I shared a brief update while going on vacation. The comments captured discussions about improving my blog's sidebar layout, finding copies of Richard Feynman's books, and dealing with office web filters blocking the site.

I am on vacation. Comments sathish 20 Apr 2005 3:39 am: enjoy madi.. have fun. harish 21 Apr 2005 10:57 pm: hi anand. have fun mark wu 22 Apr 2005 2:31 pm: yes and thank you Venkat 25 Apr 2005 6:01 am: Enjoy maadi Dhar 25 Apr 2005 12:36 pm: Coming back here after a long break. Have quite a few interesting links to check out! Will certainly check out the MIT Prank once I am on a good Net connection. sunshine 29 Apr 2005 8:46 am: Anand u r so cute he he he sunshine 29 Apr 2005 8:47 am: Hey that one was to pull ur leg(i read that u hate being called cute" bharani 29 Apr 2005 10:26 pm: this commenting style doesnt look very clean...leaves a lot of blank space on your page...i was wondering if there was some pic there that was not showing up...lol... S Anand 1 May 2005 8:54 am: True, Bharani. I've been thinking the same. Am planning some changes, and will have them online by mid-May. sathish 4 May 2005 4:08 am: Anand, One suggestion is that you could have the comments below the main post, instead of right hand side of the post. rinku 9 May 2005 4:59 am: rinku:where did u get a copy of "What do you care what other people think"by Richard Feynmann.I have been hunting for that book for around 2 years and still no success. Venkat 16 May 2005 4:55 am: Where are you right now Boss? sp 16 May 2005 8:53 am: hi "rinku"...i have a old copy of the book, and you Sriram 23 May 2005 6:21 am: I work for Dell and they seem to have blocked your weblog!! Any clues why? Dhar 25 May 2005 10:20 am: Or if you dont have a server outside that you can use, try searching on Google for something called JAP (Java Anonymity and Proxy)

Vacation


I shared a Lifehacker comparison of early video hosting platforms, highlighting the features and limitations of various services available for sharing clips online during the mid-2000s video boom.

Video sharing service round-up.

Video sharing service roundup


I examine whether software can accurately predict the course and outcome of armed conflicts, similar to weather forecasting. This explores the potential for mathematical models to navigate the immense complexity of modern warfare.

War forecasting. Can software really predict the outcome of an armed conflict, just as it can predict the course of the weather?

War forecasting


Check out the Web 2.0 Matrix on ProgrammableWeb to see which APIs are being mashed up and where. This tool tracks the relationships between different web services and maps their common integrations.

Web 2.0 Matrix. What APIs have been mashed up with what other APIs, and where.

Web 2.0 Matrix


Explore how economists can improve exchange rate models by adopting the perspectives of currency traders, specifically focusing on market microstructure and the significance of order flows over traditional macro fundamentals to explain market behavior.

What economists can learn from currency traders.


I explored National Geographic's look at the subterranean infrastructure of New York City. It reveals the complex network of subway tunnels, water pipes, power lines, and hidden history lying directly beneath the busy city streets.

What Lies Beneath New York.

What Lies Beneath New York


I share takeaways from a 2005 Web 2.0 session on teen consumer habits. The standout moment reveals a generational shift as teenagers express confusion at the idea of buying physical media like CD players.

What Teens Want. From a session at Web2.0. The big laugh line of the session was when Safa asked them how they'd go about researching information on a CD player they might want to buy. They looked at him in silent puzzlement, as if to say, "why would we buy a CD player?"

What Teens Want


Discover a curated guide to sourcing high-quality, royalty-free photographs and visual assets for your online articles. These resources help you find legal, free imagery to enhance your web content and digital publishing projects.

Where To Find Great Free Photographs And Visuals For Your Own Online Articles

Where To Find Great Free Photographs


I curated a list of specialized search engines for different tasks, including Pinakes for trustworthy sites and tools for the invisible web. Use these resources to find deep web content and verified information outside mainstream search.

Which search engine to use? If you want to find websites that you can trust: Pinakes\ If you want to search the invisible web\ Lots more...

Which search engine to use


I highlight a 2005 Wired investigation into the pervasive industry anxiety surrounding Google’s expansion. It examines how the company's growth across multiple sectors threatened established competitors and sparked fears of a total digital monopoly.

Who's afraid of Google? Everyone

Who is afraid of Google


I shared a Kuro5hin article speculating on Google's future acquisitions during its early growth phase. It explores the company's expansion strategy and identifies potential startups or technologies that could fit into its rapidly evolving ecosystem.

Who will Google buy next? Comments Mala 22 Jun 2005 4:44 am: London pahunch gaye?? Send me your new email ID at malavikap yahoo co Anonymous 22 Jun 2005 10:23 am: anand can you give me some CAT tips tech freak 29 Jun 2005 7:03 am: give your new email ID S Anand 29 Jun 2005 8:01 am: root underscore node at yahoo dot com

Who will Google buy next


I explore why Emirates Airlines maintains low fares, citing factors like zero taxation, government-guaranteed interest rates, and low staff costs without unions, making them a unique player in long-distance budget travel.

The Economist explains why Emirates Airlines is so cheap. It's not just the Government subsidy. Zero tax, low interest rates (Government-backed), and low staff cost without unions. Apparantly, they are the only low-fare long-distance flyer. Comments Arnab 30 Oct 2005 8:04 pm: "low-fare" you mean. S Anand 31 Oct 2005 6:22 pm: Fixed that typo. Thanks!

Why Emirates Airlines is so cheap


I switched to Google Reader because its speed and keyboard navigation allow me to browse blogs ten times faster than before. Google's focus on fast-loading pages significantly improves the overall reading experience compared to other tools.

I switched to Google Reader as my blog reader (I was using Mozilla so far). The reason was simple: speed. Thanks to the Google site's speed and keyboard navigation, I can read blog entries 10 times faster. Now there's a unique proposition for Google that a lot of people are missing: that their site loads a whole lot faster than others. It makes a huge difference to the whole browsing experience. Comments Dhar 24 Oct 2005 9:38 am: Anand, check out Groovy. Dhar 24 Oct 2005 9:38 am: Sorry, it should be Goowy S Anand 24 Oct 2005 2:26 pm: Quite an app!

Why Google Reader


Dry spaghetti rarely breaks into just two pieces because the initial snap sends curvature waves through the remaining segments. These vibrations increase the local stress, causing the pasta to shatter into three or more fragments.

Why spaghetti does not break in half. It usually breaks into three or more pieces. Audoly and Neukirch show several videos of this phenomenon. The also show that dry spaghetti breaks even if you just bend it, and release it suddenly. This is because the waves of curvature propogate through the spaghetti, and sometimes the curvature becomes too high. When you break spaghetti, it first breaks into two, and then the remaining halves behave as if they were released suddenly, splitting into further pieces.

Why spaghetti does not break in half


I highlighted Wikibooks as a valuable platform for collaborative open-content textbooks. It allows anyone to write and edit instructional manuals, providing a free, community-driven alternative to traditional educational resources across many different domains.

Wikibooks. Comments Arun 2 Aug 2005 11:43 am: well, i start typing in the box...then i take the cursor away from it...hmm..it works now... :) sorry, i guess it was tempoarry hitch...anyway, not a big deal...was just irritating me at that point... Dhar 2 Aug 2005 2:49 pm: No, I still have that problem. Type something in the textbox, click somewhere else and click back on the text box. There are times the cursor plain disappears. But occasionally it does re-appear. S Anand 2 Aug 2005 8:18 pm: I haven't been able to reproduce it. Well, hope it's a browser glitch. kinu 11 Jan 2009 6:46 am: i havent tried it yet. could u throw light on watare the tings that a finance student wanting to go in equity research shuld inculcate.. .i mean im a perfectionist and detail oriented

Wikibooks


I highlight the leaked features of Winamp 5.1, including 8x CD ripping in the free version and WMA support. I'm intrigued by the Predixis Smart Playlist Generator and its promise to mix tracks based on how they sound.

WinAmp 5.1 leaked. Actually, the features were. The good part is, we will have 8X CD ripping in the free version, and ability to create WMA files. Wonder how the Predixis Smart Playlist Generator works. (It says "Mix your tracks based on what they sound like!") Comments Dhar 31 Aug 2005 12:56 pm: Jet Audio too does some mixing based on what they sound like. Let me see if I can dig up that data. On the other hand, why use WinAmp for ripping? DB-Power-Amp is the way to go. Allows you to rip in various formats and no restrictions on the ripping speed.

Winamp 5.1


I found this detailed design brief on the iterative process behind the Windows 95 interface. It explores how usability testing shaped iconic elements like the Start menu and taskbar to improve upon the Windows 3.1 desktop experience.

The story of the Windows 95 user interface.

Windows 95 interface


I evaluate Windows Live Local against Google Maps, concluding that Google's speed is the critical advantage. I find that performance is often the most important feature when comparing mapping services and web applications.

Windows Live Local tries to match Google Maps. But Google Maps is just too fast. As I mentioned earlier (Why Google Reader): the reason I like Google is largely speed.>

Windows Live Local


Explore the online collection of Woodward and Bernstein papers at the University of Texas. These archives document the investigative reporting for the Washington Post that uncovered the Watergate scandal and led to President Nixon's resignation.

The Woodward and Bernstein papers. Woodward and Berstein of the Washington Post wrote a series of stories leading to the resignation of Richard Nixon. Their novel All The President's Men has a gripping account of their adventure. Now, their original papers are available at the University of Texas.

Woodward Bernstein papers


I'm noting Yahoo's acquisition of the social bookmarking pioneer del.icio.us. This significant Web 2.0 event highlights the growing importance of user-generated tagging and community-driven content organization during the mid-2000s.

Yahoo buys del.icio.us.

Yahoo buys del.icio.us


Yahoo’s Buzz Game is a prediction market tracking technology trends by letting users bet on market winners. Current leaders include C for languages, Livejournal for blogs, Flickr for tags, and BitTorrent for P2P networking.

Yahoo's Buzz Game tracks various technology markets, and lets people bet on which one will win. So, for instance, C leads language, Livejournal leads blogs, Flickr leads tags, and Bittorrent leads P2P.

