Kiran Hegde's Blog

Kiran's 2020 reads

2020-11-23T11:24:00.002-05:00

2020 Reading Challenge

Kiran has read 39 books toward their goal of 50 books.

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39 of 50 (78%)

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Kiran's 2019 Reads

2019-03-09T19:50:00.001-05:00

2019 Reading Challenge

Kiran has read 11 books toward their goal of 50 books.

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11 of 50 (22%)

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Kiran's reads in 2018

2018-01-29T17:17:00.000-05:00

2018 Reading Challenge

Kiran has read 2 books toward their goal of 50 books.

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2 of 50 (4%)

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Kiran's Reads in 2017

2017-09-22T13:34:00.002-04:00

2017 Reading Challenge

Kiran has read 34 books toward their goal of 50 books.

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34 of 50 (68%)

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Kiran's Reads in 2016

2016-03-25T10:31:00.005-04:00

2016 Reading Challenge

Kiran has read 14 books toward his goal of 50 books.

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14 of 50 (28%)

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What Kiran read in 2015?

2015-12-31T22:28:00.000-05:00

Spring Integration in Action - sometime in between
Just finished reading this book:"The Power of Full Engagement:" by Jim Loehr, @tonyschwartz https://t.co/HelcETsOQl pic.twitter.com/kACQLtyCy1
— Kiran Hegde (@hegdekiranr) December 26, 2015
Just finished reading this book: "The Power of #Habit " by Charles Duhigg https://t.co/rWdMH6zCPf pic.twitter.com/8c44Takkk5
— Kiran Hegde (@hegdekiranr) December 14, 2015
Just finished reading this book:"#Thrive : The Third Metric to Redefining…" by @ariannahuff https://t.co/4jqJCbAcyJ pic.twitter.com/onzfn3qa7w
— Kiran Hegde (@hegdekiranr) December 13, 2015
Just finished reading this book:Driven to Distraction at Work:How to #Focus by Ned Hallowell https://t.co/oQwFhvjIVu pic.twitter.com/Qiyrizx5AX
— Kiran Hegde (@hegdekiranr) December 12, 2015
Just finished reading this book: "@elonmusk : #Tesla , @SpaceX & the Quest " by AshleeVance https://t.co/RWZZMieAhu pic.twitter.com/io2J8WM7uS
— Kiran Hegde (@hegdekiranr) December 3, 2015
Just finished reading this book: "Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman https://t.co/SWrqznR4XE pic.twitter.com/iq22U7S5Jc
— Kiran Hegde (@hegdekiranr) November 29, 2015
Just finished reading Pro Spring Batch (Expert's Voice in Spring) by Michael Minellahttps://t.co/5Gcji9e8yo
— Kiran Hegde (@hegdekiranr) November 24, 2015
A Fantastic book I finished reading, " #Focus: The Hidden Driver of…" by #DanielGoleman : https://t.co/hLcEznSipX pic.twitter.com/Ap43pkEIGa
— Kiran Hegde (@hegdekiranr) October 31, 2015
Check out this book I finished reading, "The Organized Mind: Thinking…" by Daniel J. Levitin: http://t.co/ebhhSyTKBC pic.twitter.com/IM3eG79LH4
— Kiran Hegde (@hegdekiranr) August 22, 2015
I just finished The #TippingPoint : How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm @Gladwell, on Kindle for Android!
— Kiran Hegde (@hegdekiranr) March 18, 2015
I just finished reading "Think Like a Freak": The Authors of #Freakonomics by Levitt, Steven D.; Dubner, Stephen J. on Kindle for Android!
— Kiran Hegde (@hegdekiranr) March 9, 2015
I just finished "What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Gladwell, Malcolm" on Kindle for Android!
— Kiran Hegde (@hegdekiranr) March 1, 2015
I finished reading #Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by #Gladwell Malcolm on Kindle for Android!
— Kiran Hegde (@hegdekiranr) February 7, 2015

The #TippingPoint : How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm @Gladwell

2015-03-18T16:34:00.000-04:00

I just finished The #TippingPoint : How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm @Gladwell, on Kindle for Android!
— Kiran Hegde (@hegdekiranr) March 18, 2015

Think Like a Freak

2015-03-06T18:53:00.001-05:00

Interesting excerpt from a Book I am currently reading - "How to Think Like a Freak" by Steven Levett (Pulitzer Prize winner equal to Nobel Prize in Literature)

A tough Question:
A little girl named Mary goes to the beach with her mother and brother. They drive there in a red car. At the beach they swim, eat some ice cream, play in the sand, and have sandwiches for lunch. Now the questions:
1. What color was the car?
2. Did they have fish and chips for lunch?
3. Did they listen to music in the car?
4. Did they drink lemonade with lunch?
All right, how’d you do?

