Freakonomics @ NIT Trichy

Freakonomics
Don't let the title freak you out. I am sure lot of folks who have this subject have panned it as too mathematical and boring. Here is an award winning economist (Steven Levitt) who says the same, but shows us how economics can be made fun especially when applied on our day to day lives. The way he adds two plus two for issues brings out this whole new angle to life and everything we live for. He proves that the reason for the drop in crime rates in USA were because of a woman who fought for legalized abortion 20 years earlier, or how the Klu Klux Klan was brought down by a cartoon character, or what is safer- a gun in the house or the swimming pool. Numerous such weird yet trivial issues are explained in layman's terms and the way he uses data to his advantage is worth noting. Even if you aren't a big fan of data interpretation, this book makes for light reading and throws in a new perspective to looking at things. The book's only weak point is its small, leaving you thirsty for more.

More reviews here, here and here . The bottomline is they all say its a nice read :)

Freakonomics @ NITT

The best part about Freakonomics is that it is relevant to common man- that's you and me. So I decided to undertake an experiment into using Freakonomics tools to answer random questions regarding NITT.

There are two types of humans - those who eat to live and those who live to eat. Thanks to our messes, most of us have ended up in the former category. A major respite to this has been our gate culture thanks to the handful of dhabas.

As girls grow smarter (solely measured in terms of AIEEE numbers), these dhabas are dipping into red. The average intake of "girls" has increased in the past couple of years. These days, the fairer sex has grown bolder as they eat out at Dhaba on a regular basis, once thought to be solely a masculine domain. No doubt, this wind of change has dragged along a larger population of the male species and improved sales margins for our roadside annas (which is why the new price hike has been halted for the moment). But here lies the catch.

Dhaba clientele can be broken up into the usual male crowd that comes in no matter what and keeps the dhaba running. The profit percentages come from the new type of clientele i.e influenced by girls. Groups of girls are a commonplace at gate these days, so are couples and guys who have to stick along till 9 PM thanks to their commitments with girls in various aspects and hence are forced to eat at gate. As the skewed ratio reduces and coupling percentages (Fig. 1) go higher, there are more incidents that are waking up the moral guardians of this campus and in their hand; they have the most potent weapon of them all :- roll call. Hence if the roll call is shifted to eight or earlier, girls are totally ruled out at the gate, so are the couples. With roll call being at eight, all extra curricular activities would have a unanimous break at eight PM, allowing number of guys to make it to the mess at an appropriate time and not be left over with leftovers.

Figure 1

What's NITT without its cows? Did you know increase in number of cancelled classes is helping accelerate global warming? 10:10 break, midnight coffee breaks, late breakfasts - are various reasons why people can be found hounding BRU, Nescafe and similar outlets. But along with these come the unscheduled cancelled classes that leave students in a hitch of how to pass time till the next class. In 7 out of 10 situations, people found BRU to be the closest and cheapest place to be (data collected before BRU had contractual problems). We all thank the cows for being lovely garbage collectors as they eat every bit of paper, Styrofoam cups and what not in hope of grabbing something edible. But most of this is junk and when junk goes, it has to come out. With more junk getting in, more number of times junk has to get out forming minefields for humans but innocuously hiding a far greater danger. Due to anaerobic organisms such as Escherichia coli and methanogenic archaea, an average cow emits 600 litres of Methane per day! Thanks to the junk we give them, our NITT cows donate a few more litres each. As a greenhouse gas, the amount of heat methane can retain is 72 times that of same mass of Carbon Dioxide. Hence assuming 7 departments in CLC with 3 batches and each one has just one class cancelled in a week (on a lower side), and just 5 people grab something, and assuming each piece of junk to be of just 25g, you are generating 11 kilos of junk gobbled up by the cows each month. No doubt a small percentage when one considers the amount of junk we create due to other mentioned reasons but a staggering amount indeed.

