The factors associated with rationality;
Facts; Seen and experienced and verified
Beliefs; Heard, felt, imagined
Perceptions; Seen, experienced, verified, imagined and resultant individual /collective understandings/opinions
It can be debated if the subject of rationality is normative or empirical. The experimentation on a subject with careful observation of various test results together provide an understanding. More or less the practicality of a subjects is what generally understood as rational.
Rational thinking is a good practice and it streamlines thoughts. The calm, unbiased, neutral and detached mindset is more likely to be rational than otherwise.
We don't consciously think rational. Based on the experience and outlook towards various things, we tend to gather the information (facts), add little of beliefs and perceive on the degree of inclination towards any of these. When we consciously initiate our sequence of thought process intending to be rational, become more fact oriented and the practice goes on. It is like cookies in our computers, which by default provides the earlier downloaded information..!!
The argument of a rational thinking, which should be an ultimate fact based philosophy,
is quite paradoxical when we try to put that into an empirical study..!! Because logically we
do not prove a fact as a fact but either prove or disprove a belief!!!
There is an example like this;
If A=B then prove that A+A=2B
Here A=B is a belief. A+A=2B is the experimentation logic. If we could prove that A+A=2B, then we justify this belief. Else, we the basic belief is incorrect. In either way, the logic tend to
test a belief, based on a readily proved belief which is in this case our understanding of A+A=2B..!!
In real life, the rational thinking does not have the advantage of logical sequences of mathematics problems..!! In either way there needs to be many empirical test results of general knowledge and experiences to add sequences to our thought process..!!! But life experiences and general knowledge are subject to exceptions. Therefore a rational thinking may be proved irrational in terms of exceptional situations.
I mention a very thought provoking statement by a German colleagues of mine, at my earlier
employer. We drove on a busy MG road and he was seated next to me, trying hard to pull up the window!! It easilly moved up half and stuck in between..! After a series of struggle, he simply turned the handle in the opposite direction, and.. voila.. glass window went up..!! I did not understand how it worked and I asked him if he tried some logic...he quickly reverted..'logic works accidentally' ....
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
It is an absolute world!!
I am apprehensive what my readers think about this blog..! But this could be truth/not if some one take a challenge to test the result..! Wish you good reading..!
Om purnamadah purnamidam purnat purnam utjate
Purnasya purnamadaya purnameva Avashijyate..!
The universe is complete and absolute and everything is derived from this universe, by deriving out of this universe and becomes part of this universe and returns to the oneness of this universe!!!
The formation of earthly objects, development of life, changes of fundamental elements and infinite space do keep changing by deriving from one another, being part of one another and ultimately going back to form the 'one' that is universe..!!How similar even the man(animal kind too) kind..!! We are formed out of life by changing the rest of mankind and other lives, derive from the other life and among us, we change the rest of the life and ourselves..and finally we form the differently appearing similar 'us' before losing ourselves..!!! It simply means that a law of nature can be applicable to all its objects in an unconditional way.
Here is another philosophy that supports (from Mahabharath);
" What you find here is every where and you find everything here;
What you dont find here, you dont find any where"
What we may derive from the above is that every thing exists in multiples either at same time or at different times. Therefore, there is no 'unique' being without considering the time factor..!!Unique is God; as in "om tat sat". That means the trait of absolute"sath" is God. But the trait of "sath" can be multiple in smaller, not-absolute, multiple forms. Just an example which I derive out of my readings; The truth or philosophy or scientific arguements or thoughts are not unique from one person. When different individuals think of the same thing in the similar wavelenths, the same understandings or results formed simultaneously at both ends! I have read of examples of similar scientific inventions at same times in different parts of the world, similar philosophies preached and documented by different religions/thinkers at the same time in different languages and geographically different locations etc. If we explore we might find more examples. May be thoughts can communicate themselves and they unify at some unknown frequencies, if they are in similar lines..!! Needless be positive or the correct ones. Incorrect too. But the coherence of evolution do exist.
The 'motion' leads to 'change' which leads to awareness of 'time'. If there is no'motion', no 'change' and no 'time'. In this universe, the objects rotate in their orbits and circumvent the bigger objects, thereby creating 'change' of themselves and 'change' of rest. ex; Life on earth.
The evolution of life is due to the movement of earth in its object. Therefore it is always subject to 'change' and 'time'. When the universe is an ocean of moving objects, what is the purpose of this movement? What do they collectively circumvent? Is it eternal stillness where the time is zero? Is it God? Being the part of entire set of moving objects, can we calm that down a bit with sending the messages of slowing down? Stopping the 'change'?
