Small Chinks of Light

Here's a nice article that appeared in Outlook India on the burgeoning Solar space in the country

Lack of Balance

Here's an article from David Brooks, who reviews the Obama presidency and subtly bemoans the lack of balance that people have when reviewing it.

I think striking a balance is one of the most difficult things to do for it makes one appear indecisive and wary of risk taking. In my opinion, people tend to extol greater virtues than necessary for people who take quick decisions and form fast opinions for their positions are more likely to be based on overtly simplistic and, perhaps even, self-serving interpretation of information. Below is an excerpt from the article.

"In a sensible country, people would see Obama as a president trying to define a modern brand of moderate progressivism. In a sensible country, Obama would be able to clearly define this project without fear of offending the people he needs to get legislation passed. But we don’t live in that country. We live in a country in which many people live in information cocoons in which they only talk to members of their own party and read blogs of their own sect. They come away with perceptions fundamentally at odds with reality"

India after Gandhi

Here's a brilliant review of a brilliant book. I'm reading it currently. While it'll certainly take effort and committment to complete, it is replete with phenomenonal information starting from the time of our independence.

"To comprehend India's achievement, imagine if Mexico became the 51st state of the United States, followed by Brazil, Argentina and the rest of Central and South America. Add Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to give this union the Sunni-Shia mix of India. The population then represented in Congress would still be smaller and less diverse linguistically, religiously, culturally and economically than India's."

Why I Am an Entrepreneur: Mahesh Murthy

Here's a funny article that appeared on the Wall Street Journal on why/how Mahesh Murthy became an entrepreneur. This one line description of TamBrahms is hilarious, but true
"I was reasonably-well programmed to be on the path of TamBrahm Boy + Good In Maths + Coconut Oil In Hair = Studies To Be Engineer + M.S. Abroad = Good Job In Intel + Dutiful TamBrahm Wife = Good Suburban U.S. House + 2.3 Kids + 2.1 Toyotas = The Boy Has Done Well."

I'm My Own Grandpa

Here's a hilarious song that explains quite logically for one can become his own grandpa...! Here are the lyrics.

William & Warren, Inc @ Columbia

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet talk to the Columbia Business School students. Here's the CNBC link.

20 years of extraordinary committment

Here's a very nice article written by Harsha Bhogle on Sachin Tendulkar.

I like these lines for they show that he is still a human - a fact conveniently forgotten when idolizing him.
"...His eyes were red and swollen; you could see he had been crying copiously. For the interview he put them on, and once the camera had stopped rolling, admitted he didn't want to return, that his mind was all over the place, that he felt anchorless..."

NYT Article - Genius: The Modern View

Here's is a fantasic article from David Brooks on the modern understanding on genius. Reminds me of what I read in the book "Outliers"

O' Reilly Vs Letterman

Whoa...am I losing my mind or is Bill O'Reilly actually making sense. Here and here are his recent interviews with Dave Letterman. Listen to what he says in Part (2) of the interview!

Lagaan in the making?

Here's an article on the Afghan cricket team that is making good progress in the ICC qualifiers

"We never saw outside the camp. We just felt that everything else in the world would be the same. But I realised later that I led a very, very simple life. For a long time there was no electricity, computers, phones, facilities or anything. Very hard, very difficult. It was so hot. Sometimes it was nearly 50 degrees [Celsius] and we had no fans or air conditioning. So maybe that's why we are a little bit strong. When we see these kind of facilities, it's just so easy. Playing in these temperatures is easy"

Nice car!

Here's the car of the future! Not sure if this would take-off but looks pretty cool...!

Is the price right?

Here's a TED talk by Benjamin Wallace on how price of item has an influence on happiness.

While the talk was interesting and I strongly agree with the general theme of the discussion, I wasn't impressed with the research and the narrative. In fact, as is mentioned in its comments section, it is a little bit manipulative.

In any case, here are some things which apparently if you possess, consume or experience, you'll attain some form of short-term nirvana!

• Kobe rib eye steak CUT, Los Angeles - $160
• Pasta with white truffles , Del Posto, Manhattan - $120
• Ty Warner Suite, Four seasons, Manhattan - $30,000/night
• Cor Soap, Plank, Boston - $120
• Jormos Jeans, 45 rpm, Japan - $800
• Per Me Olive Oil, Armando Manni, Italy - $33.50/4 ounces
• Five star golf clubs, Honma, Japan - $57,000
• Kopi Luwak coffee, Animal Coffee, Australia - $600/lb
• Neorest 600 toilet, Toto, Japan - $5,980
• Vividus bed, Hastens, Sweden - $64,950
• Veyron 16.4, Bugatti, Italy - $1,500,000
• 1947 Cheviot Blanc - Priceless (apparently)!
  

