An ideal example for a negative vote when facing a good, a bad and an ugly option

 As I was reflecting on the dilemma facing the uncommitted movement, the current US election seems to be a perfect example for the need for an option to vote against a candidate as well. 

If we are faced with the choice of a good, a bad and an ugly, we can vote for the good candidate, fully expecting him or her to lose. Our negative vote can be against the ugly in case, as we expect, the good candidate is the last one.

 If we do not  have the option for a good candidate, we can ignore our positive vote and still vote only against the ugly. We should not have to choose a lesser evil even if the result of the election would not be any different.

Would the victor of such a system celebrate and brag about his success, when the voting data would clearly  show that it is the ugly candidate who lost?

Goa is a small state. I wish the  election commission would experiment here.

An Embarrassing Failure of Saving and Recycling Water - What not to do to save the planet

 I have long been bothered by using fresh water in a flush. I finally got a chance to  do  something about it when we decided to build an independent house.

I had a hard time convincing the contractor and the plumber of  what I wanted. The plumber was a little more emphatic that it won't work though he did not explain - unfortunately. 

I got them to separate the waste bath water and save it in two tanks - first one with a filter and second one to store it. The tank and pipes to the WC tanks were separate.  There was a separate pump to lift water from the grey water tank to the overhead tank meant for WC's only.

I moved in and the troubles started.

The waste water from the bathrooms wasn't much! Just the two  of us. Fortunately, especially with the water saving toilets, even the water requirement for the WC tanks was not much, despite 2 senior citizens needing to use the flush more often than they would have preferred.

So, the first lesson was that the cost of the additional expenditure did not match  the gain.

Worse was to follow.

I had searched a lot for filtering  grey water. There were the treatment plants which made no  sense at all for our needs and volumes. The rest were for rain water harvesting. Reminding me of the old crow and water pitcher tale. Bath water and washing machine water seemed quite clean. So, filtering with stones, sand and  charcoal powder seemed fine.

After a few days, there was a strange smell in bathrooms. We just couldn't figure it out. We called the plumber and he said that he had told us that it wouldn't work. The smell was the grey water smell and it will get worse. He  then said that he had made a provision to fill the WC tank with fresh water,  knowing that we will have to abandon the experiment. Shall he do so. And of course, I agreed.

I still had grey water. So, I got an additional small pump to use the grey water for gardening. 

Given the rains, I haven't used a drop of it for over 3 months now. Plus, even when it is bright and sunny, we consume enough to water a small part of the lawn.

I try to cheer myself up by trying to believe that every little bit helps even though my logic tells me - of course not. The upfront costs exceed the savings. I have made the planet a little worse.

I decided to share my learning experience in the hope that it may save someone from making the same stupid mistake and spending sleepless nights thinking about how could I have been so illogical and had refused to think through the implications.

A way to get rid of reservation in higher education

 "Show me where is the answer in the text book!" - stated in an aggressive tone by a faculty member from another college. This memory was triggered by "The Habit of Copying: Are We Creating a Culture of Plagiarism?" 

 

I could not even have imagined that anyone could have such an expectation for a management information course. My disappointment with teaching is documented here.

 

If there is a shortage of supply, there will be malpractices and there is a shortage of seats for a decent education. Gaming the system, blaming reservations, etc will be inevitable.

 

Instead of trying to stop loopholes, what if we accepted that there is a shortage and that there is no perfect way to select the best. We could, of course, auction the seats. However, I doubt if that would seem ideal to anyone, including those supporting auction of coal mines and mobile spectrum! First come, first serve will also not be an acceptable option.

 

An alternate system is a random selection from among a set of shortlisted candidates. The selection for shortlisting could be very much like the current system; except that there is no queue; rather, a set of acceptable candidates. 

 

We can eliminate reservation of seats for varying categories of candidates. The focus can be to ensure and help candidates from deprived communities clear the entrance test barrier.

 

The tuition industry would suffer but, at least, I have for one would not shed a tear to see it disappear. 

Wealth, Quality of LIfe and Paradise Lost

I was pretty sure that I would retire in Goa. I loved the place. I like the greenery and the beaches. I like the small towns and villages with the comfort of a modern life.

Now somehow Bob Dylan's Things Have Changed resonates. The road in front of my flat now hums with traffic and it is bound to get worse. Taxi services are aimed at tourists who have no other options. With such conflicts, there is little chance of Ola or Uber like services.

If one way taxis from home to point of destination were easily available at reasonable costs, I for example would be happy to use them and not own a car. Who wants to search for a parking place near a beach or in the town?

I can't imagine roads being cleared of parked vehicles anytime soon. We don't need more roads but using the roads more effectively. That too is not going to happen.

