Conversations with a 3 Year Old

A Teachable Moment

Me: Did I tell you that you should not jump around when climbing stairs?
Him: Yes
Me: What happened last night?
Him: I jumped and slipped, and rolled down the stairs.
Me: How did that feel?
Him: It hurt.
Me: What did I tell you about hitting bats on stuff?
Him: It's a bad idea.
Me: What happened just now?
Him: I hit the bat on the woofer.
Me: And what has happened?
Him: The bat became broke.
Me, with an air of pomp: So, what have we learnt from all this?
Him, sincerely: Nothing.


Curb that curiosity!

Him: Why have you propped this toy up, but not that one?
Me: Because that one is stable, but not this one.
Him: Why is that one stable, but not this one?
Me, muttering: It's hard to explain that to you.
Him: Why is it hard to explain that to me?
Me: Look! There is an air plane there!

Universal cell phone charger - finally!

Such a stupidly obvious need, and they found a way to do it finally. I had blogged about this in early 2008 here. Now, hopefully this charger's usefulness can be expanded to other electronic devices like GPS units, music players, etc. May happen faster than we suspect, once the cell-phone supports is rolled out.

Between the Assassinations

Between the Assassinations - Aravind Adiga

In the beginning it was a dull read, but I grew to like it quite well by the end. A rather grim, gritty "novel" - more a collection of shorts based around the same settings; sort of a dark "Malgudi Days". Recommend it.

First game of Cricket with Harsha

Exciting Day! Finally, after trying for more than an year, I played the first game of cricket with my almost 3 year old son Harsha today. As usual, in our living room. Plastic bat, plastic ball and a kitchen drain mat as stumps. It was a tie, with both of us scoring 9 runs each over 4 innings. After 3 innings he was leading 5 - 0 though!

We have sort of played on the same pitch many times before, but never in a form that could be called cricket in principle. For instance, I could never introduce the concept of getting out before - he'd get upset about missing a ball and quit. Before that, there was the struggle with convincing him that he shouldn't have both the bat and ball with himself at the same time. And before that, the fact that one bat and one ball should be involved, not two bats or two balls (he has always been big on pairs).

But today, all elements came together. He was willing to bide his time before he could connect bat on ball. He understood that if the ball hit the stumps, he was out and it was my turn. (Initially, he found ball hitting the stumps too cool to realize that getting out was bad!) He ran with great zest after hitting the ball. He understood the concept of keeping score. More than anything, he was so intent on hitting the stumps when his bowling turn came, he nailed me first ball twice!

For the record, the bat is too short for me.

Are Banks Shooting Their Own Feet Again?

It appears the pendulum has swung too much to the careful side, to the extent of being paranoid, when it comes to mortgage lenders approving home loans. They seem to be not giving out loans even to the most qualified and motivated buyers (and refinancers). This way they may be contributing to the further decline of the home values, which will only worsen the rate of their clients defaulting on their loans.

This is all anecdotal at the moment. First from my own experience in trying to refinance my mortgage. The appraisers are so afraid of over-valuing, they are ridiculously undervaluing the property. Now, I realize, as a (so called) home owner, I will refuse to accept that my home is worth less than what I paid for it. Even then, valuing our 4-bedroom house less than what buyers are offering for an identical, though 3 bedroom, house in the next street is baffling.

What's funny is, the 3-bedroom house is not closing, even though they are getting offers close to the asking price, because, at least in one case that we came to know about, the buyer's lender rejected the appraisal that valued the house close to the asking price.

In effect, the banks are saying that these homes are not worth what buyers and appraisers think they are worth. This will probably force a desperate seller to lower the price further to close a deal. This way banks are now contributing to driving the home values further down.

