The Washington Monument, closed due to earthquakes

It has been a little over two weeks since I came to Maryland and what a fortnight it has been! New people to meet and new stuff to do. New responsibilities, new hopes and new aspirations to fulfill. Wonderful places to see and a wonderful climate to experience. And to top it off, earthquakes and hurricanes greeted me to my new life at Maryland.

It has been an eventful experience so far. And it is has only just begun.

I had a wonderful outing in Washington D.C. The weather was not the most benevolent, but may be that was part of the reason why I found the trip so fun! In particular, I had a fun time visiting the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

T-rex at the National History Museum

Hope diamond - Can I Haz it?

Another beautiful object at this Museum is the blue Hope diamond from India. It is a gorgeous necklace with a 45.52 carat blue colored diamond. Man oh man did we try to grab it.

The Blue Hope Diamond - Doesn't look too blue, isn't it?

I went to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. I asked if I could sit in Apollo 11, but I wasn’t allowed

And then there was swing dancing, which I sort of learnt in at a Welcome event organized by the university.

So far, it had been a very hectic week, with loads of events and formalities that I needed to complete. Not to mention, there was a 5.8 Richter scale earthquake close to my location. And as if all this hungama wasn’t already surreal, now there is a storm coming. A hurricane to be precise. It feels as if I am in a movie. I have never experienced these many events in such a short time span.

The conditions outside my apartment a few hours ago was windy and rainy with a capital W.

Parking Lot at my apartment

I’m in the process of uploading a video. Usually, it shouldn’t take this long to upload, but today isn’t a usual day. I think internet service has been affected as well thanks to the storm. I seriously hope net speeds up by tomorrow. In the mean time, enjoy this photo of a guy taking a group photo:

——————————————-

Update: Here is the Youtube video showcasing the effect of Hurricane Irene at my place

And here is a slideshow of the images in this post and some more!

Enjoy!

What a wonderful story, isn’t it? Our world economy is in the hands of Clowns who hardly know what they are doing. That is a brilliant idea! The more clowns, the more happy we will be.

It is difficult to summarize the drama that caused the current crisis. And I won’t do it any justice if I start explaining now. But for some clear-headed, well-balanced information, my top 2 references are:

1. Inside Job (2010) – Documentary Movie
2. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (Book)

So, why am I posting this now? This is old news, right? About 2 years old? The Wall Street said that it is complicated to explain what happened but that they won’t do it again. So, what is your problem, you may ask.

Well, here is the thing. Wall Street said one thing, but did something else for the last 10 years or so. They gambled the money of investors “blindly” without thinking or weighing the odds. They screwed up badly with trillions of dollars and started to admit fault when things where catastrophically critical. These investment banks played with the money and capital that they got from investors and other people like fools and sunk their own companies. Some of them are still alive thanks to some “magic” that the US federal reserve did.

So, you expect these companies to learn from their mistakes, right? Ha! You have been fooled. These companies have NOT changed there ways yet, and will won’t change as long as doing such “crap” can make them short-term profits of enormous proportions and as long as they have a “tremendous” lobbying power over the US government. These short-term profits allow the CEOs and employees of these “great” investment banks to walk away with “enormous” bonuses. Why should a trader whose job is to hook up investors with institutions needing investments be paid a gazillion dollars? Is it such a difficult job? Based on what incentive scheme or difficulty rating is he eligible for such preposterous amounts of money as income? These financial engineers make loads of cash for doing some “abracadabra” in their plush offices. But real engineers, who make a difference in this world by building bridges, infrastructure for cities, infrastructure for medical facilities, and building better communication tools (mobile phones/internet), better and safer transportation earn a meager amount compared to the 6 digit or 7 digit (that is a million by the way) paychecks these “financial engineers” make.  Nevertheless, the US government tried to massage and gloss over the crisis. In fact, I too believed the media and thought that the crisis is over. It is so NOT over.

The US government is about $14 trillion in debt as of now. They have something called a debt ceiling. If they hit that, which they will on August 2 2011 if they do not make a drastic budget cut/financial overhaul, then the US government has to default on some thing – either social security or defense budget or medicare or something else. And if they do that, then they essentially either don’t pay any of their senior citizens’ pension, or they don’t fund their military and defense operations or so on. See this New York Times article for some enlightenment on current US financial status.

So what now? How am I or you concerned with this. Well, apparently it was someone’s “brilliant” idea to make the economies of all the countries interlinked. Someone thought that that would be swell, and that we can do something. Yeah right. Thanks to this little convenience, if the US economy goes down (read: crashes, rock bottom, worst case scenario) then who knows what happens to the rest of the world! We suffered a reasonably major blow in 2008-2009. Now, that the dirt has settled, it seems there is another load of garbage waiting to pile on us.

