Rishabh Kaul's Weblog » Ramblings

Data Collection: Now and Then

Rishabh — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 18:46:28 +0000

I was reading Suicide by Emile Durkheim (this is a link to a summary); a 450 page behemoth with numbers and inferences about suicides. Durkheim’s work has been seminal to the understanding of suicide from a sociological perspective. Durkheim admits in the introduction to the book that attempting such a task such as recording suicide can be quite a challenge given how many deaths can escape this categorization.

I would think that if Durkheim was born in this age, he would be thoroughly pissed. Perhaps, with the rising world population, with more urbanization kicking in and larger sociological factors which could lead to suicide, documenting these facts would be quite a challenge today. The relative detachment from religious institutions which recorded such a data in the past would also be a contributing factor in making it more difficult to assess the numbers. On the other hand, would the state, which has taken over that responsibility (have they?), be recording such data? Or are we left to the mercy of randomized control trials?

I was just thinking about how with rising populations some things would become tougher to assess, no matter how improved the technology is. Not because the technology is lacking, but because contributing factors to a variety of events are coalescing and perhaps our technologies and data gathering techniques are just not able to match up to the speed with which our society and populations are changing.

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

A possible workout playlist?

Rishabh — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 02:43:11 +0000

Yesterday I was asked to make a workout playlist, which is supposed to charge up one’s senses and make them jog their heart out. Of course there were some considerations that had to be taken into account. Firstly, I don’t work out. So, at best, this list would be me indulging in wishful thinking. Secondly, I was given strict mandate that it should include various genres. But what it really means is that, it better have a fair amount of trance/dance stuff with a teeny weeny of other things. Thirdly, person summoning me is a woman.

With groggy eyes and little bit of reputation at stake, I embarked on the project. Here is the bastard child. Comments in brackets.

Modern Rock:

Joker and Thief – Wolfmother (Johnny Knoxville thinks its cool. So do I. But seriously speaking, right from the kick ass intro, the song is perfect for a morning jog)
Last Resort- Papa Roach (Old favorite from school days)

Classic Rock:

Start me up- Rolling Stone (It’s the frikkin Stones man)
Working Man- Rush

Hip Hop/Rap/Rap Rock:

American Boy- Kanye West
Ante Up- M.O.P (Probably one of the most thugged out songs ever, love the energy. Though, I will say this, this song is more likely to get you into a fight)
Remember the Name- Fort Minor (The NBA uses it, bitch!)
Numb/Encore – Jay Z/Linkin Park Low – Flo rida

Trance/Dance/Pop:

It ain’t gettin over- David Guetta, Fergie (If you ask me, this is really a token Guetta song, for they all sound the same to me)
What is Love- Haddaway (I remember this song playing in most bowling alleys and arcades during the early 90s)
Pump It- Black Eyed Peas (Because it reminds me of Pulp Fiction. It probably will give you more of a heist feel than a workout)
Baya Baya – Safri Duo (With that kind of percussion, of course!)
I got a pocketful of Sunshine- Natasha Bedingfield
Bad Romance- Lady Gaga
Tik Tok- Kesha (what to say)

Notes: The last three are definitely very catchy, though I am kinda embarrassed they made it to the list. I would have liked a few RATMs in that list.

(Image courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jnforte/)

An audio mode for Youtube?

Rishabh — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 20:51:26 +0000

Why doesn’t Youtube have an audio mode?

The wi-fi connection that we seemed to have in our hostel is not very reliable with speeds. And I have this habit of treating Youtube like a media player where I let the songs in my playlist go on. Possibly because Youtube is by far the largest repository of multimedia data.

The reasons for this could possibly be:

Advertising:

An audio mode promotes usage in the background, so google’s text ads would be of little value here. And audio ads, would deter people away from the site. Personally, I wouldn’t mind the audio ads, as long as they are limited to 10-15 seconds. But despite this, there would be the issue of efficacy of the ads.

Image

Youtube, at the end of the day is a video focused site and would probably not want to dilute their brand by having an audio focused feature especially when there already enough players in the audio field. But then, I doubt if any of the audio streaming players have as much data as Youtube.

People all across the web have been asking Youtube to incorporate such a feature since 2008. Youtube doesn’t seem to budge. Hacks anyone?

Please.

