Monty Hall Problem!

Monty Hall Problem is named after the host of an american game show with the name "Let's make a deal". Problem has many variants. One of them is:

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

Should the player switch? That's the problem.

I tried this. There are 3 doors. 1 of them contains cars and hence probability of choosing a door with car is 1/3 and that with goat is 2/3. When one of the door with goat is opened then the question reduces to two doors. So probability should be 1/2 now and it should not matter whether you switch or not. But it does and that's why it has been most discussed paradox problem. From Wikipedia entry -

Because there is no way for the player to know which of the two remaining unopened doors is the winning door, most people assume that each of these doors has an equal probability and conclude that switching does not matter. In fact, the player should switch—doing so doubles the probability of winning the car from 1/3 to 2/3.

Why the probability is not 1/2?

This difference can be demonstrated by contrasting the original problem with a variation that appeared in vos Savant's column in November 2006. In this version, Monty Hall forgets which door hides the car. He opens one of the doors at random and is relieved when a goat is revealed. Asked whether the contestant should switch, vos Savant correctly replied, "If the host is clueless, it makes no difference whether you stay or switch. If he knows, switch" (vos Savant, 2006).

Increasing the number of doors

It may be easier to appreciate the solution by considering the same problem with 1,000,000 doors instead of just three (vos Savant 1990). In this case there are 999,999 doors with goats behind them and one door with a prize. The player picks a door. The game host then opens 999,998 of the other doors revealing 999,998 goats—imagine the host starting with the first door and going down a line of 1,000,000 doors, opening each one, skipping over only the player's door and one other door. The host then offers the player the chance to switch to the only other unopened door. On average, in 999,999 out of 1,000,000 times the other door will contain the prize, as 999,999 out of 1,000,000 times the player first picked a door with a goat. A rational player should switch. Intuitively speaking, the player should ask how likely is it, that given a million doors, he or she managed to pick the right one.

from coding horror blog -

When told of this (that switching was more lucrative choice), Paul Erdos, one of the leading mathematicians of the 20th century, said, "That's impossible." Then, when presented with a formal mathematical proof of the correct answer, he still didn't believe it and grew angry. Only after a colleague arranged for a computer simulation in which Erdos watched hundreds of trials that came out 2-to-1 in favor of switching did Erdos concede that he was wrong.

The problem is so unintuitive one of the most notable mathematicians of the last century couldn't wrap his head around it. That's ... well, that's amazing.

Sunday evening went well with this problem!

customer service, an experience

Recently I had few experiences of bad customer service with a telecom company Reliance communications which is a huge company. Few days back I again had a bad experience with the same company. In all instances, I visited a reliance web world store in Sector 18, Noida and experience was one of indifference to the customer and customer was me. In latest experience, I went for a disconnection and wished to know the amount I needed to pay. Executives kept me moving from one person to another and then said that some server is not working and hence I need to come again some other day. The words "come again" were a dej-vu experience. Same words were said when I earlier came to reliance for a connection, when I came for a broadband disconnection and for a query (then too there was a server issue - called "technical problem" - which seemingly is a NP-hard problem for reliance meaning no solution exists in finite time.

First experience was an amazing one - I went to reliance for a connection with few documents which I thought are required and was told to get x, y, z documents required and "come again". I went with the documents x, y, and z after 2-3 days. I was told that just that day they had a letter from head office which says that document 'z' will not work and instead a document 'p' is required and hence I had to "come again" with document 'p'. I was frustrated, irritated and showed my anger to the employees - but they behaved as government employees. Smiled. Said "sir, ab yeh to rules hain company ke. hum thode hi banaate hain." (Sir these are company rules, we don't make them). Well, I went with that document and got the connection. Last experience that I wrote above about was the disconnection of this connection.

By chance, I also had to visit vodafone store for paying my bill. I went to the vodafone store which is ironically, located just beside the reliance web world. Their system of paying bills is automated with three machines set up. Still, it had a guard and two service executives. These executives looked more like dumb bimbos but well, they were there for any help with the process of paying bills. They were also there to give you a privilege card with a smile which vodafone was giving you as an appreciation of paying bill. That's what customer service is about.

I remember when I went for a connection and their corporate plan for the company I work for was over - I showed disinterest without that plan - and how that guy jumped in, talked to his superiors and within seconds got me registered as the vodafone customer. He asked me to get a few documents ready which vodafone will get collected from my office. That's what customer service is about.

Trust me, reliance executives would not have cared. I know from my experience.

All in all, I want to say that cheaper is not going to get you the market Mr Ambani. In this business customer satisfaction is going to take an edge and that comes more from the quality of service than being cheaper.

So Mr Anil Dhirubhai Ambani, Listening?

Long long ago..