If the above concepts seemed too abstract, let's take a simpler one where the facts just stare out at us. A trend you all must have noticed - the consistency of power cuts during cycle tests and semesters. The peak load estimated for the college is accounting for all fans and lights switched on plus 20 odd computers per hostel. Thanks to the proliferation of gadgets like coolers and refrigerators, we already are taxing these limits. Based on our sample data, 99% of the junta stayed back in hostels during exam time since extra curricular activities become zilch and the Chennai junta known to run home every weekend decides otherwise. Hence the entire hostel turned into a Las Vegas is just the tip. Leave alone the students who leave their computers on 24x7 throughout the year, based on studies conducted in Garnet hostel and normalizing this data for other hostels, an interesting pattern was noticed. There was a 100% increase in the activity of the non regular user who downloaded more and stayed live longer pushing our computer count by another 35 odd people (in final year hostels). The situation worsens with extremities of weather with coolers coming into play in summer and a larger number of "vetti" people who finally have the time to take a bath - a hot one.

Thats Freakonomics @ NITT for you and hats off to Mr. Steven Levitt for his creativity and out of the box thinking.

This piece will be published shortly as my guest contribution to Entrepeneurship Cell of NIT Trichy's magazine called Paisa Inc.

The Tenth Emotion

Continuing with my series of published articles, this was published in JAM Mag - India's youth magazine in their February 2008 edition.

"UNMAAD is about happiness - more passionate than anger, more life changing than serenity, more potent than courage, more wonder than magic. UNMAAD is the tenth emotion" - www.unmaad.com

My fest hopping craze this semester sent me to Bangalore during the first week of February to catch up on the tenth emotion as defined by IIM Bangalore- UNMAAD. Seven lakh prize money and a budget overheard to be around one crore, we had a lot of expectations from this fest.

A very gothic look unraveled this watering hole for managerial wonders of India as we landed at the campus in the wee hours of 1st February. An exam hall had been turned into a refugee camp for the early birds while the rest ended up in shamianas on the grass lawns, though the fairer sex given the obvious choice of hostels. With the accommodation matter completed, it was time to feel the vibe of the fest. The mess would serve as the first stop and for a change; we had no complaints with that. IIM or not, we soon realized we were still in India as the dramatics event began a couple of hours late due to technical snags.

NIT Trichy started off on a serious note with couple of monologues dealing with riots but it was SVCE Chennai that caught people's attention with their loose script that paid tribute to Scar face as the cast uttered the four letter expletive over forty times in the play along with other unprintable material. But it was a spectacular performance by Lady Shriram College from Delhi doing "Tara" a Mahesh Dattani play that not only won the coveted prize but also won a number of admirers from the audience including the role of the bugging female whose job was to get on everyone's nerves in a cute way.

By the end of the dramatics event, it was mid day and one would expect UNMAAD to be bustling with life but it wasn't so. Day One pretty much seemed like it was day zero in other fests as tents were being put up, stalls were still getting set up and they was barely enough crowd which even the PETA guys would agree too though the INOX female seemed to be attracting a bit of a crowd with her heavy accent and goodies. This was when I could grab a moment with the guy at the JAM stall and hence the picture to show you that JAM was there.

Meanwhile prelims for Mr. and Ms. UNMAAD were on and the questionnaire did set people thinking. Here are a few for you (hopefully am not infringing any copyright violations) :

1) Who would rather kiss - a crocodile or a bear and why?
2) You could take three things with you to a deserted island. They would be?
3) What would you do if you were invisible for a day?
4) What is the one crime you would commit if you wouldn't be caught for it?

Got any whacky answers for these? We'd sure love to hear them. The highlight of the day would no doubt be the "B School of Rock" concert with our "chethas" from Motherjane and the renowned Zero performing to an audience that understood that the truest form of respect to such artistes is to head bang to them. I wouldn't say the atmosphere was electric, but the crowds loved every bit of it and both bands lived upto their reputations especially when they played a few regular covers that every novice rock fan could also join in. The sun may have set but that's when you realize life at IIM begins at night as people gathered around for AMROCK- the upstart band showdown and the enthusiasm from the rock show spilt over especially with people high on spirits.