From one college to another: The Young India Fellowship

Rishabh — Sat, 21 May 2011 10:29:20 +0000

In a couple of weeks I will be closing an important chapter in my life. I will be graduating from college; a wonderful 5 years that have changed my life for the better in ways I could only dream of. In many ways I’d say that I graduated from college last year since for the past one year I have been interning in Delhi and now Bangalore as part of the mandatory college Practice School program, away from carefree shield that the college environment provided.

With college ending I was once again at the crossroads and had to make a decision about where to go from here. For a multitude of reasons, I decided against sitting for campus placements and thought, lets see what the future has in store.

As it turns out, the future had another college of sorts in store. This “college” provides no degrees (and I couldn’t care less), however, I am compelled to believe that the next one year is going to be an exciting learning experience and will widen my thought process. The program is called the Young India Fellowship and is based in Delhi. It’s an experiment to create the finest liberal arts program in the country by bringing in some terrific students together, empowering them with easily the best faculty one can come across and providing them with mentoring that anyone would kill for.(The entire list of mentors, faculty and Founders is HERE). The main academic partner of this course is the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, UPenn.

Every so often, life throws up very unexpected options in front of us. A friend of mine who got an admission into the finest business school programs in the country and also got through the fellowship, discussed with me as to which path to take. I suggested that either of the paths had their merits, however there was something about this course, how it didn’t fit in with conventional plans where things were laid out upfront, that made it exciting. The courses are extremely diverse (there’s a course called Listening). Also, as I mentioned in my previous post, by exposing yourself to a gamut of different fields, you are enabled to connect the dots faster and hopefully increase your output in whatever it was that you want to pursue next. And of course, it would help you interact and learn from people you might not generally encounter in your day to day life.

The strange part though is that, unlike the conventional approach to education, where one first does a liberal arts course and then dives into specialization, we’re doing the opposite. Lets see how this experiment turns out, though I am very hopeful.

So while yes, I would look at the course as another 1 year delay to step into the real world; I will also look at the program as an incubator. To learn (and hopefully unlearn quite a few) new things, try out different ideas and make relationships that will last.

And if the ideas click, you never know where it could lead…

Do your shit, but don’t forget the story

Rishabh — Fri, 20 May 2011 01:43:50 +0000

A friend of mine who runs a company walked into the doors of a VC firm. He had no business plan with him when he walked into the boardroom. All he had was a little video that his team mate had shot of his mother to demonstrate the problem they were tackling. A massive market size, a killer business idea and a video was all he had, all rolled into a nice narrative. He walked out of the office as a funded entrepreneur. And this is probably THE most influential VC firm on the planet.

The example above is of course not preaching discarding of business plans, neither is it undermining the effort my friend has put into his business (which is a lot from what I notice). It’s to say that, to really make it click, one must come up with a compelling story to link all the pieces together. That is the magic sauce. That is how you create believers.

Last week, Entrepreneur turned VC, Mark Suster wrote a brilliant piece on the power of narratives. I highly recommend reading it.

Acclaimed filmmaker Darren Aronofsky said this of his film making style (Source)

If you want to be a filmmaker the best thing you can bring to the world is your own story. There’s something that’s very personal to you and that you have your own singular connection to, that if it’s really important to you, there are people all over the planet that will relate to it. The mistakes happen when you try to figure out what everyone likes. Because the only thing you can be sure of is what you like. And the reality is what you like ends up being what a lot of people like, as we’re all going through a similar journey. That’s the magic of film.

That’s another important aspect. Keeping it personal. The problem that my friend was trying to solve was rather simple. The narrative he showed to the VCs portrayed this everyday problem people faced. The partner in the VC firm could immediately relate to it.

Could this help us fix one of the many things wrong with our education system?

Imagine if you could relive all your lectures in engineering school. But only this time, the teacher sat down and explained the subject in a narrative manner. Giving all these scientists a human form, discussing the conditions and environment in which they came up with whatever they did, rather than merely use their name because the equation or theorem was named after them. (And of course ensuring that the subject itself is taught in an engaging manner)

I think narratives are also exceptionally important when trying to connect two different sectors. How does one explain something technical to a group of artists? How do a group of artists explain art to the IT guys?

In fact, this is another reason why having deep knowledge sets in two or more subjects can be so powerful. Because helps you speak in multiple languages.

Why do we like TED so much. And even within TED, why do we like some TED talks much more than others? Is it really about the innovation? Okay, so if you are Pranav Mistry, then yes. But more often than not, its the narrative. It’s about not being cliched, about something personal and about weaving a tale.