Is that why they pray "om shantih shantih shantih"?
Om purnamadah purnamidam purnat purnam utjate
Purnasya purnamadaya purnameva Avashijyate..!
The universe is complete and absolute and everything is derived from this universe, by deriving out of this universe and becomes part of this universe and returns to the oneness of this universe!!!
The formation of earthly objects, development of life, changes of fundamental elements and infinite space do keep changing by deriving from one another, being part of one another and ultimately going back to form the 'one' that is universe..!!How similar even the man(animal kind too) kind..!! We are formed out of life by changing the rest of mankind and other lives, derive from the other life and among us, we change the rest of the life and ourselves..and finally we form the differently appearing similar 'us' before losing ourselves..!!! It simply means that a law of nature can be applicable to all its objects in an unconditional way.
Here is another philosophy that supports (from Mahabharath);
" What you find here is every where and you find everything here;
What you dont find here, you dont find any where"
What we may derive from the above is that every thing exists in multiples either at same time or at different times. Therefore, there is no 'unique' being without considering the time factor..!!Unique is God; as in "om tat sat". That means the trait of absolute"sath" is God. But the trait of "sath" can be multiple in smaller, not-absolute, multiple forms. Just an example which I derive out of my readings; The truth or philosophy or scientific arguements or thoughts are not unique from one person. When different individuals think of the same thing in the similar wavelenths, the same understandings or results formed simultaneously at both ends! I have read of examples of similar scientific inventions at same times in different parts of the world, similar philosophies preached and documented by different religions/thinkers at the same time in different languages and geographically different locations etc. If we explore we might find more examples. May be thoughts can communicate themselves and they unify at some unknown frequencies, if they are in similar lines..!! Needless be positive or the correct ones. Incorrect too. But the coherence of evolution do exist.
The 'motion' leads to 'change' which leads to awareness of 'time'. If there is no'motion', no 'change' and no 'time'. In this universe, the objects rotate in their orbits and circumvent the bigger objects, thereby creating 'change' of themselves and 'change' of rest. ex; Life on earth.
The evolution of life is due to the movement of earth in its object. Therefore it is always subject to 'change' and 'time'. When the universe is an ocean of moving objects, what is the purpose of this movement? What do they collectively circumvent? Is it eternal stillness where the time is zero? Is it God? Being the part of entire set of moving objects, can we calm that down a bit with sending the messages of slowing down? Stopping the 'change'?
Is that why they pray "om shantih shantih shantih"?
Thursday, March 11, 2010
The nitty-gritty of personal finances
A fund manager's job is difficult and it is subjected criticism.Be it the fund of self or others, fund management relies on facts of today and assumptions of tomorrow! One can be sure of facts today but not so sure of one's assumptions of tomorrow..!! So critical that is..over the years the fund owner keeps doing.. what if ..analysis!! So does the fund manager..!! After all no one wants one's work resulting unfruitful.
As they say not to put all the eggs in one basket, the diversification is the fundamental factor in investment dynamics. That holds good universally at all times. How do we select our baskets, right? i.e .. right number of eggs in right basket..?
In a developing economy with vast demographics, the earning graph of any normal small investor should be 15%-25% nett after taxes, cumulative from all baskets, in the long term. These are most realistic figures, given the time frame of earning life (25 years). The normal 30% on risk (equities), 20% on assured (debentures, govt security bonds),10% short term deposits (bank FDs), 30% on real estate and 10% ventures (business, movable assets, high risk factors) for a normal risk - return balance.
As my observation goes, the commitment to various smaller set of regular investment options is better than building one big corpus. It is a forcible saving option as well. It can avoid the risk of unwanted spending (uncalculated investment) out of excess liquidity.
Fund management needs to be a desciplined activity. The regular review of investments and being self critical about the earlier decisions do help to improve. The personal overdraft facilities like credit cards or instant loans are lucrative but drain out the valuable hard earned money in a short while. The credit cards should not be used for purchases with payout as installment option. That proves costly. The credit card is a best way of payment which requires larger liquid cash at one go which can be settled with the 100% payment instantly by diverting liquid cash from other sources, ideally interest free 24days!!
The loan contributes to the good return and it is good means of exploiting an assured opportunity. The loan enhances the returns when it is availed to invest in revenue earning opportunity, to invest in appreciating asset, long term benefit (monetory or otherwise) where the estimated assurance of returns is more than interest payout within the estimated time. Real estate, Gold, business, education etc. The loan availed for wedding/parties, holidays, automobiles (for luxury purpose), luxuries are do not result in appreciation. They are expenditures that fulfil personal desires without monetory gain. The loan on expenditures should be restricted to 20% of the entire debt and should have a clearence cycle of 2-3 years (short term) or less (as per the life on what ever that is spent). It shouldn't be the case where an overseas vacation expenses are paid by EMI beyond 2 years where the exciting memories of holiday get fresh only with those pictures..!