Smart.

intelligent road debris

have you noticed that most of the time, debris fallen on a busy freeway is nicely positioned away from the middle of lanes and more or less on the dividing line/buttons? (this is true unless it's a big object or if it has fallen off very recently)

this is convenient, because, traffic doesn't have to swerve to avoid them. but from a pure probability stand-point, it's impossible that a majority of objects that fall off vehicles going at high speeds land at such a convenient place. perhaps the debris are *intelligent*. or, there is a benevolent force guiding this.

if you didn't get my drift, this sounds like the 'intelligent design' argument.

anyway, i think that the reason for this phenomenon is simply this: the object initially will land most likely in the middle of a lane. then a vehicle will hit it and it will be moved. then another vehicle will hit it, and so on. this will continue until the object accidentally comes to rest at a harmless location.

we could say the object's position evolved to perfection.

I Won't Touch the Bailout Bonds

It's being reported that the Obama administration is working on a proposal to make the "opportunity" to "invest " in the bailout of banks available to the small investor. Apparently, the administration will choose a handful of fund managers to form Bailout Bond Funds that are sold to retail investors.

The motivation seems to be to preempt any new wave of anger or resentment on the part of the public, when down the line, they find out that a rich few (hedge funds) made handsome profits by investing in the "dirt cheap" toxic assets (low quality mortgage backed assets), while they shelled out their tax dollars to bailout the bankers and ended up losers.

My problem with this is two fold:

1. my tax dollars are already subsidizing these toxic assets. i don't think i need more exposure to this risk
2. more importantly, this is a good investment only if you buy the assumption that the toxic assets are grossly undervalued

#2 is the trillion dollar question: how do you value these assets? Are they really that under-valued?

Remember that we had a housing bubble, which means that the home values during the bubble were artificially inflated. Then the bubble burst. The market may be over-reacting a bit in the negative direction now, but it'd seem to me that expecting the values to go "back up" is stupid. That's just wishing for another bubble.

So, why would I rush to throw money at a bunch of sub-prime mortgage assets, which are highly likely to default, just because there may be a small discount?

i shouldn't have to pay to "e-file" my taxes

By electronically filing my tax return, I am doing "them" several favors:

1. reduce their expenses (assuming paper pushing people cost more than computers)
   
2. significantly reduce errors - again less headache for them
3. by authorizing direct deposit/direct debit, I again make things cheaper, faster and easier for them

Also, I eliminate paper waste and pollute less by avoiding a trip to the post office.

So why the hell do I have to pay an extra fee?

Ah, wait a minute. It's the government I am dealing with. I am asking the bureaucracy to eliminate itself. Nice try.

inventions, innovations and improvements i need NOW

Every now and then we all think of something that ought to have been invented already. Here goes my running list (to be updated whenever I think of something new or learn it's been invented)

1. when i get some cold, cough, fever etc. i want the exact diagnosis right away - no clinical diagnosis ("it should be a viral - just wait it out"), no guessing ("let's try an antibiotic for a few days"), etc.
2. written, spoken language recognition everywhere. scanned docs should not be treated as images. i shouldn't need my hands to browse the internet or flip channels in my tv/radio or turn off the microwave, etc.
3. not-dumb traffic signals - i should never have to wait several minutes at a light when there is no other vehicle in sight
4. easy-empty tooth paste tubes - getting the last ounce out should not require pro-wrestler strength
5. one volume setting for all programs all channels, be it on TV, radio, ipod, whatever (i have a feeling this one is already around, just not available in the stone-age devices I tend to own)
   

why do we get sick in the winter? - part 2

Back in March 2008 I did a post when some new research came out on this topic. The news then was that there is a reason why the flu virus survives and transmits better in cold weather. It had been all about the temperature then.

Well, today's news suggests there may be more to the story...

Yahoo News Story

The new twist is that there is a strong correlation between the absolute humidity of the air and the transmission and survivability of the flu virus. Absolute humidity is the measure of the total amount of water (vapor) in the air, and this is significantly more in summer's warmer air than in winter's cold air.

This finding is just one of correlation. There doesn't seem to be any theory or explanation for why this is so. In that sense, we may have to take this with a pinch of salt.