Two economics links

One short
Five simple formulas that capture today's economic challenges and solutions by Jared Bernstein
and the other long
Brad DeLong on Hamiltonian Economics and US Economic History

On the science of learning

Five classic studies by Tom Stafford via his post The memory trap

A music link

Young India Record Label Collection via 'Young India' sings again "In the second week of April, the Endangered Archives Programme (EAP) of The British Library provided, quietly and without fanfare, access to some heirloom collections of music from India. These treasures are from the collections of well-respected individual researchers and collectors, including Suresh Chandvankar and Narayan Mulani of the Society of Indian Record Collectors.

Working with a grant sanctioned in 2008, Chandvankar steered the EAP190 project that has successfully digitized gramophone records, advertisements and publicity material as well as catalogues of the Young India record label that operated in Mumbai from 1935-55. A staggering 1,427 items populate this extraordinary collection which one can now access for free (http://sounds.bl.uk/World-and-traditional-music/Young-India-record-label-collection). Not even a single-click registration with an email is required to access this splendid collection, but that isn’t all. The mission of the programme, the transparency and clear vision so evident on the website, is nothing short of exemplary."

Indian Summer (via Madhular Shukla)

Unhloly woes and

A scene from India

viahttps://www.facebook.com/veeranarasimha.raju?fref=nf&pnref=story

Our desire to make sense of it all

Human nature: Behavioral economists create a model of our desire to make sense of it all from EurekAlert with a link to the paper. "There is an irony to the paper," Loewenstein added. "It is an attempt to make sense of our desire to make sense of the world."

Themes and variations around basketball

How Air Jordan Became Crying Jordan from TheNewYorker "Of his fierce competitiveness, Jordan told Thompson, “It’s consumed me so much. … I’m my own worst enemy. I drove myself so much that I’m still living with some of those drives.” This Jordan was almost a tragic figure, and it helps explain the Crying Jordan meme: if you can’t win anymore, you can only lose. The image of blubbering Jordan is part despair, and part tantrum. The meme is the people knocking Jordan down several pegs. Jordan in his prime was unassailable, a man out of reach, way up there above the rim. Now even you can take him."
Understanding Obama Through Basketball from TheNewYorker
Ex-Basketball Player a poem by John Updike, possibly a precursor to his novel 'Rabbit, Run' available online, a novel I read in the sixties and liked very much.
a similar theme bur from American football 'The Eighty-Yard Run' by Irwin Shaw

Visiting Sandy

My neighbour Sandy Burke is trying out an old people's home. She is 92-93, quite alert and seems to be in good health. But she is almost blind and deaf, so it is difficult to watch TV. Audi books help a bit. She says that there is no activity in the place. But there was less when she was home. At least now, she meets a number of people at meals times and there are common rooms etc. being with or near the children might have helped but this is a somewhat independent culture. I wonder whether we will face similar problems if we live too long.

The Questionaire interviews Mike Davis

The Questionaire: Mike Davis
 One of the questions and the answer:
Does age matter? 
Are you kidding? All this suffering just to acquire wisdom that is totally out of date – unfair!

The Power of Holding Hands
it was common in my childhood even for boys to hold hands. Then in 1965 ( I was 24 at that time andatarted my research in mathematics an year before), in TIFR during a party to Harisch Chandra, I was holding the hand of a friend. Komaravolu Chandrsekharan , our director, made a sarcastic remark and that more or less put an end to it. Now, sometimes, I put my hand on the shoulders of friends.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWDxHUEiE5g&feature=youtu.be

A couple of nice stories

Not diamond or gold, bride in MP wants 10,000 saplings as wedding gift
Meet Chandra: Small farmer. big heart, miracle moped I have known women like that, some worked when husbands were alive but struggling. A relative used to bring sarees from Chennai, go around the villages on a moped to sell them. The children have IT degrees now. Another struggled with two children and 100 rupees a month salary, the son became anengineer and daughter married a contractor. Strangely, in some similar cases I know, the children wanted lavish weddings.