For what?

To get people to invest in you.

Their time, their money, their enthusiasm, whatever it is that you’re seeking.

And this would be my tiny suggestion to the young entrepreneurs I see around me. Build that story. And more importantly, share it with your team first. I have been around a lot of really exciting startups, where it’s only the top management that knows the story. Let the janitor of the company know the story too. Or the maintenance guys. Especially the maintenance guys, in case they’re out in the field interacting with end users.

Build that story. And then share it with everyone.

My Acupressure debut

Rishabh — Sat, 14 May 2011 18:58:23 +0000

One of the numerous benefits of working at a small organization like NEN are the little surprises that I am not accustomed to. Such as a special Acupressure session in between work hours.

My surprise could be a result of my past work/study environments, which are:

1. A Multi-disciplinary healthcare think tank

2. A Government Economic think thank

3. A Social enterprise working at BoP

4. A small Civil Engineering company

5. BITS Pilani, a private engineering college 250 kilometers from the nearest KFC

So there I was in a dimly lit room. No, there was no Enigma soundtrack playing, no candles and no oriental beauties. Instead there was a short man who could at best be described as unassuming.

The only massage that I have received so far has been by my barber, who spends a good 15 minutes, smashing my head with his knuckles and then asks me to sod off.

So you can imagine, what a world of difference it would have felt to have my feet, arms, back, neck massaged by this gentleman. I think I felt asleep in between.

And then he goes on and on about my routine (which is rather hard to guess, I thought). Each point of his hitting the bullseye. He could correctly determine how many hours I slept, what posture I slept in, how my chair was positioned.

I think I have found a new guru.

Featured on the NEN community portal

Rishabh — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:52:16 +0000

The nice folks over at the communications team National Entrepreneurship Network decided to have a tete-e-tete with Mekala and myself. Mekala is a final year student from the BITS Goa campus and is a really fun person and as she claims, the perfect wingman. She’s doing some exciting work with the NEN Education team. The two of us form the intern cohort.

Have a look here.

My new Office Pics

Rishabh — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 21:37:53 +0000

Some o you who take keen interest in my life would know by now that I am interning for the National Entrepreneurship Network. The rest of you, now you know. Apart from the work (there will be plenty of posts about that), one thing I am really thankful about is that the NEN office isn’t located in yet another IT SEZ park (though that might change soon).

Instead this is what greets me each morning.

Enter those gates and I cross this.

First time I saw this, it looked so much like Wisteria Lane (the fictional location where Desperate Housewives resort).

Okay, so maybe, Wisteria has the whole green thing going on while Regent Place has more of the palm scene. Like Beverly Hills. And below is the office building. It’s a effing Villa. Sweet.

In case any entrepreneur is reading this, do reach out to me if you need any sort of help (rishabh.kaul[at]nenglobal[dot]org). NEN has a terrific resource bureau with lots of folks who love to help start-ups.

At least you can pick up chicks…

Rishabh — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 20:25:11 +0000

At a recent faculty training workshops organized by NEN, Saras Sarasvathy, Associate Professor at Darden spoke about Effectual Entrepreneurship. Saras, being one of the main promoters of this concept spoke about how expert entrepreneurs (non family business background) believe in co-sharing and using their partnerships to define the course their venture takes. They focus on a set of decision making principles during times of uncertainty.

There was this part where she said that, a guy wanted to start a company but didn’t want to go to banks/VCs for funding. He then convinced his Wall Street pals to each put in 5k USD into his idea kitty and in return he would make then non executive co-founders of the venture. Which pretty much means that all they got was a business card with “co-founder” written on it. If the venture would generate profits in the future, they’d make a cut, if not they’d lose their investment. No other string attached. Apart from them being the most generous angels in the world, he said, at the very least they could use the card to “pick up chicks”.

“I hope I am speaking a language everyone can understand” she said with confidence.

“Right?” She repeated, this time a bit perplexed.

Why I lost interest in Letmeknow?

Rishabh — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 10:06:52 +0000

I considered myself lucky when I was amongst the first few folks to check out the youth information blog Letmeknow (Founded by my friend Nitin Rao), nearly 3 years ago. I loved the portal, it cut through the muck that other such blogs were churning. It also brought together exciting opportunities and events from various sectors, something which I couldn’t find on niche blogs (who would focus only on college festivals or essay competitions etc).

