How To Fall In Love With Twitter

There’s a very small list of people I know of who use Twitter well.

There are probably millions of people who use Twitter well, of course. It is just that I haven’t found them yet.

But when you do use Twitter well, it is a magical thing. It entertains you, educates you and on rare but delightful occasions, even enlightens you.

Learning how to use Twitter well is a skill. I am still learning it, but I get a little better everyday. And isn’t that the point?

And if you’re looking for advice on how to use Twitter well, follow Navin Kabra on Twitter. Learn from what he says, but much more importantly, learn from what he does on Twitter.

For example, consider his pinned tweet:

Navin, thank you for being awesome at Twitter!

If It’s Excel, It Must be Chandoo

It doesn’t matter what you do, or are going to do in your career. Excel is an inevitability.

The degree to which you use Excel, the degree of expertise required where Excel is concerned, and the number of hours you spend staring at Excel might vary, both across careers and within the span of each individual careers. But for most of you – and I’m very tempted to say for all of you – Excel is very much an inevitability.

And the single best resource for learning Excel that I am aware of is Chandoo.org. It’s a wonderfully curated blog, this one, with links for basic, intermediate and advanced users, and the associated YouTube channel is also a great way to learn.

If you know your way around Excel in terms of being acquainted with the basics, I’d heavily recommend going through the top 10 formulas for MS-Excel. You probably will not use all of these formulas all the time, but being familiar with them as a student is certainly recommended.

And from there on in, feel free to jump into whatever specific area catches your fancy. Dashboards, charts, advanced formulas would be my recommendations for intermediate users (and I don’t know enough about Excel to call myself an advanced user!).

Here’s the dirty little secret about Excel: you really learn Excel when you meet a problem you need to solve in the real world. Excel, when taught well, is a lot of fun to learn in the classroom. But the real learning takes place, as I said, in the real world.

And the best compliment I can pay Chandoo is that his posts have often helped me out there in the wild, and not just in the cosy confines of academia. And I am sure his awesome blogs will continue to help me in the future as well!

Chandoo, thank you for your generosity with your mastery in MS-Excel!

In Praise of xkcd

When he was five years old, a little boy asked his mother if there were more hard things in the world, or soft things. His mother – entirely understandably – was a little non-plussed. The rest of the story is to be found in in the introduction to one of my all time favorite books, but for those of you who don’t yet have a copy of the book, his own answer to the question was that there were 3 billion soft things in the world, and 5 billion hard things.

That book that I spoke about – it’s called What If? – has this lovely little coda to that story:

They say there are no stupid questions. That’s obviously wrong; I think my question about hard and soft things, for example, is pretty stupid. But it turns out that trying to thoroughly answer a stupid question can take you to some pretty interesting places.

Munroe, Randall. What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions . Hodder & Stoughton. Kindle Edition.

The book in question, by the way, invites you to ask some truly stupid questions, and then answers them entirely seriously. It is a rare ol’ treat, that book. To give you a sense of the kind of questions that the book tries to answer, consider my favorite example from the book:

Is it possible to build a jetpack using downward-firing machine guns?

Munroe, Randall. What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions (p. 68). Hodder & Stoughton. Kindle Edition.

How do you not fall in love with a book that asks questions such as these, and answers them entirely seriously? How do you not admire a person who left his job with NASA (yup, seriously) to build a career based on answering questions such as these, and draw comics for a living? And how do you not admire the resulting blog?

The blog (and if you are learning about him and his blog for the first time while reading this blogpost, I truly envy you for the experience you are about to have) in question is, of course, xkcd. Click here for the answer to the inevitable question.

And what a blog it is. What. A. Blog.

Consider one that I love to use in some of my classes:

https://xkcd.com/2385/

At first glance, you might think this to be a rather bland cartoon, and not funny at all. But don’t give up just yet, think about it for a minute. Take a look at the caption. That is your first clue.

This is an exam for a subject called cybersecurity. Which presumably means you have been taught how to hack into a server. So, if you want to pass this examination, your examination starts after you have been given a failing grade. To change the grade, you have to hack into those department servers, change your grade – and you have one day to do this.

