The story of a ship

Some amazing photographs of the Arizona, one of the famous battleships of WW2. Here are some of the ones which I liked, but you can go to the link and see much more…

under construction 1913

FDR visiting the ship

Launched

Commissioned

After modernisation in 1931, see the towers..

after the Pearl Harbour attack.

what was left after the cleanup of the wreck

and how it looks now.

Amma’s Multifaceted Empire, Built on Hugs

Son

Few things to note here in this description of an Indian religious leader's life and work. 

First is that when governments are failing or are unable to function, these religious - social movements frequently fill the void. It's a fascinating phenomena. For example people worry about Islamist or Hindu or such like movements. But this is because governments give them space because of their incompetence. 

Second is to note how single prophets and guru based religious movements can turn into long term movements. India Middle East etc etc all give rise to movements like this. Think of the Ramakrishna mission which is a broad mission now. Same with like Narayan guru. Or shirdi sai baba. Scientology. Etc etc. Islam and Christianity also started with individual prophets like this. 

Third is that religion is frequently associated with money. It's like flies t honey. Very common to see cultish behaviour. 

So this kind of behaviour isn't strange or unknown. People have this bizarre tendency to need to have gurus and prophets. I personally find it bizarre, just like I find people needing drugs or drink to be merry. But logic or arguments don't work on these people. Seriously. I used to argue and debate once but nowadays I just give a jaundiced look and back away slowly and stay away from them. People who can act irrationally like this can't be trusted to be around when you leave your guard down. 

Still one good thing, give hugs son. That's great and wonderful behaviour. Hugs make so many things better :) 

Love

Baba

Amma’s Multifaceted Empire, Built on Hugs - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/business/ammas-multifaceted-empire-built-on-hugs.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all

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THERE are entourages — and then there is the retinue of Mata Amritanandamayi, a 59-year-old Indian guru known simply as Amma, or “mother.” On Friday, she began a two-month North American tour during which she will be accompanied by 275 volunteers. They plan to ride in four buses across the continent from Bellevue, Wash., to Marlborough, Mass., visiting 11 cities, including New York. And at each stop along the way, Amma will sit on stage for 15 hours at a stretch, greeting her thousands of devotees.

Is caring for elderly parents detrimental to women’s mental health?

We will face this problem more and more. I have heard so much from so many people that boys are useless idiots as far as looking after the parental units are concerned. Its the daughters who help look after the old folks. But people don't think about the impact this has on the daughters. One way of seeing this is to see if this has any mental health issues. This obviously means that the health care and social care sectors of the country have to worry about it. Also for the old fogeys, please put aside sufficient money so that you have proper support in a care home or with nursing, or what have you. You have already managed to bugger it up with loading debt on them but one to think deeply..

2.        Is caring for elderly parents detrimental to women’s mental health? The influence of the European North-South gradient Date:        2013-11
By:        Elenka Brenna (Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore ) ; Cinzia Di Novi (Università Ca’ Foscari, Dipartimento di Economia, Venezia )
In the last decades, both the lengthening of life expectancy and an accentuated decline in birth rates have reduced the consistency of the younger generational cohorts. Due to an ageing population, the burden of care giving is expected to intensify in the next quarter of the century in Europe, especially for mature women. This paper investigates the impact of the provision of constant care for elderly parents on the mental health of adult daughters, between the ages of 50 and 65, living in different European countries. Data is collected from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Information on mental health status is provided by Euro-D depression scale, a standardized measure of depression employed across European countries. We focus on differences in the effects according to a North–South gradient: we test whether the relationship between informal caregiving and mental health differs across European macro- regions. Our results reveal the presence of a North-South gradient in the effect of caring on women’s mental health.
Keywords:        caregiver burden, depression, parent care, LTC systems, mature women
JEL:        I10 I12 D10
URL:        http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctc:serie1:def004&r=age

Love, money, and old age support : does parental matchmaking matter ?

Abstract
Parental involvement in matchmaking may distort the choice of spouse because parents are willing to substitute love for market and household production, which are more sharable between parents and their children. This paper finds supportive evidence in a survey of Chinese couples. In both rural and urban areas, parent matchmaking is associated with less marital harmony between the couple, more submissive wives, and a stronger belief in old age support for the son. In contrast, its association with couple income differs by rural and urban regions, perhaps because of differences in earning opportunities and in the enforcement of the one-child policy. Moreover, parent matchmaking is associated with more children for the couple and lower schooling for wives only in rural areas. Thus, in places with a stronger need for old age support, parents tend to be involved in matchmaking and use it to select submissive daughters-in-law to ensure old age support. The results render support to Becker, Murphy and Spenckuch (2015), who imply that parents would meddle with children's preferences to ensure their commitment to providing old age support.
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2015/02/23950160/null

whilst this was a Chinese study, based upon the little I know of many traditional societies in Asia, Africa and also Latin America, this definitely has legs to stand true. It makes perfect sense. I have heard so many times that people look at their kids as their pensions. That’s the inter-generational compact if you will. One more reason perhaps why some mother in law’s in India are terrible to their daughter in laws despite the fact that they were also subject to similar inhumane treatment when they were daughter in laws.

