The Logic of Life-1

Interesting in bits, tenuous arguments in some places, outright outrageously silly in some, and with a huge 'Freakonomics' hangover. Many situations and outcomes in life can be explained by applying a line of rational thinking, in the author's opinion, but there are weakly argued passages, egregious overlooking of alternate explanations, overly narrow applicability of some situations, and some where the author blithely overlooks obvious justifications for the rational thinking that he propounds.
In comparison to his previous book, The Undercover Economist, this book places a weak second. In comparison to Freakonomics too this book is a disappointing tribute. Both books well deserve a five-star rating. Two stars for this book may appear harsh, and three stars would not be out of order for the book, but I am doing some relative grading here.
Looks written in a hurry, and with the desire to use the logic of rational thinking as an overarching basis for explaining too wide an array of situations and behaviors.

There are nine chapters in the book, each delving into a different aspect of human behavior, and where the author attempts to explain human behavior and responses to situations using a theory of rational behavior, even when there does not seem to be any obvious rationality at play, or where the individual actions, rational though them may be, lead to results that are less than optimal for society as a whole.

1. Introducing The Logic Of Life - or how the threat of AIDS affects peoples' sexual mores.
   
2. Vegas - how gambling and other addictions are also very carried on with some rational thinking
   
3. Is Divorce Underrated? - economic freedom, stemming from educational emancipation, can set women free.
   
4. Why Your Boss Is Overpaid - why, despite everything, your boss is still undeservedly underpaid (and this is a tautology).
   
5. In The Neighborhood
6. The Dangers Of Rational Racism
7. The World Is Spiky
8. Rational Revolutions
9. A Million years Of Logic

For my money the only two good chapters in the book are "Is Divorce Underrated", which cogently uses the age old theory of supply and demand to argue how education, birth control, and a little bit of emancipation have helped reduce the gender gap; and "In the Neighborhood", though this chapter on neighborhoods would not stand scrutiny in a developing country in India, nor would it be economically or environmentally feasible or responsible. The other chapters that barely pass muster, and this is in my very personal, opinionated, irrational, and partly educated opinion, are "Why Your Boss is Overpaid", "The Dangers of Rational Racism". The outright stinkers or very disappointing chapters have to be "A Million Years of Logic", which is a sorry apologia for imperialism, and "Las Vegas", which fails miserably to explain the fascinating obsession with gambling that people have.

More to follow in a future post, with explanations, commentary, excerpts, and rants.

The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks; Reprint edition (February 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812977874
• ISBN-13: 978-0812977875

Review in the New York Times

Other cover images from different editions of the book.
The first one seems similar in style to the author's first book, 'The Undercover Economist"
The second cover is positively strange. Why would you want to have a photo of a broken egg oozing all over your cover? If the egg is meant to represent life, then surely a broken egg can only convey the end of life, at least for the egg, or for the the chicken that would have hatched from the egg, or the other way round, depending on whether you believe the egg came first or the chicken. Either way, once the egg is broken, there ain't no chicken comin' out of nowhere.

That's the only logical conclusion one can draw.

The third cover is quite nondescript and quite misleading too... Who is pulling the strings? And whose strings are being pulled? Is this a whodunit? No. A conspiracy theory? No.


Related Books:

• The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World
• Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
• The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor--and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car!
• Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies: And Other Pricing Puzzles
• Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
• Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)
• Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior
• How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of "Intangibles" in Business
• Economic Facts and Fallacies

Wayanad - Eddakal Caves

Want to see petroglyphs from the neolithic age?
duh?
Wanna see etchings in a cave from a time long, long ago.
Yes you can.

Petroglyphs are essentially etchings or carvings on rocks. And the Neolithic age refers to the period that began some 11,500 years ago. So to go to these caves is to really take a walk in the past, literally, almost. This is where humans lived ten millenia ago. Castles and palaces go back a few hundred years. Some temples in India are a thousand years old. Some places in Bihar, from the Ashoka reign, go back more than 2000 years. As do places in South India like Rameshwaram. The submerged city of Dwarka is probably 5,000 years old or older. But to be sure there are very few places left that are really old. Places, structures made by humans, or inhabited at some point in time by humans.

The trek from the base to the caves itself is so inaccessible and arduous that it adds to the feeling of inhospitability and a sense of the life that people in that age would have led.