Let’s compare your answers to those of a bunch of British schoolchildren, aged five to nine, who were given this quiz by academic researchers. Nearly all the children got the first two questions right (“red”and “no”). But the children did much worse with questions 3 and 4. Why?
Those questions were unanswerable—there simply wasn’t enough information given in the story. And yet a whopping 76 percent of the children answered these questions either yes or no. Kids who try to bluff their way through a simple quiz like this are right on track for careers in business and politics, where almost no one ever admits to not knowing anything.

If the consequences of pretending to know can be so damaging, why do people keep doing it? That’s easy: in most cases, the cost of saying “I don’t know” higher than the cost of being wrong—at least for the individual.

If you say the stock market will triple within twelve months and it actually does, you will be celebrated for years (and paid well for future predictions). What happens if the market crashes instead? No worries. Your prediction will already be forgotten. Since almost no one has a strong incentive to keep track of everyone else’s bad predictions, it costs almost nothing to pretend you know what will happen in the future. In 2011,

For most people, it is much harder to say I don’t know. That’s a shame, for until you can admit what you don’t yet know, however that makes it virtually impossible to learn what you need to (for Real Success!).

I just finished reading "Think Like a Freak": The Authors of #Freakonomics by Levitt, Steven D.; Dubner, Stephen J. on Kindle for Android!
— Kiran Hegde (@hegdekiranr) March 9, 2015

"What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Gladwell, Malcolm"

2015-02-28T16:37:00.000-05:00

I just finished "What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Gladwell, Malcolm" on Kindle for Android!
— Kiran Hegde (@hegdekiranr) March 1, 2015

Terms & Conditions Apply

2014-06-17T16:43:00.001-04:00

This relatively new Documentary on Netflix has interesting title.
And interestingly it points out multiple dimensions to our private data stores on "Free" online Social Networking sites.
The New York Times presents details here http://goo.gl/lkpsck

And then you appreciate following post of WhatsApp about why they dont sell ads
http://blog.whatsapp.com/245/Why-we-dont-sell-ads

Few Financial Crisis Documentaries

2013-12-31T13:49:00.000-05:00

Got hooked up to a few financial crisis documentaries and was trying to understand about the 2008 Collapse

This Link gives a list of Top 15 Financial documentaries with a lot more comprehensive ratings, , how ever

Below are few trailers :

One that I watched dozens of time, is #InsideJob

The Flaw is the next documentary with insights at grass root levels, Synopsis of the movie is worth reading

Overdose: The Next Financial Crisis is quite worth a watch as well

This documentary Maxed out gives considerable examples of what it meant for different sections of the society and what are motivations and side effects of especially Credit card debt..

Bachpana

2013-04-30T20:55:00.001-04:00

एक बचपना था तभी ऐसे
झुंझला जाते थे छोटी बातों में नजाने क्यू और कैसे ,
धडकने तेज़ हो जाती और आँखें कपकपाती
मनो लाल रंग कोइला का हो वैसे !

आज हस्ते हैं उन खयालो में ऐसे ,
मुस्कुराते हैं सोच कर नादानीया थी कैसे ,
ज़हन में कुछ बेचैनिय बस जाती थी
वजय का अता पता न होता वैसे !

कुछ समां पते उस वक़्त में हस्ते हुए ऐसे ,
रह जाती वोह यादें एक चेहेकती हसी जैसे ,
खुद पर हसना इतना मुश्किल भी न था
पर वोह बचपना कहाँ हँसा पता हमे वैसे !

कुछ बदल पाते उन गुज़रे लम्हों को ऐसे ,
उन गुजरे कल में तबदीली होती आज जैसे ,
कुछ तसल्ली और संतोषण शायद ज़यादा होता
पर गुजरे वक़्त के बाद ही ,
बचपने का एह्सास होता हैं वैसे !!

- Kiran Hegde

Why few Hindi Movies are Impractical?

2013-04-21T00:36:00.000-04:00

Rahul & Sonam are back after watching the movie "Barfi" and Rahul had an opinion!!

