Galápagos

The economics and financial crisis reminds me of Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_(novel)

And my own post back in Feb 08 is here.

One more thing about the movies...

Last post for the day about movies.

So I was thinking the movie sequels are very similar to fiction (especially sci-fi) book sequels. They don't stand up to the first one. But there are few exceptions:

1. Bourne Ultimatum
2. Return of the King
3. Batman begins

There is one more which I can't remember now.

Recently watched movies

Here is some more of the recently watched movies. No reviews. Instead I am going to star them (1 to 5, with 5=best, and I am going to buy the DVD)

Into the wild (dvd) *** - Stays true to the book and the cinematography is awesome. One of the better made film from a book. I enjoyed the book immensely. I would suggest reading the book first and watch the movie.

No country for old man (in theatre as well on dvd) ****. Well it got Oscar. One of tough movies to watch and keeps at the edge. I was still expecting something to happen after the credits are rolled in.

28 weeks later (dvd) ***. Another apocalpse/Zombie movie but set in England. Good.

Rescue dawn (dvd) *** Real story about a pilot who was captured during Vietnam war and how he escapes.

Now I pronounce you Chuck and Larry (dvd) **. It's okay...but Jessica Biel is good.

10000 bc (in theatre)**...it's not exactly 10000 years ago story.

2001 Space Odyssey (dvd) *****. One of my favorite movies

Blade Runner (dvd) **** another one of my favorite.

Eyes Wide Shut (dvd)*** good.

Dr. Strangelove (dvd)*****. One of my favorite movies

For a few dollars more (dvd)****. very good western. Clint Eastwood.

Recently Watched

I have seen so many movies since I last blogged (when was it?...long long ago). Here is the recent two...both deals with destruction and evaculation of NY city.

1. I Am Legend: Will Smith. Very good. And a box office hit.

2. Cloverfield: The story of monster who wreaks havoc in NY City told from a cam-wielding friends. Nicely done. There will be a sequel.

Both would have been much better in theater.

Also, one more:

3. The Mist: Based on Stephen Kings Novel. I see of lot of parallel with this and Cloverfield. The end is little horrifying and surprising. It wasn't as big of hit as the other two...but definitely enjoyable.

Recently read

1. Jailbird - By Kurt Vonnegut
Another well written by KV. This one is about Walter F Startbuck who is sent to prison for watergate and the novel is mostly about the labor movement.
2. Hominids - By Robert J. Sawyer
First book of "The Neanderthal Parallax". It's very easy to read and very interesting as well. A Neanderthal (Ponter Boddit) from our parallel universe visits us in an accident. Hugo winner.
3. Humans - By Robert J. Sawyer
Second book of "The Neanderthal Parallax". Continues from were it left off in Hominids. But it's less of a sci-fi and more of drama. And romance between a neanderthal man and human woman (it's started on the first book)
4. The art of war - By Sun Tzu
Another classic book about war and it's been thought on business schools as well for a long time.. This is my first book on the Dailylit via RSS feed. Dailylit provides a daily email/RSS of a book of our choice for free (most classics are free) or for some $.
5. Spin - By Robert Charles Wilson
Another Hugo winner. This is one of the very interesting sci-fi book I've read. In some places author is threading between sci-fi and fantasy but overall it's very enjoyable.
Twins Jason and Diane Lawton and their friend Tyler Dupree (narrator of the story) are witnessing the "spin" event and how their lives change. The spin is a membrane which encapsulates the earth to mask the time (time dilation) and the space. what that means is that the outside the spin the time is moving much faster (or normal). 1 Sec on earth is about 3.17 years out the spin. That means you can do a lot of cool stuff. Highly recommended.

Food crisis?

Costco and SAM's club are limiting the rice per household.

Recently I've read Hominids and Humans by Robert J Sawer and now I am half-way through Spin by Robert Charles Wilson.

Then I started thinking that which one will help us in the near future: parallel universe with an identical earth (but pristine) or a terra formed Mars....from the purely economical perspective it's easier to do business with the parallel universe...we just need to open the "portal" and you walk right into the universe. Terra farming the Mars is economically and technologically (unless of course there is a time dilation) difficult. But it's lot of fun to think about.

Monty Hall Problem

Lately there is a lot of focus on the Monty Hall Problem. According to Wikipedia.org:

The Monty Hall problem is a puzzle involving probability loosely based on the American game show Let's Make a Deal. The name comes from the show's host, Monty Hall. The problem is also called the Monty Hall paradox; it is a veridical paradox in the sense that the solution is counterintuitive.

A widely known statement of the problem appeared in a letter to Marilyn vos Savant's Ask Marilyn column in Parade (vos Savant 1990):

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

Here is a great article on NYtimes by John Tierney. The link also has pointers to the online game
. And do check out the "further reading" section.

Also, Steven Levitt on Freakanamics.
And Scott Adams on Dilbert Blog.

Google Earth

Awesome 3-d map of San Francisco. via kottke.org

Aptera's 3-wheeler

This looks fun...here is the full story on sfgate.com

Freaky

I am reading the "Humans" by Robert J. Sawyer which is the second book of the Neanderthal Parallax. And this wax is a top Photo on the Yahoo photo's...I guess we're going to have a visitor very soon from our parallel world.

