Summer in my backyard Warm coffee in my belly The sun simmers on my chest Filling my bosom with love The sun smiles at me from afar My pug flashes her puppy eyes from my lap Newly sprung summer flowers beam from around And so I sit in my backyard on a carefree sunday The wind hums a sweet little song Caressing my wild hair like would a lover Guiding falling leaves and pollen my way| keerthanapg.com
The truth is absolute and immutable. The beauty of physics and our world is that The truth is traveling at the speed of the light cone, Sights and scenes of exactly what happened and was said Scattering from one end of the universe to the other Never to be muted Perennially out there to be seen for those that want to see The truth remains true Regardless of whether one hundred or one million believes| keerthanapg.com
Opinions presented in this article are that of the author alone and does not represent those of her employer. As the new year drives in, let’s look back at some of the technological bets in self driving and where we are at with them today. Just last week Waymo and Cruise announced they are scaling to 3+ cities in the US, fully driverless. Waymo in Phoenix and SF, and Cruise in Phoenix, SF and Austin.| keerthanapg.com
It’s going to be okay It’s going to be okay because I will make it so I have cut chords with people who didn’t care I have moved on and I am okay I can do it a million more times And still be okay Why just okay? I will thrive. I have said so many good byes I have lost both people, money and places I am still okay, I am happy even.| keerthanapg.com
Chapter 2: Flutterings of a Mechanical Heart Read Chapter 1: Household Reflections The San Francisco Bay Area is a melting pot for machines like me. Our owners are like restless children, easily enchanted by technology, devices and their upgrades. Rob prides himself on being an early adopter and gets the new iPhone the day it releases to show off to his discord buddies. Jenny is a software engineer and quite a savvy one at it.| keerthanapg.com
Question about literal effective altruism. Let's say you're a random person in a non-western country, and you go around visiting various rural communities where means are limited, offering direct help. What help / intervention would be most effective for your time and money? — Catherine Olsson (@catherineols) July 8, 2022 I spent 2 years organizing a volunteer community around and working with the Disha Seema School in Kharagpur. The school educates and boards ~270 kids from grades 1-12, an...| keerthanapg.com
Preparation time - 1 hour Cooking time - 10 minutes Ingredients: Beef flank - 1 pound Corn starch - 1/2 cup Olive oil - 1/2 cup Scallions - 5 Soy sauce - 1/2 cup Brown sugar - 3 Tbsp Ginger - grated - 1.5 tsp Garlic cloves - 4 grated Roasted red chilli - 10 How to: Cut the beef into thin slices Marinate the beef for 1 hour with 2 Tsp corn starch, 2 tsp olive oil and 2 tsp soy sauce After one hour add the remaining corn starch and mix it until the beef is coated with a thin layer of corn starch.| keerthanapg.com
Preparation time - 15 minutes Cooking time - 10 minutes Ingredients: Beef flank - 1 pound Corn starch - 1 Tbsp Olive oil - 1 Tbsp Broccoli - 0.5 pounds Soy sauce - 6 Tbsp Brown sugar - 2 Tbsp Ginger - grated - 1.5 tsp Garlic cloves - 4 grated Sesame seeds - to garnish Hot water - 1/2 cup Sesame oil - 2 Tbsp Black pepper powder - 1/2 tbsp How to: Cut the beef into thin slices Cut the broccoli into small florets.| keerthanapg.com
There are many paths on the road to AGI. Nando de Freitas recently wrote that “Scale is all you need” following the release of Deepmind’s Gato paper. Larger and larger transformers, with language interfaces doing supervised learning on large datasets is one such touted path. While Gato trains and evaluates on data from physical robots, there is a larger paradigm on getting to AGI that fully bypasses embodiment or robotics. This is the path pursued by OpenAI/Anthropic, who once famously ...| keerthanapg.com
Sourced from Google Images If all you need is inside of you If desires, like threads of entanglement, Spawning from your heart Can be cut, and let go Like a forgotten coffee cup on a subway If feelings can be let go Like fragrance emanating from a flower Without leaving it any less fragrant Than before If memories can stay on Like frozen bugs in a heart of amber| keerthanapg.com
So I chanced by this post on LessWrong titled “Reward is Not Enough”. It is a rebuttal to the arguments presented in the paper “Reward is Enough” by Silver et al, which hypothesises that intelligence and its associated attributes are a result of reward maximization of an agent acting in its environment. Given the popularity of the LessWrong Forum, the pseudo-persuasive appeal of the article aided by technical jargon and for the sake of rationality, the post merits a deeper examination.| keerthanapg.com
