Lunar Outsourcing

Far beyond the obvious realities of our bustling planet, lies an endless stretch of insolvable mysteries. The realm of the innumerable celestial bodies in the form of planets, asteroids, galaxies, stars etc conceals the inexplicable events in a manner so complex that even the most technologically advanced gadgets fall flat on their chassis. Humankind still has not been able to unravel the shrouds of mystery that blur any avenue of approach. As we celebrate the spirit of our existence in the lively corridors our planet, we seem not to get even with the fact that earth is a negligibly tiny speck of cosmic dust tucked away in some corner of the unfathomable universe.

Well, human beings are superior in the department of thinking ability as compared to all other organisms discovered so far. Hence, rather than being pessimistic at our share in the cosmic Diaspora, why cannot we utilize the assets we are endowed with? By assets, I mean the inter-galactic resources that surround our planet. The planets, asteroids etc are home to some impressive architecture in the form of rugged landmass and exorbitant space. Am I forgetting the most special one? Yes, our very own Moon. The planet has long been standing as a symbol of romantic inclinations. Be it literature or emotions, the moon has always prevailed over any other similar structure, by virtue of reflected glory. The reflected beams of the sun bathe the satellite white when darkness engulfs the inhabitants our planet thus, spreading visions of love, peace and solitude.

Poetry apart, the business implications of this ball of cream are aplenty. A satellite with amazing landscape can definitely be considered to serve as a hub of business activities. Owing to it’s proximity to our planet, transportation would not be a problem at all as space cabs shuttling at ultra-mach speeds would reduce the concept of time and distance to naught. Special purpose Incubators could be developed to breed artificial lifeform in the form of robots, androids etc. All sorts of business activities can then be outsourced there thus shrinking the burden on the population of our planet. As land is virtually unexplored, monetary intervention regarding land acquisition may arise. But, then lunar law as controlled by visionaries of our planet can enforce regulations in this regard. Since, artificial lifeform are responsible for the back end support, cost can trimmed by a marginal extent. Godowns can be constructed to house inventories and emergency stock. In case of any natural or man-made calamity wreaking havoc on our planet, these can be fetched to meet the demand in our planet. In other words, the entire process if streamlined, would act as a life-saving buffer. Lunar outsourcing though can create unemployment in our planet. But, these problems can be taken care of by instituting a policy wherein every learned individual takes the task of designing a suitable artificial entity that, to a considerable extent, deploys equivalent or more effort in achieving the assigned objective.

Sounds highly improbable, but then, hasn’t necessity always been the mother of invention?

Name of the Game - II

Continuing from where I had left earlier, I will hereby present two more investment games that would work towards providing the participants an astute overview of the real life. The third in line of the game series is romantically titled the “Moonlighting Game”. In this investment game, Player1 can only transfer positive amounts of money to Player2. Here, both players begin with a positive endowment. Player1 can give an amount g or take away an amount t from the 2nd player. The amount increases by a multiple R, an amount taken away is simply transferred to Player1. Player2 can then return or take money away from the 1st player. An amount b given back costs b to Player2 while the punishment in the form of an amount P taken away costs 3P. Since Player1 is a Moonlighter, his activity cannot be legally enforced. The game allows the study of positive and negative reciprocity.

The last one to be discussed here is named the “Peasant-Dictator Game”. Here, Player1 is a peasant and Player2, a dictator. The peasant decides the amount of investment K he makes out of an available amount W. The investment produces an income worth (1+r)K. Then, the 2nd player (dictator) moves, he can impose a tax t on the income produced and the amount t(1+r)K goes to him and (1-t)(1+r)K returns to the peasant and is added to W-K.

Here, two treatments are possible. First, the dictator can commit to a level of taxes before the peasant decides or doesn’t commit. A slightly different but economically equivalent formation is the one where the dictator announces the level of taxes before the investment. In one treatment, he’s committed to the announcement made; in the other he is not. When the announcement has no binding force and the rational choice for the dictator for any level of investment is to tax the entire amount produced. In the 2nd case, the dictator knows that a tax level, too high, would induce the peasant to make no investment.