India and the great divergence: An Anglo-Indian comparison of GDP per capita, 1600–1871

quite an interesting paper.

Estimates of Indian GDP are constructed from the output side for 1600–1871, and combined with population data. Indian per capita GDP declined steadily during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries before stabilising during the nineteenth century. As British growth increased from the mid-seventeenth century, India fell increasingly behind. Whereas in 1600, Indian per capita GDP was over 60% of the British level, by 1871 it had fallen to less than 15%. These estimates place the origins of the Great Divergence firmly in the early modern period, but also suggest a relatively prosperous India at the height of the Mughal Empire. They also suggest a period of “strong” deindustrialisation during the first three decades of the nineteenth century, with a small decline of industrial output rather than just a declining share of industry in economic activity.

Some of the interesting findings of this paper show that India was already much further behind the west even around the 17th century. So the idea that India was very rich and powerful before the Brits came in is not really held up based upon this rather comprehensive survey.

Its very difficult to compare properly, look at how 2 studies differ.

Let me quote the final paragraph, which is worthy of attention, because elements of this still exist..

This paper has set out to document what happened, and explaining these developments is clearly the subject of another paper. Nevertheless, it is worth making some final concluding comments in this area. First, India shared the pattern of declining GDP per capita during this period with China, although the decline started from a higher level and occurred at a faster rate in China (Broadberry et al., 2014a and Broadberry et al., 2014b). Second, in India, as in China, the decline was driven mainly by what happened in agriculture, with the growth of population outstripping the growth of the cultivated area, and crop yields rising insufficiently to offset the decline in cultivated acreage per head. Third, in common with most of the world at this time, and in strong contrast to Britain and Holland, Indian workers remained on the land, with negative consequences for agricultural labour productivity and the relative size of the industrial and service sectors. Fourth, again in common with much of the rest of the world at this time, India lacked the state institutions needed to underpin the investment and innovation which allowed Britain and Holland to break out of the Malthusian trap, allowing both population and per capita incomes to increase (Parthasarathi, 2011 and Broadberry, 2013). Fifth, although India's decline continued during the colonial period, it had already started during the Mughal Empire, and so cannot be attributed solely to colonialism. This conclusion is reinforced by the more rapid decline of China.

State Institutions! key, key, key! one of the major reasons why India has managed to be fairly successful going forward post independence compared to other countries who came out of colonial stage in the post WW2 era. The institutions were strong, although they are creaking a bit.

Secondly, I hope the United Kingdom understands the sheer weight of its history. So yes, the Mughals and others were crap at ruling India. But what’s the UK’s excuse? it had institutions, democracy, liberalism. At a time Queen Victoria was presiding over the greatest empire, it was hugely damaging India. It experienced an absolute decline of industrial output during the first 2 decades of the last century.

What’s Worse Than a Coworker Who Undermines You?

Kannu

An interesting article on coworkers. Yes this has happened before to me. How do you deal with this?

Be very good at what you do. No weaknesses son. Second be very helpful. Third make your boss successful. Fourth no gossiping at work. Extremely professional. 

Remember son, you go to work to earn so that you can have fun with your family and be happy. You don't need shit at work. 

Love

Baba

What’s Worse Than a Coworker Who Undermines You? | LinkedIn
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130428165232-69244073-what-s-worse-than-a-coworker-who-undermines-you?ref=email

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Bad colleagues can wreak havoc. One of the signs of a bad coworker is a pattern of persistent undermining—intentionally hindering a colleague’s success, reputation, or relationships. If you’ve ever had a coworker actively interfere with your productivity, try to make you look bad, steal your ideas, or give you false information, you’ve been the victim of undermining.

The opposite of an underminer is a supporter. When colleagues are supportive, they go out of their way to be givers rather than takers, working to enhance our productivity, make us look good, share ideas, and provide timely help.

Most people assume that relationships are either bad or good. Our coworkers are either takers who undermine us or givers who support us. But research shows otherwise: negative and positive relationships are independent. Many of us have ambivalent relationships with a colleague who undermines us in some situations but supports us in others. What are the implications of these ambivalent relationships?

Why it’s so hard to be a business leader in India

Kannu

Son you have some inherent advantages. Amongst many others. But this one is an accident of birth. You are a descendant of Indians. You know Hindi. And culturally you have been exposed to Indian and Hindu culture. 

Now look forward the next 20-30 years. Where is the growth going to come from? And based upon the article below where is your competition going to come from? 

So how do you build on your strengths? And protect against your threats? Try to do an internship in India. Your challenge kannu is yourself. You are ferociously smart and intelligent and I'm proud of you but you aren't been tested against the brightest and best. So you're still in your comfort zone. That's why I suggested going to the USA or India. You don't have to stay there and work but have some experience. Like with SAMEER mama's firm. Or in India. Invaluable experience son. 

