Life Reloaded!!!

I had bought book  Relativity : The Special and General Theory  written by Albert Einstein . As a kid, I always had a curiosity about the theory of relativity. I remember having discussions about time machines with my friends. So last year I decided to buy this book. In the preface to the book Einstein has mentioned that he wanted to explain the theory of relativity in as simple language as possible for lay man to understand. However, even though I have a bit of science background, it was very difficult for me to understand the book. After trying to “read” General Theory of relativity, I took a break of almost 10 months and then read the Special theory. As I we would call it in college slang – it was a “bouncer”.

Since August this year, I have taken up reading very seriously. Till that point in time, I usually spent free time researching/studying about some exam, certification or future career. August-September was very critical point in my life where I decided to change the priority of these things. Problem is that I cannot spend my free time by doing nothing. In school/college I always had something more to study, even during my 2 year pre-MBA job stints I spent time preparing for CAT. With the free time available after work, I have been able to read more number of books in last 5 months as I did in 5 years before that. I have concentrated more on mysteries, behavioural economics and classics. Agatha Christie has been my favourite. I guess she deserves a separate post. I also read 2 books financial crisis – The Big Short (based on Subprime Crisis) and When Genius Failed (based on Long Term Capital Management). “The Great Gatsby” and “Pride and Prejudice” were followed by the movies (One ...

This has to be the best of the three Dork books(“DORK: The Incredible Adventures of Robin ‘Einstein' Varghese”, “God Save The Dork” & “Who Let The Dork Out?”). It has been wonderful reading experience for past one week. I am sure people around me (at home, in train, in office bus) might have felt, why this fellow is smiling so much while reading this book :) The BBC journo episode, first meeting with Colonel, Sivaji statue fiasco, Tihar jail’s special room, Gym sessions – all were super comedy entries in Robin “Einstein” Varghese's Diary. It will be worth reading it again some time soon. Some of my favorite quotes/lines from the book are as follows - When the going gets tough, the Einstein has already finished going! Women are the easiest things in the world to handle provided you don’t have any self-respect. This is not Europe where people say, “You fool me once shame on you, you fool me twice shame on me.” In India, “you fool me once, I fuck you m****.” The room was...

I read this book long time back, however I was never able to post about it last year. In fact, I even missed it in the post titled " Resolutions 2012 " . This book actually took me more time to complete than any other book I read last year. In the past, I read biographies of people like Sunil Gavaskar, John Wright and even former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam. I knew that Jobs had a controversial life with him being thrown out of his own company. I had also watched his famous speech at Stanford Commencement in 2005, which was one of the most inspiring speeches I had ever seen/read. The book starts with the author describing the chain events where he was asked by Steve Jobs to write his biography. It then goes on to describe his birth (even mentioned in the Stanford Speech), childhood, his friendship with Steve Wozniak and various other aspects of his life. One of the interesting parts of the book was the term “Reality Distortion Field” coined by Jobs’ co-workers. To s...

I am really bored with the book "The Ascent of Money" (Sorry bro!). I have already ordered the books - " Who let the Dork out " and " The Critical Chain ". I should be able to start with Dork III by tomorrow as it is shipping from Flipkart's Bhivandi warehouse!

While checking the reviews of "Catch 22" on Goodreads, I found that the term "Catch 22" was first coined by Joseph Heller in this book. Never realized it :( Catch 22 on Wiki

Whooh! Finally completed this book. I bought this book after Shekhar's suggestion in September this year. But when I started reading this book, I simply could not connect to the crazy bunch of officers taking part in the World War II. I had to read chapter by chapter everyday - a chapter a day. I really wasn't able to understand what kind of satire it was. To give you an idea how much slow I was at the start - it took me 2 months to read first 300 pages and 1 week to read next 260. It is only when the squadron loses Clevinger during one of bombings, did I realize that this isn't the usual stuff. Previous to this book, I had read "Vyakti ani Valli" , where there are various funny descriptions of people in life. Even though there is no direct similarities between the two, the sudden change of tone from humor to seriousness is common between them.  There were times when you think everything is going funny and suddenly a tragedy happens. As the story reaches climax...

