The 5 AM Club & Alibaba – reviews


This is a rapid review of a book named the 5 AM Club that I recently abandoned after tolerating for about three-fourths of its length. Now, I have no intention of finishing it.

I was never a fan of Robin Sharma to start with. I disliked his most famous one, “The monk who sold his Ferrari”. For the same reason, I was skeptical about this one as well. I blame my purchase on some of my overenthusiastic friends for having recommended it to me. Definitely not for me.

Those who are planning to buy it, please be informed:

  1. It’s written as fiction, a rather boring one. The author is a lousy fiction writer.
  2. The fiction is a multilogue between a few people from various walks of life. What irritated me the most is that these people regularly and continuously spitting out motivational quotes as if it’s some sort of rap battle. I did not buy this book for infinite list quotes.
  3. I yawned through a few chapters, then FOMO kicked in. Did the book cover the 5 AM topic? Is it yet to be discussed? or are they gonna discuss world affairs first? Now that I have suspended the book, this will remain a mystery to me.
  4. A few like-minded people suggested that I should finish the book with few tricks. One advised that I skip a few specific chapters and jump into particular ones directly. Another told me that I should read only the italicized paragraphs and only visit the pages with images and their description. But I can’t do any of those through audible. 😦

I do not recommend it. Please take the good reviews on the internet with a pinch of salt. In my opinion, it’s a dull, badly fictionalized book. That’s it.

Another book I just finished is Alibaba – the house that Jack Ma built. It’s a biography. The book narrates chronicles and adventures on how he reached the place where he is. What makes it more interesting is that the book runs Jack’s rise to wealth in parallel with the evolution of Chinese free-market economics and regression in social communism. A good read. Go for it if this is the kind of book interests you.

One of the exciting wisdoms he provides is about the approach of catching a rabbit. Suppose, if there are nine rabbits on the ground, and you wish to capture one -Just focus on one. These rabbits obviously will run, skip, change course and even might hide in a hole. You should try things differently and change the strategy and tactic but never change the rabbit you earmarked. Good stuff. On a lighter note, I would never want to catch a rabbit. They belong in meadows and leave them there. Don’t bring rabies home.

Something to feel good about in 2050


Something to feel good about in 2050, while we cant afford a kg of onions in 2010 🙂

how China, India and Brazil will overtake the West by 2050
GDP projections to 2050: how the rankings change.

Read the complete article on “how China, India and Brazil will overtake the West by 2050” in Guardian datablog.

One more interesting presentation on all 200 countries.

Credits : Hans Rosling’s 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes – The Joy of Stats – BBC Four

India vs China – its On!


Looks like West is all ready with popcorn and Coke for next big action movie, “India vs China”. Its is now speculated that world politics of next century will be shaped by the progress and the relationship between these two countries. The Economist is the latest one to analyse the “Contest of the century” to compare the advantages and shortcomings if these two Asian rivals fight each other taking border dispute as a reason.

201034ldp001

Contest of the century

It reads

Why shouldn’t more be asked from a place that, as well as being the world’s most-populous country, is already its biggest exporter, its biggest car market, its biggest carbon-emitter and its biggest consumer of energy (a rank China itself, typically, contests)? As for changing the balance of power, the People’s Liberation Army’s steady upgrading of its technological capacity, its building of a blue-water navy and its fast-developing skills in outer space and cyberspace do not yet threaten American supremacy

India’s long-term prospects now look stronger. While China is about to see its working-age population shrink, India is enjoying the sort of bulge in manpower which brought sustained booms elsewhere in Asia. It is no longer inconceivable that its growth could outpace China’s for a considerable time. It has the advantage of democracy—at least as a pressure valve for discontent. And India’s army is, in numbers, second only to China’s and America’s: it has 100,000 soldiers in disputed Arunachal Pradesh (twice as many as America will soon have in Iraq). And because India does not threaten the West, it has powerful friends both on its own merits and as a counterweight to China.

This totally totally looks like a pre-conflict analysis.

Even for an unfortunate (yet stupid ) reason it happens, both the countries are not ready a fight, especially not India.

All above are based on aggregate GDP and military power, which obviously are large number for these states. but if you have a look few other factors(infographics), both India and China far behind.  Hope these priorities are understood before any steps taken to show power.

India Vs China
India Vs China

History of GDP


“China and India were the biggest economies in the world for almost all of the past 2000 years!”

I have heard about this before, heard the stories of Indian empires selling Gems in heaps, on footpath! One of them, (Vijayanagara Empire) had merchants bartering diamonds (dug in Golconda) with rice and wheat! Each one of those stones were described to be costing big fortunes, in the west. Looks like all true now, not in exact way.

I dint believe this in the beginning, hard to believe, isn’t it? How can such a country, just in 200 years, can come to this state ? All the laurels sung seemed exaggerations to me. As I explained earlier India is country of poets and philosophers, not historians and accountants. It’s hard to distinguish between history and poem.

Anyways, I found this cool info graphics, which paints world DGPs spread across two millenniums. I am searching for more statistical information on this, for personal interest, watch this space.

History of GDP
History of GDP

Credit for this compilation goes to Angus Maddison

Censored in China !!!


Hurrrray…!!! I am blocked in China. Chinese government thinks my blog is a threat and it can mislead people (towards democracy??).

tested via GreatWallofChaina

FAQs

Who is censoring?

The Chinese government has a tradition of keeping its watchful eye on all media. Since the rapid growth of the World Wide Web in the 1990s they have constantly invented new ways of censorship to control the world’s most democratic medium, the Internet, as well. Not everything on the Internet, readily available elsewhere, can be accessed from within China.

Who is censoring?

It is estimated that some 30,000 Chinese civil servants are monitoring Internet traffic and blocking content that is deemed undesirable. Typing in sensitive keywords such as ‘democracy’, ‘Falun Gong’ or ‘porno’ in a search engine results in an error message. Websites of a sensitive nature are being blocked. Internet service providers also (self)censor, as do individuals: many people do not express their real thoughts because they know these will be censored anyway.