The population myth

What's a constant and what's a variable? In an age when one can't even be sure of the speed of light, we at SC are comforted by one constant that cannot be challenged in theory or practice. The 'Olympic constant' is this magic number 30 lakhs, which is the ratio between the population of a country and the number of medals it won at the Olympics. It applies only to the US and only at the 2012 Olympics but is treated as a universal constant.
Let's take a moment to understand the significance of this constant. Given a medal tally, you can arrive at a country's true population. Why's that so interesting? Well, India's population, given the rich haul of 6 medals, stands at 1.8 cr, not 120 cr as reported in the media and by social scientists. What is really going on here?
This means that India has only 1 big city. Take another moment to digest that. Mumbai and Delhi are actually the same place. Bangalore and Hyderabad are of, course overtly the same city which is why you see a signboard that says 'Bangalore -->, Hyderabad <--' near the Bangalore airport. And all these 4 are the same. Throw in a Chennai and Kolkata if you want. All same. That's incidentally why that Chatur fool was playing a Tam but sounding Bong in 3 idiots.
Why would we have people believe India has a population of 120 cr when we actually don't have that many people? SC believes this has something to do with the growth story and wage rates. If people realised labour's actually in short supply, wages would increase, profits would come down, India'd no longer be an investment destination of choice. I mean we need to be ahead of China in something, no?

Global Warming Conspiracy

It goes without saying that global warming theory is a conspiracy. The smarter reader does not ask if it is a conspiracy but who instigated it? Who can benefit from panic of warmer climate/higher sea levels? It has eluded greater minds than yours.

Is it corporations making air-conditioning equipment or aerosol substitutes? or is it wannabe presidents who don't have any other agenda? Research organizations looking for funding? pah.. you have to dig deeper Watson!

Ofcourse we yet again provide the only plausible explanation. and here it goes.. Have you ever realized that the  most expensive real estate always lies on sea coasts?  see the world map with high expensive real estate regions highlighted.

No shit Sherlock.. Now what can in-land cities do to compete with the natural disadvantage of not having a sea next to them. I see the faint ray of realization dawning upon you. Obviously the in-land cities have to conspire, cartelize and indulge in mis-propaganda to gain a vantage point; and what better scare can there be than rising sea levels, to fight the rising popularity of coastal cities. Washington DC, New-Delhi, Moscow and even London, the great power centers are all ofcourse part of this conspiracy. And with their political and intellectual power they can easily influence the world thought. No wonder the Global Warming band wagon has risen so fast.

PS: we have taken a new initiative of making our own maps to avoid copy-right issues and deliver superior research to our audience (i.e. you)

Optimising the Satyamaev Jaiyate format

Aamer Khan's stepped up as usual, to save us from ourselves. Even a usual TV show has several economic transactions among the channel, advertisers, producers, actors and so on. With impassioned calls to 'action' (i.e. sms), this show has even more. This is where the SC team simplifies things for you. Today we apply one principle to Satyamaev Jaiyate - eliminate the middleman.
To donate to the cause for example, the channel recommends you sms 'sucker' to 56565. Instead, donate directly to the NGO in question so the service provider does not pocket a margin. Pesky middleman #1 eliminated!
We move on to the most suboptimal part of the show, i.e. the show itself. (Yes, we get it. We were against dowry even before all the emotional blackmail). The economic transaction is as follows. You watch the show - your eyeballs are worth something to the corporates because of the advertising and prospective sales, say 5 cr. The corporates keep 1 cr and give 4 to the channel. The channel keeps 1 and gives 3 cr to Aamer Khan. Our desk recommends that TV viewers pool in cash every week and pay off Aamer directly to not appear on the show, thereby saving 2 cr instantly!
The beauty of the solution is that the middleman here between the victims and the audience, a hamming over-the-top Aamer Khan is also eliminated. That's 3 middlemen gone in one stroke!
Above all, kudos to the SC desk for saving you that one precious hour on Sundays.



 

Goa has only one beach

Ever felt a sense of deja vu stepping into a beach in Goa, even if it's one you're sure you've never set foot on? Also, ever wonder why Goan roads are never straight? It's not your mind playing tricks on you, dear tourist. Goa has only one beach. SC's mystery audit team posed as foreign tourists from Nepal this weekend and did a covert mapping operation of the entire beach town. The real map of Goa is the one above. The approach routes are expertly looped to give tourists an illusion of going to different beaches every time. And then sell them another set of the same stuff - breezers, stale french fries with flies, sunbathing cots and oil massages. So settle down in one beach next time.

Emran Hashmi is Himesh Reshamiya

We aren't kidding. Check out the snaps for yourselves.
Isn't it remarkable that two stars were created with that epic hit song 'aashiq banaaya aapne'?
Too remarkable to be true. There's just one dude.
Himesh was a budding composer who wanted to make it big in acting as well - a not-so-secret ambition. The first character he played was in real life and was one that he wrote himself - to turn into Emran Hashmi. Why did he do it? Well, let's say you manufacture shampoo - don't you want to have brands for each strata of society? Hashmi kisses for the A-graders and Himesbhai cracks the B and C centres with his ridiculously bad movies. The brand names don't dilute each other.
It's good to note that Emran/Himes pulled off this mindboggling duplicity with his trademark wry sense of humour. If you anagramise "Himesh Reshamiyan", it reads "Emran Hashmi is he". Need I say more?