Rahul: Its a good movie from conceptual point, extremely well acted, enacted but absolutely impractical from a real life stand point...
A sane lady can have soft corner for a dumb & deaf guy is understandable, she may also help him at various point in life, But "love" for what reason? - Just coz he is a good clown?

Sonam: Rahul in first place you are being a little insensitive to people with disabilities that's not right!

Rahul : Ok sorry about that, I didn't mean to be insensitive but then..In the end she says She could have been in place of Jhilmil as his wife but since Jhilmil loved her without being judgmental about him and not thinking of consequences so they lived Happily ever after...
That's too good too be true, a typical movie's perfect story lines and superlatively perfect situations..
The probability that one falls into right situations without analyzing the situation? 10% ? 20% ? 50% ? and chances of 100% ?
The probability of a person who kidnaps being good, then probability of him taking care of her perfectly well after he elopes to a distant place in Kolkata, the probability that he wont take any undue advantage of her in anyway?

Sonam : Love is abstract without much reasoning at times...
Rahul : Ok! Agree with you but such perfect situations are true like you said "at times" or at-least not most of the times, its not that easy - A common man juggles and struggles just for basics and essentials..
And the movies shows its a easy life with Only "Love"..
"Love" like "Money" is important but then its not one and only thing that would be self-sufficient in itself!

Sonam : Makes sense but then its just a movie..
Rahul : Ya it is "Just" a Movie, but don't these movies influence our mind? Thereby painting an irrational, impractical picture about "Love and Life", Given that handling of such situations are not taught in school Movies happen to be potential power..

Sonal : Hahaha ! And seems like you are jealous of its power!! :-P
Rahul : Lol! I am too small to be jealous, but then to make a point, When the movies went through an era of Love based eloping they were statistically on rise and so on when parental consent were treated as important in movies and serials "that" was on rise and so on for suicides etc etc...

Sonam: But movies will always have freedom of expression, anything concept marketable, sell-able & legal is enough!
Rahul: Hmmmm and our opinions about them - increase their Marketability :-)

Diaries : Visit to Washington DC

2012-11-22T18:47:00.000-05:00

Pics around Washington DC

Lincoln Memorial

Diaries : Visit to Niagara Falls

2012-10-07T17:24:00.001-04:00

Diaries:Boston Pops 4Th Of July Fireworks

2012-07-04T23:30:00.000-04:00

Diaries:Boston Dragon Boat Festival

2012-06-19T21:16:00.001-04:00

Book Review - The Accidental Billionaires - Story of Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg et.al

2012-02-11T18:15:00.001-05:00

I just finished reading the book The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal by Ben Mezrich - its a story primarily focused on how it all happened at facebook.com with Mark Zuckerburg , his VC venture capitalist friend and mentor Sean Parker, his co-programmer Dustin , initial co-founding friend Eduardo Saverin et.al.

As its stated in the Author's Note - Its a dramatic, narrative account based on dozens of interviews, hundreds of sources and notes from court proceedings which is summed up by author as what can be called as story of Facebook.

The book is narrative from various vantage points viz. The initial funding kid Eduardo who is co-founder and Sean at times who is also stated as co-founding president but for Mark there is not statements from him as the author states that he has refused !

Short Description of people involved :
Mark is described as a kind of Introvert guy but an obvious programming genius.
Winklevoss Brothers - (Tyle & Cameron) and Divya Narendra - who claimed that Facebook was their idea which they later conceived in form of Harvard Connection but not to mention that it didnt pick up like Facebook did.
On a different note they sued Facebook and Mark and won a significant payout in vicinity of sixty-five million dollars.
Other interesting mentions : Divya Narendra is children of India origin parents and Winklevoss brothers competed in U.S. Olympic rowing team in 2008 Beijing Olympics, placing sixth in the men's pair competition.
Eduardo Saverin : The initial seed funding friend of Mark who had been looking at business side in the initial days.
Sean Parker : The VC friend who drives facebook.com from a small plant to a Big Tree which his VC connections.

The Story:
It starts with house Mark gets pissed of with a girl & starts programming on something to just take her off his mind and that was Harvard Face Mash which was an application which used to rate person based on their pics and all the pics were hacked in from various servers on the campus which used to maintain their details.

It was an instant hit, but then he closed escapes from being expelled and obviously tarnishing his reputation to some extent especially amongst the campus gals ;-) and like wise giving him publicity too..