I have never heard of any of these things nor would I remember even if I had for I'm as brand blind as it gets!

Greed and Stupidity

Here's a very good article by David Brooks in the NY Times on two hypotheses that explain the causes and effects of the current crisis.

Here's the supporting article for the greed hypothesis and here's the supporting article for the stupidity hypothesis.The greed hypothesis is replete with facts while the stupidity hypothesis is bit more theoretical. I prefer the latter particularly from a conclusion viewpoint.

Following is an excerpt from the stupidity hypothesis.

"From the point of view of top management, the diversity of operations means that executives were managing assets and services with which they have little familiarity. This has led to the spread of pseudo-objectivity: the search for standardized measures of achievement across large and disparate organizations. Its implicit premises were these: that information which is numerically measurable is the only sort of knowledge necessary; that numerical data can substitute for other forms of inquiry; and that numerical acumen can substitute for practical knowledge about the underlying assets and services"

Numbers as a sole measure of performance...That sadly sounds very familiar!!

Superstar's super act

Here's The Boss at this supreme best!

A very creative AD with a nice touch in the climax

Shizzle My Nizzle

Here's an awesome song! Try to decipher it .Trust me it is in English - only it's lyrics are written by a slevered, perhaps waffi, sala!

Here's a BBC article on some lawsuit that this song was involved in. The judge's comments are very funny!

Are you lucky?

Here's what Michael Shermer of Scientific American has to say about it.

"Wiseman gave subjects the "big five" personality scale, which measures "agreeableness," "conscientiousness," "extroversion," "neuroticism" and "openness." Although there were no differences between lucky and unlucky people on agreeableness and conscientiousness, Wiseman found significant differences for extroversion, neuroticism and openness."

Shermer makes a reference to Lou Gehrig. If you are like me and don't know who Lou Gehrig was, here's his wiki page! Pretty inspirational character!

ADs galore

Here, here, here, here and here are a few funny ADs from the desh. And here, here, here and here are some classics!

Not sure if these products are/were any good, but the ADs most definitely are!

Extending John Buchanan's idea

John Buchanan came up a rather an unconventional idea of having multiple captains in a T20 game.

How about extending that idea and having multiple units within a team, with each unit having its own captain/coach - a la NFL type super-specialization? The team structure can be something like this - a batting unit, a bowling unit and a fielding unit. The batting unit can have about 6 members, the bowling unit can have about 5 members and the fielding unit can have about 10 members (including the wicket-keeper).

In any particular game, the members of each unit perform their task alone. For example, a fielding unit member only fields and does not bat and bowl; a batting unit member only bats and does not field and bowl etc. Similarly, a bowling unit member only bowls – at end of every over, a bowling unit member can come out of the pavilion to bowl the next over and goes back to the pavilion at the end of the over. Given his center position in the field, the wicket-keeper can act as the on-field coordinator with the bowling unit.

I strongly suspect that the super-specialization of tasks, particularly batting and bowling, will increase the efficacy with which tasks are executed, thus increasing the quality and the competitiveness of the game being played. There are couple other benefits that I can think of. Having lower number of wickets (batters) will increase the premium of each wicket and batters will have lesser incentives to take callous risks, thereby leveling the battle between bat and ball a little bit. Team management can use the fielding unit to introduce talented young players, who can possibly move to one of batting or bowling units, with relatively lower risk toward the result of that game.

While I realize that the above fundamentally tampers with the definition of a team in cricket, what are the big cons?

Broadband Speed

Here's a good way to test your broadband speed.

I get a download speed of about 1.8 MBpS when connecting to servers in India and about 0.8 MBpS when connecting to servers in US from my broadband at home in India. If you are in the US and happen to test this, can you please let me know your connection speed?

Articles on AIG

Here, here and here are a series of excellent articles that appeared in the Washington Post late last December.

The story spans about 15 pages and is divided into three parts. It traces the evolution of the current crisis starting from 1987 when AIG-Financial Products was founded. While I found some of the technical details a little hard to follow, it was an absolutely fascinating read!

Here's a Charlie Rose interview with a pretty good panel on the same topic. I liked the tone and demeanor of Hank Greenberg, the ex-CEO of AIG. I also think that Meredith Whitney was a rambling a bit off topic, especially toward the end!