I find that it is very important for each person to have a finacial dream..!! I.e to dream of having certain sum of money/networth, to dream of acquirigng an immovable asset, to have a good number of valuables and so on...! A repeated thought of such desire passively brings a descipline to attain that dream over a period of time!!
Lastly, try to go in detail with your assets to find if there is any idle asset and utilize that to bring some revenue, either big or small.! If nothing at all...check if you have some idle time with you that could add some numbers into your bank balance or increase a worth into the capitals over years..!! I bet everyone has this one.. for sure..!
As they say not to put all the eggs in one basket, the diversification is the fundamental factor in investment dynamics. That holds good universally at all times. How do we select our baskets, right? i.e .. right number of eggs in right basket..?
In a developing economy with vast demographics, the earning graph of any normal small investor should be 15%-25% nett after taxes, cumulative from all baskets, in the long term. These are most realistic figures, given the time frame of earning life (25 years). The normal 30% on risk (equities), 20% on assured (debentures, govt security bonds),10% short term deposits (bank FDs), 30% on real estate and 10% ventures (business, movable assets, high risk factors) for a normal risk - return balance.
As my observation goes, the commitment to various smaller set of regular investment options is better than building one big corpus. It is a forcible saving option as well. It can avoid the risk of unwanted spending (uncalculated investment) out of excess liquidity.
Fund management needs to be a desciplined activity. The regular review of investments and being self critical about the earlier decisions do help to improve. The personal overdraft facilities like credit cards or instant loans are lucrative but drain out the valuable hard earned money in a short while. The credit cards should not be used for purchases with payout as installment option. That proves costly. The credit card is a best way of payment which requires larger liquid cash at one go which can be settled with the 100% payment instantly by diverting liquid cash from other sources, ideally interest free 24days!!
The loan contributes to the good return and it is good means of exploiting an assured opportunity. The loan enhances the returns when it is availed to invest in revenue earning opportunity, to invest in appreciating asset, long term benefit (monetory or otherwise) where the estimated assurance of returns is more than interest payout within the estimated time. Real estate, Gold, business, education etc. The loan availed for wedding/parties, holidays, automobiles (for luxury purpose), luxuries are do not result in appreciation. They are expenditures that fulfil personal desires without monetory gain. The loan on expenditures should be restricted to 20% of the entire debt and should have a clearence cycle of 2-3 years (short term) or less (as per the life on what ever that is spent). It shouldn't be the case where an overseas vacation expenses are paid by EMI beyond 2 years where the exciting memories of holiday get fresh only with those pictures..!
I find that it is very important for each person to have a finacial dream..!! I.e to dream of having certain sum of money/networth, to dream of acquirigng an immovable asset, to have a good number of valuables and so on...! A repeated thought of such desire passively brings a descipline to attain that dream over a period of time!!
Lastly, try to go in detail with your assets to find if there is any idle asset and utilize that to bring some revenue, either big or small.! If nothing at all...check if you have some idle time with you that could add some numbers into your bank balance or increase a worth into the capitals over years..!! I bet everyone has this one.. for sure..!
Sunday, February 28, 2010
The cost of independence
I suppress my real self from my blog, just for being non-controversial, not so judgemental and not being ignorantly opinionated. There is a latent fear or discomfort for being disliked in person instead for the words, hated personally in place of expressions or just to keep some part of persona an enigma! Often, the disagreement with opinion ends up with disagreement for the person's self in general!
The cost of independence to India are many lives of those extremist freedom fighters and the awareness and spirits of moderate freedom movement participants (I can't call them fighters as they never did it for independence!).
But their efforts gave an independent state with huge amount of money and military to a set of people (You know..who). This is a biggest loss on negotiation however honest the efforts and struggle for freedom! The heart rendering loss of lives of a set of people ended up in providing an independent state to another who never shared the same frequency in terms of values, spirits and unity.
The slogans of unity in diversity are brain wash to broad minded ones, the so called 'secular' statements may never convince an insecure, but win elections, at the end of the day be realistic and don't die for a country with diversity! You and your life is lost in the history of 1 day's airtime of 24/7 news channels and some pre-scripted condolence message by a local/national politician, which doesn't replenish the happiness of your family not set a martyr's due to be settled by coming generations! It just goes a worthless life!
