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

Coorg, Karnataka, India - 1

One of the last long weekends before summer 2017 was put to use joining a BMC group which was going to scale Tadiyandmol and also see some of the sights in the area. This is part 1 of this trip which includes a visit to the Nagarhole National Park and a trek up Nishani Motte. Part 2 has T itself and the rest of the sightseeing, Madikeri Fort, Nisargadhama, Bylakuppe, and the Raja's seat, is in part 3.

Answers to FAQ -

• It was summer and the nearby waterfalls were dry.
• The BMC guides knew their trekking but did not know their sight-seeing.

Nagarhole National Park

Like most other places which offer wildlife sightings, you don't actually get to see many exotic animals and have to make do with deer and a bunch of birds. Try and get a seat towards the front of the open van so that you can hear whatever information the driver gives out and don't feel the lack of a suspension as much as you would if you were sitting at the rear end. Wear something warm as it can get quite chilly; in a national park, you can never be too careful about your particular style of shivering getting misinterpreted for a mating dance.

From inside a bus which hasn't been serviced in a long time and refuses to start.
#nofilter?

Synopsis: Piss and Poop on the Sole

If you've heard of the idiom, "In each life, some rain must fall," you might also be familiar with its brother from another mother, "On each sole, some poop must stick," which rose in popularity since the shoes of a journalist spontaneously flew at the then president of the USA.

The first book carried inspirational short stories about how people handled the poop that got stuck to their soles. It has since grown into a series with various book for different types of footwear and different types of poop.

Inspired by: Chicken Soup for the Soul

Synopsis: Rajma Dal Toor Dal

The author channels his childhood experience of attending far too many big Indian weddings into an instructions manual to help later children with deciding what to eat at the buffet. What goes well with what, what doesn't go well with what, where the shorter queues are, which stalls have the cool cousins, which stalls have the annoying aunts, what the nutritional value of various items is, and, the most important question of them all, a method to calculate how much the host is paying per plate.

Inspired by: Rich Dad Poor Dad

House Leads Automation

When 2 or more flatmates are looking for a place to stay, over multiple weekends, in multiple areas, without a broker, it becomes a little tricky to collaborate. The UI for most of these real estate portals is very poorly designed and slows you down further.

These scripts scrape relevant postings from 4 popular websites and keep it in a simple, easy to compare format on Google Sheets.

You can get the code, etc. here.

The FAQ here are the same or an earlier version of the ones posted on the GitHub page.

Synopsis: Jonathon, Stoned, Living with a Seagull

Jonathon has been doing marijuana and now thinks his flatmate is a seagull. The flatmate also used to do marijuana but has been experimenting with methamphetamine of late. Their problems see both of them expelled from their friend circles but they don't care because they can hallucinate up new friends.

The book chronicles their efforts to get higher, get more speed, how they meet a dealer who enables the first and supplies the second, and how they eventually become dealers themselves.

Inspired by: Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Synopsis: Scream, Spray, Shove

A woman has love life issues and feels purposeless in her job, but she has enough money to travel to distant countries for long periods of time.

When she lands, she notices that the women in these countries also have problems, like lack of access to drinking water and healthcare, and they have no money. She accepts that her problems are insignificant in the face of theirs and decides to add books to the For Dummies series which tackle their difficulties, beginning with one on sexual harassment.

Inspired by: Eat, Pray, Love

Synopsis: Walt, the Chemist

A chemist named Walt has the skills to transform ordinary items into precious material but he's sick and needs medicine. He meets a boy who seeks treasure.

Walt and the boy travel through the desert and settlements and have thrilling adventures. To become rich, the boy needs to lead this cowboy lifestyle but he also wants the comfort of a woman regardless of the constraints his career choice imposes upon him.

Towards the end, Walt dies because he didn't get enough medicine, and the boy is given a consolatory happy ending. It is up to the reader to infer that the boy could have become rich beyond his wildest dreams if he had just learnt Walt's skills instead of mucking about.