Ah ok, you might say. Rather contrived, and still not really funny, but ok, I get it. But now for the coup de grace: most of the xkcd cartoons come with a caption. And the caption in this case is pure, unadulterated evil genius.

For those of you also taking Game Theory, your grade in that class will be based on how close your grade on this exam is to 80% of the average.

https://xkcd.com/2385/

Let’s say you’ve learnt cybersecurity well enough to be able to hack into the server. Well done, you think to yourself. All I need to do now is give myself 100/100, and I’m done. But wait! What will your score be on the game theory exam? For you to know your grade on the game theory class, you have to know the average score on this exam.

That will be a function of three things:

  1. How many people have taken both classes?
  2. Of these, how many people have been able to hack into the server?
  3. Of these, how many people have learnt game theory well enough to figure it that it is not just about changing your own grade, but everybody else’s grade?

And it gets worse (better, really)! What grade are they likely to give everybody else and themselves? Folks who are familiar with game theory will recognize this to be a variant of the guess 2/3rd of the average problem. But with the additional tweaks mentioned above, and that’s what makes this problem such a fascinating one.

And this isn’t even my favorite xkcd cartoon! In fact, I wouldn’t even want to show you “my” favorites – please go ahead and spend time going through the blog yourself.

But if you want to learn something that is smart, funny, and thought-provoking all at once, you couldn’t do better than xkcd. Have fun!

Randall Munroe, thank you!

Mostly Awesome, Except When It Is Awesomer

I really do not know where to begin. Should I focus on authors or on topics or on interesting academic papers or ???

Let me begin on my thoughts first. I have been reading a bit on what leads to development and growth in a country. It has traditionally been studied by people studying development economics (or dev eco as it is popularly called in campuses). It seeks answer to one question:

What are the causes of growth? Sustainabale growth?

This topic has always been at the centre of economic research. There are numerous ways economists have analysed growth and its factors. I would discuss the different factors in my next blogs.

https://mostlyeconomics.wordpress.com/2007/04/20/finance-irrelevant-for-growth/

So began a blog that I think every single student of economics in India should subscribe to. For those of us who have been following Amol Agrawal’s blog, Mostly Economics, for a while, it’s easy to reflect on all of what he’s written over the years since 2007 and realize that he was as good as his word.

For the last fifteen years, Amol has indeed focussed on factors that have influenced growth. His very first post on his blog, which I have excerpted from above, was written all the way back in 2007, and touched upon a point that was clearly a sore one for him: the paucity of research on the role of finance in development. If you are looking for just one source that has diligently shared resources on this topic, you’re in luck, because that is exactly what Mostly Economics is all about.

This might sound like an exaggeration, but I really do mean this – if you want a treasure trove of material on research on this very broad (and very important!) topic, you could do a lot worse than trawl Amol’s blog for specific variations of this topic. This search, I maintain, will give you a better starting point than this one. Of course, you should narrow it further still by choosing a specific topic or a specific central bank, but – forgive me, I’ve always wanted to say this, and since I’ll almost certainly never write a textbook, this is my only platform to say so – I leave that as an exercise for the reader.

But I’m not joking when I say this – Amol’s blog is without question the single best repository when it comes to a very careful curation of content that is still plugging away at answering the question that he raised in his very first blogpost. And taken together, the sum of those blogposts is an invaluable resource to equip yourself with when you start to study macro/monetary/growth/development in India.

What explains the rather weird title of today’s post? It is a (rather horrible, admittedly) attempt at wordplay on his original title. But that does still beg the question – what explains the mostly in Mostly Economics?

Well, the blog is called mostly economics but as I mentioned at the start I am going to write on some topics that interest me. Cricket is one of them. No matter how the performance of the Indian Cricket team, I try and keep updated on the latest the sport has to offer.

https://mostlyeconomics.wordpress.com/2007/04/27/time-for-some-cricket/

Here’s the link to all the blog posts that Amol has written on cricket. How often do you read a blog in which you’ll meet a post on India’s Minsky moment in cricket? What is the intersection set of people who will love the reference from both perspectives? Or a post about Greece being bailed out by the… ICC? Or about the similarities between cricket and the subprime crisis? There’s ton more where this came from, and as someone who tries to figure out ways to make learning economics fun, exciting and is therefore always looking for “hooks”, Mostly Economics has been a rare ol’s treat.