Being patriotic should also mean being realistic in terms of our thoughts and actions. We need to keep our values alive, up keep the right against wrong, the merit against evil and solidarity against hypocrisy and let the generations move on! After all revolutions repeat, history repeats.. some times bringing good in place of evil..
The cost of independence to India are many lives of those extremist freedom fighters and the awareness and spirits of moderate freedom movement participants (I can't call them fighters as they never did it for independence!).
But their efforts gave an independent state with huge amount of money and military to a set of people (You know..who). This is a biggest loss on negotiation however honest the efforts and struggle for freedom! The heart rendering loss of lives of a set of people ended up in providing an independent state to another who never shared the same frequency in terms of values, spirits and unity.
The slogans of unity in diversity are brain wash to broad minded ones, the so called 'secular' statements may never convince an insecure, but win elections, at the end of the day be realistic and don't die for a country with diversity! You and your life is lost in the history of 1 day's airtime of 24/7 news channels and some pre-scripted condolence message by a local/national politician, which doesn't replenish the happiness of your family not set a martyr's due to be settled by coming generations! It just goes a worthless life!
Being patriotic should also mean being realistic in terms of our thoughts and actions. We need to keep our values alive, up keep the right against wrong, the merit against evil and solidarity against hypocrisy and let the generations move on! After all revolutions repeat, history repeats.. some times bringing good in place of evil..
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The 'fundamentals' of decision making
I am part of the team of maintenance and support of a the data warehouse of a wholesale -MNC.
My role as a PM-O from IT back office companies earlier had little scope with data warehousing as the FTE and HC equations with 'billable' and 'non-billable' calculations however ended up with revenue based on them! The normative contract documents like Project Brief Documents, Project Proposal Agreements and SLAs had their terms dictating the interim revenue in flows of the company. The standard project tracking tools and WBS analysis, time tracking, resource assignment and utilization rate play the crucial part in efficient planning of service - revenue trade off!!
A dashboard for top-management depends upon various sources of data/tools and external industry statistics or benchmarks provided by the consulting companies. In IT companies, the MIS customers are normally top management and rarely the middle level managers.
It works differently in the retail industry. The Business Intelligence customers range from executives in merchandising departments to operators in stores, customer development field executives and up to the top decision makers!!! The data analyst's role is limited to retrieving the data that is asked for, in the form of either ad-hoc or periodical, in the range of estimation of data sample size, method of retrieving data, application used for processing (basically excel/access), presentation (excel, ppt dashboard, pdf) and accuracy verification & traffic light indications. This is normally top-down approach where the managers' request for data is provided for. The value addition for data analyst's role lies in terms of providing decision KPIs on observation of vast, unprocessed data and mining the data and discovering a pattern or a trend.!!
The processed data is called 'information'. The ouput provided by data analyst becomes valuable information for decision making. The data analysis in retail industry is more dynamic, with often unpredicted patterns, seasonal steady behaviours, consumer behaviours and it is sensitive to external environments and surprises. This is a highly skilled job that requires good knowledge of business processes and decision impacts.!! Some of the steady patterns are susceptible to the methodologies of advanced statistical models. However, restricting the analysis to either micro data set or macro data set; single KPIs or KPIs from single source of data could have risk of resulting into 'blind folded' business strategies/decisions.
The scope for data mining is provided by large Data Warehouses, known for robustness and scalability!! They are normally combination of DWH with a Business Intelligence platform for access by data analysts. The data analysis is predicted as the next big outsourcing opportunity to be transferred to India and other developing countries ( Despite the risk of data security!). The ERP major SAP has already indicated their focus on Business Intelligence solutions as next big thing. After all our tomorrows are the results of what we have done today based on the directions derived by what happened yesterday!!! Makes sense..eh?
My role as a PM-O from IT back office companies earlier had little scope with data warehousing as the FTE and HC equations with 'billable' and 'non-billable' calculations however ended up with revenue based on them! The normative contract documents like Project Brief Documents, Project Proposal Agreements and SLAs had their terms dictating the interim revenue in flows of the company. The standard project tracking tools and WBS analysis, time tracking, resource assignment and utilization rate play the crucial part in efficient planning of service - revenue trade off!!
A dashboard for top-management depends upon various sources of data/tools and external industry statistics or benchmarks provided by the consulting companies. In IT companies, the MIS customers are normally top management and rarely the middle level managers.
