First Post 09

This was the first time I spent new year's eve on an airplane. I was not feeling too well, so it was just as well. Terrestrial partying took a back seat in 2008, as if by chance. But was it just chance? There were, of course, many reasons to feel that 2008-09 transition point was in relatively unstable equilibrium, the story was not likely to be rosy on either side of this critical point (31st dec 08) which did not call for much celebrating. When I booked my tickets, this is the only day in the whole week that tickets were available, so I had no choice. In any case, when you're down with a cold, you just want to be alone with your Eternal Phlegm. One is not attractive enough to be with anyone else, not even your wife. I do hope that frontside of 09 is better than the backside of 08 just like all optimists worth a dime. We'll see. Meanwhile, I read a book that says that group behaviour can be reasonably well modeled by physical equations. This is quite a read, and is good revision of several dense academic concepts including engineering thermodynamics, power-laws, game theory, phase transitions and so on. It is reasonably lucid for such an ambitious piece of work. Overall, a great book to stay up to date with a rich and synoptical scientific literature survey on the matter of everything in life that has suddenly ben exposed as wrong in 2008, namely traffic jams, terrorism, failing capitalist models, nations fighting over sovereignty, efficiency of vaccination programs and so on . The book is called "Critical Mass" by a british scientist called Philip Ball. It was wirtten a few years ago but reading it now is timely, particularly if you are in that restless mood where you are just tired of the world around you and you'd like to find out some answers, for no other reason, than to stay composed. But don't expect any changes to your life once you have read the book. This is largely an informational piece, although the author does seem dismissive of microeconomic theory..maybe rightly so, you decide.