I don't see any efforts on changing the mindset of the people. We should expect polite and courteous behaviour on the roads. Discourtesy should be the exception and not the other way around. Try showing courtesy to pedestrians and observe their nervousness!

I don't see any chance of cars being stopped and parked outside the coastal villages. We should move around the beach area by walking or using small electric vehicles like golf carts.

I can expect that we will widen the roads, create new roads. We will not create a society where people do not need to move around so much or need personal vehicles.  We will not be able to manage well with what we have. Growth is the modern mantra :(

In short, Goa is no longer an obvious choice for retirement. The cold and the heat of Chandigarh no longer seems so bad. I can walk to rose garden.

Nuclear power and human reaction to risks

Yesterday, I saw a documentary "Gentilly or not to be" about the closure or refurbishing of a nuclear power plant in Quebec. I was deeply affected. Was the increase in the risk of cancer in children being deliberately ignored? I spent a couple of hours searching and reading various articles, especially related to the German study.

I then went for a walk and while reflecting on it, started to wonder about my fear of flying. Even today, as the plane takes off or lands, my stomach tightens, my heartbeat increases. I am unreasonably stressed. I think it is related to the minimal survival chances should there be an accident. The true risk is the probability of not surviving and there is an accident! Our emotions seem to ignore the second factor!

I started to look at some numbers to, at least, get a non-emotive perspective.

• Mortality rate for children under 5 per 1000 live births  (2012)
  Canada 6, India 56
• Reasons for these deaths:
  According to UNICEF,^[6] most child deaths (and 70% in developing countries)^[7] result from one or more of the following five causes:

acute respiratory infections
diarrhea
measles
malaria
malnutrition

• Childhood Cancer

The most common cancers in children are (childhood) leukemia (34%), brain tumors (23%), and lymphomas (12%).^[11] In 2005, 4.1 of every 100,000 young people under 20 years of age in the U.S. were diagnosed with leukemia, and 0.8 per 100,000 died from it.^[5]

The issue is not just cancer. It is overall health. I think I will still choose to stay close to a nuclear power plant than downstream from a dam or near a thermal power plant.

Beyond CSAT - aim to select the optimum group of civil servants and not the "best" individuals

I watched a discussion on Lok Sabha Tv for an hour about the aptitude test of UPSC which has been in the news recently - its need and its fairness. Neither the discussion nor anything I have seen in the paper talks about the fact that if there is a single test, any single outcome may seem unfair even if the test is not.

As the ratio of the number of candidates to the number of people selected increases to the levels in India, a thought experiment can tell us that if the test were repeated, examiners interchanged, the list of selected candidates can vary substantially.

A very large number of candidates not selected could have done better than the selected candidates on another day or in another mental state.

The scenario becomes far more complex if one tries to think of what would be an excellent group of candidates for the civil service. After all no one would select a soccer team by any method where all the selected players  could turn out to be goal keepers!

The concern about the mix of the outcome is very real. The discussion had references to states  complaining about the number of candidates selected from their state because of the changes in the exam system.

Suppose there was a  formula for the optimum selection of the group with factors like

• Test result
• overall
• individual subject
• hetergeneity
• male/female
• economic background
• mother tongue
• place of residence
• social background
• Affirmative action 
• Replacement of reservations
• New blood
• people whose parents/relations have not been in any government service

Factors to be considered could be specified. The multiple objective functions could be specified. The number of objectives could be quite large. It will make no difference to the implementation of the algorithm. The source code of the algorithm could be published.

These could be tested against the past examinations to create the lists of who would have been selected had this process been in use.

I am certain if the outcome is fair to all stakeholders, the concern over unfairness of the exam and bias of examiners will decrease. But more significantly, we can have a group of administrators in whom the society as a whole has confidence and which as a group is likely to deliver better outcomes for the governance of the country.

Indian Elections - Feeling cheated - time to add a negative vote as well

In the winner take all, I am reminded of the information asymmetry in Economics. While in economics, it can lead to market failures, in elections it can lead to failures in outcome of elections which can aggravate the differences in the social groups and lead to a worse environment for all people.

There are two ways I could use decide for whom to vote - for a specific candidate or against a specific candidate. This does not cause any conflict if there are just two candidates. But how to chose in a scenario with more than two candidates? There is no rational way for me to decide as there is no information. Polls may be useful, however, they may very well be unreliable and misleading.

The winner take all leads to obvious misuse of dummy candidates standing for election as seems fairly obvious in the case of Manpreet Singh Badal.

In a fragmented society like ours, it is extremely unlikely that we will ever evolve to a two party system. In fact, that may not even be desirable.

A simple option could be a rerun of the leading two candidates - so that in the first election I can vote for a candidate and in the second, I can vote against a candidate in case needed. I would not feel cheated of my vote.

