F1 all the way!

This year's Formula 1 season was one of the most exciting seasons i have seen since the time i have been following F1. The battle of the 3 contenders was an amazing treat to watch all through out the season. Here are the cumulative points of each of the three drivers, Hamilton, Alonso and Kimi as the season progressed. Some interesting things come out from the points positions too!

The leader of the championship after each round has been highlighted.

Round GP Kimi Alonso Hamilton

1 Australia 10 8 6

2 Malaysia 16 18 14

3 Bahrain 22 22 22

4 Spain 22 28 30

5 Monaco 23 38 38

6 Canada 27 40 48

7 USA 32 48 58

8 France 42 50 64

9 Britain 52 58 70

10 Europe 52 68 70

11 Hungary 60 73 80

12 Turkey 68 79 84

13 Italy 74 89 92

14 Belgium 84 95 97

15 Japan 90 95 107

16 China 100 103 107

17 Brazil 110 109 109

I found the following observations quite interesting:

1. Number of Podiums of Kimi are 12, Alonso are 12 and Hamilton are also 12!!!

2. Number of Wins for Kimi are 6, Alonso are 4, Hamilton are also 4.

3. Minimum number of retirements, ONLY 1 for Alonso, are interestingly for the one who came 3^rd among the 3 drivers! :O Never knew reliability was bad! :P

4. In the races that a driver didn’t retire, he always scored a point.

5. If the equal points at the end of Bahrain are ignored saying there wasn’t a single leader, Kimi led the Championship only at the start and the finish of the season!!!

6. Kimi was seen to be behind the leader of the Championship (Hamilton) by 26 points at one point of time!!!

Something Sensible!

Writing something sensible after a long time. Have been attending this course called "Economics of Social Issues" and i cant stop falling in love with economics. Before this course, i had minimal amount of knowledge about economics (some fart they put in 9th and 10th if one remembers!). But i have been attending classes quite regularly and have been really interested in some of the things if not all, that are said and done in class. It is exciting how a theory based subject like economics can be made to look very practical once it is applied to some issues surrounding us. Here is a brief review of the course till date.

1.Started with description of types of economies. Went on to discuss the problems with transition. Case study of Estonia was done which was quite interesting although not generally applicable to all countries undergoing transition.

2. Then the standard demand, supply, PPF curves were discussed, effects of different situations on the movement of the curves etc was taken up.

3. With the basic background in place the course proceeded to its main objectives, discussing social issues related to economics. First issue was poverty. Growth, development etc were defined and discussions were held about the applicability of these to the issue of poverty. I think that the issue was not given sufficient coverage though.

4. Next issue taken up was Crime. Although the decisions about absolutely anything related to crime can be based on morality / immorality, it was quite surprising to see how economics can provide insight into some controversial topics like legalisation of drugs. The government machinery to be involved, its distribution etc can be quite well understood applying simple concepts of demand, supply, marginal social cost, marginal social benefit etc.
This issue was over discussed in the class according to me (or maybe the Shaastra break made it feel so!)

5. Pollution was the next choice of all of us unanimously to be taken up for discussion. Here a few more concepts like marginal private cost, marginal private benefits, externality etc were defined. Their relations with the corresponding parameters related to society seem to fall into place quite naturally! The problem of pollution was again discussed in detail without "sentiments". I found the applications of the MSB, MSC, MPB, MPC to the problem really really insightful.
2 mechanisms for controlling pollution were also taken up, taxes and pollution rights. Again, they seem so simple when supported with graphs of our usual familiar parameters.
A very good discussion on Carbon Credits Trading followed (which i slept through) and might have ended up screwing in the exam! :P

Overall, a very very interesting course, thanks to the group of students im learning with, as also Prof. Debashis Acharya. Hope the next issues going to be discussed are equally interesting and help me in my love affair! :-)

Update - DAMN!

Damn! The markets have crashed (Well, quite expected too! Still... ) And trading has been halted for an hour according to latest rediff update. 19K was something to remember though! :-)

Sleep is GOOD!

For the first time in, i dont know how many years, I slept for 13 hours at a stretch! No worries of the exams going on, no worries of missing grub, no worries of the phone ringing, and most importantly no worries of being woken up by my own guilt! :P

On a more serious note, I am still feeling sleepy and i dont know what is wrong with me! It has just been about 3 hours since i woke up after 13 hours, and out of those 3 hours i have slept again for 1!! Still feeling sleepy and i have no idea how to stop it! No classes in the morning and it feels like the whole world is so in favour of me sleeping again for a "while"! :D :D :D

A major change in life!

This post is dedicated to all those who are waiting for me online at night (atleast 2-3 are there! :P) but cant find me on Y!, Gtalk or MSN or all three. Recently i have been doing some thinking about life. Well that doesnt directly qualify as a reason of not being online, but indirectly it very much is. Here are some insights on the working of some of the lazier brains! :(

1. Life is very long. You need to stay healthy to enjoy most part of it.
2. Having adequate amounts of sleep is a key to good health, even if that makes you miss about 7 breakfasts a week and 3-4 other meals! :-(
3. Exercise is necessary for the body to work properly but rest is essential for the brain to work well.
4. A change in your college bag, cycle tyre, room lock, water bottle, spoons, clothes, soap, room setup, bed ;-) can only bring about good effects in your life.
5. Taking into consideration the above mentioned points, one may decide to change his lifestyle atleast once in a semester.
6. Some conclusions are:- a) Good Health = lots of sleep, so, sleep early and as much as you can.
b) Change of routine has to take into account point "a" above.

So here is the real reason, change of routine successfully achieved, I sleep VERY EARLY these days (about (11 + - 1) PM). I try to wake up early in the morning. I do manage to wake up early in the morning, but GOD only knows why i cant have breakfast on a single day!!! :(
The reason for today is clear though, writing a stupid blog post and sleeping immediately afterwards rather than spending energy going all the way to mess for breakfast!
zzzzzzzzzz