I ordered following 2 books today -  Catch 22 by Joseph Heller Vyakti Ani Valli by P. L. Deshpande The first one was suggested by Shekhar, and the latter one I have already read once, but would like to have a copy of the same. Recently, I had started reading "Animal Spirits" by George Akerlof & Robert Shiller . It has been written on a very well thought out concept, but I felt it was a bit boring. So I never reached beyond 30 pages, after which I simply returned the book to SEBI library. Before that I completed Steve Jobs's biography - "Stever Jobs" by Walter Isaacson . I will write a separate post to discuss the book.

Today morning I completed the second book I had borrowed from Nik - "Johny Gone Down". It was fast paced novel, where the protagonist is an MIT graduate who goes to Cambodia for vacation, ends up being a captive in prison. After 2 years he does manage to flee, but loses one arm in the effort. Saved by Buddhist Monk, he himself decides to be a Monk. The story then moves to Rio, then to Minneapolis, back to Delhi. The name of the protagonist keeps changing from - Nikhil to Nick to Buddha to Johny. Its just the way story is told, however unrealistic it might seem, is amazing. Before this book, I read Ashwin Sanghi's historical fiction "Chanakya's Chant". There are 2 parallel tracks in the book, one describing Chanakya's journey to make Chandragupta Maurya, the emperor of India. The other one is about a modern day Chanakya - Pandit Gangasagar Mishra - who wants to make Chandani, India's Prime Minister. This one is also good book, though I didn't lik...

I just completed the Second Volume of "Sherlock Homes". In the story "The Blanched Soldier", he describes Dr. Watson in a perfect way - A confederate who foresees your conclusions and course of action is always dangerous, but one to whom each development comes as a perpetual surprise, and to whom the future is always a closed book, is indeed an ideal helpmate.

Since reading xkcd , I have gone back to my old collection of Sherlock Homes. I had stopped reading those books, after I finished the major stories. The rest of the stories which I have read recently, may not as interesting as the initial ones, but I am still mesmerized by Homes' deductive skills. In fact, I think I missed a lot by not having subtitles when I saw the movie Sherlock Homes. The same is true with the British series Sherlock (Do watch the serial if you haven't, its just 4 episodes). One last thing, why is the term "Elementary my dear, Watson!" so famous? I haven't found this phrase too many places.

Before I was banned from buying new books, I bought Xkcd: Volume 0 . It has a collection of Randall Munroe's few favorite strips from his web comic xkcd. Some of my favorite entries from the book - Trace My Path - http://xkcd.com/85/ Pointers - http://xkcd.com/138/ Sandwitch - http://xkcd.com/149/ Fixed Width - http://xkcd.com/276/ NP-Complete - http://xkcd.com/287/ Getting out of hand - http://xkcd.com/333/ Basilisk - http://xkcd.com/380/ (Best one) Locked out- http://xkcd.com/530/ Can't Sleep - http://xkcd.com/571/ I couldn't understand this one - http://xkcd.com/54/  Please explain me if you could. Fact : The page nos of the book are in base 3.

Well, further reading of the book, has changed my opinion about this book. Yes, initially the book followed a fixed pattern which meant the story moved much slower than I anticipated. But once most of the main characters in the story were described, the whole thing started moving at another pace. If one is to assume that what written in the book is true, then one does feel bad for the Dick Fuld and Lehman Brothers. Just to make the point of  "No more bailouts" clear they were allowed to fail, only to realize latter that there were no other ways to allow remaining institutions to survive without Government support (TARP). Also, one can observe that most of the important positions in the Fed/Treasury were held by former Goldman Sachs employees (Not that it gave Goldman some direct advantage in the rescue). The role of SEC was also disappointing with inability to crack down on the shorts when Lehman/AIG/Meryl stocks were bleeding. All in all, a good book to read (especially fo...

