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Book Review: Out of the Maze

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It has been five years since my last post.  The 9 to 5 and life in generally have taken my attention elsewhere.  However, I still do my best to pick up the pen from time to time.  Although time is a luxury, I recently managed to squeeze in a quick read called Out of the Maze , by the famous author Spencer Johnson, who co-penned the bestseller  Who Moved My Cheese  some years ago. If Who Moved My Cheese challenges us to embrace change, then Out of the Maze tells us just how to do it.  While it is easier said than done for most people, the ideas preached are surprisingly easy to grasp. Some points may seem overly obvious but perhaps this is why so many overlook them.  The story of the mice, Hem and Haw, continue to take center stage in this sequel. A new star, Hope, joins the mix and becomes Hem's new companion in their quest to finding a new food supply.  The underlying message is to challenge our beliefs, especially those that are so deeply entrenched as facts in our mind.  We

Quote of the Day

It is better to aim high and fail than to aim low and succeed.  -PTS

Quote of the Day

Television often depicts people living perfect lives without any imperfections.  I simply strive to live an imperfect life to perfection.  -PTS

A Very Real Life Application of the Stable Marriage Problem

I recently stumbled upon a mathematical problem known as the  Stable Marriage Problem (SMP).  Per Wikipedia, the problem is commonly stated as: Given N men and N women, where each person has ranked all members of the opposite sex with a unique number between 1 and n in order of preference, marry the men and women together such that there are no two people of opposite sex who would both rather have each other than their current partners. If there are no such people, all the marriages are "stable". The SMP has real-life applications to any problem requiring stable pairing of two sets of equal size. In fact, this problem is always solvable using the Gale-Shapley algorithm . There is a rather big catch however.  While the marriages are always stable, they may not be ideal from the vantage point of an individual.  To illustrate this, imagine three men A,B,C and three women X,Y,Z. Here are their ranked preferences for members of the other group: A: YXZ B: ZYX C: XZY X

Brian Greene's Talk on TED

Here is a great video  from Brian Greene, renowned theoretical physicist and author of The Elegant Universe , among various books.  The video touches on a number of hot concepts of the day, from inflation, dark matter, string theories, to explaining why we are indeed living in a multi-verse. -PTS

Quote of the Day

You can certainly fit a square peg into a round hole. Just make the square peg smaller.  -PTS

Quote of the Day

Stability is merely an excuse to be content with the status quo.  This is why I love change! -PTS

9 Equations a True Geek Should Know

Came across this  article  which is entertaining to read while keeping score!  I scored 2 of 9 - Uncertainty Principle and Maxwell's Equations. The good news is I do not qualify as a geek, but that also means there is so much more to learn when I retire. -PTS

Book Review: Outliers: The Story of Success

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A recent good read, which changed my perspective on what it takes to become a wild success in life. The  Outliers   is about how success is affected by external factors beyond individual characteristics. These factors include culture, social systems, even friends and families. Here are some highlights: The Matthew Effect  – Canadian professional hockey players are mostly born in the early months of a year because the age cutoff for tryouts is January 1st. These players when trying out during childhood, have months of physical development over their later-born counterparts. This is a huge advantage which gives successful candidates access to premium coaches and programmes for years, hence an ever increasing head-start eventually leading to professional careers. Similar patterns are found in Major League Baseball, English Premier League, among other sports leagues.  Even when it comes to school, kids born later in the year are at a slig

eBay for Science?

Almost a month into baby raising and I have caught my wind to blog again. Just the other day, I stumbled upon (no pun intended) this website called Science Exchange . The concept is quite simple as it is a platform for outsourcing scientific experimental projects to the lowest bidder. Think of it as eBay for services, the twist being the lowest bid wins. I believe this is a great idea for academic institutions to better collaborate and take advantage of each others' resources in economic ways. I do not have any pending experiments but set up an account anyway for exploration. Hope this concept catches on! -PTS