After entering XL, I rarely read any books other than the course materials. Most of the time I was busy behind the laptop screen doing some assignments or projects. Even if I found some free time, I never felt like reading a book, would watch some new Tamil movie which relaxes me a lot. During my summer internship I found some time to read some books. Recently a couple of weeks during travel I could read.

Predictably irrational by Dan Airely 

The basic assumption of Traditional Economics is – “All Humans are Rational, we always make rational choices “. But this book is a fascinating examination of why human beings are wired and conditioned to react irrationally. We human beings are a selfish bunch, so it’s all the more surprising to see how easily we can be manipulated to behave in ways that run counter to our own self-interest.  What I learned from Predictably Irrational is that everyone is irrational sometimes, and that’s OK. We’re not perfectly logical creatures, after all. The trick is training yourself to know when you’re most likely to make irrational choices, and to resist those impulses. I would say this books increased my interest in Behavioural Economics. I would rate this a 4.5 / 5 in terms of value add, style of writing and research done.

Freakonomics by Steven Levitt

No special mention required about this book, as this is one of the book most reviewed, and also you can refer the Freakonomics blog at NY Times. But this is also of the same genre similar to behavioural economics. “Conventional wisdom is often shoddily formed and devilishly difficult to see through” – You will understand this if you read this book. A must read if you would like to understand many economic problems could be related to something which are not obvious. One of the most famous correlations gave by him is the Link between - US crime rate and Legalising Abortion. I would rate a 4/5 for this book.

I have started again, at present I am reading Gregory Robert’s – Shantaram.

Previous Reviews

1. Quick Review

2. Under Cover Economist

For the last 24 years I have never crossed her borders. Respected her Saluted her and I still would do always…But Tomorrow is the first time ever in my lifetime I am crossing the borders of India.

A first trip to Malaysia for a week. The best timing I could ever get. Hope It goes as planned ( Do we have a plan actually:)

This Passion started with Windows 3.1 during my school days, this was a dream company. In-fact I am a  PC!!!

Waiting to explore through World without Walls….

For this Gandhi Jayanthi, I and Hrishi planned a small adventure. Biking till Chandil from XLRI.  We started at about 3.30 in the evening when the weather was very good for cycling. By 5.00 we touched 30 KM on the high way to Chandil. But it was getting dark slowly and the NH 33 highway is a typical India road with many potholes and jammed by trucks. Hence we decided to return and had to abandon the trip to the chandil Dam which required additional 25 Km from that place. When we were returning it became completely dark by 6.00 PM. The worst was the vehicles coming in the opposite direction came with full beam and they never mind to use the dipper. It was becoming to tough to cycle when it started to rain. But still we managed to reach campus by 7.30. It was a 4 hour cycling with a small break twice for 5 minutes. We were happy we were able to cover atleast 60Km in the trip.

You can check the track in this link.

Few of my friends in US have come up with a website, similar to internet directory, with links very relevant for any Non Resident Indians.They call it as an online guide to NRIs across the world.

According to NRISpot.com

Top 10 reasons to use the site.

1. When you want get a snapshot of what’s happening in India in a single page - news, business, sports, stock exchange, currency rates, gold price.

2. When you want to find popular sites to read Indian news, Cinema News, Blogs and Cricket Scores.

3. When you are looking to send money to India, and want to compare exchange rates provided by the different Banks or Service Providers.

4. When you want to find the best sites to  listen to Indian music.

5. When you want to know the best sites to print and mail photos to India for less than $3.

6. When you are looking for a site that offers information on grocery stores or temples or restaurants in your US city.

7. When you want to find out the best sites to book tickets (flight, bus, train, hotels etc) in India (or to India).

8. When you want to find out the best sites for Indian Classifieds is the US or in India.

9. When you want to find out the best sites for Indian Recipes.

10. And rather simply, if you want to know what types of websites, products and services are available to NRIs!

According to me, the five important things I liked are..

1. Easy navigation to links

2. Home page with very often checked Facts (Sensex, Exchange rates etc.)

3. Content Related to Indians

4. Useful links related to day to day activities ( Bill Pay, Shopping ,Matrimony etc.)

5. Some offers to regular visitors (A recent offer is sending photo prints free to India)

With the increase in the number of NRIs and also our reliance with internet, this site would be a readymade guide for day to day activities.If this site could scale up by providing a platform for NRIs to interact among themselves within the site in addition to the static links, then this site would be a home page of all NRIs.

Federer was down with two sets today at French open fourth round against Tommy Haas. Third Round it was 4-4 and suddenly my Hero rose to the occasion by giving a deathly blow. 6-4 followed by a bagel 6-0 and a 6-2 to uproot the opponent. This scene would give lot of confidence for any Federer fan. I am boosted with Confidence today.

I am just Hoping Federer would achieve the most expected win at the French Open this Sunday.

Today, Microsoft announced a new avatar of its search engine – Bing. I’ve been playing around with Bing www.bing.com since morning, and what I liked is that it’s not just a search engine, but designed to help make decisions. In fact we are making a paradigm shift and calling it a ‘Decision Engine’ because of the way It empowers people to gain insight and knowledge from the Web, moving more quickly to making the important decisions.

Its pretty cool! The new snazzy design will have a beautiful daily image on the homepage which will have hotspots embedded in it to let you explore the picture in detail

Try the Best Match feature that makes finding relevant information, by putting up front information like customer service numbers for retail sites, the ability to track a package right from the search page, deep links to common pages within the site and much more.

It also has this cool explorer pane on the left that lets me easily get to related searches, past searches, news on the topic etc. It even has a quick tabs feature that anticipates my intent when searching. For example, when I’m searching for a favorite musician, it filters results by albums, biography, videos and images….amazing!

Check out the Video and image search – it has these handy filtering tools that let me sort by size, color, style and much much more. In fact, when I search for videos, it even gives me a preview, when I simply hover over one!

Bing launches globally on 3^rd June and some of the features will roll out in India in the coming months. You must check it out at www.bing.com.