So, the bottom line is: Some apparently great companies did some “abracadabra” right from 1990s and are still doing some “abracadabra” now. They screwed up and lost the money, just like how I would do if I went to a Las Vegas Casino. They are trying to say to us that some complicated “magic” happened and that it is under control now. But, just like how old habits die hard, this “gambling” addiction of the Wall Street banks is not going anywhere.

If we are not vigilant and if we DO NOT raise our voices and concerns, these banks will continue to use their lobbying power and screw us again. We don’t want a Wall Street Democracy. Not in US, not in India, not in any place on this planet. We want our money and economic system to be stable and in the hands of responsible people.

Let us bring some sense into the world economy.

DISCLAIMER: This is my opinion and I have the right to express it under freedom of speech and human rights provisions. The purpose of this post is to enlighten people about the current world financial status, and in the process I am voicing my concern about the instability of the world economy. All images are from Wikimedia.

However, what most of us don’t know and realize is the delusion of multitasking. Our attention span is dwindling as the generations go by. Due to the breakneck speed at which we are carrying out our daily duties, thanks to advances in technology, we are slowly losing our ability to concentrate on a task for a prolonged period. Instead, we get distracted and do something else. This is a very common situation. You may be refreshing your Facebook page one minute and the next minute, you are playing a game on your mobile phone or flash game on the PC. And we give this a fancy name called multitasking.

The term multitasking is coined with respect to Computers. Originally, when there was only 1 core in the CPU, a computer performed multiple tasks by focusing on one task at a time in a round-robin fashion and switching tasks very quickly. It was able to do this transparently since the CPU runs at several MHz, and nowadays at several GHz. Of course, with the advent of multiple core processors and other advances, computers can now do actual multitasking, though they still rely on switching rapidly between several tasks, in many occasions. Many people argue that there is a similarity between a human brain and a CPU and that we, too, do multitasking.

To a certain degree, there is a similarity between the brain and a CPU. However, there are significant differences. Firstly, we can only concentrate on a few (perhaps a maximum of 3) tasks at a time. This has to do with the fact that we have a limited working memory and we need to keep the goals of the various tasks in mind while we juggle them around. Secondly, we take a significantly longer time to jump from one task to another than a computer, and this process of jumping also comes with its own set of problems. We usually take some time to get into the mindset needed to do a task, which affects our productivity. Simple tasks like cleaning clothes, throwing the garbage, etc. will probably not need a significant effort to jump into. But more complicated tasks such as analytical thinking, etc. need a lot more effort to dive into. And this brings me to the first difference between a computer and a human mind.

Computers mostly perform algorithms, such as sequential tasks. These tasks are procedural and all that needs to be done is to follow the instructions “mechanically”. Also, when computers switch a task, they switch a task, immediately. They don’t continue to “think” about the previous task. They also have a quantifiable amount of memory (that is functionally similar to our working memory) and can immediately recall all the relevant information about the task. On the other hand, our tasks often involve thinking and cognition. We need to analyze and interpret information in non-trivial ways. For example, a scientist or a researcher may need to solve a problem, for which no solution or procedure is readily available. He/she has to come up with the solution. This requires our concentrated effort. And when we switch from one task to another, we are disrupting our flow of thought and, consequently, need some time to refocus on the new task. Unlike computers, we cannot (at least not efficiently) store the state of our thought process and resume it once we get back to the task. We need to spend some time getting focused. Research has shown that we take as much as 20 minutes or even more to get into the flow of a task when we switch from another, and this leads to significant loss of productivity.

Moreover, we tend to linger over the previous tasks even when we are supposed to be thinking of the new task at hand. This amounts to distraction, and the more we try to “multitask” the more fickle our mind becomes. This is visibly apparent as restlessness and one can see tell-tale signs in our body language. Typical signs are twiddling of our thumbs or a pen in our hands, or the restless motion of our legs. I have personally done this, while trying to multitask while studying.

Sometimes we multitask because we are bored or we dislike the activity we are doing. For example, you have to cram for a particularly boring exam, say History. You find reading the textbook boring and end up watching T.V. while reading to make it feel less arduous. However, you are doing yourself a disservice because you will take a longer time to read the textbook, you read it less effectively and you don’t manage to enjoy the show. On the other hand, if you simply focused on studying, you would finish reading quicker, you remember the material better and you can relax more effectively later. You get a sense of satisfaction.

All of what I said so far is mainly my opinion that I have built from both personal experiences and experiences of others. Nevertheless, some research into this issue suggests to me that the point I’m trying to make is logically sound and is in fact supported by scientific evidence.

In summary, we are not good at multitasking. We struggle to handle even a couple of tasks without losing out on productivity and if we pile on further tasks, we slump into mediocrity.

—

The following are some interesting posts on this subject (References):

• Five Reasons We Multitask Anyway
• Multitasking: This Is Your Brain On Social Media
• Multitasking – Are we setting ourselves up for failure?
• The Delusion of Multitasking