The nature of sharing interesting links and information online has changed over time. Blogs have been replaced with Facebook updates, and those eventually gave way to tweets. And (I’m writing this on the 19th of December, at 10.30 pm, India time, so who knows what all has taken place by the time you read this) once Elon is done with Twitter, something else may come along. But the cantankerous old uncle in me cracks a rare ol’ smile at the sight of a carfeully curated, regularly updated blog that has been plugging away, year after year at a singular task – to help all of us understand the factors that influence growth in the world in which we live.

And so bad English or not, I’ll reiterate the sentiment – the blog is mostly awesome, save for when it is awesomer.

Amol, thank you!

Blogging Everyday

I try to blog everyday, and as some of my regular readers might know, I don’t always succeed.

Why do I try to blog everyday?

Many reasons, but here are the top three. First, it helps makes concepts clear in my mind. Second, it instils a sense of discipline. Call it rountine, and I might even accept that it has become an addiction, but in this case, I would say it is entirely worth it. And third, my blog has become my note-taking tool. Increasingly, I end up searching my own blogposts regarding concepts I’m sure I’ve come across before. If it was important to me, I am sure I must have written about it.

There are other advantages – I’ve gotten work as a consequence of writing here, I’ve made friends and I’ve met lots of very interesting people. To cut a long story short, there are many, many advantages and virtually no downsides. You don’t get to be as lazy as you’d like to be, it is true, but people tell me that’s a good thing. Who knows, they may well be right.

There are two people I look up to when it comes to blogging every single day, come rain or shine. The name of one of them is likely to be familiar to many of you – Tyler Cowen, of course.

The other is Seth Godin.

I don’t know for how long now, but Seth has been blogging for easily more than fifteen years at least. And when I say he has been blogging for fifteen years, I mean that he has been blogging every single day for those fifteen years (and probably more). I could look up the exact number, but the point in this case ins’t the statistic itself, it is admiration for being able to keep at it for so long. It’s a habit I admire and envy, and it is a habit I aspire to. And like Jessica Hagy the other day, so also with this post. It is a tribute of sorts, and also a way to introduce some of you to bloggers who I read without fail.

Seth has over the years introduced me to authors, introduced me to concepts, taught me fun ways of thinking about stuff, made me rethink simple math, and above all – and I’ll never be able to thank him enough for this – introduced me to good bread (and do read other posts he has written in honor of Poilane). There’s so much more on his blog that trying to create a list is pointless – as with Jessica’s blog, so also with Seth’s, but even more so. Dip in, and see what catches your fancy.

Above all, though, Seth has taught me three things. He has taught me that everything that I do is marketing. Every single thing. Now, I can tell you that this means I’m not a very good marketer, but the good news is that I have one more reason to try and be better at everything I do. But he also has taught me that marketing isn’t a fad, a gimmick or a thing to be sneered at. On the contrary, it is an indispensable skill.

Two, he has taught me to show up every single day. In fact, the phrase “show up” and the word “ship” I will forever associate with Seth. If you are confused about why a marketer is talking about ships, note that we’re talking about the verb, not the noun – and I’ll reiterate my invitation to dip into his blog. I ship a blogpost daily on this blog – or try to, at any rate, purely because I admire his (and Tyler’s) tenacity and gumption. Read what he had to say about this back in 2013, when he wrote his 5000th (yup, not a typo) post:

My biggest surprise? That more people aren’t doing this. Not just every college professor (particularly those in the humanities and business), but everyone hoping to shape opinions or spread ideas. Entrepreneurs. Senior VPs. People who work in non-profits. Frustrated poets and unknown musicians… Don’t do it because it’s your job, do it because you can.
The selfishness of the industrial age (scarcity being the thing we built demand upon, and the short-term exchange of value being the measurement) has led many people to question the value of giving away content, daily, for a decade or more. And yet… I’ve never once met a successful blogger who questioned the personal value of what she did.

https://seths.blog/2013/06/the-5000th-post/

(And as an economist, that second paragraph is so much food for thought!)