The Edakkal Hermitage, an eco-friendly resort, http://www.edakkal.com/, has a location map at http://www.edakkal.com/html/location.htm. If you click the map and zoom in you can see a closeup of the location of the Edakkal caves. I have captured a screenshot and reproduced it below:

Look for Sultan Bathery in the map below, and then zoom or scroll accordingly.

View Larger Map

The Wikipedia entry for Edakkal Caves has more information.
The official site for the Wayanad district in Kerala is http://wayanad.nic.in/ and a list of places of interest for tourists is available at http://wayanad.nic.in/places.htm
Curiously enough, there is another site at http://www.wyd.kerala.gov.in/ that also proclaims itself as the official site of Wayanad. Go figure...

From the parking lot you walk a bit and reach the spot from where there are jeeps that will take you a couple of kilometers up to the point from where you begin the trek to the caves. They charge 75 rupees a head for a round-trip. You can walk the two kilometers too if you want to, but know that it is a steep trek and could take you an hour or more even if you are physically fit, more if you are not. If you are, and if the weather is pleasant enough, and if you are carrying water, then go for it, by all means!

To get to the start of the trek towards the caves you first climb up a short but steep trail:


After which you reach the start of the trek. Buy tickets for yourself and for any cameras you are carrying. Begin the trek by first clambering over these rocks below. Yes, you have to climb over these rocks, no stairs or pathway here.


Just past the rocks you come across this very official looking iron gate that gives you a very false impression and hope that the caves are just past this gate.


Once past the gate, you look around till you figure out that while you are indeed inside a cave, this is certainly not THE cave, and for sure there are no etchings, carvings, or engravings, or petroglyphs here.


The trek consists of walking, climbing, and stepping up metal ladders placed to help navigate the very steep portions of the trek. They only look rickety. Once you start climbing up these ladders you realize that these are pretty solid and able to take the weight of several people at once. On the other hand, you also become aware of the fact that were you to slip and fall, a nasty injury is almost certain, and the nearest medical help could be an hour away, or more. So, be extra cautious. Better safe than 'sore'-y (heh heh).


After about half an hour or so of trekking up, you finally come to the entrance of the cave. It may take less than half an hour to get there if there aren't too many people. This is because there is only one narrow trail, and only one set of ladders at each point where ladders are required, so once people waiting in queue start climbing up or down from, you have to wait till they have all gone before you and the others behind you get to your turn. A little courtesy and rational thinking goes a long way in ensuring that the line moves swiftly.

This is the entrance to the cave.


And these are the petroglyphs.

A close inspection reveals this: not much that you can make out, but you have to realize that the neolithic man did not have at his disposal any fine instruments of calligraphy. A sharpened rock to chisel on rock, and time. Lots of time. Average life expectancy in that era would have probably have been no more than 35 years.
The other thing that should strike you is that the etchings are almost all over the wall here. Not just at eye level or where the hands could reach. Either they would have stood over the shoulders of other men and women, or would have used some support to stand tall.
No evening or night time soap opera to sit glued to. No late night parties to attend. Except listen for wild animals or poisonous snakes trying to make their way into the cave. Or to chat among themselves, gaze at the stars, the moon, and ponder over the unanswered questions of life. Which would have to wait for the invention of the world wide web for answers. And even then they would have felt the need for an intermediary like Google, or Yahoo, or some othe search engine to help. Yeah... they would have debated whether TCP/IP would become available in the Neolithic or the Bronze age.



Actually, this cave is not a cave. The Wikipedia link informs us that this is really a cleft, a 30 feet deep fissure. And when you look at it, it certainly seems so. There are rocks on three sides, with a sheer wall on one side, as you can see here:


On one side there is some sort of an opening, but it looks pretty forbidding to try entering from that side. You could, I suppose, if you had to, but I don't think you would want to, if you could help it.


Taken from the other end of the cave, it becomes apparent that this cave has really formed as a result of big boulders falling in such a fashion as to arrange a neat cave-like formation.


And on one side, there is an entrance, but with sheer cliffs on both sides.


Look up and it you can see the triangular formation through which light and rain could come through.


