Superclass by David Rothkopf

Rating: 3/5

This is not the peek into the lives of the rich, famous and powerful that I was expecting. It is a social commentary/analysis of the place of the superclass in the world (it is at the top).

No major insight, the author does not pick a fight even though this is such a polarising issue (pulling society apart). No strong statements, no big predictions.

Super Crunchers by Ian Ayres

2 stars out of 5

Picked it up because I am interested in data mining but I was already a bit disappointed when I saw that a co-author of freakonomics (I don't like that book very much) has a comment on the cover.

I didn't find anything wrong (inaccurate) in the book but it is very light and shallow. It contains many shallow examples of data mining but very little real insight. Good to know that many people on Amazon field the same way.

Games Indians play by V. Raghunathan

Rating: 2/5 stars

The book is incomplete, it does not provide a solution to the problem. Even the explanation of the problem is not very deep, or broad,or thorough.

He makes a good list of observations of Indianness, I especially liked the example of traffic on the two sides of the railway crossing : )

But he repeats variations of the prisoner's dilemma, the maximiser's problem, etc. over and over. He does not provide examples of working systems or how we could get out of our bad habits.

The preface by Infosys man Narayana Murthy is like a book review by a high-school student. He talks more about the book than he talks about the topic of the book, makes empty praise for the author.

But the author is a successful businessman, was a professor at IIM, then why is this book such a mess? Maybe he didn't put much effort into it?

Some cool ambient music - legal mp3 download

Found these through somafm, though I could not find a download for the specific track they were playing on radio I did find a remix and a few others. checkout:

http://www.ovarecords.com/discography/downloads/Awaken-Tardbass%20remix.mp3

And some whole albums for free download:
http://www.ovarecords.com/ova2/frame_whereyouare.htm
http://www.ovarecords.com/ova2/frame_satydownload.htm


do let me know if you know any other websites where i can find more ambient music. [i do listen to somafm and also buy from amazon.com mp3]

update 1: i have been listening to these songs over the last few days. very good and highly recommended.

why i like ambient music

I like ambient music very much, some of my favorite artists are perfume-tree, starseeds, etc. Thanks a lot to: http://somafm.com/

I have wondered about why I like this type of music. One possible explanation dawned on me a few days ago: I like ambient music because it makes my real life feel like a dream. Helps me detach from the present moment. This dreamy detachment is very attractive to me because dreams are a creation of the mind and so is a large part of real life.

Some free ambient music for download at: ... sorry can't find the link right now. will post later. in the meanwhile checkout:

foreign babes in china by rachel dewoskin

Rating: **

Not much depth or commentary on the culture. Missed a good opportunity. I have never visited China but I think this book only represent a small part of the society, and that too not a very interesting part for me.