I have a happy orchid plant One that blooms white with a purple hue Standing against my window nonchalant Shining against the sun effortless And then one day I decided to move My happy orchid sat in a box Waiting to see the light But for a while it was left forgotten In the darkness, while I sorted my affairs It stood biding its wait As dust settled on its glossy green leaves| keerthanapg.com
For a full list of publications, check my google scholar page. AutoRT: Embodied Foundation Models for Large Scale Orchestration of Robotic Agents Orchestrating robotics agents for real world operation using a Robot Constitution Paper, Website Forbes, The Verge, Business Insider RT-2: Vision-Language-Action Models Transfer Web Knowledge to Robotic Control Training robots on internet scale image/text datasets Paper, Website Covered on the front page of New York Times, Forbes RT-1: Robotics Tran...| keerthanapg.com
Originally posted on Medium Silence Like an ocean that leaps and bounds Like a dragon that kicks and breathes fire, alive Like a wide chasm between us Our hearts are so far, far apart Closed to each other Though for a second we were so close Like a bridge out into happiness Like a hand that appears while drowning But now I’m puzzled Standing on a vast mountain range Looking into caves very strange| keerthanapg.com
Originally Written here June 22, 2013 “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” They have been special to me, and yet again, I stumbled upon these lines, as I sat up overnight to finish off David Baldacci’s thriller First Family. To talk of the book, a good plot, but the literature was just, mediocre. It seems like a tactic now, for writers to pull across a best-seller, by starring the President of the States i...| keerthanapg.com
Hi I am Keerthana! I am a researcher at Google Deepmind: I spend a lot of my time thinking about how to get scale robotics and build general purpose intelligence in the physical world. If you don’t shut me up, I will talk endlessly about robotics, artificial intelligence and self-driving. Currently much of my free time is spent authoring a textbook on Machine Learning for Robotics with OReilly Media. I am passionate about investing and stock markets, start-ups and technology, fitness, publi...| keerthanapg.com
Neural Information Processings (NeurIPS), 2023 Speaker at 6th Workshop on Robot Learning International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), 2023 Panelist at Interactive Learning with Implicit Human Feedback Workshop moderated by Anca Dragan Watch recording of Panel 1 Watch recording of Panel 2 Cognitive Revolution Podcast, March 2023 Hosted by Nathan Labenz and Erik Torenberg ML Collective, Deep Learning Classics and Trends, March 2023 Hosted by Rosanne Liu, we talk about recent advances in...| keerthanapg.com
Originally Posted on Medium Sourced from Google Images Tied up angel, wings battered Shackled by the ankles I lay rotting in the dirt Among worms and spiders Helpless and desolate Like a forgotten ghost in the ceiling But then I mustered my will, Chewed up the chains And through the broken attic window I climbed Cut my wings on the glass Yet jumped into the moonlight And took flight into an unknown| keerthanapg.com
Served with a side of boiled rice. Horse Gram Stir Fried: Originally Written here Ingredients: Horse gram — 1 cup Salt — 1 tbsp Water — 2 cups Green chillies — 4 Red chilli powder — 0.5 tbsp Olive oil — 2 Tbsp Garlic — 3 cloves Curry leaves — optional Preparation: Boil the horse gram with water and salt in a closed container / pressure cooker until cooked.| keerthanapg.com
Originally Written here A closer inspection of the ‘Rally for Rivers’ fanfare Recently, Dr Rajendra Singh, who has spend decades working on community involvement in water management, winner of the Magsaysay Award and the Stockholm Water Prize, nicknamed the ‘Waterman of India’ called out the ‘Rally for Rivers’ movement. To quote, ‘this ‘Rally for Rivers’, is not for rivers. It is for the land, for money, for power, for fame and for name’ 1| keerthanapg.com
Originally posted on Medium Image source : here Pacing through a glass castle of mine That is shattered in all but a second At once when one is hit in the face by the chilling storm outside How can you be mine but yet never have been mine Feeling threatened in the most primal way I’m alone, irrevocably so, irreversibly so Even when engulfed in your arms Listening to your heart beats so close| keerthanapg.com
