The Official Blog of Ranganathan Sankaralingam (We Have No Branches)

Wow, this redesign made me a convert; I am impressed!

Compare for yourself the original page and the improved page.

via Never Design What You Can Steal.

The Stanford News Readership Program delivers about 50 free copies of the New York Times print edition to our building’s common area. Residents are free to pick it up if they please.

I pick it up pretty regularly. What I found striking is that most articles are of zero interest to anybody except the super-rich. They are so out of touch with the lives of ordinary people.

I am now convinced that such a thing as the “liberal elite” exists and that the New York Times is a part of that cabal.

People don’t read newspapers in the US not because the people are stupid, but because the newspapers produce inane crap.

Yesterday there was an article about super-rich PhDs/MDs. Basically, a couple of guys had ditched their fields and gone into management consulting and investment banking. Then they had risen to management and were making big bucks.

Btw, the headline in the print version was “Very Rich are Leaving the Merely Rich Behind“, and web headline is a more-objective “Lure of Great Wealth Affects Career Choices“.

I was also pretty surprised that this article did not contrast their new jobs with their old jobs. I would expect high-paying jobs to involve a lot of backstabbing, high-pressure and stress. A doctor’s job seems pretty relaxed compared to a management guy’s job to me. A doctor faces the good kind of stress, i.e., how to solve this really really tough problem before this patient dies (kinda like a bomb disposal squad). A management guy probably faces bad stress, i.e., how do I claw my way up by pushing the guys who are in the ladder above and below me (kinda like a prisoner’s bad stress).

US really struck me as the kind of culture where people followed their heart and did what they liked without giving too much thought to money. Most things were affordable to most people (stuff like cars, cell phones, shoes, movies, houses). I am a little surprised at the frank admission of the people profiled here that money was the primary motivation to switch jobs.

Maybe I was wrong before.

Is it possible that the USA is gradually becoming poorer and hence you need lots of money to have a so-called “decent” lifestyle? Are people thinking about salaries because the minimum standard of living they can achieve is no longer sufficient?

This is the case in poor countries like India, where very few jobs pay decent salaries. People make no bones about the fact that they go to professions that pay the most even if they aren’t particularly good at them.

New Scientist has a very interesting article in their 50th anniversary issue. It’s written by Roger Penrose and it’s titled “What is Reality?”.

He makes a convincing case for the presence of an actual reality outside our own minds. That is, we perceive reality through our senses, as opposed to creating “a” reality in our minds. This is directly in opposition to the Maya (illusion) Indian school of thought, which claims that everything is an illusion.

He explains in a crystal clear manner what were inchoate thoughts in my mind. I am convinced by this article.