Outsourcing

There is an excellent and very interesting look into the outsourcing:

If backward time travel is also somehow possible, maybe firms in the future will choose to outsource some of their operations to the past, locating their manufacturing and other services in lower-wage time periods. This opens the possibility of transtemporal gains from trade... assuming, of course, that governments don’t implement effective trade barriers.

That's from blog Anglophilia via Marginal Revolution

So our ancestors (and may be us too) are going to fight for the work to be outsourced from our the future. We will be seeing billboards on the highways about which era is the best and cost effective for the outsourcing.

Also if we can transport goods from the past...if the earth is warmer can we export ice and rebuild the Arctic?

It would be lots of fun.

Recently read:

Hocus Pocus by Vonnegut.

This one deals with Vietnam war. The main character is Vietnam war veteran and now a professor at college.

Another awesome work.

According to Amazon reviewer: "My hands-down favorite. Vonnegut is in rare form here. Beware: Vonnegut is addictive, like heroin or cocaine..."

Well said.

Quotes from the book:

He told me to cheer up, that 1,000,000,000 Chinese were about to throw off the yoke of Communism. After they did that he said, they would all want automobiles and tires and gasoline and so forth.
....

Can you imagine what 1,000,000,000 Chinese in automobiles would do to each other and what's left of the atmosphere?
[Page 174, Hardcover edition]

And this:

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to to maintenance.

And the worst flaw is that we're just plain dumb. Admit it!
[Page 225, hardcover ed]

Recently read:

God Bless you, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut

Another classic work by Vonnegut.

It's all relative

Worst fiscal year for Sensex?

The Sensex closed at 14,809.49 points at the end of today's trading, which saw an intra-day loss of 1,022 points. This represents a gain of 13.3 per cent over its level at the end of last fiscal ended March, 2007.

And oil tumbles?

Oil fell by $7 a barrel after soaring to a new record of $111.80 on the Nymex exchange in New York. Oil products, such as heating oil and petrol, also lost ground, following the crude price – which lost 6 per cent of its value in only a few hours of trading - lower.

In both cases the prices/points went way up (really way up) in last few years. A tumble from $111.80 to $104 is not really a tumble. Less than $50 is tumble...or even $75.

Things point to another bad day for stocks

International markets opened on Monday with more than 4% points.

And when the US markets open tomorrow it has to worry about: Bear Sterns deal, Oil price at $111+, falling $ value and the panic.

No end in sight…

…for the credit crisis. In the latest of the bad news, JP Morgan to by Bear Sterns for $2 a share which totals to just $236 mil. Friday it closed at $30 which already lost 48% for the day. And it’s 52 week high is $159. That’s a loss of $157 in less than 12 months.

Crane Collapse and the Southwest Airlines

Crane collapse and Southwest Airlines are in the news.

So what’s common between the two?

Both will prompt for additional security measures from government. Adding complexity to the future developments. The companies could have avoided this disaster but when you start penny pinch that’s exactly what happens.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Even after 40 years this movie is still the best sci-fi ever made and can easily compete with any new movies.

This is an interesting:

Clarke noted that, contrary to popular rumor, it was a complete coincidence that each of the letters of HAL’s name immediately preceded those of IBM.

War and Oil

There is a nice article on Washington Post:

In the absence of Iraqi supplies, prices have soared three-and-a-half-fold since the U.S. invasion on March 20, 2003. (Last week, they shattered all previous records, even after adjusting for inflation.) The profits of the five biggest Western oil companies have jumped from $40 billion to $121 billion over the same period. While the United States has rid itself of Saddam Hussein and whatever threat he might have posed, oil revenues have filled the treasuries of petro-autocrats in Iran, Venezuela and Russia, emboldening those regimes and complicating U.S. diplomacy in new ways.

American consumers are paying for this turmoil at the pump. If the overthrow of Hussein was supposed to be a silver bullet for the American consumer, it turned out to be one that ricocheted and tore a hole through his wallet.

…….

In a sense, though, all Americans are part of that conspiracy. We have built a society that is profligate with its energy and relies on petroleum that happens to be pooled under some unstable or unfriendly regimes. We have frittered away energy resources with little regard for the strategic consequences. And now it's hard and expensive to change our ways.

Recently read:

Slaughterhouse-five or The Children’s Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut.

Another classic. Highly recommended.

The time-traveling protagonist is a WWII nobody, witness the horrible destruction on Dresden. Aliens and of course Kilgore Trout is there, who is writing away his sci-fis which no one seems to read.

Vonnegut calls the Bombing of the Dresden is the worst and had the casualties more than Hiroshima or Nagasaki. He also compares the fire bombing of Tokyo

From Wikipedia:

Kurt Vonnegut was a combat infantryman in the US 106th Infantry Division. He was captured during the Battle of the Bulge and sent to an underground POW camp in Dresden, where he witnessed the bombing and cleanup efforts first-hand. His novel Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) is based on his experiences.