The Poison

There is only one textbook that I ever read from cover to cover , and it was not a
text that I had to study as part of my course work , in fact it had very little relation
to what I was supposed to study.But still I read it with interest , which I could
seldom muster while I read others.That book was Greg Mankiw's
Principles of Economics .

We did have an economics course one semester , but it used an ancient
text by someone called Dewett , and it was taught by an equally ancient teacher.
but then economics was so dry , and something distant .

Reading Mankiw's text changed all that , his explanations are lucid and
interesting.His text is full of illustrations and examples from the real world.
and he has placed of lots of boxed text , connecting the theory with
what is actually happening in the world.
And above all , the book feels comprehensive , after reading it , one feels good ,

one feels as if one has learned enough economics to understand how the world really works .

but , that is only one side of it . we are always accoustomed to associate people's work
to their political beliefs . Mankiw was an Economic Adviser for George Bush.

Even more politically , the solutions to the different economic problems
that Mankiw proposes and evaluates are definitely right wing.and he does that
so convincingly , that he definitely seems on the side of reason.

I don't know economics , so I don't know how to reason against his arguments. he argues that minimum wage limits are bad . he says fixed rents are bad , he says the best way to control pollution is by selling the right to pollute to the highest bidder.

Perhaps , many of his ideas can be opposed in terms of moral or humanitarian arguments , but is it possible to prove him wrong using economic arguments?...

I feel , his book is a poison , especially for Indian students , who have largely always adhered to left wing thoughts at least during their university days. this book will cause great doubts amongst them ,because its main instrument is reason and scientific method , and many like me will know no counter argument to what it says.

I think we need an answer to this book , till then perhaps the minds of many readers will be full of doubt.

Here's a link to a strong article against the book .

SQLling with Squirrel

Perhaps , one reason why religions exist , is that it gives those who
believe in it a sense of belonging , of being part of something , of not being alone..

Thats exactly what sql clients do in our office. There are people who believe that their favourite sql client is the ultimate one.may be it does give some sort of collective reprieve from the pointlessness of the work.atleast , it gives something to quarrel about.

of course , if we were all having *nix machines at office ,
we'd all be fighting over editors , but here sql clients seems to have attracted peoples minds more.(for some reason , most people here seemed to be hooked on a kludgy ,ugly ,shareware editor called edit plus . more on that on a future post).

There are supporters of toad , raptor , plsql developer , ......

But , I use Squirrel .

It is open source and has a kind of tough appearance , and has nice
little touches like quoting queries and generating java code to put that
query into a stringbuffer so that it can be cut and pasted in a breeze.

and it works with any database ...

only thing missing is that it wont chirp , unlike Toad which croaks on launch