Muses of Murari » Gist

Reading list (links)

saithilak — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:45:17 +0000

It’s been a while I shared links. Here are few interesting articles I read recently :

On western indologists and their flawed perceptions on India’s culture. Interesting to see western Indologists interpreting their Sanskrit scholarship as sufficient qualification to comment on literature as vast as India’s scriptures. Interestingly, the Sanskrit schools, Indology studies initiated during British Raj to help British to learn Indian customs for better managing the country! Excellent read pointing out the holes in the work of a western Indologist.
Sachin – a middle class icon – Shobhaa De recommends Bharat Ratna for Sachin. Same as my opinion.
China vs India on entrepreneurship – Great article abouth myths of India’s English advantage over China’s. How India is left far far behind in the area of entrepreneurship. Must must read.
The Netbook man – The man who took the world by storm with his Netbook idea. When I first heard about Asus Net top, I’d gut feeling that this is going to be a game changer. And it has been so far. Apparently, Apple is not buying this generally accepted idea.
Huawei vs the rest – I’ve been reading a bit on telecom stories, as I am working in that vertical. Believe me, no story is complete without mention of Huawei, a Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer. You talk on DSLAMs, they are world leaders with their cheapest and good quality devices. You talk future technology like LTE, they are already leading the pack in sales. Man, if I were in top management in my company, I would recommend to make partnership with Huawei and focus more developing customized software to work with its devices.

BlueRay to Choices and more links

saithilak — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:53:27 +0000

I haven’t read much this week due to work pressure. My google reader items piling up in hundreds every day! Here are couple of reads and videos :

Blue ray failure? – Robert Cringley tries to reason out the lame take-off by Blue-ray.
You want to understand how economies go boom, go bust and repeat the cycle in form of parable? Then check this old post of Paul Krugman. Man, this parable gives clues to understand what happens in very larger scale like countries economy.
This is interesting. While we in India aspiring for better education system, US is slowly pressing panic button about their future generations’ competitiveness to the latter’s Chinese & Indian counterparts. Also check here.
Insightful TED video – Seth Godin’s marketing ideas for the companies.
TED Video – “Paradox of Choice” - explains why more choices leads to depression like state and unhappiness.

School choice, Opera, spam, startups & more links

saithilak — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:10:04 +0000

This week’s links :

School Choice. This is one of the significant things I discovered this week. This is a system, where government or individuals directly pay, via school vouchers, for the poor children to study in the schools of their choice. I think this system makes more sense for a country like India. It is heartening to hear certain organization actually doing it. Read more about it here. And the results of one such implementation here.
I’ve been using more than couple of browsers. And one of them, Opera, I use it to connect to my gmail accounts using IMAP. Opera released a new feature called Opera Unite. One of the things that Opera Unite has, web server embedded in browser. And photo sharing tool. And file sharing tool too. And things like that. It is cool, except that when I tried to use it. I couldn’t access my own shared stuff on the browsers other than Opera! Here is a brilliant article on Opera Unite. Read it in your leisure.
I usually follow Indian startup stories, rants and other things. But not religiously follow it. Here are the couple of rants by entrepreneurs on India’s realistic market share in mobile space and on poison pill of Indian startups, I heard this week.
Watch out – Big Blue trending on cloud computing in corporate world. When I.B.M. talks, people do listen.
Twitter success going places. How Iranians used Twitter to cover their election story and slammed down CNN on its failure to cover the story.
Spam can pose bad boy for environment too! Here is the article in Economist explains how.

US-China tangle, Intel’s moves, smart grids & more links

saithilak — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 04:12:20 +0000

This week’s bookmarks

Chinese newspaper editorial warns on India’s moves to check on China’s intrusion in Aurnachal Pradesh, India. Interesting take and some really bold statements made. via
This week I got introduced to the whole US-China treasuries dead lock. More I digged in, richer information I got. I think this thought experiment explained at Zero Hedge, gives basic clues to understand about this US-China tangle. [Read first half of the post. The second part was too technical for me! ]
It looks like one of my favorite tech writer Robert X Cringley (who does intelligent deductions of how big companies work and strategies) is back in action, after he moved from PBS to his own blog. In his latest post, he reasons out Intel’s latest moves.
Yet another critic on Microsoft, which recently launched a search engine called Bing.com
Nowadays, my latest reads more are into energy areas. Smart grids. Smart meters. Smart Planet. [Yes, I somehow became fan of the Smarter Planet ad of IBM]. Here are couple of links about the latest fade in town. Economist’s write-up on smart grids. And why smart grids will take off slowly.

Quant Nerds, a forgotten reformer and Indian education (links)

saithilak — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 05:54:08 +0000

In few of the blogs I follow, some of the “Weekend readings” posts (links to interesting articles, blog posts etc.,.), the bloggers share, are really good ones. I like to post links of interesting articles I read & heard. If I don’t had time to read or did not pass though any good write-ups, I want to pick some of the interesting recommended reads of other bloggers and post here….

Education and Corruption (in India) – blog post on corruption in Indian higher education and how it is engineered by Indian politicians. This post linked to a ToI article.
Renaissance man of India – This speaks on forgotten Aurobindho thoughts and vision. There is an refreshing passage on Sanatana Dharma.
Revenge of Nerd – Its quite long article on quant analyst, Paul Wilmott. This article starts with an analogy how quants, who did Ph.D.s in math & physics, flew to Wall street and bought the world down. And it also talks on Paul, who is supposedly guru of all quants over there and his attempts to reform the whole nature of quantitavie anlaysts.

Social, media, communication & more links

saithilak — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:28:26 +0000

Where is Everyone ? – This article has brilliant images of how the communication transformed in the last 200 years. Interesting take on future, how the traditional media houses will die in the hands of new age online social networks.
Warren Buffet takes charge – An interesting Chinese battery, mobile phone and electric car company – BYD, in which the legendary Buffet has invested. This article talks more on CEO of BYD & his company.
Tehelka - This is old one. But it blew me away with the facts & findings of Godhra & post Godhra incidents.
Outdated Education model in India – This blog neatly sums up India’s education system and how grossly it misfits in today’s age.
Paul Otellini on IT Conversations ( Podcast ) – Paul speaks on Enterprise collaboration. Commented on cloud computing, on web 2.0 tools in enterprises, Intel’s never ending investments in future technologies and of course, on Moore’s law!

Google PowerMeter, Mythology and more links

saithilak — Wed, 27 May 2009 05:02:41 +0000

I am going to try this. I am going try to share interesting stories I’ve read and heard (podcasts) on internet. I am thinking to do it regularly.

Google PowerMeter – The story behind Google power meter which many think great app in making. A brilliant hypothesis by Cringley on how Google & power companies can mutually benefit. Installing & operating server farms with subsidised power from utlity companies and in turn helping them enter into internet business (through power infrastructure). Starting point, get the user base. For that, start with a mechanism with which user can track his energy spending.
Genius : The modern view – How geniuses are made? An attempt to explain Genius made out of 10,000 hours of effort.
Low Cost Housing – Low cost housing in India. In recent times I wondered why this space never explored by successful real estate companies. This write-up clears the deck (this write-up links to the main article).
Meditation – This article on Meditation is the most simplistic explanation I’ve heard so far. Wonderful.
Myths about Mythology ( Podcast ) – This podcast simply blew me away. The uncommon perspective on unquestioning acceptance of many Indian mythological stories which are passed on for generations, by Devdutt Pattanaik.