Monday, February 8, 2010

Misc Reading - Week of Feb 1 2010

Misc reading from the week of Feb 1-7 2010.
  • Barry Ritholtz, author of Bailout Nation, gives a breakdown of the costs involved in writing a book. The real payoff from a successful bestseller comes from any subsequent book deals and from the business opportunities it creates.[link]
  • Dilbert, actually Wally, Hairless Potter, and Baldemort [link]
  • Greg Mankiw, Economics, and the acrostic [link]
  • A special report from the Economist on social networks [link] via Paul Kedrosky.
  • Silicon Alley's Blodget on Microsoft and its money sink - the Online Division [link]
  • Go figure - Microsoft Bing's URL shortener is longer than its domain name!! [link]
  • Apple COO on the GM CEO shortlist. Really?? [link]
  • Newsweek's 1997 Holiday Gadget Shopping List. Anyone remember Palm Pilot, StarTac? [link]
  • Sun's CEO blogs his resignation. And also tweets it. [link]
  • Guy Kawasaki on how to blog like a Brit. [link]
  • xkcd on the Mars Rover. Sooo sad :-( [link]
  • Excellent article on what makes a great teacher [link]. From the Heath brothers' blog [blog link]
  • Flash storage memory. It's what makes Oracle Exadata tick. [link]
  • If you think the "MasterCard Secure" or "Verified by Visa" thing makes you more secure, think again. [link]
  • Can you imitate, and yet be original? John Battelle links to a paper describing a "Large Scale Social Search Engine" [link, link to paper]
  • Moore's curse and the great energy delusion - link, via Kedrosky [link]
  • Brahma Chellaney on China's Cyber Warriors [link]
  • Are Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner or the New York Fed serving the public interest? [link]
  • Link to video if interview with Barry Ritholtz. You need to forward 15 mins or so to get to the interview. [link]
  • There are inventors, and there are bureaucrats. Both are needed. But don't make one do the job of the other. Or so says Seth Godin. [link]
  • Everyone's sitting on a pile of cash. Like in the tens of billions of dollars. [link]
  • Silicon Alley's Henry Blodget, former equity research analyst and now barred from the securities industry, does not like the conversation mode in Gmail, so therefore, according to him, Google knows jackshit about customers. Yeah, Blodget, the world still revolves around you. [link]
  • Bruce Schneier on Security and Function Creep. Excellent. [link]
  • Cringely writes how SSL would not really have prevented the Google hack by Chinese hackers.[link]
  • Remember the Yahoo exec's "peanut butter memo"? Now we have a "dysfunctional corporate culture" op-ed from an ex-Microsoft VP. [link]
  • Offices improve productivity. Research proves it. Except for the solo iconoclast. From Bob Sutton's blog. [link]
  • Naik Jadu Nath Singh's first charge would have been medal worthy. To do it thrice is beyond belief. Salute this posthumous Param Vir Chakra winner, the bravest of the brave. [link]

© 2010, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.