Originally posted here Sometimes it can save a lot of time to stop and think if ML/DL is indeed the right approach to solve your problem rather than realising that after throwing a ton of data at a network without getting anywhere and potentially being outperformed by a simple classical algorithm. Here’s where ML shines: When the inputs are noisy When the solution cannot be described in human defined rules When the problem cannot be entirely defined and your solution needs to scale for dive...| keerthanapg.com
Originally Written here (This is a creative variant of a German Easter speciality known as Hefezopf) Ingredients: Flour — 400 gms Yeast — 2 tbps Sugar — 1/2 cups Butter — 2 Tbps Water Baking soda — 1/2 tsp Jam — ~10 tsps Walnuts — 1/3 cups Chocolate — 1/3 cups Raisins — 1/3 cups Mix the flour, yeast, sugar, butter, baking soda and water to create a smooth dough and let it rest for an hour.| keerthanapg.com
Originally posted on Medium Source: Google Images I have a faceless portrait One I’ve been holding close For far too long Etched over years, touched over every now and then With each new dawn The lines grow clearer A faceless portrait hanging on a pedestal Across my hallway Waiting to come alive. Beaming with pride and Embellishing the sides I only need a face to completion. So I set out to find one| keerthanapg.com
Originally posted on Medium Sourced from Google Images I walked down the road Through alleys and corridors In search of you TRying to catch your eyes in the crowd Sliding past glass windows for a sign Of you Your voice still rings in my ears, As if playing with them constantly Much like your lively, restless spirit Your thoughts are fresh in my mind They emerge from me Become a hundred fireflies| keerthanapg.com
Originally posted on Medium Clicked by Tom Eliasson, from Google Images If the moment is beautiful, is consistency necessary If the eyes align, why do the stars need to If happiness can precipitate in the now, who cares if the past and future are unmade If the timeline is a mist, so what, if today is stark clear in a happy, mad hue Can we count our sins after today, losing,| keerthanapg.com
Originally Written here This is a traditional Malayali desert. Expected time: 30 minutes Ingredients: Milk: 750mL Water Sugar: 2 Tbsp Rice: 2.5 Tbsp Ghee: 0.75 Tbsp Cashew: 50 grams Cardamom: 1 tsp Procedure: Melt the ghee and saute the rice and cashew in it for 1.5 minutes on high flame. Pour the milk, add sugar and cardamom and cook on low flame until rice is well cooked. Stir continuously.| keerthanapg.com
Originally Written here This summer, I donated ten inches of my hair to Pantene Beautiful Lengths that make wigs for people suffering from cancer. In the US alone, every year about 100,000 people take chemotherapy for cancer treatment and undergo hair loss. The process of donating is fairly simple and easy though it’s important to keep a thing or two in mind. Before - After What to note: Talk to others before you do it and be very sure you want to donate.| keerthanapg.com
.. and why this affects every Indian woman Originally Written here Source On September 28th, 2018, the Supreme Court of India ruled that women be granted entry at Sabarimala 6. Among other things one should note: Can the temple do as they please? It is been found that Ayyappa devotees do not constitute a religious denomination and as such are not immune to outside interference 1. The temple is a public place 2 and therefore when an Agama/tradition contradicts a fundamental right, the constitu...| keerthanapg.com
Originally posted on Medium Sourced from Google Images Do I ever cross your mind? If only as a brief flutter Do I ever make you wind? Your words, if only a stutter Do you ever think about me? Just one thought, if only, in your day I wish it was my hands that you reached out for I wish it was my lips that felt your kiss I wish it was me that you woke up to| keerthanapg.com
Originally posted here Part 1: Household Reflections It is an ordinary day for me. Rob and Jenny have left for work and I stroll the living room in a pointless trance, accompanied by a droning whizz of my motors. There is not a lot to life if you’re a cleaning robot. Unlike my cousins at the manufacturing shop, I do not go to the moon, I do not explore far away adventurous mines and be a hero saving people.| keerthanapg.com
A note of thanks Originally Written here “How strongly must one love knowing that you are unconvicted felons in the eyes of the law” — Menaka Guruswamy to bench of judges at Supreme Court, July 11 2018, during the hearing of petitions against section 377. On 6th September 2018, the Supreme Court of the largest democracy of the world struck down section 377, a colonial-era law that decriminalises homosexuality. In a unanimous verdict, with passionately written judgements, the law of our ...| keerthanapg.com
