Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Go & buy this book! STAT!

I just finished reading the e-ARC version of Bujold's Captain Vorpatril's Alliance and what a grand book it is! I was reading it in the doctor's waiting room and trying to stifle my giggles as Ivan tumbled from once crises de nerfs to the next. Thank God Baen Books has e-ARCs - I dont think I could have waited till the book was published.


Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Nordstron Innovation Lab

Nordstron Innovation Lab
So a real smart, well thought out post from Rory Ford landed in my in-box earlier this week via the Gov2.0Australia Google list serve. The post had a link to his blog and being naturally curious, I went snooping and found a post he had written about this really cool shopping/marketing thingy done by Nordstrom Innovation Labs. Basically the Innovation Lab hijacked a real Nordstrom's store in Seattle for a week and in real time created an Ipad app for customers who wanted to buy sunglasses. Reminded me a little bit of NYC's Improv Everywhere.

I would think the next step would be to make a TV spot about this, set to some cool music, cause just watching the case study on youtube, makes me want to go and shop at Nordstrom's!

Monday, August 27, 2012

My Resume vs My Brother's

My Resume in Wordle - August 2012
My Brother's Resume in Wordle - August 2012



Some interesting articles at The Economist

1) Foreigners in China To flee or not to flee?


Read this with interest. Some interesting points:


IT MAY not count as an exodus. Indeed, it doesn’t even satisfy that hoary old journalistic definition of a trend: three examples.Separately, a pair of expatriates long based in China have written heartfelt accounts of their decisions to leave the country. And though few in number, they have attracted a great deal of heartfelt attention from many other “old China hands”, as foreigners who have chosen to make their lives, careers and homes here sometimes like to call themselves......In one of the recent expatriate accounts, an American film-maker, editor and blogger named Charlie Custer said most of his reasons were personal—and that none of them had to do with ugly threats he’d received since entering into a nasty public feud with a prominent Chinese television personality, Yang Rui. However Mr Custer did acknowledge feeling distress over China’s lack of a free press and rule of law. And he mentioned that his past couple of years had been not only “depressing” and “soul-crushing”, but also “occasionally terrifying”. However he cited as bigger problems air pollution and food safety. These were the most important factors behind his decision to leave Beijing, after a four-year stay. “I like breathing,” and “eating also is fun,” he wrote in pithy summary.
An essay by Mark Kitto, a Briton who first came to China as a student in 1986, ventured into more thought-provoking realms. After living here for the past 16 years as a businessman, Mr Kitto decided he’d had enough. Some of his motivations match those of the wealthy Chinese who choose to leave. He cited concerns that “the air my family breathes and the food we eat is doing us physical harm” but added that the “one overriding reason I must leave China” is the need to give his children a decent education.Other aspects of Mr Kitto’s experience might only make sense to a foreigner, and a disillusioned one at that. “I have fallen out of love, woken from my China Dream,” he wrote.Upon returning to China in the mid-1990s, after a post-graduate period spent away, he noted a widespread difference since the time of his student days. An air of optimism remained, but then he also detected “a distinct whiff of commerce in place of community”. Mr Kitto bemoaned China’s shift from a traditional family culture to a “me” culture, and its rush toward materialism and conspicuous consumption.Mr Kitto also wrote that he wanted, in a certain sense, to “become Chinese.” He acknowledges that this was never possible—but not that he was naive to think it might be. Eventually he came to find that his “desire to be part of a community and no longer be treated as an outsider” was not attainable. 

2) So Mitt? What do you believe? (Economist is against Romney)



All politicians flip-flop from time to time; but Mr Romney could win an Olympic medal in it (see article). And that is a pity, because this newspaper finds much to like in the history of this uncharismatic but dogged man, from his obvious business acumen to the way he worked across the political aisle as governor to get health reform passed and the state budget deficit down. We share many of his views about the excessive growth of regulation and of the state in general in America, and the effect that this has on investment, productivity and growth. After four years of soaring oratory and intermittent reforms, why not bring in a more businesslike figure who might start fixing the problems with America’s finances?
But competence is worthless without direction and, frankly, character. Would that Candidate Romney had indeed presented himself as a solid chief executive who got things done. Instead he has appeared as a fawning PR man, apparently willing to do or say just about anything to get elected. In some areas, notably social policy and foreign affairs, the result is that he is now committed to needlessly extreme or dangerous courses that he may not actually believe in but will find hard to drop; in others, especially to do with the economy, the lack of details means that some attractive-sounding headline policies prove meaningless (and possibly dangerous) on closer inspection. Behind all this sits the worrying idea of a man who does not really know his own mind. America won’t vote for that man; nor would this newspaper.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X Book Club, Part 1, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty

