30 Mar
There is a fundamental difference between version 1.0 of any thing and any subsequent version. In the version 1.0, you usually don’t need to give any reasons for your choices. The focus in that case would be in getting the version ready, and you can get away with whatever assumptions you want to feel like. [...]
Posted in arbit, business, work by: skimpy
1 Comment
22 Mar
Paul Wilmott and Emanuel Derman, in an article in Business Week a couple of years back (at the height of the financial crisis) came up with a model-makers oath. It goes: • I will remember that I didn’t make the world and that it doesn’t satisfy my equations. • Though I will use models boldly [...]
Posted in business, finance, investment banking, randomness, work by: skimpy
3 Comments
22 Mar
This post has nothing to do with Ravi Karthik’s blog. It has everything to do with Bangalore’s roads. I can’t recall a single instance in time in the last 15 years when all roads in Bangalore have been in “normal state”. Maybe ever since the KR Market flyover started, there has been one part of [...]
Posted in bangalore, economics, politics by: skimpy
1 Comment
21 Mar
There is this famous story that says that the Soviet government promised pole vaulter Sergei Bubka some huge sum of money “every time he broke the world record”. Being rather smart, Bubka would break the world record each time by one centimeter (the least count for pole vault measurement), utilizing the fact that the nature [...]
Posted in business, education, work by: skimpy
3 Comments
17 Mar
Ok so this is yet another of those self-reflective posts, where I try and rationalize why I’m the way I am. And in the process concoct a fancy theory. I’m part of this secret society most of whose members are libertarian. I must in fact credit this society from changing my ideology from one that [...]
Posted in arbit, economics, fundaes, personal by: skimpy
1 Comment
09 Mar
(yet another post that is a few days late, but what the hell) In the recently delivered Karnataka State Budget, the government has budgeted funds for developing a Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) in Bangalore, in order to supplement the Metro and help ease the city’s traffic woes. The problem is that it’s a small [...]
Posted in bangalore, fundaes, infrastructure, politics by: skimpy
No Comments
09 Mar
So finally here is the follow-up to the Union Square Park post. Basically most parks in Bangalore follow what I term as the Jairaj model. Even a number of parks that are older than 10 years old have been remodeled using this model in the last few years. K Jairaj became the commissioner of the [...]
Posted in bangalore, fundaes, infrastructure by: skimpy
No Comments
06 Mar
A part of our honeymoon not so long ago was spent at the Taj Exotica in Bentota, Sri Lanka. We stayed there for a bit over a day and a half, and that was supposed to be the most “honeymoony” part of our honeymoon, with the rest of the time being spent essentially roaming and [...]
Posted in arbit, travel by: skimpy
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03 Mar
Why the fuck does every single article that talks about this describe insider trader Rajat Gupta as a “former Goldman director”? Why not ex-McKinsey CEO? Or current P&G Board Member? And especially given that his insider trading was partly at Goldman’s expense? Media is crazy
Posted in arbit, business, media by: skimpy
4 Comments
03 Mar
So earlier today I was reading this profile of a Harvard professor that Chan had shared on Google Reader, and I came across this name called Iqbal Dhaliwal. The name immediately rang a bell, and I realized I’d come across this name long long ago in the Competition Success Review (yes, I admit I used [...]
Posted in arbit, politics, religion by: skimpy
8 Comments