Yahoo Buzz Game


I shared Yahoo Next, a new showcase for the company’s latest experimental projects. Similar to Google Labs, it offers a glimpse into upcoming tools and features being developed by their engineering teams.

Yahoo! Next. It's a showcase of some of Yahoo!'s newest and coolest projects. Like Google Labs.

Yahoo Next


Explore YubNub, a web-based command line interface that acts as a starting point for a Web OS. It allows users to execute complex searches and commands across various services directly through a simple browser-based prompt.

YubNub is a web command line. A starting point for a Web OS, as Jon Aquino suggests. via eHub

YubNub


Symantec filed a zero-dollar lawsuit against adware maker Hotbar to counter legal threats. This defensive strategy seeks a declaratory judgment to validate anti-spyware classifications, preventing companies from bullying security vendors into removing detections from their databases.

Hotbar threatened to sue Symantec over its anti adware software. Symantec filed back a zero dollar lawsuit against Hotbar. "Until yesterday, adware and spyware makers could send out threatening letters with almost no downside," said Edelman as he put the Symantec court case into perspective. "Nothing bad would happen to them, and maybe something good would happen, maybe the anti-spyware vendor would give in and remove them from their database." Comments munish 10 Jun 2005 11:42 am: me in amsterdam..could call you up sometimes Amandeep 10 Jun 2005 5:03 pm: lets meet up sometime munish 13 Jun 2005 2:34 pm: give me your number

Zero dollar suit


I found that Google Desktop can act as a Control Panel replacement to launch system settings quickly. It remains a powerful tool for indexing local files, searching email, and using gadgets to streamline my desktop workflow.

10 great uses for Google Desktop. The only one I didn't know about before was the "Control Panel replacement". You can use Google Desktop to launch control panel items.

10 great uses for Google Desktop


I shared ten techniques to add variety to digital photography, specifically highlighting exposure bracketing. The methods include experimenting with focal lengths and compositions to move beyond "spray and pray" shooting habits and improve technical proficiency.

10 ways to add variety to your digital photographs. Exposure bracketing sounds especially interesting. Comments Dhar 10 May 2006 7:29 pm: Err, this seems a sure shot way of never learning to photograph properly. The problem with this approach is that people just take shots and pray that things will turn out correct (spray and pray). It would be better to make LOTS of mistakes early on and get a correct idea of things like exposure and composition and then use Exposure bracketing. "when it comes to shooting lots of images - take note of what you%u2019re doing." From personal experience, this is crazy. With film SLRs (at least the model I had), note taking was often required because info about shutter speed, aperture, focal length was not available otherwise. But come on, with digital cameras this is easily available in the EXIF data. And how many times would you interrupt your photography session to note down these details. I personally feel, the better idea is to MAKE mistakes. Dont bother with exposure bracketing, multiple shots with different focal lengths and the like. If your snaps dont come out right, analysis and comments from people who know photographic techniques will tell you what is to be done the next time and then your snaps will be correct. Sorry for the long comment, but felt it worthwhile to point out a different opinion. Cheers, D.


I shared a link to the book 55 Ways to Have Fun with Google, but after actually reading it, I found the content underwhelming and not quite as engaging as I had originally hoped.

55 ways to have fun with Google. Comments Dhar 25 Jun 2006 7:59 am: Just finished the book, didn't find it too interesting. :(( S Anand 25 Jun 2006 8:52 am: Me neither. :-(

55 ways to have fun with Google


I share essential habits for effective designers, emphasizing the need to work quickly and produce high volumes of work. This approach helps junior designers translate their raw talent into consistent professional success.

The 7 habits of highly effective designers. Number one being: Work quickly, produce a lot

7 habits of highly effective designers


I'm sharing a concise guide to learning theory for anyone training users or designing educational content. Use these principles to create better instructional experiences and help your audience master complex new skills more effectively.

A crash course in learning theory. Comments Prakash 7 Jan 2006 12:00 pm: This link was very kool Anand. I m goin to train few users next week. It cud b of gr8 use. Thanks...

A crash course in learning theory


Teenagers are using high-frequency ringtones that adults typically cannot hear due to age-related hearing loss. This allows students to receive alerts in class undetected, while shopkeepers use similar technology to drive away rowdy youth.

Frequency chart by age Teenagers use it in classes, to avoid detection by teachers. Shopkeepers use the same technology to drive away rowdy teenagers, by creating a loud sound that doesn't affect adults. This works because adults gradually lose the ability to hear high-pitched sounds. (via NY Times) Comments Livy 12 Nov 2006 5:33 pm: I can here the sounds up to about 18KHz.

A ringtone adults cannot hear


I explore why certain "proofs" that 1=2 fail, focusing on the danger of rearranging non-absolutely convergent series like the log 2 expansion. I explain how the Riemann series theorem allows divergent series to sum to different values.

I've seen many proofs that 1=2. Here's a classic. Proof that 1=2 using algebra The (not-so-subtle) error in the above proof is that we're cancelling (a-b) on both sides, when (a-b) equals zero. That is, we're dividing by zero on both sides. That completely invalidates the equality. Another proof uses the fact that the square root of a number can be both positive or negative. Proof that 1=2 using square roots (Proving -1=1 is the same as proving 1=2. Once you have one wrong proof, you can prove every other falsehood.) The flaw here is that the square root of 1 is 1 and -1. So right after the square root symbol appears, every equation should have a plus-or-minus symbol on both sides. The most convincing proof uses absolutely convergent series as the key idea. Here's how the proof goes. Proof that 1=2 using non-absolutely convergent series Most people initially think that the flaw is in the re-arrangement of the series. That's not true! The re-arrangement works just fine, and you can prove that every term is correct to infinity. The flaw is subtler. When an infinite series is summed, it can be summed in any order. But the total may vary depending on the order you sum it up! You are guaranteed that the total is the same only if the series is absolutely convergent. That is, if the sum of the absolute values of each number is finite. (See the Wikipedia article on the Riemann series theorem.) For the log 2 series, it's not absolutely convergent. The series diverges, as shown below: log 2 is not absolutely convergent So, by re-arranging the series for log 2, we've invalidated the equality anyway. This fact once saved an entire class. We had a problem in our first year physics course to which the answer was the series above. (It had to do with calculating the electromagnetic potential created by an array of charges.) Since the series is not absolutely convergent, and every possible answer was correct, the whole class got marks for this question, as long as they attempted it. Comments Arun 1 Sep 2006 1:18 pm: hi da how much u analyze and write amazing i read ur blog continuously for the past four years keep blogging interesting S Anand 1 Sep 2006 5:28 pm: Thanks! It's tough to manage, but nowadays I have a lot more time than I used to. saurabh 2 Apr 2007 7:28 am: very subtle indeed. Keep up... Alan 27 Apr 2015 10:29 pm: How can it be proves that "dividing by zero on both sides.... invalidates the equality."? Isn't the correct answer to 0/0 = we don't know? Lolguy 4 Dec 2014 9:52 pm: The number 2 is wrong. It should read like: sqrt(1) sqrt(1) = sqrt(-1) sqrt(-1); sqrt(1) = sqrt(1); (since sqrt(-1) x sqrt(-1) = sqrt(-1 x-1) = sqrt(1)) 1 = 1 Fabricio 21 Dec 2014 1:48 pm: The number 2 is wrong. It should read like: [...]Lolguy,The second proof is wrong, yes; though not for the reason you stated (which is also wrong reasoning).The error in the proof is the third line, sqrt(1/-1) = sqrt(-1/1) , which does not make sense, formally; even though it looks suggestively meaningful.The implication from the second to the third line would be equivalent to saying that,Carl is the same person as Carl, [ Carl = Carl ]Therefore, [any] son of Carl is the same person as [any] son of Carl. [ son\of(Carl) = son\of(Carl) ]This will only be always true if Carl has only one son; evidently, if he has more than one, any two given sons of Carl need not necessarily be the same person.A analogue situation happens when defining the square root of a number:In context of the set of real numbers, it is possible (and actually done so, in many places) to define the square root of a number x as 'the positive number y, such as y^2=x' ; (The generalization for n-th roots, n pair, coming easily from that, in an analogue manner.)This solves the issue for square roots (or any other roots) under the real numbers: defined in this way, they determine a function (a relation between sets A and B, such that to each element in A one, and \only\ one element in B is associated) and can be used as an operation that can be applied to both sides of an equation and still preserve its truth (in the same way it is valid to state that x = y implies that x^2 = y^2 , or that x = y implies that log (x) = log (y) ).Defined in this way, sqrt(x) constitutes a function, and does, as all functions do, possess the property of being a univocal relation: for each x, there is only one f(x), or in this particular case, only one sqrt(x).When it comes to the set of complex numbers, though, the plot thickens, because for any given non-zero complex number z, there will be n different complex numbers z\i (i = 1, ... , n) such that (z\i)^n = z .It is said, usually: 'each complex number z has n complex nth-roots.' (Thus, 2 square roots, 3 cubic roots, and so on.)Now this way of defining z\i as being an n-th root of z does not have the property of being univocal, and therefore does not constitute a function and cannot be used as an equality-preserving operation applied to both sides of an equation.This is why -1 = -1 does \not\ imply that sqrt(-1) = sqrt(-1) ;After all, i^2 = -1 and, therefore, it is a complex square root of -1 (qualifying to be on the left side of the second equation),;At the same time as (-i)^2 = -1 and, thus, is also a complex square root of -1 (and could be on the right side of the second equation).Evidently, -i = i is false, as they are distinct complex numbers.It is worthy noting:The definition of a complex root could be restricted to make it a function.It could be that \the\ complex n-th root of z is defined to be the number w with the smallest argument (the angle theta in the complex plane representation of w) such that w^n = z .This, however, is not done anywhere. Rather, the concept is defined by saying that w\i is a complex n-th root of z if w\i^n = z . And that implicates that there is more than one n-th root (for n>1). The complex root thus defined is sometimes said to be a 'mutivalued/plurivocal function,' in textbooks.(This is usually carried on to extend the concept of function, and does not mean that the complex root is a function proper. It is a case of 'abuse of language.' See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse\of\notation )Thus, when you write sqrt(-1) and look down at it, in the paper, no matter how suggestive it is of being 'a number,' it is not.It is but an abuse of language by which you are representing different numbers with one single graphical symbol. And therefore it cannot be used in equations in that same manner that you use 'x' , normally.While x represents, in the context of the equation, only one number; sqrt(-1) represents more than one number and therefore, sqrt(-1) = sqrt(-1) is wrong.Abuse of notation can be used effectively to produce correct results, if communications, or reasoning, take place between two parties that are well informed and conscious of the limitations of the notationally abused language. What is gained, many times, is a more compact way of expressing ideas well known to both parties.For instance, it can be economical to write and think 1/0 = infinity, or, lim (1/x) as x->0 = infinity, even though, strictly, both of these 'equation-like' arrays of symbols have no meaning.If both parties are well trained in the definition and properties of limits, the shorthand notation can be used to perform calculations correctly, saving a great deal of paper and time needed to write formally correct statements regarding the (non-existent) limit of 1/x as x approaches 0.The danger here, is uninformed third-parties reading those and due to lack of training, drawing false conclusions. Even understanding it all, it is not uncommon, from time to time, for one to come back to those false implications/proofs using sqrt(-1) and scratch one's head, while going 'damn... I know this is false, but, why, again?' Notational intuition is a powerful force within your mathematical brain. (And it shows in the history of mathematics, in episodes where bouts of prolific development in theory come right after some better notation gets introduced.) You might wanna memorize a formalist mantra designed to safeguard you against this particular situation: 'Sqrt(-1) is not a specific number. It cannot be hurled around inside equations just like x.' Repeat ad nauseam until all thought is drowned. :p Put this formalist mantra in your personal mantra library along with 'Thou shalt not divide by zero.' and also, 'The square root of a^2 is modulus of a, and \not\ just a.' (which helps you avoid the common and tempting mistake of assuming that a^2 = b^2 implies that a = b ) Cheers, Fabricio Ignis 5 Nov 2023 3:25 am: X≠Y, but 0=0 so X=Y 🤪

