Nal Sarovar, Gujarat, India

As part of a trip to Gujarat in December 2017, to attend a friend's wedding in Ahmedabad, some friends and I decided to see bits of the rest of the state. If you live in Bangalore, travelling to Gujarat just for an occasion or just for the tourism is probably not worth it.

This is part 1 of n, where n TBD.

We were at Nal Sarovar early in the morning and very few people were around at the time. We didn't see any flamingoes either. That is not a comprehensive list of what we didn't see.

Birds, Except Seagulls

Let's get this out of the way first.

Naalsarovar has a lot of birds. You'd think that's expected of a place which has Bird Sanctuary at the end of it's name but how many tigers do you reckon people see at Jim Corbett? How many chips do you get from your packet of? How much ganja does Kunal have? Is Eden a hazard? Does Danny drink water? Whom does Kyle walk? Will Ashley still be young at 60? What did Luke do to make Ryan cross? What did Danny rise from? Have I made my point yet?

In spite of that, wildlife sanctuaries are like going to a museum. Unless you're really into it, you'll feel a moment of excitement when your eyes fall upon something which looks interesting, you'll pay some attention to some of the details, miss out most of them because neither you nor your companions know anything about it, maybe take a picture, linger for a few seconds before you move away ( or the animal / museum display moves away and you don't give chase; all motion is relative so it doesn't matter, ) and then forget whatever little you picked up.

Also, if it wasn't challenging enough taking pictures of birds, try taking them from a moving boat.

Bird 1
 If we are pushing ahead with GMOs, may I suggest modifying all animals so that their cry is the same as their name?
It will save us the embarrassment of asking questions like whether anybody knows how to tell a stork from a crane.

Faking it as a Data Scientist

In case this doesn't load well on phones, or if you generally prefer reading from source, here you go.

Agumbe, Karnataka, India - 2

There is a Part 1. Hence the 2 in the title.

Kavaledurga

The remains of this fort are wrapped around a hill which makes for a nice, short trek up to the temple at the peak. There are a couple of spots midway where it looks like the trail ends but it doesn't. Don't let your unfit or pansy friends convince you otherwise.

I think there were five doorways on the way.
When you cross the third one, you can send this to the others who didn't make it.
Expect to receive of a few of these in return.

Agumbe, Karnataka, India - 1

Part 2 covers the Kavaledurga fort and a detour to Kaup Beach.

Agumbe, also known as the Cherrapunji of the South, is a small village about 3 hours in a bus from Mangalore. It's the sort of place where you could sit by yourself at a town square not doing anything, waiting for someone to join you, or plotting world destruction when suddenly, if the nickname is justified, it rains 15 cms and you catch a cold and are in bed for two weeks.

Synopsis: Zero One Two

Peter Spiel wanted to put out a list of bullet points ( list 1 ). Publishing it as it is would have come across as tacky so he decided to mix list 1 with another list of bullet points ( list 2 ) and make it look like he was publishing list 2. He then stretched and contorted the merged list into slightly rambling sentences to make it harder to spot list 1. For the final step in this plan, he decided to deliver these sentences as part of a series of guest lectures, and fortunately found an impressionable, young student, Blab Masters, who wrote it out into a 150 page book. List details below.

The publication might be sponsored by Microsoft which would explain the forced SmartArt product placement.

Did you know?

The title represents the number of lists that should have existed, the number that the author wanted to bring to existence, and the number that were finally created. Much like start ups.

Synopsis: How to Add as a Friend or Become an Influencer

Part 1:

One of the biggest problems straight men face is crossing the threshold to add a woman as a friend on Facebook. This book offers all the tips needed to accomplish this - be nice, be charming, don't be a creep, don't send dick pictures, don't be in it just for sex, etc. Basically the reader needs to not be the person he is and be a different person altogether. That's how most straight men - women friendships are formed.

For any other ( gender, orientation ) - ( gender, orientation ) situation, just go ahead and click on that add as friend button.

Part 2:

If you ignore the details, all social networks are just better connected versions of a human centipede. LinkedIn rewards people with tasty diarrhea on their network with the title of Influencer.

To become one, you need to cleverly copy bits from The Economist, Bloomsberg, etc. and put them together to make it sound like an original piece. You must have at least one piece on how AI is going to affect something, doesn't matter what it is or whether you know anything about AI. You need to go and comment on the pieces published by your peers because you need them to come back and comment on yours. A nice touch to add is to have a picture of you wearing crisp formals and smiling confidently at the camera as your profile picture.

Meanwhile, nobody else has logged in to LinkedIn in months.

Inspired by: How to Win Friends and Influence People

Kochi, Kerala, India

I was in Kochi some months back to attend another friend's wedding. We went through the food, pretended we were part of another group which, unlike us, had got a gift for the couple, got our picture clicked onstage with that group, and then headed out.

It was between swallowing pride and letting it say alchol or typing out prohibited in Malayalam again.

Coorg, Karnataka, India - 3

Continued from part 1, and part 2 and right after this -

Coorg, Karnataka, India - 2

Continued from part 1. Part 3 after this.

Tadiyanmol

On day 2, we set out for Tadiyandmol early in the morning. The trek itself was going to last till the afternoon after which the plan was to visit Nalknad Palace, a small palace near the starting point of the trek. I say small because it is probably rude to say that I've seen bigger houses. It is, however, a quaint bit of work and fun to peek in and around for a few minutes. Photography was prohibited in there.

Going up and coming down is about 15 kms so refuse to share your water with anyone else who asks for it. They should have gotten their own. Don't mistake this as me goading you to resort to random meanness. You will meet many such people. That and people wearing footwear extremely ill-suited to treks.

Accuse the more persistent / beseeeching ones of belonging to Tamil Nadu and start chanting Cauvery namdu very loudly. At that point a mob of locals should gather and start setting fires to tyres and you should be able to make good your escape in that melee.

From the scrotum texture rejects file.

Fantasy Football - 9: Three at the Back vs. Value for Money

( Code hosted on the Github repo)

There has been a lot of talk about defenders being better value for money than midfielders and forwards. I'd written a post about the optimal team configuration a long time ago and since it was only one season of data, I thought I'd just check it again.

Assumptions 1:

• I removed Chelsea and Leicester from 15/16 because of how unlikely both their performances were. Sure, there are swings in the table but those two teams in that season was a little too much. I feel the results are more representative without them.
• Points per match is probably a better metric than total points but the historic data doesn't have a mention of matches started so we'll have to make do with total points. To minimise the effect, I have taken players that played at least 1710 minutes (19 matches of 90 minutes) and hope that the patterns observed also extend to all the players put together.
• The data exposed is only for players active in the current season. This means that players who played in earlier seasons but have since left the EPL are not considered in the analysis for their
• respective seasons.
• Players get their positions changed over seasons. This is too small in number to worry about.

Value for money by position