Crossing the limits of rationality

Over the past week, we’ve been having a lively contest in our office. If you follow the game of cricket, then you surely know that the Champions Trophy is currently underway in India. Our non-sensical in-house competition is essentially aimed at finding out the gent or lady with the best crystal-gazing skills. Each of us has been given a fixed set of virtual points to play with and the organizer of this “virtual betting ring” goes about circulating the odds for each cricketing side prior to their on-field face-off. Depending on whether your side wins or loses, the points you wager can either get multiplied with the odds or lost altogether.

Due to a series of unintelligent wagers, I have managed to reach the rock bottom of this table in record time. While the leader of our little game has a whopping 345,641.58 points to her credit, I have a measly 56,000 against my name. The odds for tomorrow’s game between India and England are set to 1.44 for India and 2.62 for England. Going the whole hog, I’ve bet all my points on India. If she wins, I’ll move up to 80,640 (i.e. 56,000 * 1.44). Otherwise, I’ll be completely wiped out. Since the others are probably going to further build up on their leads, I would have to take more such irrational risks with every passing game. If I can call myself smart, then here are some reasons as to why I do such dumb things. Win or lose, I shall endevour to update this post with my latest standing.

Update:

After the India v/s England match:
Current tally: 80,640. India did win and I’ve moved up 3 places to rank 17 in a field of 20. However, the leaders have further extended their leads. Considering that Styris and Bond are out of the New Zealand (odds: 2.37) side, I have decided to play it safe for the next match. Betting 70,000 points on South Africa (odds: 1.53) and keeping the balance in reserve.

After the New Zealand v/s South Africa match:
Holy crap. New Zealand just pulled off an improbable victory. I am down to 10,640 points. But what is interesting is that many of the leaders are either out of the competition or have lost most of their points. Despite having about 500,000 points, some of the top contenders bet everything on South Africa. Is this avarice or stupidity?

After the Pakistan v/s Sri Lanka match:
I wagered 5000 points on Sri Lanka (odds: 1.50) and kept the balance in the bank. With Shoaib, Asif and Inzy out of the team, the signs were indeed ominous for Pakistan (odds: 2.50). Alas, cricket can defy logic. After Pakistan’s win, I am down to 5640 points. How the heck do people actually bet with real money?
As I am going on a vacation tomorrow, I’ve decided to bet whatever I have on the West Indies (odds: 3.75). Considering that the Aussies (odds: 1.25) are the run-away favorites, I’ve decided to kiss this silly game and my ass goodbye. It is time to celebrate the festival of lights with my family. Happy Diwali to all my internet friends!

Last and final update:
Many of the erstwhile leaders are now bankrupt and have lost all their points. I just happened to get lucky with the Windies beating Australia. Believe it or not, my objective with that bet was to quit the game by being goofy. After winning that bet, however, I strained my last remaining brain cells trying to figure out an ideal betting strategy. And I have come to the following conclusion. Don’t bet. Gambling ruins. One may occasionally get lucky; but the risk of losses far outweighs the possibility of gains. If you don’t believe me, you only have to ask 17 of my colleagues who began this game with 150,000 points but now have none. Zero. Nada. So, if you still feel like betting, then good luck. You are going to need lots of it.

Patently obvious!

Last week, I received an email from my attorney confirming the filing of my third patent application at the USPTO. Although I am listed as the sole inventor on the application form, the ownership rights of this “intellectual property” vest with a big software company I’d worked for until recently. While I did not come up with something ground-breaking such as a teleportation machine or the ultimate cure for AIDS, my simple inventions nevertheless served to impress my mom. This post is not about my thoughts on whether patents are necessarily good or evil because as far as patent filing emotions are concerned, I nearly echo every bit of Paul Graham’s views on the topic. What I hope to achieve with this post , however, is to prod people, myself included, to try harder and be more proactive in identifying problems and to then complete the loop by seeking out the solution. Often times, spotting a problem is a hard task in itself. The human condition is such that most people become immune to problems they face by accepting them as a given.

Now, many of my engineer friends say that they are unable to innovate in their workplace because their employer hasn’t given them a good enough problem to solve. A few of them even ask me if anything can be done about this predicament. Here’s what I tell them: Seek out the problems yourselves. Once you are able to define a problem concisely, the solutions are usually straightforward. If you happen to work for an incompetent manager who keeps stifling your initiatives, then tough luck. But don’t quit because you have a reason. You can always get around roadblocks if you persist because most companies do recognize and reward innovation. Put yourself in the shoes of your customer and make the extra effort to improve the status quo in everything you do. And always ask yourself: “This is great; but how do I make it even better?”. Because the devil really is in the details.

So much for stating the obvious.