Absolutely convergent series


I'm looking forward to the release of AllPeers, a Firefox extension that integrates BitTorrent for easy peer-to-peer file sharing. It promises to make sending files to friends directly through the browser much simpler.

I'm awaiting AllPeers. It's a Firefox bittorrent extension that makes it easy to share files among peers.

AllPeers


Although Americans feel busier, data shows leisure time has increased. This perceived time pressure stems from rising real incomes, which increase the opportunity cost of time and make activities like a walk in the park feel more expensive.

Americans have more leisure time than before. But why do Americans feel so harried? Weirdly, prosperity may be to blame in two ways. First, thanks to rising real incomes, an American's time is worth more now. A walk in the park is more expensive than it used to be. (When people complain to him about being too busy, Mr Hamermesh tells them that their real problem is too much money.)


I found a refreshingly honest take on in-flight announcements, highlighting that mobile phones are actually banned to protect ground-based cellular networks rather than aircraft navigation systems. It's a candid breakdown of common airline myths.

What would an honest in-flight announcement sound like? Among other things, it would say... Please switch off all mobile phones, since they can interfere with the aircraft's navigation systems. At least, that's what you've always been told. The real reason to switch them off is because they interfere with mobile networks on the ground, but somehow that doesn't sound quite so good.

An honest in-flight announcement


I explored the aesthetic appeal of organizing bookshelves by color rather than title or author. It’s a simple way to transform a collection into a vibrant visual display that looks absolutely lovely.

Arrange books by colour. It looks lovely. Arrange books by colour

Arrange books by colour


I found that ATMs don't replace branch visits one-for-one. Since users withdraw half as much twice as often, breakeven requires double the expected transactions. In my analysis, only 4 out of 250 ATMs actually saved the bank money.

Banks install ATMs to lower their branch costs, and to attract new customers. When working out the economics of ATMs, we found that lowering branch costs alone could not be a viable reason to install an ATM. The bank argued as follows: "Every time someone withdraws money from an ATM, they avoid going to the branch. With enough people going to the ATM, I can afford not to increase my branch size, and that saves me money. Since it costs me Rs 20 every time a person withdraws cash (in terms of salary, rent, etc.) and an ATM costs about Rs 2,200 a day, I'll break even if there are 110 cash withdrawals from the ATM." The argument misses a crucial point: every ATM transaction does not replace a branch transaction. People visit ATMs more frequently than branches, thanks to them having smaller queues and being open 24 hours. As a rule of thumb, people visit ATMs twice as often as a branch to withdraw cash. A teammate didn't believe me. We argued. "When I used the branch, I would withdraw money for the entire month at the beginning of the month. I continue the same with an ATM." "But I withdraw cash whenever I need money. And in smaller chunks. Sometimes, I just withdraw Rs 200. That way, I get to carry less cash too." "Ah, you may be the exception, as always. Very well, I will find out." He went to a fairly representative branch, and asked them how much money would people withdraw before their ATM was installed. Since ATMs impose a limit of Rs 15,000, he discarded transactions above Rs 15,000. The answer was: people used to withdraw about Rs 3,600 every time they came to the branch. Then he asked, what's the average ATM withdrawal. Answer: Rs 1,900. In other words, people seemed to withdraw only half as much from an ATM as from a branch. (And therefore, on average would withdraw twice as often every month.) My teammate was finally convinced. So, in order to break even, the ATM must be used about 220 times a day, not 110 times. This is nearly impossible. ATMs are used mostly in peak hours: morning while travelling to work, during lunch, and evening when travelling back to work. Apart from these hours, the ATM is practically unused. This gives roughly a 4-hour window. The time between two ATM transactions is at least a minute. So a very busy ATM might be able to make the 220 transactions in that time. Most ATMs will not. In fact, we found that only 4 ATMs managed to break even, among their 250. The cost-saving argument alone is difficult to justify an ATM. Comments Jayant 15 Jan 2006 1:31 am: Good argument. This is typical of any service/utility. When the cost comes down, people use the service more frequently. Banks never make money on ATM. They are used for customer stickiness. In fact, retail customers keep accounts which has highest ATM density. Now that ATMs can take deposit, interesting will be to see %age of money kept by bank in ATMs and received by ATMs as deposits vs branches. Then answer what is the right mix of cash to be kept and at what frequency ATMs need to be cleared? My suspicion is banks will make money on float is ATMs are cleared more often Arun 15 Jan 2006 2:08 am: Interesting analysis. Another thing that interests me is these inter-bank ATM tieups. HDFC does not charge ATM charges for salary account holders if they withdraw from other bank ATMs (if they use the visa debit card, that is). Normally, if you withdraw from a different bank's ATM, the charge is Rs. 50. When I was in Meerut, HDFC's ATM was in some godforsaken place, and I used to withdraw at least once a week from a different ATM. And I wasn't being charged either. I must be the most loss making ATM customer for HDFC :-) Madhu 15 Jan 2006 3:13 am: Also in some sense the money kept in the ATM is locking of capital for the bank on which it could earn some amount of interest. How is that taken in to account in the cost? Madhu 16 Jan 2006 6:16 am: Just a thought, how is the cost variable (per transaction)? would that also not be a fixed cost, say salary of a teller or something like that? Jayant 16 Jan 2006 9:54 am: Madhu, if I am not mistaken, it is the largely rent (in a mall, etc) for the ATM (assuming bank owns the ATM; electricity, etc should be small). Anand, correct me if wrong. Madhu 16 Jan 2006 11:54 am: That is for the ATM, I meant for the bank branch. Also there will be a particular variable cost in accessing info from an ATM as well. S Anand 17 Jan 2006 7:59 am: Arun, the inter-ATM withdrawal is usually not a problem. Some banks enter into agreements not to charge each other. Others charge Rs 10 or so. Given the low frequency of such usage, and especially only by high profit customers, banks usually don't mind the small charge here. S Anand 17 Jan 2006 8:18 am: Madhu, the money in ATMs is like money in a bank branch. It stays on the banks accounts, and can be "lent" overnight, notionally. The bank doesn't lose the interest. S Anand 17 Jan 2006 8:22 am: Regarding the branch cost, over 85% of the cost is manpower-driven (i.e. salary and rent). But that's not to say it's a fixed cost. Thanks to an ATM, a branch can move some of tellers out, So an ATM can save real money, even for apparantly fixed costs. Arun 17 Jan 2006 11:59 am: Ah, ok. Yeah, I guess the frequency of inter-bank transfers isn't really that much. And if they don't charge each other, then it's not an issue at all. Not everyone's as lazy as me! ;-) S Anand 17 Jan 2006 2:34 pm: If Bank X's customer withdraws from Bank Y's ATM, Bank X typically pays Bank Y Rs 10. But Bank X has (notionally) saved Rs 10 because an ATM transaction anyway saves the bank Rs 10. So banks that don't charge customers for inter-bank ATM withdrawals aren't doing their customers that much of a favour, actually. Arun 17 Jan 2006 3:50 pm: But they do charge Rs. 50 normally, which is quite high, really. It's only in some salary accounts (depends on the company, i guess) that they don't charge. So, i would think they are either paying the other bank more than Rs. 10/- or they are making money off the customer for not using their own ATM. Arun 17 Jan 2006 3:52 pm: In other words, I think they are actually doing a favour to salary account holders (probably because salary account holders keep more of their money lying with the bank and are more profitable in other ways) S Anand 17 Jan 2006 4:29 pm: The banks I worked with were paying only Rs 10, so guess the banks are skimming their non-salaried customers. Or creating an artificial feature for the account. Arun 18 Jan 2006 4:31 am: Ah, Ok. Then methinks it's a bit of both. Kakul 15 Mar 2006 8:24 pm: Did you consider the money the bank will make on float? due to less amount being withdrawn S Anand 24 Mar 2006 6:29 am: Yes, we did look at increased float. But it was negligible. In fact, I was finding float to be marginal in several instances. See my post on demand drafts on 23rd March, for instance. Rahul 3 Nov 2010 11:00 pm: Hi Anand, Great Work! Can you tell when does a typical bank branch break even? What are costs associated with setting up of a branch? Building, Salary of employees, etc How many years does a branch take to reach its peak of acquiring business (deposits+loans)? How does it reach profitability? Thanks Prasanna Bontha 18 Jul 2014 6:24 am: The costs of setting up an ATM can reach its break even if the up time of the ATM is maintained at its highest. The location of the ATM can also fetch interchange charges as well.