I immediately subscribed to the blog and would check it at least twice every day. I was a believer in the power of this simple idea. And there were many more like me who considered this their bible.

Soon as word spread, it became bigger and bigger and crossed 1 lakh visitors. The opportunities also started expanding.

Then something happened:

It started offering internship listings. At first I thought, oh wow, another value addition, probably because I was looking for internships, but after a while the internship fungus started to take over. What irked me was that most of these internships didn’t seem very exciting to me and I am sure I am speaking for a larger community here. I would have to scroll a few pages till I got to an “internship free” post. When this would happen, I would come across college festivals. Sigh.

As the site became more mainstream, I think it started attracting a different kind of crowd. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something changed and I started to frequent the site lesser and lesser.

I pleaded the executive team to not lose their indie cred

I think there is a great model that could’ve been incorporated. I personally think after attaining the mass cult status, they should have started a paid subscription model for selected exclusive information, which cut past these hazaar internships. Through their representatives or well wishers in various college they could have made a decent amount of money too (Rs 300 per year would’ve been enough IMHO).

Or maybe I am wrong. Maybe after introducing the paid model, a lot of people would’ve just lost interest.

So what then?

I guess Letmeknow would then just move back to its original cute self, where it wasn’t about page hits, it wasn’t about 500 updates in a day. It was about interesting opportunities.

I really hope I see that day soon. I love that site.

A new innings

Rishabh — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 23:30:35 +0000

Today I was relieved from NCAER as my internship there ended. I am now one inch closer to graduating and stepping into the wild.

Working at NCAER was quite an experience. My colleagues at the newly formed Center for Macro Consumer Research are some of the warmest bunch I have come across. Always helping to make my sojourn there a wonderful experience. At NCAER I got the chance to work for some of the biggest names from the industry. I got a chance to attend meetings which I don’t think many people of my age would’ve ever attended and hear some truly gifted folks speak. It also helped me realize that things at the top aren’t that different from those at the bottom and that ultimately our life isn’t defined by the opportunities that we missed, as many believe, but by the relationships we build.

The next 6 months I will start a new innings, one which will be quite different from the previous one. I will be heading down south to spend some time at the National Entrepreneurship Network, another really interesting organization working towards something that I am really passionate about. In the subsequent weeks, I shall be talking about my work there, right here.

But before that, I am going to be staying in Delhi till the 2nd week of January to see that the BITSAA Global Meet, a project I haven tirelessly working on for the last 6 months sees success and achieves its mission. If you are a BITSian that wants to truly see BITS flex its muscles, I would advise you to register for the event ASAP. I promise it’s going to be one blockbuster of an event.

Building communities

Rishabh — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 09:26:36 +0000

I have just got back from a month long trip to Chennai and neighboring regions where I was working with local teams to conduct a few surveys. I stopped over in Bangalore where for a few days to catch up with friends. One of them introduced me to a person who is working for an organization that is trying to create communities of passionate people. They typically do this by having events, using this to create data bases of these folks, help them bring more folks into the party. All good right?

Now comes the part that bothers me. The organization wants these folks to start using their portal to interact with each other via their messenger/groups service. Time and time again, I have believed that innovation should take place in execution of events, in the way we communicate with people, but not in the media. Google groups is the easiest way for collaboration. Because you can use it via your mail, because you are assured that your community will not have to go through the inconvenience of logging into yet another website and because Google groups is a much more passive process, which comes naturally. If you want people to reply to you asap, why have them migrate their activities on your portal. Use your portal as a info sharing point, not as a place where folks will have discussions, unless people see tremendous benefit in the services your messenger service is offering.

Suggestion for this organization:

Have a google group (much like what Development Cafe).
Keep the Group a closed one with an invitation only policy, make it look exclusive.
Have regular events. Use this group to disseminate information about your events, eventually people will start bringing in their friends.
If your organization wants to create multiple communities, make separate groups for each of these, better working with smaller groups than to look at 500+ crowds in the initial stages. Give the communities time, they will grow on their own over time.
Give the power to the community people.

Lakshmi Bombs survive the test of time

Rishabh — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 19:46:18 +0000

One doesn’t really need to try hard to find offense in India. Kissing your girlfriend in public, creating a community on orkut, females letting loose and pubbing all incur the wrath of the public.

This is the reason why I am rather surprised how come this little gem escaped the public’s viewfinder.