This leads to the Winklevoss Brothers and Divya to approach him to program him on their website which they had been apparently working for some time. There is mention of exchange of 52 emails between Mark and them where in Mark reason for not having enough time but then later on going on and launching thefacebook.com

Facebook grows, Mark eventually meets Sean and on his advice they move to California, the turning point is when a VC Peter Theil promises funding of $5,00,000 and rest as they say is History..

Quotable Quotes :
"Certainly, he (Eduardo) had no way of knowing, then or now, that the kkid with the curly hair was one day going to take the entire concept of a social network and turn it on head"

After Sean thought he might get arrested at some party
"The odds are good that Mark was at the Facebook offices at the time - because he was almost always at those offices.
"May be it was still the middle of the night, or may be early morning; time had never been a very useful concept to Mark, just twitches in a clock that had no real-world purpose, no claim or innate value."

"Sean Parker was a genius, and he'd been instrumental in getting Facebook to where it was now. Sean Parker was one of the Mark's heroes and would always be a mentor, an adviser, and maybe even a friend"

Learn able Notes:
The focus and vision of Mark has been seen throughout the story
Similarly focus and hunting by the VCs like Sean and the energy and pace they bring to the table gives example of collaborating.

Movie: The movie Social Network is based on this book.
An excellent movie which is very engaging and interesting through out...
As mentioned here, "You dont get into 500 million friends without making a few enemies!"

Every one has a heart too !!

2012-01-08T19:55:00.003-05:00

"Where are you lost?" said Diana, Raj's team mate at her usual coffee time discussion at office

"Ohh nothing serious" - Actually I was reading Chetan Bhagat's new book Revolution 2020 and I was struck by these lines

"She (Aarti - a girl in the story) could never understand that losers(aka Gopal - himself who states this line), even if they do not have a brain, have a heart."

"So?" asked Diana

Nothing much! But its a humbling statement for me some how..
We lost patience over so many circumstances, people - a few of them our own very close and a few of them unknown..

"Example?" Diana asked again

"We some times feel some one has not done some piece of work up to a mark especially at work place and so does someone else some times feels about you too..

But the catch is..
In a bracket of short time frame it feels as if some one is a loser but the question is do you or some one else thinks enough before reacting
Shouldn't we think a hundred times on how some one should be reacted
i.e. with due respect to the person..
Don't we have to remember that everyone has a heart too..?

This is one example..
"The wierd ways Parents react when you do mistakes, before you react you have to remember they have a heart too..
Ditto for your child too, you need to remember that it has got a heart which might get hurt!
So on and so forth for your friends, few of those Skeptical relatives or even your closest loved one.. ;-)"

"Got it!!Makes lot of sense!!"
"Cheers man.. "

Happy New Year 2012!

2011-12-31T15:42:00.000-05:00

Chetan bhagat's Book - Revolution 2020

2011-12-10T01:57:00.001-05:00

Abt the book in Short :

Raghav, Gopal and Aarti are childhood friends who grow up together. Professionally Raghav becomes a IT-BHU grad, Aarti interests lie around becoming an Air-Hostess & Gopal a wannabe engineer studies at an engineering college in his city after his 2nd try at IIT entrance.

Series of dates for years between Gopal and Aarti ends with Aarti & Raghav getting along together.
Gopal sets up a college with a surprising help from a local politician and becomes Financially successfull. Raghav opts out of Infosys placement after studies to become a journalist, his article and newpaper exposes the same politician's scams and blows him out of power.
A bit of Raghav's following his work and negligence of the relationship with Aaarti and a bit of her attracted towards Gopal with his display of power & money turns her towards Gopal but eventually Gopal screws up the relationship.
End of story shows up Raghav turning a politician after marrying Aarti "who's family is already into politics" which was portrayed as Gopal's would be status in mid part of the story.

Quotable quotes - Didn't highlight something inspirational.. :-)
Learn able Notes :

1. Follow your passion (perhaps chetan’s philosophy also..)

2. A some one "nobody" with out capability can be so called "successfull" with influence or money get used to it and at the same time you can work hard enough you could win too...

3. Society stereotyped definitions of "Sucess" are too many - dont let them calm your inner voice..

Devils Advocacy :

A not so dark side story about the Love & some what coherence to academic/professional Success, Education as a business which includes running of coaching classes to running engineering colleges wherein its ties with Politics is highlighted.