ATM breakeven


I built a Perl script to filter hundreds of resumes using keywords and concordance analysis. This process convinced me that candidates must optimize their CVs for machine searching, treating resume writing like search engine optimization.

I had to screen resumes from a leading MBA school. I'm lazy, and there were hundreds of CVs. So after procrastinating until this morning, I decided on 2 principles: 1. I will not spend more than 45 minutes on this. (That's the duration of my train ride to office.) 2. I will not read a single CV. (I would write a program.) The CVs were in a single PDF file. I saved it as text (it shrunk from 66MB to 1.6MB without the photos). Then I wrote a Perl program to filter CVs by keywords. We were looking for people with an interest and/or experience in IT consulting, so I picked "technology", "consulting", "SAP", "IBM", "Accenture", "Deloitte", etc. Anyone without these keywords would fall out of the list. This eliminated 75% of the crowd. But since I didn't want to read the rest, I used my favourite text-analysis technique: concordance. I extracted 3 words on either side of each keywords, and just read those. It was easy to see who'd "worked with suppliers like IBM" as opposed to who'd worked at IBM. That's it! I managed to cut the list down to 10%. Better yet, I also had a preference ranking. People with multiple keywords ranked higher than those with fewer keywords. And all this took little more than my train ride to office. I can see this going to the next level. It's easy to write a customised rejection letter, depending on which keywords are missing for each person. Now, if it's this easy to filter resumes, I can see every organisation do it in a few years. Which means, you need to write resumes for machines as well, not just for humans! For example, on my next CV, I'll make sure I include the words "Boston Consulting Group" as well as "BCG" -- just in case the software searches for only one of those keywords. Further, I'll make sure I avoid spelling mistakes! Comments Siddharth Nagpal 3 Oct 2006 9:17 pm: How rational it is to screen CVs, like this..instead if u cud hv glanced thru CVs..then taken a decision it wud hv been lot more intelligent..than writing a search program.. S Anand 4 Oct 2006 6:44 am: When I manually scan CVs, I miss out a lot of keywords that I want to spot -- simply because humans are not good at scanning accurately. For example, when searching for SAP in the CVs, I missed it in half the CVs that the program had told me had SAP -- and I initially thought my program was wrong. Contrawise, programs don't look for synonyms or abbreviations. So I need to make sure the keywords are accurate -- otherwise I miss out on potential candidates. So there's flaws in both approaches, but they're complementary. Meaning, what you miss in one, you catch out on another. Since another colleague is doing the manual scanning, my using a program helps, I think. Kaviraj Nair 4 Oct 2006 9:31 am: but I am sure you wanted to spend more than 45 minutes to decide the fate of those students!! no offence!! what say you?? S Anand 4 Oct 2006 10:51 am: They haven't started applying to us yet. We're just fishing around for good candidates ourselves. So if it's anyone's loss, it's ours. If anyone applies, the CV is read and that's a separate process. This is, like I said, proactive fishing.\ Also, I don't feel bad about it being 45 minutes: if I'd run through the CVs manually, I'd have taken 3-4 hours at least for the same quality!\ Sorry -- guess I'm not being too considerate here :( Sudheer 4 Oct 2006 4:46 pm: Hi Anand, Being an ex-placecommer from ur alma mater... I can assure you that students/prospects looking for a job are always a couple of steps ahead of the firms... Simply because students have much more to lose/gain than corporates... Sudheer 4 Oct 2006 4:51 pm: What I am saying is that such programs/ algos might not yield most honest results. Even though I accept your effort - returns calculation - It just supports my argument that corporates have less to lose/gain in the recruitment process S Anand 4 Oct 2006 5:09 pm: Sudheer, I agree: students have more to lose. I see resume-filtering software becoming more popular. I know Google uses it as a process. BCG automates much of its screening using Excel. I'm sure it's going to be more popular. I do hope students stay ahead. I wonder what tecniques will help, though. I suspect very different strategies will be required for machines -- sort-of like search engine optimisation. Sai 4 Oct 2006 7:42 pm: You really have to be extensive in your 'keyword' list don't you? And any use for fuzzy logic here? For example somebody who has package implementation experience can quickly ramp up an learn other packages? Same for analyst kind of jobs - technology is probably the least important of the factors - what matters is the vertical industry knowledge. My 2 cents! S Anand 4 Oct 2006 9:01 pm: Sai, you're right, the keywords have to be broad. I did use some pattern matching (for e.g, when looking for banking experience, using patterns like bank\; using synonyms like financ\, insur\; using abbreviations like FS, etc.) The things is, once I match and get snippets around the words, I can read the words and get the context. That's practically the equivalent of my software telling me where to read on the CV. Then I make a judgement call. But you're right about this example. I looked for SAP and ignored other packages. Will add a few more keywords and re-run it. Thanks! ND 5 Oct 2006 5:35 am: Like your blog :-). I get "screened" resumes and 75% are irrelevant! For e.g. When I want Mercury ITG profiles, I get is Mercury QC profiles. I sift through "screened" resumes useing Edit-Find option in MS Word often using more verbs (both present and past tense) than nouns. I spend 10-15 minutes on identifying these "keywords". MS Word takes me to the spot on the doc and I read around. I don't get more than 50 "screened" resumes and all are .doc files. And I open upto 12 docs at a time without a system crash. Don't mind some Type 1 error as long as Type 2 error is minimized! S Anand 5 Oct 2006 5:59 am: I know what you mean, ND. And my guess is, this is how it's done in many places. I can't believe everyone reads through every word of every CV. Yet so many students indignantly object to this reality! Sathya 5 Oct 2006 9:37 am: Perhaps a tip for resume writes ... have a keyword section and put all the keywords out there -like the one u have in th "Contact" section. Putting all the keywords in the context of the CV might bloat up the size of CV. S Anand 6 Oct 2006 6:18 am: That would work Sathya, but perhaps look a little awkward. Maybe a smarter thing to do is to prepare a keyword list, and ensure that's woven into the text. sathya 6 Oct 2006 12:42 pm: May be looks odd to the humans ... but not so for machines :-) It could be made to look less awkward by making it a tag cloud. That would also indicate the comfort/expertise level (relatively). Is there a way to mark certain sections in word doc that appears when opened but does not get printed ?? Nitu Agarwal 6 Oct 2006 1:32 pm: Hi Anand, I read this article of your and have been trying to add key words which are generally asked in the job description.I hope to get some positive feedback now.I have been in London since last 4 months but not able to get a suitable job may be my CV didn't have key words required in the UK.(Just to let u know i'm an Chartered Accountant from India) Nitu 6 Oct 2006 1:37 pm: Hi Anand , I read this article of urs yesrterday and have been trying to add the key words as required by the job description.Hope there's something positive soon.I have been in London for around 4 months and not been able to find a suitable job for myself ,may be my CV lacked key words.(Just to let u know i'm a Chartered accountant from India).It is nice reading ur articles. S Anand 6 Oct 2006 1:48 pm: Sathya, yeah, I guess you could do that -- a tag cloud would look funky, and you could always hide sections (maybe font colour?) It'd be interesting to see some CVs like that :-) S Anand 6 Oct 2006 1:49 pm: Nitu, to my knowledge, using keywords is not that prevalent yet. But yeah, way to go! Nitu 6 Oct 2006 2:22 pm: Not using the key words seperately but adding in the sentences to make sense and almost the same meaning as i was trying to tell earlier. S Anand 6 Oct 2006 3:09 pm: Nitu, that's probably the best thing. Happy to see at least one person have a better shot because of this article. Spread the word :-) joey 28 Oct 2006 10:37 pm: anand Many recruitment firms use this method in Oz (Australia). It works - the right words get an phone interview call. For Nitu - my advise is to scan job ads and incorporate those sentences into the resume (nt just words) this will guarantee a higher response rate. worked for both my wife and me. And the first job in a new country is always hard. Swapna 29 Mar 2007 8:17 am: Nitu, any improvement in reponse? I am also a CA from India and looking for job in UK!! Its seems really difficult to get an interview call here! Georgie Girl 31 Oct 2009 4:36 am: A really interesting idea. In Canada I've seen the use of scanning program as well. I have been in HR and had to manually scan 100's of resumes and I can tell you that you are cross-eyed at the end. I guess a resume should have a footer with tag line extras, what would a good set include do you think?

Automated resume filtering


I highlight a video claiming the banana's ergonomic features prove God's existence. It's a classic example of a literal teleological argument, and I was struck by how serious the proponents seemed to be.

The banana proves God's existence. I think they're serious.

Banana proves God


Attractive people earn higher salaries due to a positive feedback loop where both employer expectations and individual self-confidence are higher. This psychological mechanism translates these initial perceptions into measurable performance gains and professional success.

Beautiful people are paid more because of a positive feedback mechanism. Employers expect them to perform better. They expect themselves to perform better. And these come across. Comments Madhu 10 Apr 2006 7:12 am: he he.. my research deals with whether board of directors have any impact on CG et al. I should probably consider the looks of the board as an important parameter S Anand 12 Apr 2006 7:10 pm: It's supposed to be a stronger effect with women. You could factor that in :-) Madhu 14 Apr 2006 7:28 am: and probably suggestion reservation for women in the board;)

Beautiful people are paid more


Starting a startup on an easy-to-copy idea is still worth it because competitors are slow to notice, slow to implement, and prone to execution errors. Your continuous innovation keeps you ahead as a moving target.