The little things would’ve probably existed right from the day Ram arrived for the lavish reception in Ayodhya. Come to think of it, isn’t it strange that in a country such as India, these little crackers adorning the picture of Goddess Lakshmi (which share the shelf with boxes of crackers having Deepika Padukone or some other random tramp’s picture) have gone unnoticed.

Clearly blowing up our dear Goddess, one who is supposed to bring us wealth, over and over again, every year is reason sufficient for a ban on such a product?

I’d have expected the BJP to dress up as Hanuman, take the first lorry to Sivakasi and give them all a night to remember.

MBA, Haryanvis and Dhoni

Rishabh — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 20:40:29 +0000

I might be getting thrown out of my flat next week.

Our land lady, a Haryanvi lump of crudeness and anger with occasional bursts of kindness, gave us an ultimatum. We (my roomate and myself) vacate by Nov 1. I guess the next 45 days (since my internship ends on 15 Dec) will be spent crashing at the crib of each and every Delhiite I can locate through my FB friends list. Quite nomadic, I guess it’s a Kashmiri thing. Actually no, that would be migration.

But I digress. So, this raw deal infuriated my roomate who went at length complaining about Haryanvis and Baniyas looking at the entire world in terms of “chutiya kat jaana”, (literal translation: having your fanny cut off) which I suppose was a euphemism for a P & L sheet. He explained to me at length how according to any Haryanvi, the worst thing that could ever happen to you is when some activity isn’t profit making and how everything eventually boils down to having a net gain and this extended to all spheres of their life, not just financial expenditure.

I found this as a striking analogy towards some of the rather serious MBA applicants, especially those who have decided very early on that they want give it a shot. One perhaps has to marvel at their way of thinking, where everything really is a potential B school app. Say if I were offered a chance to become Dhoni’s agent, one of these chaps would probably look at that as an “extremely innovative B school app story”, probably not realizing that Dhoni’s agent would not need an MBA.

On Envy

Rishabh — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 18:56:51 +0000

I attended a talk by Gurcharan Das about his latest book (released quite a while ago), The Difficulty of being Good: The subtle Art of Dharma a few days ago at The Attic (you have to check it out).

One of the really interesting thing he highlighted, which I believe we all inherently know but never act upon was envy. He claims, envy isn’t the same as jealousy. Jealousy can be understood. If you suspect your wife fancying another bloke, that’s aiite, and I guess it is legitimate for you to feel jealous.

Envy is a completely different ball park. Envy destroys you from within. It is which makes you feel a lesser being because of someone else’s success. And while some might argue that it motivates them, the entire basis of that motivation is, flawed. Because, your actions might not be directed at helping yourself, but instead be directed at bringing the other person down. He gave the example of Duryodhan and then traveled few thousand years to give another example of Anil Ambani.

Apparently a study that had taken place at HBS a while back asked a bunch of folks whether they would like to earn 50,000 USD or 100,000 USD per year. The condition being: In the former case, their peer group earns 25,000 USD and ion the latter case, they earn 200,000 USD. Envy conquered all.

Nissim Nicholas Taleb in his famous Fooled By Randomness also stressed on this point when he said that, yuppies who earned their first bonus on Wall Street shifted from their smaller suburbs (where they were quite affluent) to a more posh neighborhood and were mightily depressed. Clearly, given that the new neighborhood now has people far far richer than the yuppie.

The biggest problem with Envy in my opinion is it’s ever lasting alliance with one’s ego.

Fear

Rishabh — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:39:09 +0000

Sasha writes about fear in one of his recent posts

Speaking of fear, just recently something exceptional just happened to me: I had the absolutely worst fundraising meeting I’ve had since starting my job at Acumen Fund three years ago. It’s not worth going into the specifics…suffice it to say it was unpleasant and transactional in the worst way. Paint your worst picture of what a fundraising meeting could be, and that was this meeting.

I admit, I was a little shaken for a little while. I had to vent some to a couple of folks to clear the air.

And then, almost right away, it was done. The feeling was gone, the meeting was in the past. And no real harm was done. The actual experience of the thing I feared – the thing that can keep me and you from picking up the phone or putting yourself out there or standing in front of an audience or pitching a new, crazy idea or going with your gut – was exposed. And it was so much less powerful or meaningful than the picture I’d drawn over time.

There’s the lurking monster I imagined, and the reality that it had no teeth.

A lot of times we cook up stories in our head, simply because it’s easier to do so. Its easier to expect the worst. I have done it in the past. Why? Maybe because we don’t trust people, or maybe because it’s the worst case scenario and it can’t get any worse, or maybe some other reason for that matter.