Facebook's questionable business model

The SC team has a very 'first principles' approach to business models which has always stood it in average stead. Facebook, which has a habit of making public, information about all and everything, except about itself, has been on our radar for a while now.
To figure out who pays facebook, we started with a more fundamental question - Who really benefits from facebook? The advertisers - surely not, nobody really even sees those facebook ads, leave alone buy anything off them. The users? - don't make us laugh now. Ever since the privacy options came in and all attractive women locked up their profiles, facebook doesn't really serve any purpose to the final customer. What about the standard answer - gaming sites? No one plays those crappy farmville types anymore either. That leaves us with an improbable but true answer (in Holmes style), facebook itself!
This is borne out by the revenue sources report we dug up.
Facebook : Total Revenue 3 gazillion dollars
Microsoft : 1 million dollars
Zynga : 50 dollars
Facebook : 2.99999... gazillion
Now facebook pays itself and books a small profit every year. The valuation multiple for social networking sites is 10^15 as of today. Which explains the valuation. Now facebook sells some stock, say to microsoft and has a few trillion, with which it can start actual businesses, like textiles, rubber plantations and porn and make real profits. Magnificently devious scheme- it takes one to know one as they say.

Why actually do buses come in threes?

There has been lot of hue and cry about why buses come in groups. Hell infact some one has even written a book about. All the research has been secondary in nature without any primary evidence. But given the relentless efforts of SuperCraponomics researchers the truth has been found to be something else. Its not mathematics or queue theory as come claim it is but the dynamics of chai sipping.

To crack the problem wide open our researchers visited the BEST bus depot in Worli. There was a solo bus driver trying to finish his chai, but as can be imagined thats quite boring for the party involved. So he asked his friend (obviously another bus driver) to join him. Given the curious nature of humanity a third driver started nudging into the group hoping to get some bits of gossip. Soon this small crowd attracted the attention of the supervisor who dispersed it with appropriate methods. Thus started the three buses together from Worli Depot. Ignorant of tea dynamics several fake economists tried to develop complicated theories around the "three buses in a row" paradigm. But SC with its allegiance to the truth has unveiled yet another complicated  phenomenon.

As a support to our analysis we are attaching some supporting evidence. The men here may not look like worli bus drivers, but trust us if you take average of both these pictures u will get three amchi drivers sipping hot cutting masala chai.

Work avoidance

SC sometimes looks at well-studied problems and almost always, there's an alternative explanation lurking there, somewhere.
Arjun is paralysed in the Kurkshetra battlefield when he sees that he has to fight his own people and kill them. Hamlet, is paralysed by something, too and refrains from killing his stepfather. Before we delve into the underlying psychopathology of these situations, are we missing something obvious? 
Let's illustrate this by picturing a scene where we let these two gentlemen interact with a stereotypical South Indian boss - by that, I mean, efficient (yefishent), no-nonsense and smart, who calls them for a performance appraisal.

Scene 1 : Hamlet
Boss (B) : So, did you finish off that fellow's chapter?
Hamlet (H) : Sir, I did not.
B : Why not? Waiting for auspicious timea?
H : I thought about it and...
B : You think alsovaa?
H : I'm faced with moral issues in this matter. I cannot murder
B : How come you killed off all those other fellows then? That is ant-bite and this is murder?
H : Then I identify with him because of this Oedipus complex thingie I have.
B : Same story you gave last time also. You said you'll get it done through someone.
H : Yeah, but.
B : No but but. Either you tell me your problem or find some other job, like in Denmark GPO.
H : There is no problem. I'm just a little lazy, that's all. Will be done today.

Scene 2 : Arjun
B : Come, sir, come. What I owe this honour to?
A : Sir, you only called me.
B : Have you started the war with your cousins?
A : No. How can I fight my own relatives? My own Guru, my great grandfather...
B : Stop. Ok leave this war. There's another war without any blood relatives. You go there and fight. I'll transfer you there.
A : No, sir. I can't fight in general. I'm peace loving.
B : Oho? very good very good. You do the filing then for this office.
A : (breaks down) Sir, I can't do anything. I admit it, I'm just a bum. All my issues with fighting were made up.

See? They were just lazy people. Now, was that so hard?