Originally posted here I spent the summer in the San Francisco Bay area, Sunnyvale to be precise. I was interning at Mercedes Benz R&D and had a significantly different(good different) internship experience! What did I do differently/What did I learn? Turned on extrovert mode: An internship or experience can become incredibly more fun if one can relate to other people in the same endeavour. I was marginally more successful at this since I took a voluntary effort to talk and I must say it paid...| keerthanapg.com
Originally Written here It’s healthy, tasty and complements well when you’re working on tough assignments :P Ingredients(makes 2 cups): Water — 1 cup Milk — 1 cup Sugar — based on preference Tea leaves — 2 tsps( I use Red Label brand and the strength of the tea depends on the brand somewhat. Green tea is weak) Ginger — small chunk (approx 2cm _ 2cm _ 0.5cm) Cardamom seeds — 0.| keerthanapg.com
What are optimal ways to donate for Kerala Flood Relief and Rescue if you live abroad? Originally Written here Here we’ve made a list of options for those based in the US/outside India to contribute to relief in Kerala floods. Each of them have been verified with a US based card. Do share more in links in comments, if you’re aware and we’ll analyse/verify/update. 1. The Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund website has recently added the functionality to accept international cards| keerthanapg.com
Originally Posted on Medium A storm still raged in the midst of sea, Where I had murdered you, I lost you, far away Your bloodstains mixed in the steam Like a whirlpool of red But far out in the sea where no one could see Your face haunts me My hands feeling, forever slippery with your blood If I’ve slain, why are you still tied to me Like an albatross around my neck| keerthanapg.com
Originally posted on Medium No, I will not be the decked up doll, Meant to please Dumbed down by the appropriate amount Draped in a tone of sugar and niceness Intellect and insanity stuffed down to a small chest Thrown into a sea Sinking deep in its bellies While the silent waves leave no hint Of the tempest that rages within I refuse to be the calm waves that kiss your feet| keerthanapg.com
Originally Posted on Medium A dream hung on like raindrops on power cables overhead A whole gleamy world in itself, a fairytale world Full of promises and enforced perfection, off a story book Walking on the tightrope of time, I emerged from the drop unscathed in the heart Or did the drop disappear altogether? I do not know. I do not remember. May be I was a fool that summoned the untrue| keerthanapg.com
Originally Written here Photograph by Kevin Frayer The photographer Kevin Frayer explains the scene: “I arrived to Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, in mid-September, a few weeks into the #Rohingya crisis. I was looking for places to photograph food aid because there was such a need for it and so little of it around. I was in an area where there was a crowd of people surrounding a truck. The scene was quite chaotic; people were shouting and reaching because they were obviously distraught and hungry.| keerthanapg.com
Originally posted on Medium Sourced from Google Images Hopping over puddles, in a little pink frock Hardly as tall as your knee cap, Grasping tightly your index, with an entire little pink palm Running to catch up with you, Even as you lift and place me Across small pools of water on the road Over time your pace slowed and mine picked up That you slowly heave to match my pace| keerthanapg.com
Originally Written here Unlike most of India that receives rains once, Kerala has two rounds of monsoons. The first of the season arrives in June when the advancing monsoons make bountiful our harvest and rake up our GDP numbers. The brief spell of unperturbed sunlight is broken by the retreating monsoons, popularly called ‘Thulavarsham’ for they occur in the month of October/’Thula’, taking their leave from the country having toured thoroughly.| keerthanapg.com
Originally Written here Preparation time- 35 minutes What you need: Tender chicken breasts — 0.5 pounds Olive oil — 2 table spoons Ginger garlic paste — 1 table spoon Pepper finely ground — 1 teaspoon Chilly powder — 0.25 teaspoon Garam masala — a pinch Turmeric powder— a pinch Lemon — a small slice Salt — as required How to: Mix the powders and ginger-garlic to a paste.| keerthanapg.com