Low profile compared to the undergraduate festivals I have seen but the money pulled in by corporate sources had been well spent and the whole festival had a larger than life image around it.



Day 2 and Day 3

Rise and shine and all the literary event prelims had begun along with numerous other events. I was woken up by couple of damsels dressed in the Ms. Unmaad T-shirt wondering if I could help them with their scavenger hunt. I so wish I could have but as luck could have it, I travel light on trips. Turns out they had numerous odd tasks like finding a Pizza Corner menu, Bacardi Breezer bottle to selling their own paintings for over INR 100. While the guys and girls in white ran around the campus looking for odds and ends, the street play had begun in one of the central lawns. Here again, it was the Delhi colleges that stole the thunder though there were a couple of good performances by local colleges including JNC, Bangalore.

Along the lines of street play was the movie spoof and this was one of the biggest crowd pulling event after the pro shows. IIM B had their fundae right as they won second place with a very witty script that got the audience thinking before they got the jokes. The winning college from Pune, BBUCOE won the coveted first place with their take on "Kabhi Goli Kabhi Bum" which was hilariously in your face funny and evoked the most laughter amongst the audience. Though the critic of the day award should go to the cute kid next to me who on seeing a banner on stage "Bakwaas Productions presents" quipped "Bakwaas hai to dikha kyu rahe hai?" had even the judges sniggering on that one.

Intermittent with the two dramatics events were the corporate events including mad ads that had working professionals forget their work for a day and get into the college mode and kudos to them for showing more enthusiasm than the students around them as they joked and made merry throughout the event especially during the twenty minute wait before the results were announced where the teams pulled each others legs in a jovial manner till the scorers returned.

The Western Acoustics/ A capella competition is a novelty as very few festivals around India seem to have this event where you do get to hear lot of interesting music. While WASABI stood apart with their performance and uniform, it was Christ College's own composition 'All I got' with its fusion touch that really bowled me over and am guessing the same with the judges who handed them the first place.

The dance workshop was another crowd puller as individual entries were allowed and Cupid wanted some action. Girls were asked to remove one shoe into a pile so the guys could pick them up and get automatically paired. The rush to get the fairest ladies' shoes would have put our politicians fighting for seats to shame. A comic relief for the audience as pairs of left feet landed on the dance floor, the end of the dance workshop saw couples strutting around with confidence and a glow of a job well done.

Soon the sun descended implying the start of a new day at IIM as the campus had people pouring in for the Unity concert featuring Pakistani band Strings and Indian band Mrigya. Strings lived up to its reputation and added some entertainment when they batted away a few autographed balls into the audience. Unfortunately for me, they aren't too good with slogging towards deep mid wicket. But it just wasn't Mrigya's day as most people started heading off since their music was floating throughout the campus and their onstage presence didn't seem to capture the audience unlike Strings. Karaoke night was the midnight warm up as random people could go up and sing from the list of songs available along with their lyrics. The real party started soon with the War of the DJs which turned the courtyard into an instant dance floor as crowds poured in to dance the night away. Few folks in highly debilitated state provided comic relief with their dance steps but took it a step forward with their mouth to mouth contact raising a lot of "yewwss" around them. Time flew by and it was early morning when the organizers decided to call it a night. The Final day was packed with the grandiose events like choreo, freestyle and the fashion show. A wonderful display of synchronization and color along with beauty saw charming ladies and handsome hunks steal the thunder along with foot tapping music keeping the audience on its toes.

UNMAAD wasn't as big as the hype surrounding it, but it was one huge blast where you seemed to see familiar faces within a day or two and felt pretty homely amongst the bold, the brainy and the beautiful. A thumbs up to this event though I'd expect to see more than the 700 plus competitors who turned up this time.

The White Hats are coming...

While I slog away for the next edition of Vortex as Chairman, I found my contribution to the souvenir in Vortex 2006. The theme that year was Information Security. The best part about this poem is I wrote it during my lab commented between my code

In a world of ones and zeroes,
There always exist a set of anti-heroes.
Hacking, cracking, spoofing and other heinous crimes
Information security is worth spending all your dimes.

