Edible Cookies vs Browser Cookies

Unlike an edible cookie those are most likely consumed by you or occasionally shared to those you know, the browser cookie is shared among the major internet giants without your consent. Actually those are all written in the Terms and Conditions which most of us click without completely reading. 

Go offline maybe ?



 

Possible cause of Global warming

Possibility 1

The following thought had occurred to me in early 2018. 

The orbit of earth's revolution shrinks and expands in different epochs. The present epoch is the shrinking phase. The expansion phase earlier led to ice age or the Pleistocene epoch. It may happen that earth may spirally collapse to the center of revolution i.e. the sun; basically sucked up by solar gravitational field. 

The only force that matters is 'gravity'.
  
Naturally it seemed a crackpot theory; even I had thought so till I read about "Milankovitch cycles". 

Still do not agree with greenhouse gas emission led warming theory. There are enough geo-political interests behind it. 

Rebuttal of this theory by NASA here.

 

Possibility 2

The sun may be getting warmer.

(To be continued)

PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD

Provided you have both....

Man vs Machine ?

 

The Kasparov Effect: Psychological Denial Let’s look at the facts without the emotional baggage. In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov. Later, a machine won Jeopardy!. When Kasparov lost, he complained that he didn't get to study Deep Blue's moves, while the machine had analyzed all of his. This is classic "pain-avoiding psychological denial." He refused to accept reality. The machine had the data; the man had the ego. In a contest between a fatigue-free algorithm and a human prone to bias, bet on the algorithm for the grunt work.

Invert the Question People are running around hyperventilating, asking, "Will computers outperform us?" or "Will I lose my job?"

Invert the question. Instead of asking how computers will replace us, ask: "How can I use this machine to be less stupid?"

There is no doubt that computational tasks are better left to the silicon. There is hardly a desk job left that doesn't rely on a computer. We like to tell ourselves a comforting fairy tale that "creative" or "strategic" work is safe. That’s nonsense. Creativity is just a complex pattern recognition process. If you give a machine enough prior data and a feedback loop, it can generate art or write news. It doesn’t get tired. It doesn’t get depressed. It just executes.

Look at machine generated art. 

https://deepdreamgenerator.com/

Or machine generated human faces. These are not real people!

https://www.thispersondoesnotexist.com/

Man Plus Machine Here is the mental model you need to understand the future. Look at the free-style tournament Kasparov organized later. You had three groups:

1. Inferior players with superior computers.

2. Grandmasters with inferior computers.

3. Moderate players with moderate computers.

Who won? The third group.

This is a multiplier effect—when two or more forces combine to produce a result greater than the sum of the parts. The grandmaster failed because he had too much ego to listen to the machine. The inferior player failed because he didn't know what to ask the machine. The winner was the moderate player who had the process right: he provided the judgment, and the computer provided the calculation.

The Conclusion Stop panicking about the machines taking over. Envy and fear are the stupidest of the deadly sins. The computer is a lever. If you are wise, you use the lever to move the world. If you are a fool, you let the lever crush you.

Steve Jobs had it right: the computer is a "bicycle for the mind." It makes you faster, but you still have to pedal.

Humanity will reinvent itself because it has to. As professionals, our job is simple: Use the tool to compound your own rationality. Don't just get used to it—master it.

Smoking & Drinking is injurious to health - Enjoy Responsibly !!

                                          

                                                                      লীলাময়

                                                     ভোগের মহল্লা নাকি দাদার কীর্তি

                                                    পড়া লেখা আগে, পরে ফূর্ত্তি !

Tackling volatility in capital markets.

With one simple change in the legislation all democratic governments can tackle volatility in financial markets by just one simple step.

Shutdown trading in open markets during Mon - Fri and keep it open only during the weekends i.e. Saturday and Sunday, maybe the public holidays also.

The day traders, speculators and money managers can spend all their hard earned money in the weekdays. More days to spend, you see :-))

ESOPs - a case of wrong incentives.

The front page of leading newspapers reported the sudden resignation of a top business executive. The reason behind his resignation was not clear and only occupied a couple of lines. More emphasis was on this person's high compensation, from present and past employers. I was stumped !
Curios to find why this person was paid so much, I searched specifically for achievements, skills, talent and omitted words and phrases related to compensation, salary, bonus. I could not find anything exceptional to justify that kind of compensation.

The law of distribution is one of the ancient. After a successful hunt, people would gather around the dead animal and only one person, usually the oldest, would be given the task to distribute. The person responsible for distribution could not set aside anything beforehand and would claim only what was left-over. Such laws are the foundations of human society.

The hefty compensation paid to a handful people in any corporate is mostly in the form of stock options (ESOP) or common stocks those can be redeemed after a certain period. Generally, ESOP is as follows - e.g. the executive gets the right to buy, say 100k shares at a future date at a pre-determined price. Suppose that price is 100; if the price goes up to 120 on that date, the person can still buy at 100 and immediately sell it in open market at 120 netting a profit. Or they can wait for the price to rise further.

This is a good arrangement as long as people are honest. If otherwise, it becomes a dangerous one.

These handful people are the ones who are directly responsible for the financial management of the company. One can increase revenue via aggressive sales though it may actually not generate enough profit for sustenance, or another company can be acquired and merged to increase the revenue which may turn out to be a bad acquisition, or they can evade tax liability, or simply lie. There are several ways to create a sense of optimism whereas the underlying reality may be different. Also, the promoter group wants to limit the financial information only to a selected few for vested interest. Most promoters and their close ally are the ones to flee the scene at the first hint of trouble. And they run away being richer at the cost of the hard earned public money.

ESOPs should be distributed entirely to employees except for those handful ones.

Employees who are more closely involved in building the products & services of the company and directly serving the customer and far away from the financial management of the company. This will improve their loyalty to the company and hence they will work for the long term. It will also improve the quality of work as their work directly affects the future compensation. I also think it will improve the financial discipline of the company and curb the indifferent attitudes employees have towards company facility like going for business class in a one hour flight or binge drinking on 5-star accommodation or using the photo-copier for personal use :-)

This simple change of incentives can go a long way in improving corporate efficiency and lead to more ethically managed business. Insider trading will be a lost phrase because no one will hold those obscene number of options and be in a vantage to manipulate the stock price. People can engage in more meaningful work than fixing the broken system left by dishonest ones.