It's worth starting a startup based on an idea even if it is easy to copy. First of all, it will take competitors a long time to realize that your idea is even a good thing to do. Even when competitors realize your idea is good, (a) it will take them a long time to implement and (b) they'll probably screw up critical things. And finally, working on your ideas will lead you on to new ideas. So you'll be a moving target; by the time competitors copy what you're doing now, you'll be doing more.

Being copied


I shared a curated list of top-rated content from Google Video in early 2006. It offers a snapshot of early viral internet culture and video sharing trends before YouTube became the dominant global platform.

Best of Google video.

Best of Google Video


I explore how search engines favor their own properties in rankings, comparing this bias to Richard Feynman’s observations on scientific self-deception. I argue that favoring one's own results is often an unconscious failure of integrity rather than malice.

Search engines rank their own sites better. Yahoo Answers ranks higher on Yahoo, but not on MSN or Google. Google Answers ranks high on Google, but not on Yahoo or MSN. This is bias, but not necessarily evil. They may just be fooling themselves. Even scientists, the genuinely objective ones, do this. As Feynman points out in Cargo Cult Science: Millikan measured the charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a little bit off because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of an electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bit bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher. Why didn't they discover the new number was higher right away? It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of - this history - because it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something must be wrong - and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number close to Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that. But, (and this is the important part): We've learned those tricks nowadays, and now we don't have that kind of a disease. But this long history of learning how to not fool ourselves--of having utter scientific integrity -- is, I'm sorry to say, something that we haven't specifically included in any particular course that I know of. We just hope you've caught on by osmosis. It's not easy to catch on, by osmosis or otherwise.

Bias among search engines


I examined Bill Gates' periodic Microsoft stock sales, noting that he liquidates roughly $300 million every week. This look at his transaction history highlights the massive scale and regularity of his financial divestment from the company.

Stock transactions by Bill Gates. He periodically sells a few million of Microsoft shares. Wonder what he does with the $300 million or so every week.

Bill Gates stock transactions


I compiled this round-up of BitTorrent guides from Lifehacker, covering everything from setting up Azureus and automating TV show downloads to improving speed, ensuring anonymity through encryption, and finding legal public domain movies.

How To Set Up Azureus Automatically download your favourite TV shows Totally Anonymous Azureus Tips for speeding up your torrents Make your own torrent with Azureus Using BitTorrent to send files Download public domain movies Huge list of BitTorrent sites Encrypting BitTorrent traffic Top Azureus plugins What do Mickey Mouse, Lars Ulrich, and Mr. Rogers all have in common? Protecting yourself against BitTorrent bandits

BitTorrent round-up on lifehacker


I found a video called Blue Oyster Spiral that zooms into the Mandelbrot set for over two minutes. It is a striking visualization of how one simple mathematical equation can generate such complex, infinitely repeating fractal patterns.

Blue Oyster Spiral is a video zooming into the Mandelbrot set for two-and-a-half minutes. Hard to believe that it's just one simple equation. Comments Ki 20 Sep 2006 3:45 am: neat

Blue Oyster Spiral


I created a book quotation quiz featuring 25 literary snippets. Test your knowledge by identifying titles like Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings; scoring over 10 is impressive. Note the specific formatting rules for title entries.

These are quotes from books. How many titles can you guess? (Case insensitive. Ignore punctuation. So "Hitchhiker's" is "Hitchhikers" without the apostrophe. Don't forget the leading "A" and "The". Harry Potter books begin with "Harry Potter and the...".) Anything over 10 / 25 is impressive. Comments Dhar 21 Apr 2006 4:28 pm: Anand Man... LOTR is one book in three parts and not a trilogy. So LOTR is the correct answer to a couple of questions instead of ROTK etc. Dhar 21 Apr 2006 4:35 pm: Hmmm, a particular quote occurs in more than one Ludlum novels. In fact, I suspect that particular one is there in all the three. Dhar 21 Apr 2006 4:40 pm: Finally got 17 / 25. But I suspect that is because we have been reading similar stuff lately. S Anand 21 Apr 2006 5:05 pm: Agreed: LOTR is a single book. Loved it so much I had to put in a quote from each part! Chitra 22 Apr 2006 3:14 am: Nice one :)! JLT 22 Apr 2006 8:03 pm: And just like that, bumped into your blog . walked through 10/25 mark without realising. u could raise the bar. suhas 23 Apr 2006 9:46 pm: hey, how do i find out the answers to the ones i have not been able to figure out? S Anand 24 Apr 2006 6:45 am: You can e-mail me. root dot node at gmail dot com. S Anand 10 May 2006 5:29 pm: Test comment. Mayur 6 Jun 2006 7:20 pm: Hey nice quiz this, i usually dont quiz but i guess i found someting im decent at 12/25 Natasha 19 Nov 2006 6:36 am: yay i got 12/25 by myself and with help got 14!!! i congradulate you on a great quiz! Hemant 7 Feb 2007 10:24 pm: Actually, LOTR is not 1 book. JRR Tokein actually wrote it as three different books. We now read it as one. I read this in the first few pages of the first book. simplecoffee 21 Apr 2006 12:00 pm: Um, well, 'Cain is for Charlie and Delta is for Cain' is only used in The Bourne Identity. Supremacy has 'Cain is for Carlos and Delta is for Cain', while Ultimatum hasn't got it.

Book quotation quiz


I shared a collection of downloadable books on eSnips featuring authors like Michael Crichton and J.K. Rowling. The post sparked a discussion with readers about the ethics and legality of accessing copyrighted material through unofficial digital repositories.

Shared books at esnips.com. You can download the entire book. Authors include Jeffrey Archer, Fredrick Forsyth, Arthur Hailey, Erich Segal, Michael Crichton, J K Rowling, Terry Pratchett, etc. Comments blogreader 18 May 2006 4:39 pm: Anand, are these downloads copyright comliant? any idea? Sai 18 May 2006 7:01 pm: Real nice, thanks for sharing. Dhar 19 May 2006 5:53 am: Blogreader, you can bet your last dime that these books are NOT copyright compliant. Cheers, D. Anonymous 19 May 2006 1:38 pm: Then do u still think we shud support these? S Anand 19 May 2006 5:35 pm: Doesn't look like anyone's earning any money out of it -- so it may not be a matter of support. I guess at best we can choose not to download these. Sai 19 May 2006 11:09 pm: Oops :). did not realize that angle. Had felt happy for having found a cool medium. Anonymous 20 May 2006 6:25 am: Yes Anand. Makes sense. It wud be so unfair on our part to enjoy some nice works without having to pay for it.

Books for download


I found a guide on how to configure Windows to fully boot up and start background services before you even log in, which is essential for ensuring background tasks run immediately after a restart.

Boot up Windows before you log in.

Boot up Windows before you log in


I found a music video showcasing brilliant editing that perfectly synchronizes visual cuts with the rhythm. It serves as a creative example of how montage and timing can elevate simple footage into something visually engaging.

Here's a "music video" with brilliant video editing.

Brilliant video editing


I'm sharing research indicating that recordable CDs can fail in as little as two to five years due to dye degradation. This shorter-than-expected lifespan makes them unreliable for long-term digital archiving compared to manufactured discs.

Burned CDs last only 2-5 years.

Burned CDs last only 2-5 years


I share an iterative log-based formula for calculating the internal rate of return (IRR) when software lacks built-in functions. I used this method to calculate risk-weighted assets for bank leases under Basel 2 requirements.