It works differently in the retail industry. The Business Intelligence customers range from executives in merchandising departments to operators in stores, customer development field executives and up to the top decision makers!!! The data analyst's role is limited to retrieving the data that is asked for, in the form of either ad-hoc or periodical, in the range of estimation of data sample size, method of retrieving data, application used for processing (basically excel/access), presentation (excel, ppt dashboard, pdf) and accuracy verification & traffic light indications. This is normally top-down approach where the managers' request for data is provided for. The value addition for data analyst's role lies in terms of providing decision KPIs on observation of vast, unprocessed data and mining the data and discovering a pattern or a trend.!!
The processed data is called 'information'. The ouput provided by data analyst becomes valuable information for decision making. The data analysis in retail industry is more dynamic, with often unpredicted patterns, seasonal steady behaviours, consumer behaviours and it is sensitive to external environments and surprises. This is a highly skilled job that requires good knowledge of business processes and decision impacts.!! Some of the steady patterns are susceptible to the methodologies of advanced statistical models. However, restricting the analysis to either micro data set or macro data set; single KPIs or KPIs from single source of data could have risk of resulting into 'blind folded' business strategies/decisions.
The scope for data mining is provided by large Data Warehouses, known for robustness and scalability!! They are normally combination of DWH with a Business Intelligence platform for access by data analysts. The data analysis is predicted as the next big outsourcing opportunity to be transferred to India and other developing countries ( Despite the risk of data security!). The ERP major SAP has already indicated their focus on Business Intelligence solutions as next big thing. After all our tomorrows are the results of what we have done today based on the directions derived by what happened yesterday!!! Makes sense..eh?
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Powers of visual thinking
The title goes with little meaning for me than just as 'day dreaming'..!! So don't go by the heading..!!
Thinking with visualization is more powerful and effective due to the sense of vision in it. It is similar to foreseeing ours' and opponents' various possible moves in the game of Chess! We are experiencing the game already once in the mind before actually playing it. Good isn't it?
In my opinion, any activity that involves unknown change should be preceded by simulation of that with a visual thinking. It is a laboratory for idea generation. I shall soon come up with examples..
Thinking with visualization is more powerful and effective due to the sense of vision in it. It is similar to foreseeing ours' and opponents' various possible moves in the game of Chess! We are experiencing the game already once in the mind before actually playing it. Good isn't it?
In my opinion, any activity that involves unknown change should be preceded by simulation of that with a visual thinking. It is a laboratory for idea generation. I shall soon come up with examples..
An idea can change your life (in Bangalore!!)
What could be one big changed experience, that a Bangalorean wish for?
More gardens ? Cauvery water to every house? Pollution and dust free air?
More than these, it is traffic.
The roads in Bangalore are mostly 80Feet and some are 100 feet. The flat landscape makes the drive a good experience in Bangalore if the roads are empty. Most of the busy roads have congested because of the vehicles parked on the sides of the road and bus commuters waiting for the BMTC on the road and each road having one such bus stop for every half a kilometer.
Within the city we have highest number of intersections and traffic signals. Sometimes, it is one intersection or a cross road for every 100 meters within the city..!!! Most of the times a drivers' (riders') challenge is to wait at every such signals for 3 minutes for the green signals and it takes a limping pain and a saint's perseverance to cross a short distance of 3 kilometers.
An idea of synchronising the traffic signals of entire city could result in a changed experience which I mentioned above, for every Bangalorean..!!
More gardens ? Cauvery water to every house? Pollution and dust free air?
More than these, it is traffic.
The roads in Bangalore are mostly 80Feet and some are 100 feet. The flat landscape makes the drive a good experience in Bangalore if the roads are empty. Most of the busy roads have congested because of the vehicles parked on the sides of the road and bus commuters waiting for the BMTC on the road and each road having one such bus stop for every half a kilometer.
Within the city we have highest number of intersections and traffic signals. Sometimes, it is one intersection or a cross road for every 100 meters within the city..!!! Most of the times a drivers' (riders') challenge is to wait at every such signals for 3 minutes for the green signals and it takes a limping pain and a saint's perseverance to cross a short distance of 3 kilometers.
An idea of synchronising the traffic signals of entire city could result in a changed experience which I mentioned above, for every Bangalorean..!!
- Identification of every traffic signals
- number of intersections on the busy roads
- number of vehicles per minute on the road,
- direction mapping to joints to major roads, sector basis
- Synchronisation of traffic signals to the assigned directions based on the above aspects!! (All green lights at all signals to one direction in the entire stretch of the road at the same time and vice versa based on the directions and major connections)
This might require the pedestrians to be little cautious than now, but will ease the travel time, travel experience for drivers and riders substantially. We can't teach ourselves a road discipline, but can we learn that from digitally controlled, changed traffic lights ???.. A food for thought for our elected representatives..& IT companies and all of us??
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