And finally, he’s taught me to think daily. This is related to the second point, but this is important enough to be a point all on its own. You see, writing daily becomes a habit if you do it long enough. But even more importantly, you realize very quickly that writing something daily also means having to think daily. And you’d be surprised at how good we all are at going though the day without thinking. If you don’t know what I mean, I invite you to try and write daily.

Thank you for leading by example, Seth, and for showing up everyday.

Context Matters

A couple of days ago, I was able to catch snippets of the India Bangladesh Test match.

The venue where the match was being played had a pitch that tended to become slower and more docile over time, and there was also a rather interesting statistic about how West Indies had chased down a rather imposing target on the fifth day, which inlcuded a double century scored on the fifth day.

They then showed a statistic about how only five wickets, on average, had fallen on the fifth day in all test matches played at the venue thus far. That only reinforces the idea that the pitch becomes slower over time.

But then one of the commentators said something that I found fascinating. It should be noted, he said, that maybe there were only five wickets remaining in the fourth innings by the time the fifth day started! That is, the reason Day 5 records the fall of only five wickets may either be due to

a) The pitch becoming slower over time

b) The match having played out in a way that only five wickets were remaining by the time the fifth day started.

And the lesson for those of us who are students of statistics is that before jumping to conclusions given the data we’re looking at, ask about the context first. And it is surprising how often we forget to do this!

For years, I used to ask students in my statistics classes why this chart looks the way it does:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=IN&q=cat

Why, I would ask them, do Indians tend to search for cats towards the end of the year? And I would get lots of interesting responses. Maybe Indians gift cats towards the end of the year, some would say. Maybe cats fall ill in India towards the end of the year? Maybe there’s a festival involving cats in some parts of the country?

The clue lies in the fact that this spike in the search for “cat” towards the end of the year did not happen post 2010 or so. And the answer lies in the fact that the entrance exam for IIM’s changed around that time. But that’s the point, of course, that’s common to this exercise and the test match in Bangladesh. Data matters, sure, but the context of the data matters even more.

And finally, this example is perhaps the most famous of them all – but do read the rest of the article too. And always remember – the story behind the data is at least as important as the story that you will be able to tell by analyzing the data!

The Central Limit Theorem with StatQuest

I’ve been explaining what the Central Limit Theorem is (and why it matters) a fair few times these past few weeks, and this video is a good summary. But also, please take a look at the other videos on this channel as well!

Longreads’ Best of 2022

In Praise of Jessica Hagy

This is the latest post from Jessica Hagy, and I’m really hoping you’re asking “Who she?”, because that’s what today’s post is all about.

As we come to the end of the year, I want to spend some time thinking about what I learnt (and what I didn’t learn) this year, and utilize my regrets from this year to try and make the next one better. But I also want to try and spend some time reflecting on a rather niche topic. Blogs that I have enjoyed reading for many, many years – and those that I would like to share with you.

I may come across as being ever so slightly biased, given that you are reading this on my blog, but I do wish more people would blog. I’ve touched upon this topic many times in the past, and will no doubt talk about it in the future as well. But at the risk of sounding like a broken record, here goes: creating something on a daily basis becomes a superpower over time.

And especially relevant to today’s post is the choice of verb in the last part of that last sentence: creating. A blog need not be about writing everyday, and Jessica’s isn’t. But this, counterintuitively, is what makes it so very powerful.

Jessica draws ideas.

I cannot tell you how much I envy her ability to do this. I prefer to think in words (if that makes any sense). If somebody asks me to explain something, I much prefer to think and speak using words and sentences, and I think I am reasonably good at coming up with an analogy that helps people understand the point I am trying to make. Or given that I teach for a living, I hope that is the case!

But Jessica? She explains ideas by drawing ’em.