We could avoid a rerun by having two votes in the beginning only - one for a candidate(positive) and one against a candidate(negative) and the winner is the one with the maximum net votes. This could create an environment in which cooperation is the preferred outcome.

The alternate way to avoid a rerun would be to use a proportional system similar to that of Germany.

I hope the system is changed no matter what the outcome of the election this year. The trouble is that how to get the elected majority to change rules which may be against them :(

Delhi University Changes - Contentless Discussions

Reading "Delhi University VC makes his case for shift to four-year undergraduate courses" led to the same uncomfortable feeling I have had for several weeks now. Here was still another issue which seems important to me and, yet, I cannot understand the discussions around it. I had switched out of a discussion on even Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha TV (which have a much higher signal to noise ration than the private channels) as it seemed irrelevant to the concern of how to ensure that students learn and are well equipped to deal with the current world. The changes suggested now might have been meaningful if done at least 3 decades ago. (See An Indian education? for an view of the current state.)

There is no discussion around ideas like MOOC, learning from each other students as explored by Sugata Mitra or learning from failures as explored by various speakers at TED Talks.

How do you prepare students for employment if you have no idea of what skills the jobs will need. Possibly by encouraging each college to try its own strategy and never forgetting that failures are great for learning.

The other current issue which makes me feel very stupid is that I can't understand the 'scam' in coal scam. Incompetent governance yes but ?

Anger and Rage - Justice in all Courts and not just Fast Courts

There was a third incident of rage and rampage in China - in addition to the two which were highly visible in India last week. This one also attacked school children as in the US. I was struck by the quote:

“Chinese society is full of anger and rage,” said Murong Xuecun, a best-selling novelist and popular online commentator. “Everybody has anger. It must be noted that every society has its share of sociopaths. But for China to have so many is no doubt abnormal.”

This could apply equally well to India. I am troubled by repeated requests for fast-track courts for various crimes which catch the imagination of media and public. This distracts from the obvious need for justice for any and all crimes - no matter how small.

Heinrich von Kleist's Michael Kohlhaas (ebook on Gutenberg) is a classic example of the problems a society can face as a consequence of a relatively minor injustice of misuse of power.

I wish we would accept research on deterrence and re-work the legal system accordingly:

Research has shown that increasing the severity of a punishment does not have much effect on crime, while increasing the certainty of punishment does have a deterrent effect

I suspect that the likelihood of conviction would go up if the severity of punishment was less.

• Risk of the consequences of a wrong decision will be much lower. 
• The reward for subverting the judicial process would also be lower. 
• The process of trial would probably shorten and all pending cases would benefit.

This would be quite analogous to tax compliance increasing as the income tax rates go down.

Experiencing The Bus Service in Chandigarh - Wishing it were better

Yesterday, for the first time, I decided to use the public bus in Chandigarh. I had given my car for repair - a neighbour had probably thrown a cricket ball and cracked the windshield.

I waited about 20 minutes and took the bus home. It was comfortable and not very crowded. However, I felt that the bus stops should be better located.

I saw the net and the bus frequency for the bus near my home was half hour. I decided to use the bus back to the car repair shop. The route is quite convenient for some of the markets we go to. I even planned using the bus during periods when traffic and parking is maddening.


I gave sufficient time and was not in any hurry. I waited and waited. The bus stop said that the frequency was every 20 minutes. However, I trusted the net time table more - every 30 minutes. After 40 minutes, I gave up and took an auto-rickshaw.

Will I use the public bus or recommend it to someone? Chances are - not likely - which is a pity. While I was waiting, I saw a number of potential passengers give up.

If we consider the internet, we have seen that the very successful companies have provided excellent performance and reliability and not made any profits until much later. Public transport has to have a similar approach if it needs to succeed and become an integral part of the city life.

It doesn't matter if the frequency is low but, in that case, it is even more important that the service timings are honoured. If the people who take decisions, ever travelled by bus, I am sure the reliability of the bus service would be far better.

However, I would wish that the city charged a tax on petrol and diesel and used it to ensure a reliable with a reasonably high frequency of bus service of bus service so that people who have an option, don't turn away from public transport.

It won't happen but hope is eternal.

Switch a healh insurance policy? My brain hurts.

For some years, we have contemplated changing the health insurance company as the healthcare TPA for our policy did not seem to have too many hospitals in its network.

Thanks to portability, switching a service provider should be easy. Well, may be not. Anyway, I did not reach that stage. I was paralyzed by just trying to find basic information about the policies and costs. After a fair amount of search and avoiding all sites which insisted I supply them with an email id and my mobile number, I did find some comparison charts. However, implications or comparison of terms and conditions for various policies were not easy to find.

Anyway, I decided it hurt my brain far too much. So, I will stick to what I have had for a decade, which I have never had to use, and hope that I never have to find out what my policy will or will not cover.