Recently, I was helping a bank define Basel 2 requirements. For every dollar a bank lends, at least 8 cents should come from its own pocket, and the rest from its depositors. But a risky $1 loan may be like a $1.5 loan, whereas a $1 Government loan may be like a $0.5 loan. This is the "risk-weighted asset" (RWA) value. Basel 2 says 8% of risk-weighted assets should come from the bank's pocket. I was trying to convince the people who were maintaining the leasing software that the RWA of a lease is the NPV of its future cash flows, and they had a whole lot of questions. "What is this NPV?" You can put 90 cents in the bank today at 11% and get $1 next year. So $1 next year is worth 90 cents today. When a customer pays $100 over the next 10 months, it's worth less than $1000 today. That's the NPV. The NPV is what you put in the bank today to get that cash flow : $100 over the next 10 months "So why should we use NPV for leases?" That's because when a lease is cancelled, the closure payment is the NPV . If you take a lease for 10 months at $100 a month, this includes the interest. If you terminate the lease after 5 months, you won't pay $500 for the remaining 5 months. You'll pay less -- the NPV of those $100 for 5 months. So there is some logic to using NPV as the RWA. "OK, so how do we calculate the NPV?" You divide each cash flow by (1 + r)^n, where r is the internal rate of return , and n is the number of years. Then you add them up. You'll get a number less than the sum of cash flows. "And how do we calculate this IRR?" (sheepishly) The IRR is that interest rate for which the NPV is zero. And we got stuck here, because their software didn't have an IRR function, and the definitions for IRR and NPV are circular . To do this in Excel is simple. Just enter the cash flow values. So, if on a cash loan of $500, you paid $100 for 6 months, and use the IRR function, as shown below. Your monthly IRR is 5.47%. But we needed their AS/400 system to do it as well, and it didn't have the IRR function. After a few weeks of digging around, I found a paper that said you can calculate the IRR iteratively . Let npv be the NPV given an IRR and cash flows sum be the sum of cash flows p be the principal amount Then irr = irr log(p/sum) / log(npv/sum) is the iteration you need to successively apply. We decided to start with 1.85 times the stated interest rate (which was a pretty good guess for most leases), and kept applying this formula until it stays more or less the same. Worked like a charm. Here's the spreadsheet with the calculation. Comments pegasus 26 Dec 2006 5:38 am: very informative article URap 28 Feb 2007 12:45 am: Thank you! This helped with my assignment. Easy 10 Apr 2007 10:39 am: Is it possible to calculate IRR manualy and if it is, how? ganesh 12 Apr 2007 10:46 am: how to calculate remaining EMIs (new tenure ) keeping the amount of EMI constant. Farah 25 Aug 2006 12:00 pm: Thanks, but i need to know how to calcualte it manualy. Haseeb 25 Aug 2006 12:00 pm: Farah IRR can only be calculated manually by using hit and trial method. It the interest rate at which the NPV should equal zero. So try with different values. However if you have a financial calculator then you can find IRR just by inputing the data into it. thanks NAGARAJA M 25 Aug 2006 12:00 pm: Suppose this is the scenario: Principal 100,000 IRR 10% Number of months 12 Monthly payment 8,792 Total interest 4,627 But you only have this information Principal 100,000 = p Monthly payment 8,792 Number of years 12 APR 4.63% Here's how you can calculate IRR Month Payment 1 8,792 2 8,792 3 8,792 4 8,792 5 8,792 6 8,792 7 8,792 8 8,792 9 8,792 10 8,792 11 8,792 12 8,792 Total payment 105,499 = sum First guess of IRR 8.56% 1.85 times APR NPV using first guess 100,766 = npv Second guess of IRR 9.98% irr x log(p/sum) / log(npv/sum) NPV using second guess 100,009 = npv Third guess of IRR 10.00% irr x log(p/sum) / log(npv/sum) NPV using third guess 100,000 Stop iteration JITENDRA 25 Aug 2006 12:00 pm: pls attached finance dictionary like irr,roi,and all related collection sales sanjeev kumar 19 Sep 2008 9:00 am: I want to ask that at what basis i can guess first IRR ,second IRR & what is about about APR. Shishir 30 Sep 2008 12:01 pm: Hi,\ Had a question regarding building a cashflow table when only IRR and the initial outlay are stated along with the period.\ \ The project has an $80,000 investment outlay and is expected to yield an IRR of 30% over a 5 year economic life and the investment outlay is depreciated on a straight line basis towards a zero estimated salvage value\ \ Could you please help me with this?\ \ Thanks Khan Nuzhat 14 Dec 2008 4:30 am: the data is good but there should be more examples of different cases, so that it surve all purpose.\ \ Thank You Wayne 21 Jan 2009 4:10 pm: Seems to be some mix ups between Months and Years, If you do monthly calculations, isn't the IRR then a monthly percentage rate not an anual percentage rate? S Anand 21 Jan 2009 4:25 pm: IRR by itself does typically refer to an annual rate, Wayne. I happen to\ have used a monthly IRR in the example, and you're right in pointing out\ that it makes things a little confusing. Please replace "month" with "year"\ right through the article, and I believe it would read right then. Su 10 Feb 2009 10:32 pm: This is so fantastic. Thank you!\ \ However I want to know how annual interest is 4627 when the sum of 8792 x12 months = 105504 and the difference between the principal amount = 5,504.\ \ Can you explain?\ Su S Anand 14 Feb 2009 5:26 am: The interest is not on 100000, Su. It's on a DIMINISHING balance that\ just happens to be 100000 at the beginning. After making the first\ payment of 8792, the principal reduces, and it's not easy to find out\ how much of that 8792 was for the principal, and how much of it was\ for the interest. That's what the article tries to explain. Abhijit Sen 10 Feb 2010 12:23 am: Anand, can you tell me how to learn excel quickly? i dont even know how to use pivot table. Need to ramp up quickly, any suggestions? Thomas 18 Mar 2009 9:06 am: Hi, could you state a reference to the paper you dug out? Since this will provide a good starting point for further research on my site. Thx in advance Thomas S Anand 18 Mar 2009 12:56 pm: I'm afraid I couldn't find it when I searched again, Thomas. Maybe a fresh Google search will work, except I can't remember what I looked for, except that it was in a PDF file. S Anand 25 Mar 2009 4:41 pm: Just type in the date, and the amount you received or paid on that date (as positive or negative values respectively). Then use Excel's IRR function. George Venesis 25 Mar 2009 2:47 pm: Hello, I have a question regarding IRR. If I have a portfolio of stocks how it is possible to calculate the IRR? For example, suppose that I invest $100.000 and I'm buying few stocks for $10.000 and $30.000. In total I have paid $40.000.The next day I have a 10% profit, that makes me $4.000 better off. How it is possible to calculate IRR? Regards George S Anand 10 Feb 2010 4:51 pm: Excel for Dummies is a good starting point. Saravna Kumar 5 Aug 2010 7:03 am: Sir, Realy your excell tips and macros are very usefull to every one those who are not familiar in excell thankfull to you thanking you Moin Siddiqui, Dubai 20 Jul 2010 8:28 pm: Hi Anand, Nice Examples and answers above, unfortunately i never worked on this before, but this method is using in my new job, i want to learn IRR & ROI in detail with practical. Dear anand pls help me to learn it in a very easy and quick way, new job is in OIL & GAS Sector. Request for quick reply Thnx in advance Moin Siddiqui Jean 29 Sep 2010 10:46 pm: If one is calculating the IRR on a project that requires debt capital, in determining the annual net income of the project does one have to include principal repayment on the loan Fahad 17 Oct 2011 2:27 pm: Internal rate of return (IRR) is the rate of return at which the project will generate returns of a PV of 0 or simply at which the NPV of the project will be zero. it is calculated using a test & trail method.Formula is first you will calculate 2 NPVs of projected cashflows of the project using any 2 cost of capital rates. suppose if company's Own cost of capital is 8% you will calculate the NPV first @ 8% and a second NPV at any rate higher than 8 % .....say 15%.The answer with the higher NPV will result in negative NPV then apply the rates to this formula to get the IRR Lower rate + (NPV @ Lower rate /(Npv @ Lower rate - Npv @ Higher Rate)) x (Higher rate -Lower rate) suppose LR = 8% HR =15 % NPV @ LR = 1000 NPV @ HR=500 IRR will be 14.5 % Albert Akankwasa 25 Nov 2011 8:52 am: Suppose a cost of the project is 84,418,780, the annual return is 20,000,000 and the annual growth rate is 20%. What is the IRR and PAY BACK PERIOD? sagar 9 Aug 2011 9:05 am: what is meaning of IRR and how it is calculate. where it is use / Sunidhi Gupta 22 Nov 2011 7:05 pm: that was really helpful and understandable. can I access daily updates of it on my id. Srinivas 2 Feb 2012 2:36 pm: In the context of a finance company, how to calculate cost of capital of an entity and then compare it with IRR of a loan proposal, to arrive at the break-even rate. Pls. elucidate with an example.

Calculating IRR


I share Martijn's Calvin and Hobbes search engine, which indexes detailed strip descriptions. While his tool focuses on visual details and plot, I built a complementary engine for searching the specific dialogue and quotes from the comic.

Martijn's Calvin and Hobbes Extensive Strip Search is back. It doesn't let you search the quotes themselves, but a (pretty detailed) description of each cartoon instead. (Mine searches Calvin and Hobbes quotes). Comments Anonymous 21 Oct 2006 8:55 am: if you know calvin and hobbes u know how many are there. I have been looking for March 24, 1994 for an ages and this helped me to find it in a minute. great site I do recomend


I found a series of charming doodles depicting Calvin and Hobbes exploring Chennai. The illustrations show the iconic duo enjoying local culture, such as eating idli and visiting Marina Beach, providing a unique South Indian twist to the characters.

Calvin and Hobbes in Chennai. The posts between 10-13 March 2006 have (pretty good) doodles of Calvin & Hobbes eating idli and visiting the Marina beach. Comments Doodler 1 Apr 2006 5:11 pm: :) hi anand..great blog with something new everyday!well am frm infy too..do u blog in the infy blog? S Anand 1 Apr 2006 7:20 pm: Wow, you're from Infy? Amazing cartoons you had there. My Infy ID is subramanian\anand. Drop me a line, if you can?

Calvin and Hobbes in Chennai


I updated my Calvin and Hobbes index to include strips through June 1993. I have two-and-a-half years of the comic strip's history left to catalog to complete this comprehensive search resource.

My Calvin and Hobbes index is current up to June 1993. Two-and-a-half years left to complete.

Calvin and Hobbes index - 930630


I found a collection of Calvin and Hobbes trivia quizzes on FunTrivia. They cover everything from the duo's imaginative adventures to specific comic strip details, offering a fun way for fans to test their knowledge.

Calvin and Hobbes trivia quizzes.

Calvin and Hobbes trivia quizzes


I found that my cat completely ignores standard television but is fooled by the realism of HDTV. The higher resolution and visual quality appear to bridge the gap in feline perception compared to lower-quality displays.

Cats are fooled by HDTV. Our cat tends to ignore normal TV completely. Guess HDTV looks real enough. Comments Dhar 19 Jan 2006 2:29 pm: I see you have given Ender's Game 5 stars. Have you read Dune? You might like that too. S Anand 20 Jan 2006 11:59 am: I HAVE read Dune. Thought it was quite different, but I didn't like it as much as Ender's Game, though. I started off on Dragonlance, but gave up mid-way. Now I'm reading Terry Pratchett. SP 23 Jan 2006 4:13 pm: For more than one reason, i dont like Terry Pratchett, though I have read a lot of his books.. Always feel he's ripped off Tolkien. Stephen King's Dark Tower series, Dune are all pretty good. S Anand 23 Jan 2006 9:46 pm: Haven't tried the Dark Tower series. Will give that a shot. Dhar 24 Jan 2006 3:12 am: Errr... Pratchett's books are a work of parody. I wouldn't be too surprised to find passages which seem to be "lifted" out of works of Tolkien and others... S Anand 24 Jan 2006 5:44 pm: Haven't read enough to spot lifted passages... let me see I can spot them :-) Dhar 25 Jan 2006 8:45 am: Check the Annotated Terry Pratchett file.

Cats are fooled by HDTV


I used stakeholder support matrices and change readiness profiles to manage a client's offshoring transition analytically. By mapping individual influence and specific concerns, I identified who to convince and how to effectively deploy change agents to drive alignment.