If you’re looking for an example, ask yourself how I might explain the concept of, say, complements and substitutes. I might write an explainer post, or I might ask you to think about one of my all-time favorite metaphors (created by Steve Jobs), or I might long and tedious ruminations on AI and human creativity.

Jessica? She believes in the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words:

https://thisisindexed.com/2022/12/diversify-or-cannibalize/

If you think of yourself and AI as having duplicate skills, there is going to be competition between you and the AI. But if you can think of yourself and AI as having complementary skills, you are likely to make a powerful team. I have said the exact same thing that she did (in the context of my example), but there is no question about the fact that she said it much more pithily, and therefore better.

How to express an idea so that it reasonates? How to express an idea so that its applicability becomes clear within a domain? How to express an idea so that people understand that it is applicable across domains? These are questions I think about literally all the time as a teacher, and as with everybody else in this profession, I don’t always get the right answer while teaching.

All the more reason to admire folks who do get the answers to these questions, and have been doing so for much more than a decade(!). Yup, that’s right – Jessica’s blog has been around for a very long time, and scrolling down her seemingly infinte blogposts with a cup of coffee for company (or, if you like, as a complement) is a wonderful way to spend an hour or ten. Llook out for her entry from the 5th of December 2022 if you plan to do this today, and elt me know if you liked it as much as I did.

Jessica has books out, including one that I’m especially looking forward to reading, called The Art of War Visualized. Another of her books is an extension of a lovely little series of sketches that she drew for Forbes, called How to be Interesting. You could, in fact, think of this post as an application of her second drawing/point in that series.

This is her info page, this is the About page from her blog, this is her Twitter account, and this is her Wikipedia entry. Finally, this is her Amazon author page.

If you have found out about her work through this post, I hope you consider subscribing to her work, and I hope you enjoy learning from it as much I have. And I hope you join in me in thanking her for making the world that little bit clearer, and therefore better.

Thank you!

Consoles, Competition and Comprehension

If you are studying microeconomics, whether in undergrad or postgrad courses, it can sometimes get a little too theoretical. Or that, at any rate, is how I used to feel about the more abstruse parts of advanced micro. And while memorizing the millionth derivation in order to regurgitate it in an examination, I would often wonder if there was any relevance of what I was attempting to study to the real world outside.

If you, today, as a student of micro share this opinion, let me ask you this: are you interested in video games? Are you living in fond hope that a PS5 will land up in your living room? Or are you figuring out ways to get XBox Pass?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, I’m guessing that you like playing video games. Do you know how the industry started? Do you know what the Gang of Four was all about? Do you know how different business models in the industry originated? How they evolved and why, and with what consequences? Had you heard about the Great Video Game Crash of 1983? I knew a little bit (but not a lot) about the answers to all of these questions, save for the last.

But the reason I bring this up is because Ben Thompson has an exellent essay out on the evolution of the gaming industry, with a lovely recap of all of what happened, and why. You’ll learn about vertical and horizontal integration, lock-ins, attempts to create monopolies, attempts at preserving monopoloies, about how business models had to change to account for changing strategies, changing technologies and changing aspirations on part of creators, consumers and corporations. It’s head-spinning stuff!

It begins with a description of the world’s first video game (OXO, 1952, in case you were wondering) and ends with how the FTC (perhaps) doth take things too far with the Activision acquisition by Microsoft. And in the interim, it touches upon names that will evoke nostalgia among folks of a certain vintage, and curiosity among folks of a more recent vintage.

If you are a student struggling with micro but happen to love video games, this essay might motivate you to read more about the evolution of the video game industry, and understand micro better in the process.

If you are a teacher struggling with helping students fall in love with micro, consider reading and using this essay.

And a meta lesson: a great way to learn about microeconomics is to pick your industry of choice, and ask how it has evolved over time, and why. The answers to these questions is a great way to become a better student of economics.

If you’re looking for suggestions in this regard: music, television, movies, gaming, publishing, hospitality and sports (football, cricket and tennis would be great examples). And if I may offer one piece of contrarian and possibly heretical advice – begin with the industry and work your way to the textbook, rather than the other way around.