As agents get smarter, and when we ask questions outside our expertise, it’s pretty hard to understand what they’re saying. Andrew Carr uses “only report to me in ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English” to simplify their writing. Ben Sehl suggested making this a permanent instruction. But, does simplifying the writing worsen their thinking? I tested six tasks on ChatGPT (GPT 5.6 Sol), with and without this suffix: “Answer in ASD-STE100”. ...
This year, I created a series of tests for my course at IITM and to recruit for Gramener. The tests had 2 interesting features. One question required them to hack the page Write the body of the request to an OpenAI chat completion call that: Uses model gpt-4o-mini Has a system message: Respond in JSON Has a user message: Generate 10 random addresses in the US Uses structured outputs to respond with an object addresses which is an array of objects with required fields: street (string) city (string) apartment (string) . Sets additionalProperties to false to prevent additional properties. What is the JSON body we should send to https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions for this? (No need to run it or to use an API key. Just write the body of the request below.) ...
Does it matter which month you’re born in? Based on the results of the 20 lakh students taking the Class XII exams at Tamil Nadu over the last 3 years (via Reportbee), it appears that the month you were born in can make a difference of as much as 120 marks out of 1,200 – or 10%! Most students who took the Class XII exams in 2011 were born between March 1991 and June 1992. The average marks of each student (out of 1200) is shown in the graph below. ...
You may know me as S Anand. You may also know me as Prof or Stud at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, as Anand Subramanian at IBM India, Bhalla at Alakananda hostel, IIT Madras, and Bal at Vidya Mandir. LinkedIn CV (2024) History 1974-1978 at home I was born on the 23rd November, 1974 (a Saturday) at Tirupati. I flew back to Madras (now Chennai) in a few days along with my parents. I stayed at home for 4 years, thoroughly enjoying myself. My mother would feed me while telling me stories while I was perched on her hip looking at the cows behind our house (it was no mean feat — I think I weighed 20 kilos). Since I was the youngest grandchild in our family, no one was permitted to get angry with me — especially if I sat on them and hit them with whatever they wouldn’t give me. ...
If you’re ever taken a course in Economics, and it discussed Game Theory, you may be familiar with The Prisoner’s Dilemma. Roughly, this is the problem. Assume you possess copious quantities of some item (money, for example), and wish to obtain some amount of another item (perhaps stamps, groceries, diamonds). You arrange a mutually agreeable trade with the only dealer of that item known to you. You are both satisfied with the amounts you will be giving and getting. For some reason, though, your trade must take place in secret. Each of you agrees to leave a bag at a designated place in the forest, and to pick up the other’s bag at the other’s designated place. Suppose it is clear to both of you that the two of you will never meet or have further dealings with each other again. ...
In November 2000, I visited Paris one weekend. Two classmates, Anand Binani and Ram Venkat were studying there, and we roamed around the city. At around 6:00pm, we went over to Montmartre. It’s up a hill, and there’s a cable car that takes you up there. We went all the way up, and got out when a lady behind us asked: “Is that yours? We’d left something behind. Went back to retrieve it. The car was almost leaving for it’s return journey. We just got out in time… ...
You can play a video backwards and still recognise the scenes quite well. Can you do that with sound? I tried it on this Bryan Adams clip of Summer of ‘69 (mp3). When played backwards (mp3), it almost sounds like Arabic! Instruments sound weird backwards too, like the guitar played backwards and drums played backwards. It’s seems obvious once you see the wave file. The picture below shows the guitar. The sounds are clearly not symmetric left to right. ...
How to remove carpet impressions. Just steam iron the carpet. Comments ankit 24 Jun 2006 5:58 pm: it really works.. http://virtuously.blogspot.com/ S Anand 25 Jun 2006 8:52 am: You actually tried it? I was planning to, except without using steam.
Once, we were looking at whether banks made money on demand drafts (DDs). DDs are costly. 90% of a bank’s costs are people-related, and it takes a fair bit of time (hence people) to process DDs. If you pay for DDs in cash, it costs even more because the teller has to count the notes. To recover this cost, banks charge a fee. The fee increases with the size of the DD. A DD for Rs 10,000 may cost Rs 50, while one for Rs 100,000 may cost Rs 200. ...
Over my last few years as a consultant, I’ve seen many interesting ways in which markets have emerged where they shouldn’t have, creating havoc in pricing and scarcity. Fixed prices fluctuate, free goods acquire a value, and non-tradeable goods are traded. I’ll share a few of these examples over the next few weeks. Once, a fan manufacturer asked us, We did an analysis and found that our wholesalers’ margins fluctuate. How could that happen, when we are fixing their buying and selling prices? ...
Da Vinci Code trailers. Comments Sai 15 Dec 2005 9:56 pm: Anand, tell us a bit about Infosys consulting. They seem to be on a big expansion drive. Hows it out there? S Anand 16 Dec 2005 7:32 am: I can mail you, Sai. What’s your e-mail ID? S Anand 16 Dec 2005 9:39 am: BTW, the del.icio.us tag on “The Da Vinci Code” is an anagram: c i con thee david. Sai 16 Dec 2005 7:42 pm: Anand it is [email protected] Sai 16 Dec 2005 7:46 pm: Thanks!
Framing - using words to build a frame of mind. A Senator goes on a Fox News show in which a conservative argues with a liberal. The conservative host says: “Some say that more tax relief creates more jobs. You have voted against increased tax relief. Why?” The Senator is caught. Any attempt to answer the question as asked simply reinforces both the Tax Relief frame and the “Tax Relief Creates Jobs” frame. The question builds in a conservative worldview and false “facts”. Even to deny that “tax relief” creates jobs accepts the Tax Relief frame and reinforces the “Tax Relief Creates Jobs” frame. ...
Taking pictures at low shutter speeds without a tripod. Comments Anonymous Hero 5 Jul 2005 9:56 am: About why Google History is important: I had searched for something from home laptop and I was at office and needed the same info. Went into Google history and found the same thing… So the search history and the links I clicked on were available from any computer attached to the Net. Found it pretty useful… Ram 5 Jul 2005 4:51 pm: Pls update the placement section with new useful links… S Anand 5 Jul 2005 6:36 pm: Ah… that’s a good use. I was also wondering if we could do some profiling of the kinds of sites we visit – perhaps by checking what their tags are on technorati or del.icio.us sathish 22 Jul 2005 11:14 am: probably based on our search history, there could some recommendations to given
Droogle. Drink recipes. Comments Jetru 24 Mar 2005 5:04 pm: Doesnt look like the XML feed is working… Deshi 24 Mar 2005 6:17 pm: This is one lousy blog! Genmys 25 Mar 2005 1:49 am: Lassi features as South Indian drink. Obscure results for Butter Milk ritzkini 25 Mar 2005 8:13 am: Bandwidth Limit Exceeded.The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.Apache/1.3.33 Server at www.droogle.ca Port 80(25/03/2005-at 1:45 PM IST) Shamit 26 Mar 2005 4:41 am: It is getting a bit cluttered … S Anand 28 Mar 2005 3:20 am: Yes, it is, rather. Will see what I can do about that. S Anand 30 Mar 2005 7:23 am: Fixed the XML feed.
Altavista’s new features are pretty good. What I liked best, though, is their new interface. Especially the bar used to open the search result in a new window. Good to know that I rank 3rd on their search.
Reactions to Google’s revised search algorithm. People’s rankings on certain keywords appear to have changed. Mine hasn’t. So far.
Never thought the day would come when the Google query S Anand would throw up my name first. Probably won’t last…
Some press clippings about the IIM-B convocation (and me).