Change management can be analytic, as opposed to touchy-feely. Our client's operating margin was falling. The bosses wanted to offshore their back office. Others weren't convinced. To manage this change, we needed three questions answered: Who's not convinced? Why aren't they convinced? What'll convince them? Who's not convinced? We plotted the level of support and importance of key people on the stakeholder support matrix. This split people into 4 groups (below). Then we showed it around to people and had them move people around on the matrix. Stakeholder Matrix Minor sceptics. We largely ignored them Change facilitators. We tasked them with roles in the project Change agents. We made them influence the others People to convince. The ones we needed to focus on This is a simple concept, actually. The insight is, putting names on such a matrix, and getting people to move them around, is a robust way to get everyone on the board and at the right spot. Why aren't they convinced? We sent everyone a list of benefits and issues in outsourcing. They rated them. We grouped the results and plotted them. Here's the result for Uli. Change readiness profile for Uli Uli saw more issues than benefits. Quality and possible better service were benefits. But he was afraid the company wasn't ready, and vendors wouldn't understand their operations. The advantage of these charts is that you can put them side by side, and compare where different people stand. It gives you a great view of why they're objecting, and whom you can use to counter that. Change readiness profile for Uli Change readiness profile for Dave Change readiness profile for Group What'll convince them? Once we knew why people objected, it was easy to manage. For example, to counter Uli's fear of organisational readiness, we got people who felt this was not an issue to put forward their counterpoints. To counter fears of vendor ability, we got a bunch of them to visit BPOs in India, and spread their confidence to others. We arranged workshops, making sure that each group had people to convince and change agents. This did require a lot of soft skills. But the success was largely because of the structured ground-work. Change management can be quite analytic. Comments ravi 1 May 2006 4:12 pm: cool work..something similar to stakeholder mapping rite.but how did u achieve the moving around of people within the matrix .was it a group exercise.is there any chance of a bias entering the analysis ? how did u arrive at the final stakeholder map? i did a study for scorttish power on wind power..we didnt exactly conclude the arguement as i didnot know how to achieve the support of the stkeholders or the OR way of achieving it..this could have surely helped if it had come 10 days ago anand..really cool Sai 1 May 2006 11:36 pm: Excellent. Soft-skills help a lot, but this kind of effort goes a long way in assuaging skeptics. Thanks for sharing. Arun 2 May 2006 6:16 am: Very neat. I am going to try and use this if the opportunity presents itself. Thanks! Btw, can you share a little more info on the company that's using the wiki? S Anand 3 May 2006 7:13 am: Arun, I'm afraid I don't know much more about them myself. Just that there are examples that my colleague vouches for. Infosys is going for an internal wiki initiative as well. Sumeet 3 May 2006 2:51 pm: The octagonal chart is confusing at first. Isn't there a better way of plotting the issues/benefits poll results ? S Anand 3 May 2006 5:58 pm: Definitely! Variants of the bar chart could have done the job much better. We were pressed for time, though, and we felt cool showing spider graphs to the client... :-) Arun 4 May 2006 5:29 am: Ah, alright. Wipro had tried blogs for a while, i think it died out pretty soon. Interesting, infy going for a wiki initiative. Hope you guys fare better! :-) Jayant 4 May 2006 1:41 pm: Honestly, I dont have numbers to prove but I feel this outsourcing is breaking into other's "rice bowl"...but change is change.. Sumeet 4 May 2006 3:21 pm: What strategy did u use for the people on the middle ground. In your e.g Jim K and Mark L can go either way (People to convince or change agents) ? S Anand 4 May 2006 8:21 pm: Jayant, you're right. When we were working on this case, we went out to lunch at a restaurant. Behind us were 5 people who'd been laid off by this client 6 months ago. I overheard their conversation. They still hadn't found a job. Even daily living was proving tough. There's no doubt: outsourcing hits a lot of people directly, and hard. S Anand 4 May 2006 8:21 pm: Sumeet, Jim H and Jim K were the top people in the company. We didn't want to "counter" them with anyone having strong opinions. It was vital not to THRUST anything on these two. We asked them for their initial reactions and questions, went back, spent a LOT of time preparing answers, and had conversations with them. We moved gently, and gave them a lot of time. And that's where the soft stuff comes in. jayant 6 May 2006 2:41 pm: Actually there is interesting parallel to what happened to Indian textile industry in early 1900. Powerloom's shirts were cheaper than handloom's. So, Indian weavers were losing jobs to English powerloom workers. Not that powerloom workers were well off. You may want to read Autobiography of Gandhi for that. Interestingly, then there was Swadeshi movement etc and Indian business community infact had said that it does not make sense to stop imports as it cheaper and people will buy what is cheap and good. Lot of parallels actually. Anyway, guess people who moved to West and probably toiled are probably better off. Hell for one generation, probably heaven for next! S Anand 6 May 2006 3:42 pm: Hey, that's an interesting perspective! damand draft 11 Dec 2006 3:57 am: deamand draft

Change management


I compared direct and dealer loan channels, discovering that loan size skewed IRR metrics. While both cost Rs 18,500 per contract, the direct channel's fixed-cost structure promised better scalability than the variable-cost dealer channel.

We were working with the financing subsidiary of a conglomerate. They had two divisions that gave loans for buying vehicles (mostly trucks, but also cars). One division used the direct channel . They had direct marketing agents (DMAs) who were paid a commission for getting the contract, and the division collected the monthly installments. The other used the dealer channel . The dealers would get the contract as well as collect the installments. They wanted to cut costs, and asked us which channel had more flab. Since the company used IRR (internal rate of return), we defined the operating cost as the reduction in IRR . For example: 12% IRR paid by customer (through monthly installments) 9% IRR to subsidiary after reducing the cost of processing his loan 3% is therefore the operating cost. After two months of analysis, we confirmed the subsidiary's own opinion: the dealer channel had lower operating cost . The direct channel's operating cost was 3.8% while the the dealer channel's was 2.7%. So we said the direct channel is flabby. But the direct channel guys didn't agree, and fought every inch of the decision. "Do you think these figures are wrong?" I asked. "Look, all we're saying is, we KNOW they pay out huge commissions to dealers. We KNOW they're overstaffed. They just CAN'T have a lower operating cost." I was tasked with resolving the issue. After a month of breaking the cost every single way, something interesting emerged. If we measured the operating cost per contract in Rupees, both divisions had the same cost per contract : Rs 18,500. That is, the total cost incurred in getting the customer and servicing the loan over the lifetime of the loan was Rs 18,500 in both divisions. It turned out that the size of the loan was different : the dealer channel was still lending mainly for trucks, while the direct channel had entered the high growth passenger car market. Cars cost less than trucks. So while the dealer channel was paying 18,500 and getting interest on a large truck, the direct channel was paying the same 18,500 for less interest on smaller cars. This is a strategic decision. The subsidiary had chosen to enter the car business knowing it would be less profitable but have higher growth. But the story had a twist. The 18,500 of operating cost per contract broke down as follows: Dealer Direct Getting the loan 5,000 7,000 Servicing the loan 13,500 11,500 The dealers are paid a servicing cost as a percentage of the loan. Servicing in the dealer channel is a variable cost . The direct channel, however, employs its own people, and incurs a higher cost only when it hires more people. About half of the costs are fixed. If the business doubles, the number of people you need increases only by about 50%. Servicing in the direct channel is more a fixed cost . This subsidiary was planning to double their business in two years. At that point, the dealer channel would still cost Rs 18,500 per contract, but the direct channel would have come down to around Rs 13,000. So, going forward, the direct channel is really cheaper ! We told them to try and reduce the dealer commission. Postscript : The subsidiary still went ahead and cut costs aggressively in the direct channel. It's easier to fire your own people than to tell 500 dealers to reduce their commission, especially when you need them to also sell your trucks. Comments jayant 22 Jan 2006 11:39 am: Just out of curiosity, how did the company's (guess Tata Motors) car sales performed? S Anand 22 Jan 2006 5:39 pm: Pretty good car sales, from what I hear. But the truck sales really boomed (nothing to do with our work, though). Madhu 24 Jan 2006 12:43 pm: Just created a blog. grandebelf.blogspot.com. Currently just a information provider S Anand 24 Jan 2006 5:43 pm: What does 'grandebelf' mean? Madhu 25 Jan 2006 3:22 pm: Grande = Big, Belf=Baby Elephant

Channel economics


I’ve curated a list of essential computer science texts that offer deep insight. It features foundational papers on lambda calculus, CSP, relational databases, and early programming languages from legends like Hoare, Knuth, and McCarthy.

Classic texts in computer science. Worth reading for the sheer insight. Update: The link didn't seem to work in Feb 2007. Here's the list. An axiomatic basis for computer programming by C. A. R. Hoare Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP) by C. A. R. Hoare Call-by-name, call-by-value, and the lambda calculus by Gordon Plotkin Towards a theory of type structure by John C. Reynolds Definitional interpreters for higher-order programming languages by John C. Reynolds An APL Machine 1970 by Philip S. Abrams Henry Baker's Archive of Research Papers (many classic Lisp papers) The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engin by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering by Frederic P. Brooks, Jr. A Mathematical Theory of Communication by Claude Shannon Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems by Claude Shannon Bayesian Networks without Tears by Eugene Charniak A Universal Algorithm for Sequential Data Compression by Jacob Ziv and Abraham Lempel A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks 1970 by Edgar F. Codd Let's Build a Compiler 1988-1995 by Jack Crenshaw Gauging Similarity via N-Grams: Language-Independent Sorting, Categorization, and Retrieval of Text by Marc Damashek Worse Is Better by Richard P. Gabriel Hints on Programming Language Design by C.A.R. Hoare Why Functional Programming Matters by John Hughes The Design of APL by Kenneth E. Iverson The Early History Of Smalltalk by Alan Kay Computer Programming as an Art by Donald E. Knuth The next 700 programming languages by Peter J. Landin Recursive Functions of Symbolic Expressions and their Computation by Machine (Part I) 1960 by John McCarthy FORTH - A Language for Interactive Computing by Charles H.Moore Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years 2001 by Peter Norvig Parenthetically Speaking, a collection of essays from the 1990s by Kent M. Pitman The Definition and Implementation of a Computer Language based on constraints by Guy Lewis Steele Jr. Growing a Language by Guy Lewis Steele Jr. Epigrams on Programming by Alan J. Perlis The Complexity of Theorem Proving Procedures by Stephen A. Cook Steps Toward Artificial Intelligence by Marvin Minsky The Original 'Lambda Papers' by Guy Steele and Gerald Sussman A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-Key Cryptosystems by R.L. Rivest, A. Shamir, and L. Adleman The UNIX Time-Sharing System by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson Comments jawahar 6 Feb 2007 5:52 am: anand this link is not working !! Classic-texts-in-computer-science – maxviv 5 Jun 2016 7:15 pm (pingback): […] Classic texts in computer science […]

Classic texts in computer science


I examine how Ilayaraja adapted rare Carnatic raagas like Bhaavani and Hemavathi for Tamil cinema. By analyzing tracks from Guna and Salangai Oli, I highlight how his compositions serve as accessible references for complex vivaadi and Karaharapriya scales.