A too much of IIT glorification at times.

A nice representation of what success means to most many on-lookers, friends and parents which is most of the times within bracket of high ranks and a good job.

Following one's passions means being ready to face difficulties, again silent criticism of Indian corruption which favours the corrupt which most of us become comfortable with eventually.

An extremely good example of what it means to live with corruption and stand up against corruption. Can a small locally printed paper - printing few hundred copies blow up an influential political leader? May be ?
Some times its just that if fulfills a reader's fancy may it be fulfilling expectation of changing system or a turning around one's dream girl from someone else..

An extremely abrupt turn in the end which shows Gopal screws up his relationship with his girl friend, no one who is hiring such types of girls for his delegate or business partners would get them into his house or rather even allow & even if he does - incase of a shared institutional house as in the story would probably not bring them in such places or mess with them...

Diaries - Taking Snap of Petronas Towers

2011-11-26T18:48:00.000-05:00

Recent visit to Kuala Lumpur, one of the most exicting parts had been capturing photographs of "Petronas".

Whats Petronas?
Its Malaysia's iconic building which you must have seen couple of times in this particular country's Tourism advertisements.
Petronas is National Petrolium company of Malaysia
For more details we can read here

Back to the point, most Visiting Petronas was like swift, we went up to the 42nd Floor, took a few snaps like ones below..

So what??
The problem was capturing someone with tower from ground floor..

I got to know much later that we need something called as wide-angle lens to capture wide landscapes of this type...
But for now I had to do something like below to capture some one's snap, but believe me it was fun..

Diaries - Pics of few Aircrafts

2011-11-12T16:34:00.001-05:00

On few recent journeys, I caught fancy capturing pics of Aircrafts , here are a few of them

Pls notice a landing Aircraft at distant Back ground of British Airways Aircraft...

American Airlines

Srilankan Airlines

Orient Thai

Singapore Airlines

Oman Air

Air Asia - Completely Colorful

Qatar

Virgin

Deepavali Rangoli-Cubicle Decoration - Lantern Making - Bollywood dressing theme in office

2011-10-20T15:13:00.000-04:00

It was Deepavali season, and there were a few competitions in office namely

Rangoli
Lantern Making
Bollywood dressing theme (Most interesting ;-) )

All below pics are taken in office except for this first one - which is Rangoli by my Brother at home for Deepavali

Pics from here onwards are taken at office..

The Lantern making competition...

With Mangal Pandey ;-)

RIP - Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T13:19:00.001-04:00

Today being a festive day, after the customary stuff which went on till we finished noon lunch, just got into a regular channel wandering with remote..
Interestingly some Hindi News channel displaying Steve Jobs video got me hooked still no clue that he is no more :-(
There was some thing that was gathering on back of my mind - whats wrong??
Oops, he is 'No more!!' :-(

I spent almost whole evening browsing about him..
Opened my Reading List window to see below - It was just all about him...

And my mom was like - Its OK, why don't u guys stop discussing it..
But I could hardly explain her - In what way he has inspired each one of us!

RIP - Steve Jobs!

Kiran Hegde's Blog

Kiran's 2020 reads

2020 Reading Challenge

Kiran's 2020 book montage

Kiran's 2019 Reads

2019 Reading Challenge

Kiran's 2019 book montage

Kiran's reads in 2018

2018 Reading Challenge

Kiran's 2018 book montage

Kiran's Reads in 2017

2017 Reading Challenge

Kiran's 2017 book montage

Kiran's Reads in 2016

2016 Reading Challenge

Kiran's 2016 book montage

What Kiran read in 2015?

The #TippingPoint : How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm @Gladwell

Think Like a Freak

"What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Gladwell, Malcolm"

Terms & Conditions Apply

Few Financial Crisis Documentaries

Bachpana

Why few Hindi Movies are Impractical?

Diaries : Visit to Washington DC

Diaries : Visit to Niagara Falls

Diaries:Boston Pops 4Th Of July Fireworks

Diaries:Boston Dragon Boat Festival

Book Review - The Accidental Billionaires - Story of Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg et.al

Every one has a heart too !!

Happy New Year 2012!

Chetan bhagat's Book - Revolution 2020

Diaries - Taking Snap of Petronas Towers

Diaries - Pics of few Aircrafts

Deepavali Rangoli-Cubicle Decoration - Lantern Making - Bollywood dressing theme in office

RIP - Steve Jobs