As a person who exaggerates things at times to find humor in them, I hope I don’t exaggerate fear.

Yes men: New age Corporate/political Pranksters

Rishabh — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 22:18:11 +0000

A week before going to Copenhagen I had come across a rather intriguing news item which reported that 2 high level executives of Coca Cola held a press conference condemning their employers’ sponsorship of Hopenhagen (Hopenhagen was a festival/campaign held alongside the COP15 by the UN and included concerts, green exhibits and other niceties).

Check out the video below

(via GristTV)

This should have created quite an uproar in the corporate sector. Well it would have, in case it were true. But don’t let that let you undermine the efforts of the Yes Men, who are soon topping my list of the most creative activists around. They go around impersonating high level corporates and bureaucrats and inflicting shame upon them.

I got the chance to meet them at the Fresh Air Center where they spent an evening interacting with the bloggers and showing the premiere of their latest stunt (check that out here), trust me you do NOT want to miss it.

They fund themselves and are amongst us. And no, they haven’t been sued yet, or wait have they?

I was having a chat with a friend if he’d like to open a chapter of the Yes Men in India and while the prospect sounded exciting at the beginning; almost at once something inside the both us clinched our gut and made us retract. It’s the same reason we didn’t take part in the protests in Copenhagen. Because we were too scared.

Sigh.

Updates from my side

Rishabh — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:06:19 +0000

So here’s what’s been happening from my side.

I have started working with an exciting organisation which aims to create a legion of changemakers.

I have started blogging for one of the maverick blogs out there, writing on development through enterprise

And this is by far the most exciting news; I shall be going to Copenhagen to attend the COP15. From there, I shall be writing about how the treaties signed are going to impact the poorest of the poor and how the negotiations are turning out. There has been some talk of perhaps a stand up comedy show from our side, but oh well, will need to work on my material. I am super excited about this opportunity and I would like to thank Nayak and the Tcktcktck’s Fresh Air Center the most for this.

Some other interesting projects in the pipeline too, though its too early to comment on any of those right now (Stealth mode yes yes), will announce at the appropriate time.

In case anyone wants anything from the Danish Land or better still, is planning on attending the conference (in which case we should definitely meet up), do shoot me a mail at rishabhkaul at gmail dot com.

Climate change through analogies

Rishabh — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 01:19:38 +0000

This is analagous to the issue of slavery faced by Abraham Lincoln or the issue of Nazism faced by Winston Churchill. On those kind of issues you cannot compromise. You can’t say let’s reduce slavery, let’s find a compromise and reduce it 50% or reduce it 40%.

Says James Hansen, the leading climate change expert and scientist, while explaining how the world leaders today are facing a moral dilemma but yet try to compromise. And he’s openly criticizing Obama as well as Gore.

He is also opposing the cap and trade legislation that the US congress wants to pass. About that, he says

This is analogous to the indulgences that the Catholic church sold in the middle ages. The bishops collected lots of money and the sinners got redemption. Both parties liked that arrangement despite its absurdity. That is exactly what’s happening. We’ve got the developed countries who want to continue more or less business as usual and then these developing countries who want money and that is what they can get through offsets [sold through the carbon markets].

(via this piece in the Guardian)

I am waiting to get my hands on his book Storms of my Grandchildren. I love these analogies of his. Also, speaking of the cap and trade legislature, check out this short film titled story of Cap ad Trade. It’s part of an existing series of shorts called Story of Stuff. Check it out. It’s already sparked off discussions about which is the best way to tackle climate change. A lot of experts want to tax high carbon emitting fuels to ward off their consumption and move to more ecofriendly way instead of dealing with carbon credits.

Lets see how things turn out. 2 weeks notice has been put up to seal the deal.

Mandatory CAT post

Rishabh — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:32:53 +0000

It’s that time of the year, however this time around it’s gotten a whole lot messier.

My batchmates who are giving CAT this year are going ballistic saying “Humare hi batch ko bali ka bakra bana kar rakha hai” We’re the scapegoats over and over again referring to instances in the past such as the change in CBSE syallabus during our 10th, change in JEE pattern during our 12th and now this.

People getting messages at 5 AM that their test is at 8 AM in a different city, servers crashing, copying blatantly, buttons end your test.

If this goes on, we’re going to have an interesting set of managers coming out in 2 years time.