We were given a copy of the book "Too Big To Fail" during our NISM training. I started reading this book for past few days. Well, to be honest, its a very lengthy book. Typically the book follows a pattern, where the situation is given, then comes a character, and then his complete history is explained and finally the incident is completed. Usual text of the book is - Mr. X knew the situation was difficult for his company with the kind risk it had taken. He picked the phone to call his old colleague from ABC(this is usually Goldman Sachs), Mr. Y, who now led DEF as CEO. (Now comes Y's history) Y was born in blah blah. His father was blah blah, in fact his grand father was a trader at blah blah. When he passed out of school he joined a firm XYZ. Then we went to Harvard Business School (If he didnt, then he would be hating people who went to HBS). (Now there will be discussion about he reached the post of CEO amidst strong candidates int eh company).

This was typed 3 weeks ago, forgot to post it :) I am blogging this post using the limited facilities available at our training facility at Hirandani. Let me restart my blogging by first talking about the books I read recently. After reading "Fooled By Randomness", I read 2 pretty boring books - "The Bed of Procrustes" and "Dork". The first one was about aphorims and latter one about a fictional story of an MBA grad who works at a consulting firm. Then I read one of the masterpiece of crime novels, "The Godfather". I dont think I have to say much about this great book, this will be up there in my all time favourite books. Once I read "The Godfather", I don't what came to my mind, but I wanted to read "Shriman Yogi". Probably it was one of the discussions I had with one of my ICICI colleague regarding Marathi Books. Initially, I thought I might get it from some library, but then thought that may be it is a book about the...

This has to be one of the best books I have ever read. The discussions on Randomness, Rationality, Trading, Luck, Skills, Bias, Sampling, everything was great to read. I have not been reading it as voraciously as I read The Black Swan . I remember spending a whole day reading The Black Swan . The latter is bit tough to read, but Fooled By Randomness was much simpler. The last section is little bit dull with too many philosophers introduced at the end. I had a good time discussing some of the points in the book with Viraj last week. The kind of role Luck or randomness plays in one's life is very interesting, and it might come as a shock for some. Few more pages to go before I move onto " शाळा " by मिलिंद बोकील :)

I have started reading a new book for a change. I have kept both copies of Sherlock Homes' Adventures aside and bought "Fooled By Randomness" by Nassim Taleb. I liked his book "The Black Swan" (and the adventure behind obtaining the book from Vodafone library) very much. Even this one has the same kind of arrogance that was seen in Black Swan, but I like it :)

 Today when I started writing this post, I was actually wondering what I have learnt from the book. Because this has been a book which is difficult to understand than the other books I have read. At that time Karun came to my room to collect his book, when he saw the copy of “ The Black Swan”. He asked me about the content of the book. While discussing the book with him, I realized what I could write in the post. “The Black Swan” is more of a philosophical book or rather it is a philosophical book – the author wanted to be a philosopher from childhood. As the tag line says, the book discussed the impact of the highly improbable. I completed the first part in the morning and there were times during the reading process where I felt I wasn’t able to grasp what the author was saying. In fact, it was Vaibhav who told me that even he had to read the book twice to understand the meaning of the book. The author introduces various terms like Narrative Fallacy, Mediocristan and Extermista...

… everybody knows that you need more prevention than treatment, but few reward acts of prevention. We glorify those who left their names in history books at the expense of those contributors about whom our books are silent. We humans are not just superficial race; we are a very unfair one.

I have started reading stories of Sherlock Homes recently. I had never read any of the stories before. In fact, it was only after I watched the movie on Sherlock Homes, that my interest in the character increased. Till that time, the only thing I knew was - “Elementary my dear Watson!”. The funny thing is, I have read 3 stories of the books and haven’t encountered this term anywhere :D It is undoubtedly one of the greatest detective stories I have read. I completed the “Hound of Baskerville” today which is supposed be the best “Sherlock Homes” story. In all 3 stories which I have read, I observed that they were much different than any detective novel or serial which I had seen. I mean usually in those stories the characters are never explained too much. They might peculiar way of behaving but no one is so distinct as Homes. I admire “The Science of Deduction” he talks about (I remember using a similar thing with a blog friend of mine). I also liked the role of Dr. Watson, especially ...