This is the second of 15 articles titled Classical Ilayaraja appeared on Usenet in the 90s.\ I've added links to the songs, so you can listen as you read.\ You could also try my Tamil song search. There are very few instances in which the identity of a rare raaga in a cinema song is so well handled and shown (to the extent that) we could even use these songs as good a reference as keerthanas for those respective raagas. To quote a few, K.V.Mahadevan's paattum naanE (Thiruvilayaadal) in the raagam Gowrimanohari, M.K.Thiagaraja Bhagavathar's soppana vaazhvil magizhndhu in the raagam Vijayanaagari. These are uncommonly sung raagas. It is true that there are excellant keerthanais like gurulekha (Gowrimanohari) in these raagas. But to a common rasika, it could be gone ahead and suggested paattum naanE to understand Gowrimanohari, because KVM has handled it in splendid form. The way T.M.S starts the song in thara sthayi rishabham with his perfect voice and renders it, it is like eating a 'nila pournami' feast in the banks of kaveri. That song has become an absolute reference for Gowrimanohari. The question is: Has Ilayaraja any such 'reference' songs to his credit? Yes. Many! Bhaavani is the 41st melakartha raaga. It is the 2nd raaga to the right from Jalavarali! It has the following arohanam and avarohanam: Sa Ri1 Ga1 Ma2 Pa Da2 Ni3 Sa, and Sa Ni3 Da2 Pa Ma2 Ga1 Ri1 Sa. I have never heard any keerthanai in this raaga. How did Ilayaraja get the sudden idea of scoring a tune in this complex vivaadi raaga? Would it be a hit with all its vivaadi swaras? Did he or Kamalhaasan have any apprehension? If they had had, maybe we would't have got this wonderful song paarththa vizhi paarththa padi in Guna. It is a perfect song suiting the situation in which Kamal (a nut case) sees the heroine in a temple and falls in instant love with her. That heroine, Roshni (or something) was a delight to see in that movie. The song starts like this Sa Pa Pa Pa Ma Ga Ri Sa Da Sa Ri Ga... Before the song there is a virutham like piece sung by the chorus. He has handled the beauty of the vivaadhi swaras in that raaga very very nicely. When you hear the words 'charanam charanam' set in the swaras, Sa Sa Ga Ri Sa it sends a thrill in your perceptual apparatus. Since the uttaranga swaras of this raaga consist of chatusruthi daivatham and kaakali nishadam, it has a quality like that of Kalyani (with a pradhi madhyamam). In the interlude of this song the chorus traverse in the melodious regions of the raaga (Pa Da Ni Sa). Unfortunately I don't remember the words. Maybe the lyrics is good too. Yesudoss has done a fantastic job. Even though the recording scale of this song is only around 'oru kattai', how is that it sounds as though he is reaching big heights when he sings the same pallavi in the thara sthayi? It sounds so pleasant to hear! This song is a very good good referance for Bhaavani raagam. Guna has another fantastic 'light' song kaNmaNi anbOdu. Maybe, neo-rasikas will go ahead and call this song as Sankarabaranam! Are there any cinema songs in raagam Hemavathi? It was a good surprise recently when I came to know that Ilayaraja has ventured into this raagam also for first time (maybe, in thamizh film song history). That song is in the movie Pudhupatti Ponnuthayee starring Radhika. manam pOla maangalyam is a good example of Hemavathi. S.Janaki (the best vocal support he ever got) has sung this song. This movie is like some modern Thillana Mohanaambaal. Some big shot has given accompaniment in nadhaswaram in this song. He has started the pallavi in thara sthayi gandaaram. Ga Ri Sa Sa Ni Sa NI Sa Ni Da... That is how the song goes. It is really good and pure! Considering the sudha madhyamam of Hemavathi, the raaga giant 'Karaharapriya', Ilayaraja has few pure numbers in it. Of course nothing can beat M.S.Viswanathan's maadhavi pon mayilaal. Probably Ilayaraja first tried Karaharapriya in pure form in poo malarndhida in the movie Tik Tik Tik. The interlude violin pieces and K.J.Yesudoss's swara alapana in that song are fantastic. For such a good tune, the lyrics was very bad. I distinctly remember how the triple x filled words in the charanam like 'padukayil...' got more famous than the tune in our school! Ilayaraja should have paid more attention to the lyrics at least when his tunes were purely carnatic. Mmmmm.... Who cared? It was all money for him! His other pure karnatic Karaharapriya are aanandham pongida pongida (Sirai Paravai), thaanaa vandha sandhanamE (Ooru Vittu Ooru Vandhu). In aanandham pongida pongida, the upper sancharas are excellant, like Ga Ga Ri Sa Ri Ga Ma Ga... Again,the song has been sung by Yesudoss. His voice is superb for this kind of songs. thaanaa vandha sandhanamE came as a pleasant surprise in his brother Gangai Amaran directed movie. This song was not a big hit. Probably all the attention went to sorgamE enRaalum in the same movie in raagam Hamsanadam (but for few slips). In 'thaana' (SPB), he has handled some wonderful nuances of Karaharapriya, like Ga Ri Ni Da Ni... There are few more of his semi-classical tries in Karaharapriya, like maappillaikku (Netrikann) etc. Even his first song, machchana parthingala is in the Karaharapriya scale. He liked this scale a lot. Maybe, neo-rasikas would call all of them as pure Karaharapriya. Probably the purest of his Karaharapriya came in Unnaal Mudiyum Thambi. The situation is Kamal and Gemini fight over something. The quarrel gets very intense. At this point Gemini's dumb son (Kamal's brother), takes his nadhaswaram and starts playing loudly, to stop his kin from quarreling further. You know what raaga Ilayaraja selected for this situation? Karaharapriya! That scene was a musical feast in that movie. The raaga was appropriately used. K.J.Yesudoss gave a charming vocal support to Ilayaraja (singing for both Kamal and Gemini). It was like a duet between Yesudoss and the the nadhaswaram! K.Balachander used this situation to show how music was a common enjoyment in Gemini's house and how it could abate the heat of the quarell between the son and the father. Talking about the panchama varjaya raagam of Karahapriya, that is, Sriranjani, probably Ilayaraja was the best music director to use this wonderful raaga. His first Sriranjani came as a tail bit in veLLi chalangaigaL (Kaadhal Oviyam). It was a very fast bit sang by the chorus 'thannanthanimaiyil iru vizhi'. Even though veLLi chalangaigaL was tuned in Chandrakounse raagam, I don't know what made him give the tail bit to Sriranjani (a very strange guy, you know!) The second Sriranjani attempt came in naadhavinOdhangal in Salangai Oli. Even in this song he tuned the pallavi alone in Sriranjani, with charanam in Hamsaanandi. This is what I dislike in cinema music directors. Why can't they adhere to a single raaga? Why do they have to change from pallavi to charanam? Ilayaraja was the one who did best justice to carnatic music among modern music directors. But even he fell a prey to such deviations (from purist point of view) like changing the raaga for each line in few songs. His best Sriranjani came in naadham ezhundhadhadi in Gopura Vaasalile. Again, Yesudoss! It was really fantastic. Karthik had given a comic act in that song. Probably that song toppled M.S.V's best Sriranjani naadham enum kOvililE. Dit it? I would say yes. Lakshminarayanan Srirangam Ramakrishnan,\ Internal Medicine Department,\ Brackenridge Hospital,\ Austin, Tx 78701. Comments sujatha 28 Feb 2007 8:55 am: is there any hidden meaning in the song panivizhum malarvanam Anil Goud 19 Dec 2006 12:00 pm: Pls send me some old Illayarajs songs to my mail id. i like very much of Illayaraja songs i am requesting u that pls send old songs of Illayaraja songs. form Anil GOud Ramkumar 12 Nov 2008 1:29 am: Can i get the raaga based songs of Raja sir? i am bajan singer and would like to get the some of the rare raagas composed by raja sir Jimmy 15 Mar 2009 8:15 am: Poo Malaradhita to me so special and love that song. Best of Raja in Karaharapriya. There was an MSV song in Karaharpriya - "I will sing for you" - its the same arrangement as Poo Malardhita in the same raga- Does anyone know where I can get a copy of this song. Given that I almost listen to Poo Maladhita at least once a week - I want the potential source of inspiration for this song. thanks in advance. Jimmy 15 Mar 2009 8:16 am: I will sing for you ... was from a movie called Manidhanum deivamahalam - Sivaji in guest role - probably one of the worst movies of all times - with the dopey AVM Rajan in it. Nagarajan Anantharaman 30 Jan 2010 6:10 pm: I guess "Ponmagal Vanthal" in "Sorgam" is Karaharapriya Bala 11 Nov 2011 11:36 am: "i will sing for you" is a song from 'Manidharil Manickam' and not 'Manidahnu Deivamagalam' nish 14 Mar 2012 1:11 pm: on wat raga s d song nee partha paarvai ? s it nata bhairavi? Keshav 24 Apr 2012 9:47 pm: Isnt 'Pavani' the name of the raga. I am not disputing that some people say names of ragas little different. However, when names determine the Melakarta identity per Katapayadi sankhya system, 'Bhaavani' would mean the ragam is Melakarta (34/44 based on whether you pronounce that as Ba or Bha). Just curious. Or is that insignificant? Sakthi 11 Dec 2015 7:13 pm: Sorry, Mr.Lakshmi Narayanan, naadham enum kOvililE still stands best

Classical Ilayaraja 2