I can, of course, wish that all policies were also like open source software where all needed information is freely available and each product is encouraged to use the best capabilities of every other product. That should evolve to a product which is truly useful.

Instead, I get the feeling that the companies offer but discourage a base product and add perceived benefits of questionable value to the base at highly inflated rates to make idiots of us. And that resulted in my brain hurting badly :(

Is quality to be measured by how few get first class?

Our "modernisation" of examination system is clearly an example of 'a camel is a horse designed by a committee'. It upsets me to read such news because there is an implicit bias against internal examinations. Some extracts:

• a professor who did not wish to be named even alleged that marks were being sold in some colleges
• there is a 99 per cent chance of manipulation in evaluation of internals
• many teachers hate the new system as it involves considerable extra work such as preparing question papers for internal tests, assignments, projects and the like. Many of them claim that such elaborate work leaves them with little time to conduct classes.
  
  (Emphasis mine - I find it hard to believe that anyone who has taught for even short period can believe that classroom teaching is an effective tool for learning by students. An example of what we could be doing: Eric Mazur's view on how to make students learn.)

At issue is not the internal evaluation. However, you cannot have part central and part local with no regard for any normalisation. It is cleaner to let the exam be entirely internal and each degree should specify the college from which a student graduated and his/her percentile rank within the college.

Why Linux - Microsoft Marketing

The first reasonable computer I bought was with Windows 95. I had insisted on buying Microsoft Works. The dealer had no idea about it. He was obviously ready to install MS Office but it was far too expensive for me.

I got Works and it was a shock! The damn thing couldn't do the only thing I needed - read MS Office documents! I did not care about it being authentic layout. I just wanted to read the stuff sent by others on floppies and couldn't.

That was a product I paid for and never used! I still feel cheated.

I could do my own work with nroff and me macros. There was little point in anything fancier with a dot matrix printer.

By the time, I was ready to use a word processor and had an inkjet printer, a usable version of Abiword or StarOffice was available.

I am sure the decision to have different formats must have been courtesy marketing because I can't imagine technical staff capable of such devious thoughts or incompetence. I must concede that there is a possibility that there may have been two teams which did not talk to each other.

Anyway, as a consequence, using Abiword, StarOffice, OpenOffice and, now, LibreOffice were never a issue. Thanks Microsoft.

Teaching another sem - why?

I know the education system is broken. I know my efforts are pointless. I was reminded of it again by Peter Norvig.

I rationalize that experimenting with teaching Software Engineering in the reverse order may help me learn. There is the slight hope that a couple of students will be interesting enough in the class to make the effort worthwhile.

The traditional classroom forces one to think about the whole class. I can't ignore the group which does not seem to be making the effort. I have to spend more time and effort on that group of students rather than the ones who are interested. It is painful to correct their papers or assignments. This is really an absurd situation.

I know most people feel that it is the teacher who can make a difference and a great teacher inspires. I recall even Richard Feynman saying about how to teach - "I don't know how to do it."  and that the best one can do is to somehow not bore anyone all the time.

To me, the wonderful thing about the future as seen by people like Sebastian Thrun - which is implicit and isn't explicitly highlighted - is that a teacher can focus only on those who are interested!

Recollections - An escape and procrastination

In retrospect, I should have made more time for reading. It was a good year if I managed to read more than half a dozen books during that period. With one major exception.

The year I spent in Helsinki was phenomenal. The two(?) television channels showed Finnish/Swedish programs. There were a couple of English shows - about an hour a week. I bought a newspaper once a week. I am pretty sure I missed nothing.

My colleagues went home on time. There was little point in my hanging around the institute after I had submitted my main job for the day. The computer output would probably be available by the next morning.

I had time. I finished a book a week. By the end of the year, I was finding it hard to find a book among Penguin modern classics, except some which either did not appeal to me or I could not finish. For some reason I could not finish "Berlin Alexanderplatz" or books by Thomas Mann. They are still lying unread on my bookshelf - waiting to be read.

It was probably in Helsinki that I first came across the terrific novels by Knut Hamsun, especially Hunger.

As I procrastinate, avoiding correcting final exam papers, I am also wondering - should I teach another class? Wouldn't it be much better to spend more time reading books and seeing old film videos?

My first momentus decision

A paragraph from Kafka's Investigations of a Dog has stayed with me. The gist of it was - Dogdom came to a fork. They chose one path believing that they could turn back if needed. Then a time came when it was no longer possible to turn back.

I have often thought about why I took certain decisions. One major decision I took was at the age of 10.

My uncle came to stay with us. He was an engineer. He worked in a factory and had to leave for work even before I woke up. My father left for work after I left for school. And I made my decision. I was not going to be an engineer!

When the time came to go to college, it never even occurred to me to consider engineering as a plausible option.