O’ Journalism

Ok this is a bit personal. I work as a product manager in one of India’s widely read newspaper. And following is the conversation I had with a friend of mine after reading an article I had done which covers the lighter aspects of life -

Friend: ” …. so this is what passes for journalism nowadays. People die in this country when it rains/doesn’t rain. People die when theres a heatwave/coldwave…. and we have a person (text changed to conceal identity) giving his spin on blah blah mushy mushy (text changed to conceal identity of the newspaper). Great.Where do people publish the truth? anymore… Where’s Gordon Gekko – lunch is for wimps….SIGH…thats all I have time for..”

Me: “Yes, this is journalism. It doesn’t mean that you always have to write about Gordon Gekkos and Human Piranhas. Sometimes we do need to address lighter issues to slow down the readers and not solipsistically laid out stories which ‘we’ like. Nevertheless we just don’t write ‘anything’ which can be considered reader likable unless it is something of great importance. Otherwise my paper would see itself as a tabloid and would be put in the same rank as ABC and XYZ (text changed to conceal identity of the newspaper) who don’t report but opine.

I think the series ‘blah blah blah’ (text changed to conceal identity of the newspaper) is not shroud under flippancy, rather it was a great breather after Srikrishna Commision report, 1993 blasts verdict, Mumbai under siege (monsoon) …..

I didn’t write this because I work in my paper, its because I believe in my paper.”

Friend: “Come on mate, you should be more intelligent than that. Regarding the other newspaper from your company (text changed to conceal identity of the newspaper), the strategy was bad. I think whoever was in charge of the paper should be fired. I don’t say it’s a bad paper. Its good and its got good coverage of stuff which I like. And the readability is miles ahead of fucking ABC. But you would have disappointed/alienated 80% of your reader with the ridiculous sign up process. thats why they had to run like a mangy dog and change that 3 months down the line. But the damage is already done. So you guys are neither there – like ABC and XYZ or here – Like the Indian Express”

All this while I had maintained a saving grace as I was proud to be a Product Manager. But reality bites (a cliche, believe me, I have used after a long time) when we operate a newspaper in an era when it has become a media rather than an information source. Newspaper is now suffocating between information and revenue generation. Also it’s neither a breaking news medium like TV or internet and nor a lazy read like a magazine.

Are newspapers dying?

Stripped

Look at the picture below (photo courtesy: HT). A cute, fat kid walking alongside a policeman. Her name is Sarita and she is from Jaunpur, UP. She was thrown into a river by her father who couldn’t pay for her medical treatment. Before drowning, her last words were, “Papa, Papa …. Help me”. After being rescued, she was too scared of going back home and after persuasion, she has gone back to her mother.

On normal days, I wouldn’t have been so affected, but today …. Now you can blame the father or the society or poverty or the Gods … but that won’t work … Nor your money will help her effectively (There are many organizations wherein you can adopt a kid, but there is no transparency as in how effectively your money being utilized for the kid’s welfare).

I blame my childhood for whatever difficulties I faced in my adulthood… But now after reading this I have to rethink what went right/wrong… I can’t imagine what would have gone through this kid’s mind and how she will cope with the fact, later in life, that her father threw her away when she was ailing, into a river, just because he couldn’t handle the situation anymore…

God bless you, kid, for all the strength you require to brave the new world! Welcome …..

True love should be liberating and not binding …

A friend of mine told me that true love should be liberating and not binding. It was after I raised the question, “If a beast can do so much for loving a human being, what do we do?”, while watching King Kong.

If I look around me, the connotations of love spells closeness, dependency, physicality, obligations, brandishing et. al. Is this the end of love? Knowingly or unknowingly even I, till yesterday, felt the same way about love… but then my friend told me in a very straight tone – “Your love is very binding” … just a line is what I required! I realised that probably this what have become of love – Binding! This what have become of marriage – Binding! This what have become of a relationship – Binding!

Love is very pure, it’s is a direct translation of God. If love exists, then I am sure God exists. Love permeates through the strict definitions of eros (physical), philia (emotional) and also agape (spiritual) – the three corner stones of love and finds it’s meaning in deep seated sense of affection which should elevate one and not degenerate. Needless to say phrases like “Love Labor Lost” loses significance in the lexicon of true love. True love should be emancipating one and make him/her happy about everything in life even the fact that it is a rarity if one has true love for someone.

The day if you or the one you love feel binding and obligatory because of love, I am sorry it’s not true. True love should seek a perfect kind of affection – one that is not only based on fondness, not only transcends any particular form of it, but also a passion without the necessity of reciprocity.

l’amour devrait libérer et ne pas lier …. and more on this ….

I am the Lizard King and I can do anything!

Raise high your pretty faces … I hear dreams … I can hear you clear my beautiful friend .. Live your dreams .. Every strand of your hair should scintillate with electrifying spams …

Art, science, philosophy are all fucking shit man … who are you to tell me what they are and why do I need to nod? Who are you to judge and why do I have to listen?