Originally posted on Medium Normal waves Dampened by the sinking weights of hurt over years Unflinching today Unmoved Blanks eyes, and quizzical brows Witness doubtful cries Numb is the word To what I feel A game of rock, paper, scissors Defeated are those who show their guts Feeling small Laying it out there Bare, to be trampled on To be a display On the sidewalks of an uncaring passerby Screams fall on deaf ears| keerthanapg.com
Originally posted on Medium Sourced from Google Images The contours of your face Imprinted in my memories Your face, that I’ve worshiped Years went by The wheel of time and with it the pages of history piled But why, Why don’t they erase your face from my heart Why don’t they dirty it Tear your pristine portraits Why do you prevail Like the bizarre sorrow of a cold night| keerthanapg.com
The Case against Simultaneous Elections in India Originally Written here During his address on National Law Day 2017, PM Narendra Modi reiterated the push for implementing simultaneous elections in India, where Lok Sabha elections and Assembly polls of all states will be synced to happen once in 5 years, citing administrative difficulties and cost to exchequer. In the later half of this year, there has been much discussion about it, with Nitish Kumar 2, the Vice President 3, the controversial...| keerthanapg.com
Originally posted on Medium Image Reference Shedding leaves and pretenses Dropping off, pieces of one’s soul Carried in the wind, Passing on the living will Leaving bare bones, branches behind Shrinking in, staring within Introverted shrugging to oneself Quiet, unhindered Preparing to be hit By the the chill of loneliness A lazy winter and creeping cold Like cancer on your determination Spreading eerily, binding you Estranged frosty bite of a distilled purpose| keerthanapg.com
Speaking out on Sexual Harassment Originally Written here #metoo. When it has happened to Elizabeth Warren, why should you be reluctant to disclose. Several times. Waking up to find a grown man sleeping next to me on the same berth, tangled in his lungi as a 10 year old on pilgrimage with parents. Or being grabbed by a frail shriveled old man in a crowded street as I visited town for the first time without parents at 13; wondering why my pee-pee area would be of interest to anyone.| keerthanapg.com
Originally Posted on Medium A bag of thoughts we are a tiny little star sweltering pot a burning core at its heart likes and dislikes ambitions and idiosyncracies philosophies, glued together in a weak concoction of will A sphere of influence around we hold close ones As we journey through space, carrying our identities our baggage in a journey called life People come by, simering plasma like us, held together by their will| keerthanapg.com
If you're so smart, why are you unhappy?| keerthanapg.com
Originally Written here Sharing successful tidbits from my reluctant adventures as a student cook. :) Ingredients: Pasta — 1 cup Salsa sauce — 3 table spoons Cut up veggies — 3/5 cup Soy sauce — 1 tsp Garlic powder/paste — 1/2 tsp Ginger powder/paste — 1/4 tsp Chilli powder — 3/4 tsp Parmesan Cheese grated — 1/4 cup Mayonnaise — 1.5 tsp Pepper grated — 1 tsp Butter/ghee — 1 tsp Vegetable oil — 1 tsp Tomato sauce — 1 table spoon Salt — 1 tsp Turmeric powder — a pi...| keerthanapg.com
Originally posted on Medium From Google Images Third somebody in the room Like an impenetrable wall Between us. The mind knits careful words yearns for a soft feel of the cheeks pinches in anticipation of the kiss. Unsaid, undone. Cheesy sugary eternals Aborted, replaced with blank expressions All the love means nothing With a strange face in the room Not intimate, never alone.. Not two, always three. Cackling laughter that fills the room| keerthanapg.com
Originally Written here This is an account of a dream I had today: It was set in the years of the freedom movement in India and World War 2. Agricultural production had failed due to drought, war, plunder and loot by the imperialists to aid war supplies. My grandmother and I, two patriots on the run, lived in a small and claustrophobic mud-walled shack with a tiny door and window, in the basement of a busy school building.| keerthanapg.com
Roger Fisher, William Ury, Bruce Patton My rating: 3.94/5 This is a book on negotiation that talks about power, ethics, tactics and counter moves in negotiation. It is more about getting what you deserve than gaining more than your fair share. It makes sense to separate the people from the problem, focus on interests over positions, evaluate your alternatives and make the pie bigger for everyone. What I loved the most was the section on common negotiation tactics and how to identify and respo...| keerthanapg.com
