opinions – Page 7 – Abhinav Bhatt

Algorithm isn’t the answer always

In 2009, Pilot Sully landed a full fledged plane in New York’s Hudson river when its engines malfunctioned. Although he saved a lot of lives but he was still criticized for taking such an extraordinary decision. Simulations showed that he could divert the plane to another nearby air strip. But as they show in the eponymous movie, that simulation forgets to take human struggle into account. When the plane malfunctioned pilots kept on trying for at least a minute to get it back on track. They could have panicked, they could’ve gotten cold feet, but instead of giving up, they tried for a minute or so to get the plane working. Simulations later showed that if you added that minute, it was not possible to reach the airstrip. So human mind’s strategy at that time was actually correct and simulation wasn’t.

I am studying Data Science and I work for a company making software for Retail Data Science. Data Mining, predictive modeling, training, etc. are the terms I see and read all day. There are factors at play in the world today which are forcing everyone to find the method to the madness from the huge chunks of data we have at our hands. But relying on data and algorithms is a two edged sword. In fact, whatever I am studying and working with professionally has certain limitations.

We know that Covid Vaccine is now being given to front line workers. In one of the cases, an algorithm was used to find out the order in which the vaccine should be given. The algorithm, which is obviously highly dependent on what we feed as initial parameters, chose some names of the Medical staff. However, it did a mistake which led to actual front line workers to protest. It didn’t chose names of staff who were on ICU duty and who had the real imminent danger of infection.

We should be grateful to the work done by scientists but we forget that an algorithm is as good as what it takes as input, how it is supposed to run models, and how much tested it is. Over relying on it blindly isn’t the answer and it might lead to more problems than it is supposed to solve.

I guess, data scientists and softwares have some tradeoffs when it comes to accuracy and the quality of data fed. And not all works with 0s and 1s. Human emotions aren’t tangible but still play a huge role in almost everything.

P.S.: This.

All Pomp and No Shaw

Morgan Housel, whose writing is increasingly becoming most sought after for me, shared this wonderful little paragraph from a book called ‘The Secret Wisdom of Nature‘:

In undisturbed ancient forests, youngsters have to spend their first two hundred years waiting patiently in their mothers’ shade. As they struggle to put on a few feet, they develop wood that is incredibly dense. In modern managed forests today, seedlings grow without any parental shade to slow them down. They shoot up and form large growth rings even without a nutrient boost from added nitrogen. Consequently, their woody cells are much larger than normal and contain much more air, which makes them susceptible to fungi—after all, fungi like to breathe, too. A tree that grows quickly rots quickly and therefore never has a chance to grow old.

It is such a powerful lesson. Going viral, making headlines, or getting too much hype in a short span of time will mostly end up being negative. For example, Prithvi Shaw is a young Indian cricketer. He played too well to be unnoticed at a very young age such that the media and some Cricketers hyped him up to be the next Sachin Tendulkar. I doubt if he would’ve said something like that himself but that hype might have affected him in some manner. Now when the time and opportunity came, he blew it by getting out on 0 and 4 runes in India Australia Test Match.

We judge too quickly and put people either on a high pedestal or totally ruin their confidence by putting them down. Social Media adds fuel to the fire. The people who are the real deal are still sweating it out. They are still burning the midnight oil. They are still trying to get better at their game. They don’t care about the hype. They want to be so strong at their roots that no wind or storm can sway them off.

Photo by Zach Reiner on Unsplash

Vagabonding and Lucky Ali

When it comes to traveling, unfortunately, I have been like a Kite with Chinese Manjha. Basically, I have been to some places but always tied to a certain place with a cord that could never be broken. I have hardly traveled. When I see YouTubers with backpack travelers, it just fills me with envy and amazement (that their fellow people allow them to travel alone? Or is it just the mind that is conditioned to be stationary). The show Lonely Planet on Discovery back in the 90s used to be one of my favorites. In fact, you need not even watch a TV Show (or Google Earth) to travel anywhere. There are songs and music and voices which can take you places.

The music of Lucky Ali is like that. It gives a sense of a person traveling to somewhere alone with a backpack across the countryside. There is a feeling of leaving the civilized world behind, and sometimes returning to the civilized world but there’s travel involved. His videos also visualized a person going somewhere, meeting people, and searching for something while the destination not being very clear. The lyrics and the somewhat different-than-usual music and voice always painted a picture of a vagabond.

There’s a video of Lucky Ali performing live in Goa floating around on the Internet nowadays. And then there are some more videos of him where he is bearded, humming things, and living a life of his own. Maybe he himself wants to keep his image like that. A Musician traveling to places with his guitar, now aging with every appearance, still having the soulful voice and the magical gift of making music that stays with you long after you’re done listening to it.