While phrased differently, this game with no commitment is equivalent to the trust game. The amount invested by the peasant in the P-D game is equivalent to the transfer made by 1 in the “Money-Exchange Game” and the amount left after taxation corresponds to the amount returned by 2 in the investment game. The specific parameters are matched by a rate of return R=2 in the P-D game and W equals the initial endowment of the 1st mover. A possible important difference in the description of the game is the nature of the amount decided by the 1st mover. In the instructions reported for the P-D game, the amount is described as an investment, while in the “Money-Exchange Game” it’s described as a transfer from the 1st to the 2nd mover.

After all, it depends on the navigator which direction he steers the ship towards...

Name of the Game - I

Business is a good game – lots of competition and a minimum of rules. You keep score with money.
Atari Corporation founder Nolan Bushnell

With these lines, I begin a journey to the flamboyant world of business games where the dice throbs to the tune of sheer shrewdness. It is immaterial whether the player has the most coveted degrees up his sleeves. What really matters is the amount of cunningness and tact one can employ to emerge victorious. While we talk about “innovating at the frontier”, we must understand that the boundary demarcating the level of practicality from that of madness consummates at what can be equated with the Horizon. In order to step upon a smooth transition, transient though, from the former to the latter and vice versa, one should be extremely quick at judging the sensitivity of the either.

Well, innovation must never stop at any milestone for it is a lasting process. As the player buckles up his shoes to jump into the arena, he must realize that it’s the magnitude of his sheer persistence that will ultimately see him through. He should have hardened his soul with innumerable sessions of practice beforehand, just to get the right kind of feel of what awaits him. As with any business management student, the concept of defining theories and testing hypotheses are not the only avenues to achieve the prowess of a visionary. The most important skill he needs to improvise on is the ability to sense and sniff. The sensory reactivity of the player to an impending problem would eventually fetch him the most optimal solution. This very aspect has to be ingrained in the individual from a very tender age when the mind is at it’s receptive best. The Shaolin brand of martial arts schools absorb the students when they are in the age of infantile celebration. The students are gradually exposed to various degrees of physical and mental endurance techniques that subsequently sharpen their ability to concentrate.

The same applies to the students pursuing management degrees. In order to be able to get a good grasp over the chaotic deliberations of the stock market or the meshed locales of supply chain system, they need to have a pre-cognitive understanding of the happenings there. They need to have played games in the same spirit as that of a teenager drooling over a pokemon or an age of empires. Only the structure of the game is a little different wherein the settings are inherently realistic not fantastic.

One such investment game is the “Money Exchange Game”. Two players move in sequence. Player1 has an initial monetary endowment A. Player1 decides the amount x of A to transfer to Player2. The transfer x is a productive investment; it increases by a multiple R (larger than one) before reaching Player2. Then, Player2 decides how much of a of Rx to return to Player1. Player1 leaves with A-x+a and Player2 leaves with Rx-a. If Player1 initially has $10 and decides to transfer $5, Player2 would receive $15. If Player2 decides to return $8 out of the $15, the final pay-off of the players are $13 and $7 respectively.

Similarly, I’d like to propose another game aptly titled the “Gift Exchange Game”. Like the previous one, here two players move sequentially. 1 has to propose a wage w in a given interval. 2 can accept or refuse. If he refuses, both players get a zero pay-off. If he accepts, he has to choose a costly effort e. Then, the game is over and the 1st player gets a pay-off Re-w, while the second gets w-c(e), where c is the cost of the effort. The transfer or investment in the earlier game is replaced by the commitment of the 1st player to pay a wage w., irrespective of the effort of the 2nd player. The return payment is replaced by the effort e and its cost c(e) to the 2nd player. The opportunity for both the players is represented by the productive factor R. Like the Money Exchange Game, a rational selfish 1st player should anticipate a minimum effort of the 2nd player and should promise a minimum wage. With minimum wage, effort and cost of zero effort all equal to zero. Both players get zero equilibrium pay-off.

The games present a very good platform for the management students to employ their grey matter to achieve optimality in all instances. The developers of these games, whosoever they are, have tried to strike a balance betwen subjective elaboration and objective reality to the maximum extent. They must be commended for having inched us closer to chaotic sublimation.