Irvin D. Yalom My rating: 4.24/5 This book is an account of Yalom’s selected cases as a psychoanalyst. It’ll impart confidence to your own analysis of human nature and behaviours, and offer to enrich them with the practices and wisdom of an academic insider. What I found most surprising was dream interpretation. While I’ve always found dreams as abstract representations of everyday randomness, it was astonishing to realise that dreams are a clinically established means to investigate wh...| keerthanapg.com
Ben Horowitz My rating: 4.23/5 This is a wonderful book! It gives an insider’s view of how it feels to run a startup and decide between conflicting options. It makes even more sense if you’ve already run a startup to be able to understand the nuances and the significance of these choices and their context. From hiring for greatness than lack of weakness, networking to spot the PR managers that can turn chicken shit to chicken salad, from management debt to managing profanity in company cu...| keerthanapg.com
Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo My rating: 4.28/5 This book is an account of several trials done across India and Africa tied into a larger narrative in an attempt to understand the mindset of poor and what causes poverty. It talks about what incentives and circumstances around schemes make a difference in outcomes among the poor. It also explores what priorities and biases affect their decision making when it comes to spending and credit, health care, education and entrepreneurship.| keerthanapg.com
Yuval Noah Harari, Prottasha Prachurjo Sayed Fayej Ahmed (Translator) My rating: 4.39/5 spoiler alert This is an engaging book that briefly touches on the major milestones in the evolution of human beings from the ancient paleolithic period, our sustenance alongside Denisovans and Neanderthals, ancient civilisations to the free market ideology and genetic engineering of today. The author shares a number of wonderful insights to explain why certain events panned out that led to certain charact...| keerthanapg.com
William MacAskill My rating: 4.25/5 This book is about evaluating altruistic actions quantitatively and presents a number of interesting cases where widely-popular well-meaning efforts fell short. It also discusses simplistic frameworks to gauge effectiveness of actions and warns against being emotionally connected to causes. While the book doggedly mentions ‘doing the most good’ and discourages emotional attachment, I think altruism is non-existent without emotions and cannot be discusse...| keerthanapg.com
Henry Hazlitt My rating: 4.17/5 This was an okay read. The author often advocates policies without enough justifications, and which can be proved as ineffective assuming the Keynesian theory. It is replete with comparisons between a good economist and a bad economist, instructing on their generic personal traits(eg attention to detail) than how they’d decide/act in specific circumstances.| keerthanapg.com
Peter Thiel, Blake Masters My rating: 4.18/5 As the name suggests, 0-1 is the go-to notes for an aspiring tech start up founder. It is painfully honest and artfully brief with a lot of graphs and examples. Do read it if you hope to found a company, will hardly take a day.| keerthanapg.com
Richard Dawkins Rating 4.15/5 This is one book every person should read! Dawkins makes one question accepted norms and seeds thought-lings of bizzare possibilities . Have you ever wondered why a human fetus has more rights than an adult chimpanzee that can speak one or more human languages? Why do we think cannibalism is gross? We often consider ourselves as a nation, or a species, why not as a genus or as mammals or simply as animals and work for the collective good of say, the mammalian com...| keerthanapg.com
Darrell Huff, Irving Geis (Illustrator) My rating: 3.84/5 This is an amusing and extremely short read. Statistics is as much an art as it is a science, he claims. This book gave me an insight into the power of numbers in deception and persuasion. It alerted me to give a second thought into claims backed by stats, the major pitfalls to look for and the fact that even reputed organisations can make conscious and unconscious mistakes.| keerthanapg.com
Malcolm Gladwell My rating: 3.99/5 This is a lesson on social-psychology: how different factors come together to cause an epidemic, be it Baltimore’s Syphilis, Coke’s successful marketing campaign or the American Revolution. Personally, it introduced to me, for the first time, the 80-20 rule(and valuing employees), the connector-maven-salesman factor and the fact that ‘coke’ is the second most popular word in the world after’okay’. Definitely a good read. But Gladwell is no statis...| keerthanapg.com
