed that way in Management. There was this time when an 'alphabet series' was all the craze. When first someone devised 'Product, Price,

Freedom of Speech

I wish I had been born a generation later. So many things have changed for the better for the child that it would have made a tremendous improvement to my childhood experience if only I had not been born too early to take advantage of it. "Suresh! What is Boyle's law?" "It explains why milk boils over while water does not." "Wrong answer! Stand up on the bench." And, being born too

Argumentum ad populum

THIS should certainly have got the academics into hot water. I mean, 'Vox Populi, Vox Dei' (The voice of the people is the voice of God) after all and these guys have the gall to say that to consider something correct because it is the popular belief is a logical fallacy? Come on, did anyone bother to get their brains examined? They really need to be reminded of Galileo. Everyone KNEW that the

Survivorship bias

You know, there are some things that seem so apparent when someone says it but never as clear when it happens in real life. Take this 'survivorship bias' for example. It is a widely prevalent logical fallacy. Like all logical fallacies, this too is one of those things which you nod wisely when you hear of it while going about committing it with gay abandon. "You know I think that jumping off

Argumentum ad baculum

Academics are such spoilsports. If you find an easy way to do things, they find a way to tell you why it is wrong and why you should not be allowed to do it. Of course, not that what they say stops you from doing what you really want to do but...you know, it is sort of nice to also have people applauding you for doing things and these guys get in the way of that. "I think this movie is the

Tu quoque

(There seems to be a promo by Amazon of my book "A Dog eat Dog-food World" which has been made available at about 30% of the list price. So, for a princely sum of Rs. 29/= you can possess and read the ebook. Click on the yellow book-cover to the right) Have you wondered why common things tend to have uncommon names? Or get referred to by uncommon, rather hifalutin terms? Must be because

Vicarious

I have always been a big fan of living life vicariously. Real life is so damned messy. I mean, it is much easier to do things vicariously - people behave in predictable ways when it is all in the mind. You know, like parents can go all gaga and support love marriages on movies cos they know that, there, the guy IS a good guy, the girl is a nice girl and all the rest of it. No need to worry

Life is like this!

Fate does play some scurvy tricks on you. I mean, you do know that sort of thing. You visit someone's house along with friends, the meal is...err...the sort of thing that you have to swallow like medicine with copious draughts of water and one of your friends makes fun of the cooking. You, later on, tell him off for being rude and hurting the hosts. AND, the very next time they come home for

Unsung geniuses

There is a story that once the Goddess of good fortune - Sridevi - and the Goddess of misfortune - Moodevi - appeared in front of a Brahmin asking him which of them was the more beautiful. The Brahmin was frightened. Obviously, he wanted the former to stay with him but, if he called Moodevi beautiful, Sridevi may get angry and go away from him. The problem with making Moodevi angry was not that