I used to write blogs and used to love it. I got stuck with lot of work at office, home and elsewhere. Lots of it, believe me. Now everything subsiding so possibly I'm going to write something. Do drop by!

What will India do now?

Normally when we write India it signifies the state i.e. the government but here I refer to the people of India. India, the largest democracy in the world is undoubtedly greatest because of the religious, cultural, ethnical, historical and geographical diversities it posesses.  

Date for Elections has been announced i.e. April 16, 2009. 

With this announcement, many debates have started on who to vote for? What India needs? What youths of India need (and I notice that this debate is larger than any other - as if India is just a young India - and other age-groups have suddenly exterminated). 

Yesterday night I was watching NDTV's show Vinod Dua Live and heard few thoughts by M. J. Akbar and was impressed by the clarity of thoughts he has. He said that it is not about a young prime minister or an older prime minister. What youths want is a person who can think for them, who can give them a future or vision, who can also understand that youths are not only people with cell phones in hand and ear phones stuffed in ears but actually they are also people who don't yet (year 2009) have basic necessities like food and water and electricity at their homes. Even they are young. Although for making it to Times of India home page you have to be a dynamic IIM graduate who cribs about not being offered a Rs 1 crore salary job (like his seniors) OR a software developer who has been sacked off job recently but we have to accept the presence of the youth who still asks if he can get some work for Rs 100 a day. 

According to Dua, there are several different classes of youth in current Indian society. One class is so rich that it does not care who rules and how. They are so well off that who wins or loses and who governs does not make any difference. This class does not vote. Then there is a group which is well off, which takes education and gets a decent job. This group thinks that it cannot make a difference. This group also does not vote. Then there is this group of youth who is not well off, not even educated enought to get a decent job and who believes still in democracy and it is this group which is going to decide this time who comes to power this election. 

My personal opinion is that it is our country and if we remain a spectator then same things will keep happening. I've heard more than 100 times in my life advice that if you want to change the country then join politics but I don't buy that opinion and think that we can change the country even by selecting the people who govern. we have this right to think on which political party has most rigid plan for the development of India and right to exercise our vote to get them to power. Now onus is on us. 

In America, Barrack Obama won the elections against J. McCain. It was an election of Hope against Fear. People chose hope. I think here in India also we will make a rational choice rather than coming in influence of fanatics who are not even sure of what they want to do. 

DeskTwitter v 2.0

Released today the version 2.0 of the AIR application that I wrote few months back, DeskTwitter. This is an attempt to bring twitter experience out of the browser. This release contains following additional features - 

1. Now user can update his status (or send tweet) from the UI. 

2. User can see his friends list always and does not have to hit his own profile image to get the friends list. 

3. Colors and fonts have been changed to make it more attractive. (feedback welcome)

A snapshot of how it looks like - 

You can download it from here. Do try it. You will need Adobe AIR runtime to install and enjoy the AIR experience (and it takes not more than few seconds to install AIR runtime). Please come up with what you feel missing in the application (features) or what you feel is broken (bugs) at awasthi dot manoj at gmail dot com. 

Download link for Desktop Twitter version 2.0 

Boss Diversification

Charlie Wood talks about doing a startup in the troubled economy and I liked the following extract in particular where he coins a new term called Boss Diversification. 

.. Boss Diversification. When you work for a company, your employer is your customer and you have only one customer for your services. Lose that customer and you're screwed. When you work for yourself, each of your customer/clients is your boss. Lose any one of them and it's not the end of the world. The more customers, the more diversified you are. So consulting is good but high volume products are better.

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Values Matter?

An excerpt from an earlier post that I wrote -

My confusions is should we, in the short span of human life (actively, I think we live for not more than 80-85 years) live and die for virtues? Do they exist? and Is it natural? OR we just overvalue them?

While discussing with a friend of mine, after watching 'Mother India', I asked "Why wasn't this movie given an Oscar?.. This is a classic story and a zenith of perfection in acts" .. He replied "One of my uncle says that it was because of the scene where Nargis goes to Lala when she does not have food for her children and Lala wants to bed with her. West says it is impractical that Nargis all of a sudden, slapped and came back.. What made Nargis slap Lala? Conscience. But she went there because she was on the verge where she should have been ready for 'anything' for the food for children".. Yes. I agree to my friend's uncle. But I think people behind the making of Mother India knew that Indian audience would never accept it.. They were not mature enough. A scene from "Forrest Gump" runs through my mind as I write this. The scene where Forrest's mother sleeps with the principal so that he could be admitted in a normal school.

Recently I read about the life of George Soros (the billionaire trader and a worldwide known philanthrope). He is a Jew and they lived in Hungary. When in 1940s there were German forces in Hungary and taking over the control, his father Tivador said "This is an emergency.. All normal rules are suspended. If we remain law-abiding citizens, we are going to perish..". Tivador made "forged" documents for his son, his wife and himself to prove their "christian" identity (or hide their Jewish).. Forgery - against the values that we are taught. But it has to be like this if you are to survive.