When ‘O Sanam’ was released, I had no inclination towards or knowledge of music. The only song I grooved to at that time was Pak-chik-pak-Raja Babu. I was not even a teenager then but Lucky Ali made me hooked at a different level altogether. I told myself that one day when I will travel alone, this would be the first song on my playlist. I remember I used to never miss visiting one of my relative’s house because they used to own the audio cassette of his second album ‘Sifar’ and just getting to listen to ‘Dekha hai Aise Bhi’ was bliss.

Travel and Music are two things that take you places, literally and figuratively. Movies involving traveling always have peculiar music too. One recent example was the movie Karwaan. Traveling is something I have always wanted but never got the courage to really try traveling alone. Maybe a time will come for that, maybe it won’t. Till then, I can keep listening to Lucky Ali.

Having said all of the above, I am not a fan of his Live performances. Maybe the reason is that when you see a live performance, it is stationary and the melody is not just the same. It looks like he is struggling to sing and he would better be traveling and singing someplace else.

Photo by Andreas Selter on Unsplash

Virtual Marathons

Every city which used to organize epic Marathons, Half-Marathons, 10Ks, 5Ks, and my favorite 2.5Ks are now resorting to Virtual Marathons. Basically, in a period of a week or so, participants have to install apps and just run wherever they can and whenever they can. They can run marathons and take breaks in between. The app would track their miles ran while keeping them safe from the dangers of the crowd. So, you don’t have to wake up early morning or late at night, get ready in your track pants, reach the starting point, see a huge crowd and wonder if people don’t have any other job, huff-puff, and start running. Soon you realize that running isn’t your cup of tea while you miss the warmth of your bed and you miss your tea. Deep inside you know that you just joined for showing off on social media. But seeing everyone running or walking or crawling, you also join the struggle to reach the final point to grab your participation medal and groupfie.

But in virtual marathons, your struggle won’t be visible and the motivation to run which comes with a crowd might not be present. Except for actual runners, they would still go and run in actuality.

When it comes to a group activity done virtually, people have started to embrace it now more wholeheartedly. But physical activities like participating in Marathons are yet to become normal. Still, enthusiasts would continue to show off their completed miles and you will regret missing out this year. You can still keep it as your new year resolution because running virtually might be easier than not finishing a proper run.

3-Unit Boredom Hypothesis

They say if you do something for 21 days straight, it becomes a habit.

Just a counter-hypothesis: Anyone who gets away from the routine for more than 3 days, starts to get bored and distracted.

If you are away from your home and you’re not on a vacation, after 3 days you might get homesick.

If you’re preparing for an exam or watching a tv show or reading a book and if you aren’t hooked after 3 chapters, 3 episodes, or 3 pages, you lose the interest.

If you are in a hospital for more than 3 days, you start getting bored. Moreover, people who were visiting you might slowly become less frequent.

Just a counter hypothesis to the 21 day rule.

Tricking the Mind

I am not a medical expert but all this year, I have read so much Medical Documentation that I have been giving advises and explanations to everyone (with a caveat that I am not a Doctor). May be it’s my looks or maybe I am worth it. Lolyeah. Googling symptoms doesn’t make you a doctor.

Having said that, reading medication gives one slight idea about how medicine works. In many cases, medicine tricks the body and thereby the mind to act in a certain way. Take for example the vaccines. Again, not an expert here and highly simplifying, but many of the vaccines are based on the principle that if you inject a certain dose of foreign material into the body, mind assumes that body has been infected. So it starts telling all the cells and the blood to start creating antibodies to fight the infection. Thus, when any virus or infection occurs, body is already ready with antibodies making the infection futile. (Don’t confuse this with Homeopathy as that’s a different thing altogether).

Body’s flight or fight response can be trained too in certain aspects. What if we learn the ways to trick the mind to get anything changed in our physiology and psychology. Wouldn’t that be really amazing! For example, before a speech or presentation is to be delivered, if one takes up the Wonderwoman Pose or just act like you have won something, open up stance, sit relaxed, then the body starts generating happy harmones which reduces the stress and collywobbles which makes you confident. That means assuming you have killed it, makes you kill it.

Tricking the mind without taking anything (important) would be the next best thing. It might help us fight diseases, or put you into a cryogenic mode so that you could live longer or even travel farther.

Lying to mind to get something good should be normalised.

Be like a Monolith

There are mysterious Monoliths showing up at various places across the world. Then they disappear without any hoopla.

They show up. They create suspense whether they are alien, or they’re some prank, or they’re naturally occurring, or they serve no purpose, or Banksy is the culprit, or an art installation, or bad welding show-off. We don’t really know. That’s quintessential 2020 then and there.

Then they disappear. Some people say people have been seen taking them down and cleaning all the traces. No video has been surfaced yet of installation or removal.

I think there is a lesson in it. Actually, there is none. And that’s the lesson that some things do show up and then they disappear. They leave no clue but only conspiracy theories.They can create mystery and might damage things. Or they might not.

One can’t understand everything. That’s the beauty of it.

Be like a Monolith in some stranger’s life. Or don’t. Who cares!

Here are my renditions of Monoliths from 2001: A Space Odyssey