Guitar solo fallacy

At SC, we've been to our share of live concerts. And at both of them, we noticed an odd phenomenon. At some point in the concert, when the crowd's settled down, in the course of a song, the lead guitarist steps up, does a solo, which consists of randomly touching the guitar in a bad way, in the high pitch areas, and at a high tempo, sort of like he's having a fit. The crowd, as if on cue, goes completely berserk. Now neither does this feat result in a pleasant sound (for human ears), nor does it look too difficult to do. So the traditional reasons for the crowd frenzy are downright lame.
The search for the actual explanation took us back to 1835, the year of the first rock concert in a little known town in England. Picture an 1835 concert. The audience is loud. To be heard above the din (it was the era of no mike), the guitarist keeps increasing the pitch. The audience, now relishing a good contest, keeps up. This pisses off the guitarist and at one point, he launches into the world's first guitar solo. The audience are up to the task because of their sheer number and keep up through frenzied high pitch shrieking. Of course, the police arrive in their 19th century uniforms (kudos to our research desk!) and stop the nonsense. The microphone was invented soon but not before the shrill solo and the audience shriek had become something of a habit.
So that's how what started as a 'who can make more noise' contest became a ritual to be upheld for the next 200 years.

The abhimanyu theory of film regression

We've got mails and letters from all over the world in the past two days. They raise a number of interesting world issues and questions but all of them ultimately talk about one puzzle that has them beat.
Why are bollywood movies getting so unbelievably crappy?
This seems to be keeping researchers all over the world up at night. We at SC believe that there is one right answer. Always. Talking about broad correlated trends - bah! - not our style. In the case of this question, the trick turned out to be hidden in the specific cribs about current movies.
'This Salman Khan movie is so dated'
'This Agneepath remake sucks but I also hated the old Agneepath'
'Oh my God, Bollywood seems to have gone back to the 80s'
The average movie-goer is 25 and bollywood for some strange reason seems to have regressed by 25 years. See it yet? Think Abhimanyu. Yes! Foetal auditory stimulation! When your pregnant mom was watching crappy Mithun movies and crappier you-killed-my-dad-i-will-join-your-gang-but-as-secret-police-and-then-kill-you plots, you were exposed subtly to the same. We all know that the soundtrack in those days contained the whole movie for practical purposes, unless the movie starred Zeenat Aman. This explains the irresistible force that attracts you repeatedly to the theater and ensures that all these movies which were right for 1987, are grossing Rs 100 cr in 2012.

Development Policies

By Bullstatix

Free TVs, Laptops are old news when it comes to election manifestos. In its latest manifesto PNDPA alliance has promised one free AC for each family if it comes to power. Development of a nation according to PNDPA does not depend on trivial things like education, equal opportunity etc. but on complicated factors like the ambient temperature. The supporting graph shows how average temperature and per capita GDP of various countries are related.
PNDPA spokes person claims that lower the temperature higher the per capita GDP of that nation, hence providing ACs to all is the natural path towards prosperity. Thorough application of Eyeball Econometrics proves the theory of PNDPA and gives strong support to their free AC program.Their logic is impeccable.
This analysis strengthens our belief that deep insights can be obtained from the use simple tools like two different colored pens and a sheet of paper.

Why is India Crowded?

By Bullstatix.

In a stunning revelation researchers at super-craponomics have found true reason for India being over crowded. No its not high birth rate... its not average of 4.5 kids per family.. its not low mortality rate(although that would have been an equally surprising finding). It is actually the inefficiency of passport offices in India. Come to think of it, the only legal way of reducing population (unless you seek a legal precedent in Sanjay's methods) is through emigration. So the solution to India's population trouble is simple - privatize passport offices and incentivize them by paying variable fee linked to number of emigrations.

Kala Ghoda, concerts and local trains

Ever tried going anywhere in Mumbai to do anything? It's not possible, is it? Because there are 1 million people who are there already, who've either blocked you out of another life experience altogether, or ensure that all life experiences resemble getting into a morning local at Kurla.
Take the Kala Ghoda festival, for example. I've tried to break into the inner circle (literally) several times in this annual festival that happens every quarter. But I never get beyond the food stalls. Some others who've been regulars (at the food stalls) now believe that that's all there is to the festival. Why would someone take a train from Virar, say, go to Kala Ghoda, eat a pani puri after hustling through a sea of a lakh people, and return to Virar? So that's three local train experiences in one day. The answer lies in his/her expectations when he/she set out. Sitting on the steps, with only the night sky above you, listening to live music with a chai in your hands.
I try to call the box office at a concert hall. Sold out. Movies. Sold out. Except the 3D sci-fi animation whateva that no one really watches. Is all this just a problem of too many people? Should we just say people north of Sion go off to Pune to watch movies or to experience culture? Maybe, maybe not.
The solution is to increase the capacity of the local train network. The hustle and chaos and free market ruthlessness of local train seating has left the average Mumbaiite with a psychological need for 'organised crowd' experiences. Places where their seat is assured and they can keep their entire..er..tashreef. A simple thought experiment would be sufficient to illustrate. Let's assume a multiplex announces a 2 hour movie show without a movie. You just sit in the a/c theater for 2 hours, stare at a blank screen, close your nose when someone orders a stale chicken sandwich and maybe doze off. This would run to packed houses, just like Laaga Chunari Mein Daag did, which everyone says was worse than no movie.
So rather than shoving people out of Mumbai, just add a few trains and tracks. You'll soon be able to get tickets to a Salman Khan movie on Saturday night or to go to Kala Ghoda early morning and sit on the steps that very same evening.