I can hear dreams like soft dew drops trickling from one leaf to another in a fresh winter morning. Morning …. huh! Mourning! Don’t mourn my pretty child … every drop of your tear is precious … saturated with the history of your sadness .. getting saltier by the minute and heavier by the hour .. Don’t mourn my pretty child …

Beeeetraaaayaaaaaallllll with a fuckin’ slice of poison, a dash of good memories, a pinch of lost love, a tea spoon of …….. fuckk!!! It’s a fuckin’ lame concept … Haven’t u betrayed ur mother when you smoke whilst you promised her that you won’t? Haven’t you betrayed your father, when you told him that you are more weaker than he is? Lame .. it’s lame …

It’s democracy ain’t it … It’s free will AIN’T it … It’s a fucking revolution……………. heheheheheh!

YOU are the Lizard King and YOU can do anything ….

P.S. –> My apologies to Late James Douglas Morrison

“And this also,” said Marlow suddenly, “has been one of the dark places of the earth”

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad fascinated a friend of mine after he watched, “Apocalypse Now” … years passed by… I still feel a sense of fear as to why he was so fascinated. Never could I fathom the depth of darkness he imagined and yet the very fact that the outwardly normal self of his had a darker side, which I am not familiar with, … intrigued me as well as saddened me….

I picked up the copy last year and absorbed every bit of it … the motif of darkness is very interesting – the dark continent, the Congo … the river .. the Africans .. or the characters .. Or is it the unknown .. Did you ever surprise yourself with something you thought you would never do? Do u shudder with disgust when you want to hate someone with all your heart? Do you want to see blood when blood makes you vomit? The very concept of Unknown becomes meaningless unless you find the “unknown” in you …

In the heart of darkness lies hate hate and hate …. Bleed this heart to free thyself from hatred …

North by North West

With the sudden spate of Pi coming to my life (pun unintended – those who are thinking abt the grotesque amercian pie can go to hell!) I am putting down another math puzzle involving it. I read this puzzle long back in some magazine.

Lets assume earth is a sphere and the circumference is arnd 40000 kms, if you start from a point in equator and move north west and continue moving so that you reach the north pole, what is the total distance will you be moving?

Let us say, x (longitude) = 0, y (latitude) = 0 (in radians) at the point in equator you start. At the north pole, y = pi/2. Now distance travelled is S in radians

Hence, dy/dS = cos(pi/4) = 1/sqrt(2) as you move northwest.

Hence S = y*sqrt(2) + Constant —> Applying initial conditions —> S = y*sqrt(2)

Now at north pole, S = (pi/2)*sqrt(2) = pi/sqrt(2)

Now 2*pi is the circumference of earth (assuming its sphere) then 2*pi = 40000 kms, and pi = 20000

Hence total distance travelled will be S = 20000/sqrt(2) kms = 14,142 kms approx.

Some more on calculation of Pi laterz

Strings attached – Rupesh’s query

Thanks Rupesh for the comments on Monte Carlo. As for your query on the string problem – “Whats the expected length of the least sized cut when a unit string is divided into three parts using two cuts:
a) When the cuts are independent to each other.
b) When the two cuts are subsequent to each other (that is they are “somehow” related)

In addition to the above two query I have also attempted for maximum length piece too in the second part where we require it. For Part a) of ur query, the answer would be 1/n^2 if there are (n-1) snips in the string. Lets say there are random snips X1, X2 …. Xn-1
And minimum distance be a so the random cuts will be in places X1[a,1-na] X2[X1+a,1 -(n-2)a] and so on …

So the PDF (the probaility of the shortest piece to be a) will be Integral of all these upon the random snips … which comes out to be Pn(X=a) = n(n-1)*(1-na)^(n-2) –> do work it out … it’s a bit tedious coz it’s a multiple integral. If you find it difficult, the easy trick is do it for a n=3 and n=4 and then formulate it that way.

E(X=a) = Integral{x.f(x)dx} –> from 0 to 1/n divided by Integral{f(x)dx} —> from 0 to 1/n

The average expected length of the smallest possible part is 1/n^2

Case for two snips n=3, E(x) = 1/9. Expected length of the smallest piece when a string is cut in three parts is 1/9

For part b,

Let us find the maximum expected length first. Lets say we have x1+x2+x3 …. +xn=1 all lengths of cuts. We have to find the probabilty that all these lengths are > a. Hence x1=y1+a … and so on .. Hence y1=y2…+yn= 1-an

Now lets remove the smallest part p from the string. Now we have n-1 cuts and length 1-np. Hence the length is 1-1/n.

