Fairytale of Newyork

This is one of the most fantastic songs ever featured. Cheeky lyrics by the amazingly talented Shane MacGowan, the typically Irish tinwhistle magic by Spider Stacy and Kristy McColl's voice combines to make it one of my all-time favorites till date.(This St.Patrick's day live performance 1988 is surprisingly better than their official video)

This is the USS Enterprise.

"to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new lives and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before". Warp speeds and time machines, alternate parallel worlds & federation ships and most of all the USS Enterprise with William Shatner as the inimitable hero, James T. Kirk of the Starship USS Enterprise. The ultimate sci-fi fantasy franchise - Star Trek. Watched the latest 2009 movie and oh, my god, did i relive the fantasy or what. Chris Pine as J.T.Kirk was not bad but Shatner has always been incomparable. Now after watching his Boston Legal, it is no wonder to have hoped that the young Kirk should have inherited some ounce of wit from his older counterpart. Anyways, the movie was awesome with some pretty good settings and some fine acting.

The scholastic aptitude of my generation

The lucidity of written word in today's generation is fantastic, to say the least. Thanks to blogging and the social networking sites, the thought of stringing words together, on the web atleast, does not scare the youth of today. Incidentally, the idea of self-expression in an environment which is non-judgemental is very appealing to all. Added to this, is the expanse of knowledge floating around freely on the internet waiting for one and all to tap. The wiki-revolution, for there is no other word to describe it, has put knowledge at everyone's finger-tips. The definition of a scholar is all set for a drastic change now, thanks to the ever-growing population of markedly clever, charming, witty and learned friends of my generation. Its comforting to know that there is wildly knowledgeable bunch of us willing/waiting to help better the world. Hail to thee, my scholarly counterparts!!!!

Random

Dont let your morals come in the way of doing what is right....

Damn good statement. This way my day's fortune on Orkut yesterday. Absolutely original and completely profound.

Means-Ends Hypothesis - a study

Recently, there was an interview given by Ms. Priyanka Gandhi to a leading television channel. There was one noteworthy point stated by her, made in the context of present crisis in Sri Lanka, "There is a difference between the cause and the method one follows to achieve the same. It is this difference which decides who is a terrorist and who isn't".

Let us put this hypothesis to test- 'the difference btw cause and method makes all the difference'. 'Cause' being synonymous to 'end', while 'method' synonymous to 'means'.

Herbert A.Simon seems to be first social scientist to elaborate on this topic when he wrote about the 'rationality of decision making' and the ambiguous synonimity between 'means-end' and 'fact-value'. He stated that in so far as decisions lead to selection of final goals they may be treated as 'value judgements' and decisions implementing such goals are 'fact judgements'. Thus, he tried to place 'decisions' between total rationality (facts) and total irrationality (values). Therefor, according to him, 'means' comprise of irrational/value judgement while the 'end' is a rational/factual judgement.

Let us consider another viewpoint, one of Chris Agyris, the strongest critic of Herbert Simon to date. His main critique of this fact-value proposition is - 'Consequence of intendedly rational man concept is ... to give primacy to behaviour that is related to goals (sic end)... to assume purpose without asking how it has developed'. Thus, Agyris brackets Simon as a traditionalist as he has not considered/given much weightage to the emotional/behavioural aspects of man.

The usefulness of the ME theory is well-known and we have wide-ranging applicability specifically in automation. However, as far as it is known, in order to be able to build an 'intelligent' system, 'value/irrational' judgements also need to be accounted for. As of now, however, we are far from identifying all the rational variables themselves and have a long way to go before identification of irrational variables in a system as well. 'Irrational', again, should be looked at from present context wherein as per the definitions put out by 'humans', certain behaviours/attitudes/judgements have been classified as rational and others irrational.

Who knows what the future will hold? Probably certain traits seen as irrational today may be perfectly understood as a rational concept tomorrow.