Keith Ferrazzi My rating: 3.84/5 This is a must read that emphasises on connecting with people. The author has discussed several strategies that help one to reach out farther in everyday life. While it helps to know important people, this book treats people as means rather than ends in themselves. By the author’s logic, one can put a numeric value to relationships with different people based on their influence and stature, and that is a very unromantic and utilitarian world that treats rela...| keerthanapg.com
Dan Ariely My rating: 4.12/5 Most of us credit ourselves for being rational individuals and strive for logical consistency in things we do. If you are one, it might be a good idea to read this book and learn the edges of our reasoning. This book will make you question your honesty, your gullibility and your independence of thought. It’ll astound you how often we base decisions on seemingly insignificant factors, such as the appearance of a candidate.| keerthanapg.com
Malcolm Gladwell, Barry Fox, Irina Henegar (Translator) My rating: 3.95/5 Wonderful read this is! Fast paced,intriguing and spell binding at times! I loved the progressively advancing narrative substantiated by a variety of case studies and the clear-headed line of reasoning. This book is a brilliant aggregate of human behavior, how rapid cognition influences snap decisions and how good decisions with a high statistical precision can be arrived through thin-slicing cases. Amazed me.| keerthanapg.com
Marjane Satrapi Rating 4.37/5 Totally worth the three hours! This is an insider’s perspective of Iran’s cultural revolution, when their civilisation took a reverse journey amidst war and political instability. Chilling at times, and touching at others. What endeared this book to me is the female narrative, the innocence of her childhood and the courage to confess failures. Here’s the story of a little girl who aspired to grow up to be a prophet and forced to confirm into a society of ca...| keerthanapg.com
Robert T. Kiyosaki, Sharon L. Lechter My rating: 4.11/5 The book starts very promising seeking to counter conventional wisdom of money and investing, and presents quite a few motivational and creative ideas. However, the tone soon turns condescending where the author markets his style of investment, and lashes out at everyone and everything who does otherwise. As Keely here noted, it merely suggests what to do and intimidates the reader about the pitfalls of not doing, but the leaves the read...| keerthanapg.com
Stephen Hawking My rating: 4.20/5 Frankly, the book began quite promisingly and renders the reader hopes of understanding the origin of the universe. As the book proceeded, it became difficult to comprehend and finally ended with concepts like imaginary time and virtual histories all of which no makes no sense to the unassuming reader. However,it is commendable that Hawkings could put to words all of this without letting the reader taste the complicated math.| keerthanapg.com
Bill Bryson My rating: 4.20/5 This is a phenomenal book that traces the scientific history of the universe and the world, as we know it. It synthesizes for a layman a number of theories and facts about the birth of the universe, particle physics, formation of earth, plate tectonics and volcanic activity, the beginning, evolution and continuous extinction of life, among other things. It also traces the scientific revolution of the last 400 years and one cannot feel but astounded at how weakly ...| keerthanapg.com
Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner My rating: 4/5 A peculiar book. Intended to puzzle but not without exaggerations. Correlation and causality are often interchangeably used.| keerthanapg.com
J.D. Salinger My rating: 3.81/5 This is a very short book, quite a ramble though. The language is very vernacular, often plain and non-creative. It is slightly irritating at first, all the unnecessary emphasis, but one gets used to it. I don’t see why this book is a symbol of teenage rebellion, or why people like the protagonist at all. He generalizes a lot, blames a multitude of external factors for his circumstances and hates and stereotypes almost every other character.| keerthanapg.com
Edit: This was cross posted to EA forum, and is a heavily downvoted post in their community. You can see the discussion here A lot has been talked about SBF/FTX/EA but this coverage reminds me that is time to talk about the toxicity of the culture within EA communities, especially as it relates to women. EA circles, much like the group house in Bahamas, are widely incestous where people mix their work life (in EA cause areas), their often polyamorous love life and social life in one amalgomou...| keerthanapg.com