Race against time

Today it was an engaging ordeal for me on the personal front. Apart from the daily recipe of infantile salvation from an otherwise turbulent schedule, the institute had more to offer, a typically managerial ploy. Only two classes and adding to the exhileration was a cancelled financial management quiz. I believe, the system of management education leans excessively towards an offshoot of time management, that is time deployment. It's left to the candidates to decide how they plan to distribute the precious microseconds and nanoseconds, even if it means the installation of an atomic clock in the premises of their cerebral faculties.

Since Time happens to be the crux of my Blogger musings today, I deem it relevant to devise an infallible mechanism wherein we can control the sanctity of the so-called Boundless entity which leaves no stones unturned to ravage the possiblities of any substantial permanence. If time could be controlled as desired by any paranoid individual much to the deliberate surprise of his/her less fortunate peers, what would happen? It would definitely place the power of attorney in the hands of the former as a result of which various shades of despotic behaviour would start engulfing his mindset. Well, then how can one control time in the first place? Would he require to formulate a recipe by dint of which he can moderate his speed with respect to that of light? Einstein must be amused at the advent of such a technique for he could never be able to believe that human beings would equate scientific paradigms with psychological insanity.

But, such a concept, if ever to evolve would tremendously alter the very foundation of business. Stock markets would never exist, since the future value of expected cash flows would never be realized. The sundry equations corresponding to statistical techniques such as regression, forecasting would be rendered void. Money would lose its flavour, as people would travel back and forth to marginalize any fiscal trade-offs. Life would complete a full circle without any apprehension for decay and continue being looped around.

Well, fantastic as it may sound, such a concept might still be adorning the chapters of any Carl Sagan classic or Stephen Hawking journal though. In reality, the logic that would most certainly apply to the business arena is the control of time as a factor of the various daily activities. Some would incidentally refer it to as time management, but I would differ so far as the word management is concerned. When we say management, we tend to bring in an activity that is controllable. Once we are able to control something even if partially, we could proceed to manage it. But, an all-pervading entity called time could neither be controlled nor managed given the kind of era we exist in. Hence, the closest possible task we can undertake so as to appreciate the power of time is distribution. Time is measured in terms of the number and duration of activities we have at any instance. If we are able to allot best possible proportions to each of the tasks at hand, we could consider ourselves privileged to have had a wonderful time. That is the recursive beauty of time.

Now, the business scenario calls for a perfect balance between the tasks at hand and the proportion of time slots attached to each. In order to distribute the proportions perfectly among the tasks, we need to cleanse the redundancy in the first place. By redundancy, I mean the proportion of time utilized unproductively. For example, if in the early hours of the morning, while hurrying for a crucial meeting, I try to squeeze out whatever is left in an empty toothpaste tube only to end with nothing. In trying to do so, I have wasted a significant amount of time allotted to the process of brushing teeth. This wastage could cause me inconvenience in the time ahead if I miss the meeting thereafter. Had I replaced the empty tube with a new one the previous day, I would not have had to face this situation at all. Here, stands a situation, which clearly shows that any aberration in the continuity of time tends to spark off a chain of highly unorganized events furthering the risk of annihilation.

Distribution precedes management as far as time is concerned.

The Butterfly Effect

A few days back, I had crashed upon a movie of the same title. An average Hollywood fare starring Ashton Kutcher, who is more famous for his illustrious dating partner, Demi Moore, the movie chronicled the life of a troubled teenager who tries to correct some of the follies committed in his childhood by employing a supernatural technique. He seemingly goes through his memoir to undertake a telekinetic journey to specific periods of his past in order to re-enact the situations. In trying to do so, he finds the flow of his life drastically rearranged as he lands up in different events other than those he was ever subject to in the normal course.

Quite fascinated by the concept, but strictly not by the corrosive storyline and the ludicrous screenplay, I tried to concentrate more on the realities behind the apparently mesmerizing “Butterfly Effect”. This theory finds its roots in the convoluted ravines of the Chaos Theory. The guardians of the erstwhile concept define the butterfly effect as the propensity of a system to be sensitive to initial conditions. With the passage of time, they become highly erratic and undergo sharp changes oblivious to any definitive prediction existing elsewhere. The saying goes that a butterfly flapping its wings in some corner of the world gives rise to a tornado in another place. Highly interesting!!

