Another Year Ends…

…as usual. This time the number was 2024.

Let us recap my “predictions” for 2024 from last year’s post and see what all came true!

• January: For the first time in a decade, my Superpartner and I did not go to a new city to celebrate our wedding anniversary. TRUE

• February: Sino-Taiwan war started finally! FALSE

• March: Our grand tour of Rajasthan started. FALSE

• April: The grand tour continued since the war had jeopardized our plans to visit Taiwan. FALSE

• May: Back to Bengaluru for a new academic session. TRUE

• June: Puerto Rico became 51^st state of USA. FALSE

• July: I finally published a paper that I’d been working on for the last two years! FALSE

• August: Rishi Sunak attacked. FALSE

• September: John Oliver dies. FALSE

• October: Nobel Prizes announced. TRUE

• November: World population decimated due to Rovid-24. FALSE

• December: This blog ends due to obvious reasons. FALSE

So almost nothing came true! But Ian Hislop was involved in a couple of incidents this year…

Anyway, let us make this list a tradition and I review 2025 on a pro-rata basis:

• January: D. Trump did something sensible which made America great again.

• February: Coldest temperatures ever recorded in Rajasthan.

• March: My daughter for the first time found an exam hard and scored bad.

• April: I spent the entire month enjoying winter in Rajasthan instead of visiting Taiwan.

• May: Back to Bengaluru for a new academic session in the hottest month of the year.

• June: UK’s economy collapsed despite K. Starmer’s best efforts.

• July: I finally published a paper that I’d been working on for the last three years!

• August: Paul Merton attacked and WW III started in earnest.

• September: John Oliver died and WW III at its peak.

• October: Nobel Prizes not announced due to WW III.

• November: World population decimated due to WW III.

• December: This blog ends due to obvious reasons.

Proper 2024 Review

Algorithms, Algorithms, Everywhere…

One of my sisters/cousins sent a book to me this year during Dusshera, which is titled “Algorithms to Live by” by Brian Christian & Tom Griffiths. Its subtitle is “The Computer Science of Human Decisions”. I have now finished reading it, which made me think this can be another post for my blog and that’s why we are here.

You might be asking yourself what is this book about and should I get one too. I will answer both of your questions. The answer to the first question is what you might expect. This book discusses algorithms that may be useful during certain events in one’s life. The events can be anything from something special like going to a casino, to something mundane like sorting your book collection, to something regular like parking your vehicle, to something exciting like planning guest seating at your wedding, to something dumb like finding a life partner (or a secretary), to something as practical as scheduling your everyday tasks. The answer to the second question is why not! Here’s a quote from the book that recommends this decision:

We can hope to be fortunate – but we should strive to be wise.

What this seems to mean to me is that we may be fortunate in enjoying certain outcomes once in a while but being wise is something that will guide our approach that will (more or less) guarantee favourable outcomes regularly. This book will make you worldly-wise about which approach to take in various situations to maximize favourable outcomes. Fortune can come and go but wisdom, once acquired, is always there to guide. Through life and death. So it is time for

Your Wise Decision