Tech world's love for letter "X"

GoogleX Google neXus Apple Mac OS X Apple Xcode HTC One X Google Solve-for-X SpaceX IBM X-force Motorola Moto X Microsoft Xbox Comcast Xfinity Sony Xperia phone Dell XPS tablet X-treme tablet Motorola Xyboard tablet Nokia X No where, outside, of the tech world is the letter “X” gets such a prominence. Update (Feb 24): added Nokia X.

September 30, 2013 · 1 min      Misc

Relocating to California for internationals - Part 3

Manage your finances Use Mint for getting a complete view of your finances. CreditSesame, Credit, CreditKarma, and Quizzle for free credit score tracking. Quizzle always tries to sell something; others are better. The score they provide is not the same as the FICO score but is highly correlated. Use Splitwise or Buxfer for splitting bills with friends. Vanguard has a great selection of index funds. Matrix ITA for airfare prices....

September 25, 2013 · 2 min      Misc

Relocating to California for internationals - Part 2

Buying a car Due to the deliberate destruction of public transport, driving a car is cheaper on the west coast compared to taking public transport unless your employer subsidises commute via public transport. Decide ah car you want to buy, Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla are value for money for singles. Honda Accord and Toyota Camry are better for people with families. Specially, who have young kids which require child safety seats....

September 25, 2013 · 4 min      Misc

Relocating to California for internationals - Part 1

This set of articles are for Internationals who have recently relocated to California for a job. I am listing a few things which I wish I knew when I first arrived here for a full-time job. Short link to this page: http://bit.ly/fotb-ca) Hunting for apartment Use craigslist.org, padmapper.com (this also provides average renting prices of the area) and housingmaps.com. Use crimereports.com to check the crime statistics of the area as well....

Random Thoughts: Rape and The Indian Blame Game

After the Delhi gang-rape case, there has been a sudden upsurge in traditional as well as social media over rape in India. As usual in such cases, the initial reaction is to find someone to blame. And in this case, the onus of the blame has been put on Patriarchal Indian Society - without realizing that more rapes happen in the not-so-patriarchal USA Indian masculinity - “who feel threatened by women asserting their identity” without realizing that rapes happen even with infants, senior citizens, visually challenged, mentally challenged and homely women in conservative villages of Haryana to Kerala. Indian Police - as if police officials are omniscient and should be present before the crime happens Honey Singh - I am expecting a petition against Vatsyayana next This blog post is a collection of thoughts about the same.

Female Foeticide

The first episode of Aamir Khan’s show Satyamev jayate raised the issue of female foeticide in Rajasthan. While the show asked for stringent laws, it missed a few major reasons behind the same.

Summary: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

The book talks about a set of habits which differentiates successful people from the normal. It criticizes [recently popular] personality ethic which it terms as deceptive and manipulative and calls for character ethic which is a fundamental change in human character. This change must begin from inside and spreads out [inside-out] and the reverse is not possible. The book is divided into three parts

October 9, 2011 · 2 min      Misc

Summary: Built to Last (Successful habit of visionary companies)

The book compares a set of 17 companies that are considered visionary with similar 17 companies of lesser stature. I am avoiding gory details of their methodology here. To derive theory from practice, the book aims at debunking common myths about visionary companies.

September 10, 2011 · 3 min      Misc

Career Destination of IITians: USA vs India

I decided to explore the trend of the past decade to see what the data says about the career preferences of IIT graduates.

February 14, 2011 · 1 min #India      Misc