The Digital world ain't about good and bad,
Its being smart enough to realise security isnt a fad.
The Black Hats are swarming the networks
Every node and packet, danger lurks.

Masters of Deception, Cult of the dead cow and Legion of Doom,
Names like that don't leave much to assume.
Considered as elite hacking forces,
No one said, "e-life is a bed of roses".

Viruses, Trojans, back doors seemingly disappeared
IDS is something script kiddies have always feared.
Quantum Cryptography keeps you securely wired,
Cryptanalysis experts are hands down tired.

Hexes and crux wont win you over time
Just so I can go about with my humble rhyme
"CIA" forms the basis of Information Security-
Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability.

Information Security may come at a cost
Crime may get sophisticated, but all isnt lost.
Shibboleth, Kerberos, TRANSEC emphasize security
The search is on to prevent computers' infidelity.

Like yin and yang, there remains a balance
The call of the White Hats is open to display your talents.

*A white hat hacker is, in the realm of information technology, a person who is ethically opposed to the abuse of computer systems.

Planet of the Bovines

This I guess would be my last article for the college fest newsletter PIRATE RADIO. After a couple of reviews from people, a warning to all readers - read it twice because there is a deeper and lighter meaning to all thats written down here

Star Date -315160.06
Starship Welltr

Continuing on our quest to go where no Klingonian has gone before, we have reached a planetary system around this huge blob of glowing fire like substance. Lt. Comman-Deer Sawh Wrong, a product of Institute of Intergalactic Travel, believes his scanners have sensed the possibility of life on the sixth major rock in this system, just two away from the glowing blob. Sensing adventure, we have sent Kaapitan Kuhl Kahl along with a team down to this rock.

Star Date -315132.45
Tai-Chi

Kaapitan Kuhl Kahl has reklingonised his galaxy as the Milky Way (continuing with his fetish for white). Following is the report the Synthesizer beamed up from its landing spot.

------ Compact Extra-Terrestrial Extractor and Space Archive Translator ----

Place of origin: Tai - Chi
Types of Life Forms: 2500 and counting

Based on what we have seen, there are basically two types of life forms civilized and uncivilized. We have decided to focus our observations on the civilized life forms.

They have a rigid hierarchy and no one steps out of the line, yet they seem to thrive in unity and collective responsibility. Agriculture seems to be the main occupation and they have forms of mechanization and domesticated animals. The high society seems to be loitering around, keeping an eye on things and tasting the produce, while the domesticated livestock is used for digging holes, operating mechanized thrashers and numerous other devices we cannot relate to. But they have a set pattern are herded into watering holes three times a day, kept locked up in this humongous shed like structures as night falls and pushed back to work next day morning. We have also noticed a system of taxation as these livestock give a part of their daily produce to their four legged masters and otherwise tend to stay away from their sight. A sense of fear can be felt amongst the livestock as they always keep the right of passage to their masters whenever such a situation arises. This reminds us of the era of the great Jupiter Scissors and his empire that had the citizens living life of gay abandon and the workers treated like animals.
------------------------------------- ----------------------------- --------------------------------

"Beam me up Scottie, Beam me up Scottie .. noooooo"

Star Date -313132.45
Starship Arbitra

Majora Semma has barely recovered from the shock after the patrol under KKK was brutally attacked by the soldiers of the regime. These trained warriors have been genetically modified to have the ability to grow sharp weapons that can penetrate through Klingon skin. We unfortunately lost all other documentation as the brutal dictatorship disallows freedom of press and had their team from censor board remove all trace of any documentation our synthesizer printed, and a similar case with the synthesizer itself.

Maybe this dictatorial brutality arises from the need to keep the two legged livestock in check. Note to HQ: The Brutal Bovines will be a force to reckon with soon on the intergalactic highway.

[Background score: Rhythm Bovine]

- NITTWIT

* This article is a very NITT-centric article