Now lets work backwards… second smallest piece will be (when we cut this string into two parts again) –

(1-1/n)*1/(n-1)*(n-1) which is 1/n*(n-1)

Hence size of the second smallest piece in the original string is 1/n^2 + 1/n*(n-1)

Hence size of kth smaller piece will be 1/n(1+1/2+1/3+ … + 1/k) … so the largest piece will be 1/n(1+1/2 + 1/3+ ….) which is a harmonic series. So the expected length of the largest piece when a string is cut into 3 parts is 1/9+1/18 = 5/18

Now since the first cut is done the expected length for the first smaller piece is 1/4
and the larger piece is 3/4. This becomes the basis of the next snip. P1=1/4 and P2=3/4

So second cut on smaller piece takes place. The smallest piece in will be 1/16 and next smaller piece is 3/16. Since they are dependent, the expected length of the smallest piece when the 2 snips are dependent will be 1/4*1/16+3/4*3/16 = 5/32

Monte Carlo and James Bond proves Pi=4 !!!

It’s an age old technique used by mathematicians to help understand a lot of problems which can be best explained by stochastic (random processes). Let us take an example. This is not a problem but its a way to find out the value of Pi. It is considered the best way of finding out pi. What is pi? Pi is nothing but the ratio of the circumference of a circle to the diameter. Now let us use a shot gun (Jason Statham style) and hit a circular target of radius R, randomly. By the way the circle is circumscribed by a square of side 2R (obviously duh!). There will be few hits and there will be few misses. Now lets us find how many bullets hits the circle out of total shots. Lets take the ratio:

Number of hits inside the circle/ Number of hits inside the square = Area of the circle / Area of square = Pi*R^2/4*R^2 = Pi/4

Hence Pi=4*(Number of bullets hitting the circle/Number of total shots) —> Probably James Bond will prove Pi = 4 (heheh!)

You can try out a simple MATLAB simulation (simple algo):

x= random number; y = random number;

distance_from_origin = square_root(x^2+y^2);

If distance_from_origin <=R

Then hits = hits+1;

else hits = hits+0;

Try and tell me …. more on Monte Carlo

When dreams and day unite ….

me: …… r u going to office or not?
Friend : din’t go today. couldn’t sleep the whole night yesterday, woke up at 6 in the evening, i’m down with fever.. will be sleeping early from today..
… too bored since you left.. smoking only a joint or two.. will be regular to work from now on.
me: though i have friends here still i m lonely … ppl dont have time for others … and the void ……. left can’t be filled by anyone
but then i m working … u work for a goal
to keep urself self sustained so that u pursue othr goals
friends: yeah..
me: there is always a purpose … always a pre ordained rationale behind everything
even ur existence
u might not know now ….
nut in times to come u will …. thats called finding oneself
me: u thr?
Friend: Lets say if i find the purpose, my pre ordained destiny, or the path leading to it, and i decide to live it out. some fine rainy day, i find my existence knotted with everything around. my life, just running around things that maketh my way and that only yield to history of assorted nothings. What if the dream is shattered!
just a thought.
me: dreams never get shattered … answer my question: Have u been dreaming the same all ur life?
…. the same dream?
Friend: no.
me: whatever u do … all ur actions, words and steps … create and shape ur dreams
me: so living ur dreams is not a resultant of ur existance ….. ur existence is a resutant of ur dreams
Friend: yeah very right. i get dreams of places and people i don’t even know. i see them look at them and can touch or feel things around. live there stay there for a while but, nothing stays. nobody talks much coz you know they are my dreams. and most of the times i feel i’m dreaming a similar dream. and you know these dreams stick so much with the seemingly mediocre reality around, which makes me feel the pain.
I am not free
me: well thats not the truth
u r free … so u can dream surreal
most ppl dont dream
i stopped dreaming
or just stopped remembering
Friend: if thats the truth then i’m screwed man.
me: why?
u r not screwed … u have feelings
u r sensitive to ur feelings
thats makes u all the more real
look at the song i m listening
there is no concept of broken dreams

~ Random Chords …. with my Friend’s permission …

Marketing … :)

Can do a lot with marketing but can’t do without it. Oflate I have heard a couple of questions from finance people regarding the necessity of marketing. That marketing is globe was a common opinion in IIML.

I supplicate for permission from finance guys (whoever you are) to ask them a few hard hitting questions.

1) Why do you recruit marketing people to push your consumer centric products – be it corporate or personal?
2) Why don’t you make the best products in the world? Probably the best product in the world would be something which satisfies most people’s needs (again you will need marketing here) and it should be at no cost i.e. free If you can do this, I’ll resign from my job.

Kotler said, “Authentic marketing is not the art of selling what you make but knowing what to make. It is the art of identifying and understanding customer needs and creating solutions that deliver satisfaction to the customers, profits to the producers and benefits for the stakeholders”

But then you should know ….If you make a product good enough, even though you live in the depths of the forest the public will make a path to your door, says the philosopher. But if you want the public in sufficient numbers, you would better construct a highway.