Friday, October 9, 2009

Freakonomics

"If you own a gun and have a swimming pool in the yard, the swimming pool is almost 100 times more likely to kill a child than the gun is." Do we really think that way? But statistically it is right. Freconomics talk about regular life problems and statistical/economical solution. It is more close to behavioral economics. Reading book is like detective story how detective found out the clues, only difference is Steven D. Levitt uses the economical theories and statistical models.

Book is very effective to understand the real life problem, it helps us to increase our analytical problem solving, and it influences our thoughts.

Some of the events cover in the book: Who cheats? Just about everyone…How cheaters cheat, and how to catch them…Stories from an Israeli day-care center…The sudden disappearance of seven million American children…Cheating schoolteachers in Chicago…Why cheating to lose is worse than cheating to win…Could sumo wrestling, the national sport of Japan, be corrupt?…What makes perfect parents? The negligible effects of good parenting on education… socioeconomic patterns of naming children…

Thursday, October 8, 2009

What do you Care what other people think?


This is the extension of his first book “Surely you’re joking Mr. Feynman”. It is similar in nature where Mr. Feynman shares his life experiences. First half talk about autobiographical notes and impact of his father on his thinking. How his father taught him to ask questions, how he find similarity between science and art and how he developed it. Second part he talks about his involvement on the Rogers Commission investigating the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Believe me it is so funny I was laughing through out…it always reminds me whenever we have postmortem review of projects…

Surely you’re joking Mr. Feynman


Richard Feynman is Nobel Prize winner physicist, very inspirational speaker and has a very fine sense of humor. When some one ask him at Princeton whether he wants to have tea with lemon or cream he says without thinking add both so person reply back “Surely you’re joking Mr. Feynman!” that’s the reason for a book title. Book is full of real life experiences and incidences happened to Feynman. For reader it is an opportunity to witness his life in small stories which remind me of my dad when he tells the stories about his childhood and life. This book also tells you about science, culture, art and how different sectors like military, education, government works in USA.

I would like to write specific to one of the article from book “Judging books by there covers”. Feynman talks about his experience when he got involved with state board of education California as committee member to look over the books and to give them advise which book to take. He talks about how the book content is selected, how examples given in the book to teach mathematics to children is not appropriate, how the board and publisher has a relationship…too funny, and some time I wonder; is this the way school curriculums are designed?

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The Metamorphosis


“One morning, when Gregor Samsa (protagonist) woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin/beetle” amazing plot and story by Franz Kafka, I found similar writing skill only in G.A. Kulkarni Marathi story writer.
It also reminds me when we change the basic point of view to look at some problem or assignments; we get altogether different some time unbelievable results. Like metamorphosis of thoughts….

This story not only talks about subconscious thoughts of narrator about his family and surrounding after his transformation, but it also talks; how it transforms his family. Story compels reader to witness different world, some time very sad but optimistic very real and very fictitious…

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Animal Farm


Animal Farm is satire; sharp look at so called revolution, and communal government by George Orwell. When leader behaves like master how society suffers. Beauty of the book is simplicity in the plot and clean humor. I don’t know how but so many reviews tell that characters in Animal Farm were inspired by the Russian Revolution and the events that followed.
Apart from book, so many times I think myself; is it possible to look everything flat, equal without division? What happens to food chain pyramid? How we can form sentence, word without division/group of alphabets? Are some are more important/privileged than other? Our human brain understands when we have logical chunks, groups, brackets… but it is up to us how we treat that… musical harmony can be created with the all types of notes, no one note is inferior/superior than other… only thing is that whether we need melody or chaos?

Five Point Someone


For long time I was avoiding this book because of its misleading title “Five point someone”, I thought it is typical, five, seven, or ten pointer book… but it is not!

When I started reading, I found it is quite interesting and nostalgic, it rememinds you the good old college days, and hostel life. Characters are very alive and I am sure this type of people/friend/character everyone knows in the hostel/college. I will say it is typical bollywood masala (They are making movie also) book with humor, story line, romance and twist.

More than a book I like the strategy of pricing this book, (it is already best seller English book in India) content that represents new generation (generation-x, fatafat generation, yangistan) mentality… I am looking forward to Chetan Bhagat as a new generation thought leader sort; I am not sure but why not?

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Beyond good and evil


One of the most complex and difficult to understand book I read until now, one of the reason is very old (1886) in language style and other could be topics/thoughts it described in it.

I think to appreciate this book one need to do some research on Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the most influential philosophers of 19th century from German, check on wikipedia his list of he influenced the people like Hitler, Ayn Rand, Hermann Hesse. Check his biography his likings in music, poetry and philosophy.
His most influential work include “God is dead”, “Superman”, “The will to power”, more information about his work we can obtain from “the story of philosophy by Will Durant”

Some of his concept I could understand on the analysis of his work provided by various writers/researchers through the internet. E.g. Nietzsche concept is like finding the ultimate rule to play universal game. When god was there he made rules to play universal game (only one and ultimate) say cricket, and it was working fine for long time, but as human society progresses they themselves found different games like football, hockey, but to play that games they need different rules (can not play with the cricket rules) they made and played, enjoyed but further problem started arising when human tried to understand which is the best game? In fact these are all different games (can not be compared), some philosophers (?) tried to make universal rule taking best of from each game rule, but result was; people could not play the game, they were self contradictory… and then there was a time of chaos, nobody knew what to do.. And hence Nietzsche says we lost the ultimate game rules, and hence the creator of rule and hence god is dead and to make new rules (ultimate rules of game we lost) we need superheroes which got capacity to write the new rules  hence the concept of super hero came… same with beyond good and evil… I think this is one of the best works I read. This concepts are very strong and challenges about your existence and thinking…
As and when I get time I would like to write more about some Nietzsche concepts I understood…