Well, having said that, I must confess that the bespectacled seers concentrating on theorems and formulae in the academically adorned interiors of an exalted university are equally perplexed at the seeming diffidence of the aforementioned concept. Moreover, the nonchalant weatherman finds the answers pretty intimidating too. If a natural system alters its way abruptly to deploy different phenomena as opposed to the anticipated ones, the effect will be mind-blowing. Supercomputers are used to forecast weather and come up with various models to simulate understandable behaviour. Several models run collaterally and the ones demonstrating homogeneous results are primarily accepted. It’s an altogether different story regarding the “battle of Teraflops” wherein IBM-Blue Gene, NEC-Earth Simulator and NASA are busy outsmarting each other to showcase their supercomputing prowess. I really doubt whether the butterfly effect is a dominating inspiration to them.

Jokes aside, the concept is not confined to the precincts of meteorology, but addresses issues in other fields as well. One of the most interesting observations made comes from the field of fluid mechanics. If a tap is opened slowly, the single drops of water create just a small splash only to give rise to a laminar appearance as the flow increases. It’s interesting to note that transition of a state to another is sudden, unpredictable and confusing. As it may appear so, randomness governs the behaviour of the system to culminate in utter chaos. Take for instance a simple case involving the population of rabbits and foxes. The evergreen predator-prey system is a legitimate sample obeying the laws of the butterfly effect. If the foxes are small in number, the rabbit population thrives. But there’s an unassuming catch to it. As the rabbit population increases, the foxes have plenty of food, so they can hunt, survive and reproduce to put their own population on the incline. Now, as there are a larger number of foxes, the rabbit population is bound to decrease. An extremely captivating phenomenon, this catch-22 sibling tends to conform to a steady state or equilibrium, wherein one of the species may have to face the guillotine.

Business processes too can be modelled along similar lines. The perennially taxing resource allocation strategies in any corporate body seem to desperately search for a state of equilibrium. An increase in demand would most certainly ask for more resources, which may be fewer in number. But, as more resources are scouted for and properly allocated to appease the demand equation, the demand would be fulfilled, momentarily though, as a surplus of resources could give rise to newer demand.

That’s the inescapable lure of the Butterfly Effect…

Touchwood

Touch thy soul… I had been thinking about it for quite some time now. The way people have started understanding one another since the twilight of the civilization provides an interesting picture regarding the involvement of a mere physical activity, Touch. We shake hands, hug each other, tap mischievously, grasp the palms and what not! We tend to pass certain coded information subconsciously to the other individual when we perform any of this activity and receive the same as well. This type of full-duplex communication process would most certainly work towards establishing a bridge among all the like-minded people. Also, the flow of energy across this bridge could be examined to arrive upon solutions to problems like, inter-personal differences, emotional disillusionment etc. Then, why not digitize this to build up a huge information base? After all, we come across countless people during the course of our daily chore. We pay attention to some of them and reject the rest. In trying to do so, we ignore a whole lot of individuals whose attitudinal territory might overlap with that of ours.

The Information base would store data corresponding to the nature of communication two individuals ever had. Also, a personality match and compatibility test could be undertaken by system to determine whether the aforementioned individuals are capable of forming an amiable relationship. The vibes that could ever surface between both of them should be electronically analyzed to predict the efficacy of their relationship. All of these could take place, thanks to a plain touch. The business fraternity can stake claim to levels of unprecedented response if the idea were to ever materialize. The way business is conducted would undergo an overwhelming change in the positive direction if the participants harness the power to predict the behaviour of their partners at the first instance of acquaintance.

Touchwood…more so, because I believe the innovation is underway somewhere in the distant future devoid of any evil implications.

