Mining for Knowledge

'Knowledge mining' is a concept taught to computer science students about how to look for interesting patterns and structures in otherwise meaningless and large collection of data. The word 'mining' in 'knowledge mining' struck me as rather interesting. So much so that I stopped to ponder about its implications. Mining is usually associated with valuable stuff such as precious metals and stones, ores, etc. So it got me thinking, " My God..! Knowledge must be really valuable". My mind started wandering and as usual I started to form connections between hypothesis A and observation B until I was pretty sure that I had a theory C.

I won't go into this theory C for it is rather personal to me ( yes so personal that I won't post it on the blog ). However, I am glad to talk about a related topic that is of interest to me.

The topic is about what sort of jobs people like to do. I liked Nassim Nicholas Taleb's definition( He is the author of 'fooled by randomness' and 'black swan', if you haven't read it, I suggest it ). He created a dichotomy of all jobs that are out there. He labeled jobs as 'scalable' and 'non scalable'. Scalable jobs are those that give you a disproportionate amount of reward compared to the number of hours of work you do. Such as that of an artist who makes it big, a wall street trader, a politician, a drug lord, etc. These jobs are often associated with lots of glamor as there is often a chance to make it big really quick. A certain lottery, casino, gambling like factor.

On the other hand non scalable jobs give you the payback that you deserve based on the number of hours you put in and what your skill set is. The skill set is often acquired through a number of hours of hard work. These people are dentists, engineers, teachers, plumbers and even police officers. These jobs are mundane. Boring. Hardly worth bragging about. I am sure that the people doing these kind of jobs have at some point of time had doubts about their profession and often wished they were on the other side. However, Nassim advices people to take a job that is non scalable. He believes that a job where you get paid for the amount of knowledge you possess and the amount of work you put in, is a desirable job. Life is no longer indeterminant. You are the captain of your life, the cartographer of your destiny.

I agree with Nassim.

The Fence and Independence Day

As far as traditions go, Carnegie Mellon has many and we got to take part, first hand in one of it's most fun traditions. The tradition is called 'The Fence'. It is nothing but a fence in the middle of campus that people keep painting randomly during the night as a sign of protest or just to make a point.

On Independence day, we said seized the opportunity to repaint the fence with the tricolor. And guess what, Fun and Patriotism can come packaged together too..!

Bubble Theory

It's been some time since I wanted to propose this theory of mine.

It's often shocked me how some people often live inside a bubble all their life. The bubble effectively seals them from the realities of the outside world. Like a fish in a bowl. Imagine yourself as a pretty gold fish swimming inside a nice spherical bowl, and you are swimming, swimming and basically that's all you are doing. From time to time you peer outside and the world appears fuzzy to you. Everything is distorted and the green algae forming on the walls is making your vision cloudy. But you don't care, in fact that's how you want it. The fish bowl is your world, nothing exists outside it and frankly you don't care. Food is plopped into your bowl, it's good, life goes on. You get bored sometimes, so you go and bully the guppies a bit. You are careful not to antagonize the resident fighter fish. Yes, life goes on. It's not great, but it is your world and you're in perfect control of it.

That's it the goldfish example ends, there's not going to be some dramatic ending to it.

The point I am trying to make here is that people willingly construct these glass bubbles. The fish doesn't have a choice but we do. We build glass bubbles all the time. Everyone does it to a greater or lesser extent. Some build glass bubbles, others soap bubbles. No one can be excluded. There is one fundamental problem with bubbles. They don't let stuff inside. Change is painful. The fairy tale world does not wish to be disturbed. The smaller the bubble the better. The more stuff that comes inside, makes the bubble grow bigger and your world gets more difficult to understand and control. So the doctrine is to keep your bubble small and strong, preferably made of glass.

What sort of people make small glass bubbles ? and who are the people who tend towards the larger permeable soap bubbles ?
I do have an answer for this. And my answer is that the people who don't feel threatened have softer larger bubbles. And those in the quest of a larger meaning , those who are trying to find the unity amongst all things, like how the sages of my country did on top of the himalayas, they are in the pursuit of making the bubble vanish all together. They are searching for the ultimate truth, the one that makes you see the universe as it is.

I would like to do that sometime.

New blogs

Well a lot has happened in my life in the last few days and even in the last few months. Lots of bloggable material actually. But, somehow didn't feel like penning it down. It is nice to describe the world at it is and I have done it several times in the past. It makes for pleasant blogging. Blogging about incidents, about cultures, place and food. Descriptive and at the same time biased by opinion, my opinion.

What has caught my fascination off late are thoughts that come from within. Thoughts that I think, while I'm idle. No doubt influenced by things I read, hear or discuss with others. They are thoughts that have their seed and genesis deep within me. So expect more of my ruminations in the next few set of blogs.