Monday, March 8, 2010

Reading from the week of Mar 01

Misc links from reading form the week of Mar 01, 2010

  • Dilbert and Dogbert debate whether the cure for incompetence is evil. [link]
  • Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist, on why you shouldn't shoot the messenger. [link]
  • I had never heard of the Collatz Conjecture. XKCD cartoon. [link, and the Wikipedia page]
  • The father of behavioral economics, Kahnemann, at TED [link via Paul Kedrosky]
  • Apple's lawsuit against HTC is really a warning shot to Google. [link]
  • On Taleb's Black Swan. [link]
  • Cringely argues that Goldman Sach's Lyod Blankfein would have been rewarded with a 1-6 year jail term had he done the kinds of things his company did to its customers in any other industry, heck - even the casino industry! [link]
  • Adrian Ward on the market for OBIEE consultants. Glad that my and others' work at product development is helping so many others :-) [link]
  • Now this is a seriously good photographer's portfolio site. The photos are mind blowing. Did I say I am envious? [link]
  • Thomas Friedman writes about the US, "We are the United States of Deferred Maintenance. China is the People’s Republic of Deferred Gratification", his interview with Paul Otellini, and the need for the US to stay competitive.[link]
  • Bruce Schneier links to an article by a former CIA operative on the assassination of a Hamas operative's assassination, suspected to be carried out by Mossad. [link]
  • Is the UK's Labor Party using immigration as a vote-bank? [link]
  • Dan Heath recommends Sheena Iyengar's The Art of Choosing [link] I am waiting for this book - should get it within the next week or two, I think. Am also very interested in reading the Heath brothers' latest book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard
  • Auditory visualization of the Winter Olympic results. Very well done. [link, and from the Junk Charts blog]
  • Scott Adams drew flak for his flaying of Google's Gmail usability testing (the link, and I linked to it in an earlier post). He follows up in this post. [link]
  • Funny Heathcliff cartoon on karma. Funny. [link]
  • What's the worst advice you have ever received. Bob Sutton posts. [link]
  • A very, very good book - Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy, by Barry Ritholtz. My review. [link]
  • More bad press for Google Buzz. From Sillicon Alley. [link]
  • How to use the Google Hard Drive. Now all we need is all-you-can-eat broadband-and-I-mean-100GB-free at 50mbps. From Silicon Alley. [link]
  • Silicon Alley reminds us that Google is still a one-trick pony; SEARCH. [link]
  • Google acquires Picnic. Whither Picasa?? [link]
  • Barry Ritholtz admires Warren Buffet's letter to his shareholders. [link]
  • John Battelle thinks the Database of Intentions is a bigger thing than he thought. Interesting, but has flaws in its thinking, IMHO. [link]
  • Dilbert on the consequences of an engineer doing a QA engineer's job. Ouch! [link]
  • Barry Ritholtz lists the most frequently purchased books from his blog. [link]. While on the topic, also read his post, The Big Picture » Blog Archive » Apprenticed Investor: Reading Is Fundamental
  • Bob Sutton on the best(?) asshole busting story he has heard. Probably heard it before, and while it is indeed good, you have to also suspect that some bungholes are not going to be put off by a mere insult. [link]
  • Why not to like the iPad. One reason - it is under-featured and over-priced. But that has not stopped other products from succeeding, has it? [link]





























© 2010, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.