The Autobiography of Malcolm X Book Club, Part 1, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty


h/t to Chris Blattman for this. If you are interested in Economic History and a Labor Market book discussion using Malcolm X's Biography as a starting point, I urge you to read the original blog post by Bryan Caplan of the The Library of Economics and Liberty Blog. (PS - I am thinking of subscribing to this too, but its another blog then and I am so time-poor!)

Three links I liked at NYMAG/ Vulture


1) Premium Rush movie review

I liked the below para. It perfectly captures what I felt about driving/walking in NYC!

Gordon-Levitt’s Wilee does have a life philosophy, but it’s nothing terribly complex. “Can’t work in an office,” he says in voice-over while evading numerous, potentially deadly obstacles. “Can’t stop … Don’t want to either … When I see a guy in a gray business suit … my balls shrivel up.” Zooming through red lights and teeming crosswalks, he is exactly the kind of biker to whom we yell, “We have a walk sign, asshole!” But being as we’re seeing the world through his eyes, we think, “Out of the way, assholes!” I must say that this cuts to the heart of New Yorkers’ moral relativism: On bikes, they think, “Asshole pedestrians!” and “Asshole drivers!” In cars, they think, “Asshole pedestrians!” and “Asshole bikers!” On foot, they think, “Asshole bikers!” and “Asshole drivers!” (Wherever they are, of course, they think, “Asshole critics!”) 

2) Mike Birbiglia - Sleepwalk with Me

Another great show - took mum & dad along with me (got cheap tickets thank to Nancy Khuu). I walked out of the theatre 1.5 hrs later, in a daze, just magically carried aloft, dream-walking after being mesmerized by Mike Birbiglia's comedy. In short, need to see the movie and highly recommend it! Plus it has Ira Glass.

Speaking of Ira Glass, pic of mum and me in NYC, when we had 4th row tickets to see "This American Life."


This was hands down the BEST "serious" play I saw on Broadway, during my 2 years at NYU. As a side note, the BEST comedy play I saw was The Norman Conquests (x4 times).

I liked August: Osage County so much, saw it twice - once with John Uppill and then with my mother. This was a sacrifice b/c even with NYU student discount, I paid $70 for the cheap seats vs $25 for The Norman Chronicles.

Cant wait to see the movie, esp with the awesome cast attached (Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Chris Cooper, Abigail Breslin, Juliette Lewis). I reckon Meryl Streep has my heart after seeing her performance as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady - utter sublime!

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Write your own academic sentence

Why-Oh-Why did I not have this resource when I was enrolled in Grad School? Link here: Too lazy to write it yourself? Let the Virtual Academic do it for you

DIY that I wish I knew how to do

More teachers need to be like this: How one teacher built a computer lab for free

Sikhism, America & Gun Violence

This is meandering, but compulsively readable and her point about gun violence, is one that def needs to be made: Better Aim (A short essay by Maura Fitzgerald)

A Nifty Little LinkedIn Tool


Thanks to Donna Serdula of LinkedIn Makeover. Get yours here: http://inmaps.linkedinlabs.com/network

Robots amok!

5 embarrassing robot faux pas

Click on link above - its got a little bit for everyone's inner geek from an awesome pic of Data (Star Trek) going berserker to Star Wars (on you goof C-3PO!)

Why I am back.

So, I am fed up of Facebook (FB). I hate the new timeline look and miss the old simplicity of how clear and concise the look of FB used to be. However for yonks, FB was a depository of my fave links. These were links that I did not always want to bookmark, but I did want to share them with friends and/ or just have a place to store them, so that I could refer back if I wanted to. But now, I just cant find anything on FB and seeing as I have a blog, I think this will be where I store my fave links.