The Strange Case of e-Frankenstein

The eerie cacophony of the nocturnal life resonates the otherwise deserted boulevard that cuts into the darkness with remarkable aplomb. I meander through the curvy path, visibly shaken by the mysterious night scenes dancing before my eyes. The whiteness of the moon has been put to rest by the atrocious march of the black clouds. Far atop a distant incline, I sight the imposing silhouette of a castle as the hustle of the gigantic sequoia trees signal an impending storm. I manage my way to reach the flamboyant shelter just in time when all hell breaks loose with the fury of nature lashing at the haplessness of the naïve meadow. As the screeching door accords me an unceremonious welcome, I try to look for any proof of life inside. God Forbid! What I see would most certainly put the most courageous soul to a perennial slumber. Cadavers, cadavers everywhere in this dimly lit chamber. A group of hooded individuals with no sign of what exists underneath, are busy separating the limbs from the lifeless bodies, stacking them in the order of strength with the strongest one occupying the first position and the rest thereafter, thus keeping the organs in an assorted manner. Another group is busy collecting the litter and stitching them in a predefined arrangement to give shape to a complete body. As two heavy electrodes are brought together to spark off beams of electricity, the mordant dead-body heaves to the tune of a compelling overture. The eyelids fling open to indicate the rise of the dead. I, too, open my eyes to the soothing aura of a spring sunrise as the birds continue chirping to gesture dawn-break. I had a nasty nightmare…

Well, that was just the trailer!! What we have instead is a full-length movie with the hooded participants having been replaced some smartly dressed, suave people and the castle morphed into a sleek, state of the art laboratory. They are busy trying to find out whether 3 is the outcome of blending 1 & 2 or 0 & 3. I am talking about what some would aptly refer to as Reverse Engineering. Sounds as surreptitious as the psychedelic incarnation of Mary Shelley, the eponymous Frankenstein would have conjectured while assembling the various facets of rotten cadavers. It was not the purpose of commercial benefits that had driven the hyperbolic scientist to arrive upon such a grotesque invention. Rather, it was the urge to experiment, the ambition to innovate something far-fetched at that point of time. But, a few centuries later this very creation was to rear its empirical head in an entirely different avatar.

Reverse Engineering, as the name implies involves breaking apart anything to understand its composition and the formula that lurks underneath. The formula is later worked upon to build what we had started with. Now, if one does not get hold of the elusive formula to fabricate his dream product, he need not worry. The ever-inspiring Frankenstein guides him to catch hold of the dream product instead. Rest is left to the guile of the creator to carefully dissect the anatomy and cast his spell on the crux to bring to life countless siblings. In trying to do so, the creator his cunning enough to proclaim that he has not copied any existing process, but simply created another one. The miserable original inventor is left speechless while trying to attempt a vociferous protest citing non-existent entities called patents, copyrights etc. But alas! Patents apply to the functionality, not a specific implementation of the process.

Pharmaceutical industries have become the cynosure of all eyes, thanks to the advent of this technologically advanced version of the i. Nobody bothers if one competitor outsmarts another in the cat and mouse game of product invention. The other simply gets hold of the pie and its “reverse-engineered” to understand the workings. Then, with a slight change, the same formula is transformed to the final product that is nothing but an unassuming duplicate of the former, only to be marketed with a lot of fanfare as a path-breaking innovation. Software industry is not far behind for that matter; innumerable namesakes adorn the Internet daily to meet the eye-level of the passive onlooker. The e-Frankensteins as I would like to name them, have become the hub of delinquent activities in the current scenario, as digital divide has been relegated to the ravines of anonymity. Contrary to the visual imagery so succulently penned by Mary Shelley, where the protagonist had envisioned a scientific avenue for his creation, the current trend seems to be bent towards monetary emoluments and power craze. Rampant plagiarism in the name of scientific discovery, virulent power game in the garb of economic welfare and toxic effluent in the form of unusable byproducts have been threatening to wreak havoc on the very basis of human civilization.

What needs to be done at this moment is to charter the judiciary to undertake a transparent of the subject concerned. The very foundation of the process has to be carefully studied to analyze the possible repercussions in the face of multilateral disagreements. The causal analysis report may furnish certain latent aspects of the process wherein academic and industrial intervention has to be solicited. The strange case of this e-Frankenstein is sensitive enough to throw open multiple forums for arguments.

But, when the creator himself dies keeping the information to control his psychotic invention undisclosed, what more can be done?