Inspired by: The Alchemist

Synopsis: The Farts In Our Stall

Three teenage kids running the games corner at a fete, seated closer to the bean snacks hut than permitted, get exposed to vicious bouts of flatulence. It's so bad that it literally gives them cancer. The book inadvertently also teaches the correct usage of the word 'literally', synonyms for 'fart', and some other medical words useful for taking extended periods of sick leaves.

The rest of the book tries to highlight the disconnect from reality and society that cancer patients face. Teenagers unlikely to survive till the next World Cup are reading books and going to Amsterdam just to meet an author, abusive drunkards are suddenly recovering, and guardians are okay with their children jetting off to meet weirdos who have withdrawn from the rest of the world but are okay with talking to their children only if they show up in person.

Inspired by: The Fault in Our Stars

Synopsis: Who Moved My Seas

There are lots of people stuck in a maze, looking for energy sources. Some of them learn to harness fossil fuels and then colonise everybody else and make everybody use fossil fuels too. Everybody prospers, some more, some less.

After some time, many experts unanimously observe that the maze's glaciers are receding, extreme weather events aren't as rare as before, and the coast seems a lot closer than it used to be. They also find overwhelming evidence pointing to fossil fuel consumption as the reason behind it.

In light of this new knowledge, some people try to find alternatives to fossil fuel but most others choose to continue using fossil fuels in the interest of GDP and votes.

The ones searching soon discover the power of renewables. The ones not budging keep waiting for it to make economic sense to switch.

Inspired by: Who Moved My Cheese

Synopsis: The Old Man Who Was a C-word

This is centred around an old man who grew up in a culture where preying on the helpless and gullible was a way of life. Of late, he has been living off of the work of others and not really doing much himself. One day he realises that nobody respects him and then something snaps in him.

On a morning soon after, he sets out with the intention of going a long way out to harm those weaker than him, just to prove himself to his peers. On his return he boasts about all the wicked things he did to the rest of the village who take his word for it despite scarce evidence of the same. So awestruck is the rest of the village that they elect him their leader and inflict more brazen atrocities in his name. The old man goes back to doing nothing except now he has to provide the occasional sound byte.

This is the story of so many old men that perhaps this could be an anthology of biographies titled, The Old Men Who Were C-words.

Inspired by: The Old Man and the Sea

Mekedatu, Karnataka, India

Mekedatu is a half a day trip from Bangalore. The story goes that at that point, a goat ( meke ) jumped ( datu ) across the Kaveri river to escape a chasing tiger. A herdsman who happened to spot the incident suggested the name, probably to his herdsmen chums. Whatever floats your goat, his herdsmen chums said to him having more important matters of their own to deal with.

According to legend, these are goat hooves because the
goat that jumped across the river was actually Lord Shiva.
A simpler, more believable, explanation could be Punjabi aunties.

My Problem With #notallmen

Like that one racist uncle in every family who thinks all Muslims are terrorists, everybody has that one feminazi friend whose post-sexual-assault-news posts do actually sound like they blame ALL straight men for any sexual violence. In a country like India, where the genders don't really intermingle because, depending on whom you hear it from, either men are dicks or women have a princess complex, it only exacerbates an existing problem. Some straight men, who felt unfairly vilified, decided to respond with #notallmen. A #yesallwomen also arose after that to inform all men that all women face sexual harassment. Some day these will be the names of a female superhero movie trilogy. Or tags on orgy videos.

Ryan must have been really pleased when he came up with this. I can imagine
the smug smile on his face as he entered that emphatic line break between
the 'does' and the 'it' at the end, hit the post button, sat back, and waited for
he likes to pour in by the bucketful as he stroked the white cat in his lap.
( image source: Ryan Henly )

Risihikesh, Uttarakhand, India

Rishikesh is a wild party city in the state of Uttarakhand in India.

Anarchy in the UK ( Uttarakhand ).

Marimekko Charts in ggTimeSeries

( Originally appeared on the Ather Blog )

We just added Marimekko charts to the ggTimeSeries library.

What are Marimekko charts? Also know as mosaic plots, they help visualise the co-occurrence of two categorical or ordinal variables and compare the occurrence of that pair to other pairs.

Remember the plot showing the proportions of accelerations from our last blog post?