You cannot spend too much time in the caves. There really isn't much there. Apart from the cave and the petroglyphs. Yes, for the right minded person, there is a treasure trove here to spend days and weeks poring over the writings. But for others you would spend half an hour here, take photographs, and then move out. And remember when you bought the tickets? There is actually a person to be found here who actually checks your tickets. And if you have a camera he will also see whether you bought a ticket for the camera or decided to be cheap and try and save 25 rupees on the ticket. So, be honest. There is an incentive here for doing so.

The climb down could take more time since you have to be doubly careful of not slipping and ending up down, real fast. Haste would lay you waste.


The views from the trek are really spectacular. If you wait till late afternoon the vistas in the afternoon sun would likely be spectacular.


Below, at the base, there are lots of coconut trees planted, and a small curio shop with lots of very reasonably priced items to select from.

Holi

Holi, also called the Festival of Colors, is a popular Hindu spring festival observed in India, Nepal, and countries with large Hindu diaspora such as Suriname, Guyana, South Africa, Trinidad, the UK, Mauritius and Fiji. In West Bengal of India it is known as Dolyatra (Doul Jatra) or Boshonto Utsav ("spring festival").

The main day, Holi, also known as Dhulheti, Dhulandi or Dhulendi, is celebrated by people throwing coloured powder and coloured water at each other. Bonfires are lit the day before, also known as Holika Dahan (death of Holika) or Chhoti Holi (little Holi). The bonfires are lit in memory of the miraculous escape that young Prahlad had when Demoness Holika, sister of Hiranyakashipu, carried him into the fire. Holika was burnt but Prahlad, a staunch devotee of Lord Vishnu, escaped without any injuries due to his unshakable devotion. Holika Dahan is referred to as Kama Dahanam in Andhra Pradesh. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holi

If you think about the task of photographing the holi bonfire, you have several options available. A wide angle shot that includes everything and the bonfire. A zoom, close crop shot of only the bonfire. Or something in between. If you are using a point-and-shoot you also have to consider leaving the flash on or off. The worst option would be to shoot using the auto mode of the camera, whether it is a point-and-shoot or an SLR.



If using an SLR or a camera that provides more options of controlling the exposure, ISO speed, aperture, shutter speed, etc... then there is the question of just how to compose the shot keeping in mind all these variables.


If you zoom and focus and also expose only on and for the bonfire you will likely get the best exposed shot in my opinion.

The speed will be fast enough to capture the individual flames, and there won't be any of the surrounding darkness of the night to overexpose the bonfire itself. Generally a speed of at least 1/60 seconds is needed to freeze the flames in the shot.


If you shoot with a slightly wider angle, and if you still want the bonfire to be crisply captured, you have to either do spot-metering, or manually underexpose by at least two f-stops or more.
If you use a point-and-shoot you can see what the image will look like in the preview screen. If you use a dSLR where the preview function has to be specially switched on, you can always take a shot, see it on the LCD screen of the camera, and retake it if not satisfied with it. After all, the economics of digital photography and memory cards mean that the marginal cost of taking a photo is close to zero.



One benefit of metering and exposing only for the bonfire is that almost everything else is underexposed. So you get nice effects like the silhouette of the man crouched in the shot below.



You can get the smooth effect as shown below by using a longer shutter speed, of say a second or longer. To do that you may need to use a slow ISO speed like 100, or use a high aperture setting, like f/16 to lengthen the exposure time. And yes, place the camera on a tripod.

Holi is celebrated on the full moon day in the month of Phalugna or Falguna (Phalgun Purnima), which usually falls in the later part of February or March. In 2009, Holi (Dhulandi) was on 11th March and Holika Dahan was on 10th March. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holi

You really need something like a 400mm or even 600mm lens to capture the moon in more detail. This is a cropped shot, shot at the max 250mm focal length of my lens, so even at 100% magnification the photo only hints at the beauty of the moon. And like with the fire you need to meter for only the moon and not the surrounding sky, lest you get a completely white, washed-out moon with no details visible. Since at the maximum focal length the moon still does not occupy the entire frame, the surrounding black sky is going to fool the camera's meter. Therefore be sure to underexpose by two or three f-stops. As you would have guessed, it was a matter of trial and error for me. I got it about right only on the third shot I think.
And again yes, a tripod is a must.
Once I figure out how to use the mirror lockup feature the shot should be sharper the next time around.