Think about it. 

Love

Baba 

Why it’s so hard to be a business leader in India
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2013/06/17/why-its-so-hard-to-be-a-business-leader-in-india/?utm_campaign=Socialflow

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India may be one of the toughest markets in the world for a global company, but this also makes it one of the best incubators for next-generation global leaders. Adversity, after all, breeds leadership. This fact is not lost on major companies like GE and Nestle, which are using the role of India head to groom their rising executives.

Yet many companies, put off by the country’s chaos and adversity, are redirecting their efforts and investments elsewhere. It’s hard to build a global business in India, and much of the success or failure hinges on getting the right leaders in place who can tackle the country’s unique challenges—the first being the structure of the market.

If you want to go to war, have a nuke

So here’s an interesting article on why Russia breached the Budapest Memorandum.

Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, brought renewed attention at the Munich Security Conference this month to the Budapest Memorandum, an instrument adopted some twenty years ago by Ukraine, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States.  The Chancellor said that the Russian Federation, by invading eastern Ukraine and annexing Crimea, “has broken its commitment to the Budapest Memorandum.”  Merkel asked, “Who would give up their nuclear capability if their territorial integrity were not respected?”

It reminds me of a quote that I read way back about when an Indian General was asked about his views on the second Gulf War (the first being the Iran Iraq War), he said, if you wanted to go fight USA, best have a nuke handy. I don't think the Ukrainians thought this through, did they? If they had nukes, would Russia attack? or maybe use battlefield tac-nukes to rip out the Soviet Armies massed on this side of the Ukrainian frontier? And will Russia attack back? I don't think so.

interesting.

Which reminds me of this recent article which I read about the Davy Crockett. Which has a 0.01 kiloton payload.

totally crazy, I tell you. Having nukes is so stupid, you cannot imagine…anyway, its out of the bottle now.

Do not increase the school day, reduce absences instead

this was a very interesting paper.

While instructional time is viewed as crucial to learning, little is known about the effectiveness of reducing absences relative to increasing the number of school days. In this regard, this paper jointly estimates the effect of absences and length of the school calendar on test score performance. Using administrative data from North Carolina public schools, we exploit a state policy that provides variation in the number of days prior to standardized testing and find substantial differences between these effects. Extending the school calendar by ten days increases math and reading test scores by only 0.8% and 0.2% of a standard deviation, respectively; a similar reduction in absences would lead to gains of 5.8% and 3% in math and reading. We perform a number of robustness checks including utilizing u data to instrument for absences, family-year fixed effects, separating excused and unexcused absences, and controlling for a contemporaneous measure of student disengagement. Our results are robust to these alternative specifications. In addition, our findings indicate considerable heterogeneity across student ability, suggesting that targeting absenteeism among low performing students could aid in narrowing current gaps in performance.

so its not a question of increasing the school year, its a question of using the existing school year properly. if you are encouraging or condoning absenteeism, then the pupils dont take the lessons on board and do not have the discipline to handle the concepts. Quite an important finding, specially given the propensity of politicians to push for longer school years. See here for a UK example.

Insight on pathogenesis of lifelong premature ejaculation: inverse relationship between lifelong premature ejaculation and obesity

Abstract

Although both biological and psychological factors are important in the etiology, the exact pathogenesis of lifelong premature ejaculation (PE) remains to be clarified. Obesity is a worldwide epidemic that contributes to many chronic diseases. Obesity is associated with erectile dysfunction, but the relationship between obesity and PE has not yet been specifically investigated. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationships of these two conditions. Between January 2008 and December 2009, we evaluated consecutive patients with lifelong PE in the urology outpatient clinic. Control cases without lifelong PE were selected randomly among cases attending the department of internal medicine for a checkup procedure. The age and sex of control group were matched with that of the study group. Body mass index (BMI) of each case was calculated using the World Health Organization criteria by the measurements of the physician instead of relying on verbal expressions. The mean (±s.d.) age of the premature ejaculators was 31.7±5.7 (range 21–51) years and in the control cases it was 32.3±6.7 (range 22–54) years. The comparison of the mean (±s.d.) weight between the study (74.1±11.2 kg) and control groups (81.9±6.4 kg) revealed a significant difference (P<0.001). The mean BMI of premature ejaculators (24.9±3.4 kg m–2) was lower than the mean BMI of control (27.5±3.6 kg m–2; P<0.001). As the BMI increased, the number of patients decreased in the PE group. The number of the obese cases in the control group (n=26, 24.1%) was three times greater than the obese premature ejaculators (P<0.005), and the number of PE patients were approximately two times greater than the control cases in the normal-weight class (P<0.001). This is the first prospective study that investigated the relationship between lifelong PE and obesity, and we found that patients with lifelong PE were leaner than the healthy control cases.

what a choice…be a porky and have lesser PE, be lean and mean and have a greater PE tendency. Truly mother nature is naughty.