Following is a reply from my brother Aman Gupta (a student in New Delhi), to an email one of their professors sent out referencing a comment from the “The Economist”. Makes for pretty interesting reading…I agree with my brother’s opinion to most extent. There are certain nuances which I will cover in another post.
Posted in Society, education, finance | Tagged finance | 2 Comments »
I really used to like this song…especially its very imaginative video. Someone sang a cover of the song, where the lyrics are literally loyal to the video. Cool stuff.
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One thing I have sort of contemplated about after recently joining finance and learning about Options (a derivative financial instrument) is how lot of our decisions in life, esp. the more difficult and “riskier” ones, can be modeled by options calls and puts, or a combination of both.
Why is this important ? Understanding this can actually lead to a very different kind of decision making process in our lives, and a way that can help us prevent those self-defeating attitudes that ruin lot of great stuff people want to do in life but don’t muster the courage or are too afraid of getting into.
Posted in Psychology | 2 Comments »
Miswanting
“We are poor at predicting what will make us happy in the future.”
The idea of making mistakes about what we might want in the future has been termed ‘miswanting’ by Gilbert and Wilson (2000). They point to a range of studies finding we are poor at predicting what will make us happy in the future.
The article talks about how people suck at predicting what will make them happy and thus career planning also is not really worth it. A sandwich study is quoted as evidence. Now generalization is always fun and entertaining but I am not sure if I fully agree. This article serves well to satisfy people for whom things didn’t go the best way because they can just say “it couldn’t be planned any way”. Just because we are not perfect at planning does not mean we don’t look forward to a specific kind of future. Not planning is equivalent to lack of desire…something not possible in us humans. Now I really doubt the guys who have left a significant mark in their life and that of others got there without much thinking. You cannot become climb the Mt. Everest or get to be an astronaut just sitting and waiting for the right epiphany.However some do confuse wishing with planning. Wishing is just expressing what we want while planning is getting down on the bench and preparing. I hope the article isn’t confusing career planning with the former, because without careful career planning and preparation, worthwhile careers are difficult to come by.
Posted in Psychology | 1 Comment »
I stepped out into
the torrents: movies, music . . .
What happened to rain?
- anonymous
Witty. Found in my university department newsletter.
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Antoine de Saint Exupery was some guy. I still haven’t read his very famous book “The Little Prince” (its claimed to be the 3rd most selling book in the world, after The Bible and Gone With the Wind) , but it’s on my list now after being highly recommended by my cousin Akash.
He was an avaitor by vocation. They crash landed in the Sahara once, and where almost so dehydrated on their 3rd day they didn’t even sweat . Luckily they were rescued by a local fellow with a camel. The book Little Prince alludes to this experience as it apparently takes place in the desert.
The book was written in 1942 in his Long Island mansion. Sadly, just two years after he was reported missing on a mission to gather movement patterns of German troops.
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I used to hear lot of 80s music back in the day…but how did I miss out on this one..
Roam..(from B-52, the love shack people).
enjoy your day..
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If you are a fan of YouTube (what’s wrong with you !). I must say this is a great find! It allows you to watch videos in your firefox sidebar while you do other stuff, and you can just drag and drop videos from YouTube, other video sites, and even your hard drive. its your custom music video channel. It also allows you to create playlists, save them, with the usual play controls.
Useful!
Its called YouPlayer
Posted in Productivity | Leave a Comment »
An interesting quote I heard from my uncle at a birthday party today about solitude:
If you can’t enjoy your own company, atleast don’t impose it on others.
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