There is another incident where George (as a child) tells some Jews that the decree that requires them to move to some port is actually meant to harm them and they will be dead if they follow the orders (this was told to him by his father and Tivador asked him to say this to as many Jews as possible) and some of the Jews responded "We believe in the laws of the country.. we should not and will not break the law" and "we have never done anything wrong so why would god do anything bad to us".. Almost forty thousand Jews were killed after the deportation.

Tivador was an escapist I would say. I enjoyed reading about George's father more than him. He could save his family by using forged document and by not losing himself. Your survival is important for the survival of people who depend on you. Later, another incident tells how tactful he was. Russian troops had taken over the Germans. Hungary was free of the brutalities by the Nazis. But now, Russians were the god. Russian soldiers would ask for money and for girls and for anything.. and Hungarians felt an obligation. One day, two russian soldiers came in Tivador's broken house which they were reconstructing and asked for sex with a young girl, a relative of Tivador. George recalls in the biography how his father handled the soldiers asking them to settle and have tea and then took them to the nearest brothel telling that he will arrange more beautiful girls out there. He saved the girl without any blood (which would have been most probably his).

Survival is the only thing natural in the existance of Animals and ultimately that's what we are. Family, Society, Nations, Goverments and other systems have actually not made any differences.

Your life may matter but I really doubt if death does.

This was few months back. Yesterday, I was watching hindi flick 'Swarg (1990)' starring Rajesh Khanna and Govinda in lead. Movie was on similar themes as another Rajesh Khanna starrer 'Avatar' and based on values. Just values. Lot of things happened too magically in the movie and if i term it 'moral quotient' then that was too high in few lead characters. Note the use of word 'too'. Has it become very impractical today to have those age-old-beliefs of truth, loyalty, honesty? Is all talk about values fake or nonexistant?

Transliteration in google search

Desktop Twitter - twitter out of the browser

Desktop Twitter is an Adobe AIR desktop application written in Flex (Actionscript) and it is an attempt to bring the twitter experience out of the browser. Current version of the application that am giving out so it contains minimal features. A screenshot is shown at left. Twitter Rest APIs are quite simple to use and developing any such application becomes painless using them. 

Current set of features include - 

1. On entering the user name of the user whose desk twitter page you wish to see, you get the list of thumbnails of friends of this user near the bottom. 

2. On selecting any thumbnail you get to see the details of that user. Account information is shown in the right top box, twitter updates are shown in the left big box and thumbnails of the friends of the selected user are shown in the right bottom box. 

Issue Known - On scrolling the list of thumbnails fast, thumbs disappear. This is a bug with Flex and am looking around to fix this ASAP. You can workaround by scrolling really slow. :D 

Missing - Help is missing for now but will be available in next release (soon) (Details of the different panels are intended to be clear by the labels provided. ). No caching of thumbnails is done and hence sometimes there may be some delay in loading of images. 

Application can be downloaded from here. You will need to install Adobe AIR runtime (takes not more than few seconds) to install (again, not more than a few seconds) and use this application. Please download the application, try it out and report any bugs, suggestions, features at awasthi.manoj@gmail.com. 

Book Review: The Automatic Millionaire

The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach says on its cover that it's a powerful one-step plan to live and finish rich. Well, not untrue. David tells you everything any investment or personal finance book would tell you adding just one more step to each - automating it. Instead of being disciplined about finance you should make it automatic. Get it deducted automatically from your bank account. This way you never, absolutely never, miss it. You don't want to. I loved the book because it's short (just 250 pages), it's precise (tells you to take steps rather than plain old fundas of generating money) and it probably works for you already (most of us already have applied it to some kind of investments - time is just to apply that on all investments).

Apart from being educative, this is an interesting read as well. So, if you are still in doubt about your plans on how to make money, this would surely get you one way for that - but you might need to cut on that extra money you spend each morning on Latte ;) (See Latte Calculator below).

Finish Rich Website. Latte Calculator.

YouSuggest - The Suggestion Box is now Social

Nilesh Trivedi announced yesterday what they have been upto these days at LatticePurple and this announcement made me quite excited about the all the buzz about social networking. The product is YouSuggest - a social suggestion box. As mentioned in the introducing blog post -

It is a modern way of asking your community to come up with suggestions, feedback and ideas that they care about, vote in an open and social environment and also encouraging a rich interaction between you and your community.

He had got a marvellous presentation pitching YouSuggest on Slideshare. It's kinda a good idea leveraging the social networking concept. All the best to Nilesh and team.

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