Variety is the spice of life

When I first heard the term IOB, I thought it was something related to that bank. We’ve one of its branch office, very near to our street, in existence for more than 5 6 decades. The more I began to read about it, the more I realized it had nothing to do with the bank, but a whole different concept called Internet of Behaviors. I have vaguely heard of IOT – Internet of Things. But this was not just a new term but was quite intriguing as a title in itself. Quite interestingly it was aptly named as well. As a consumer, as an end user, as a professional, as a kid or as any other categorization possible, the general classification of user behaviour on the net, how it can be mined or analyzed to arrive at custom solutions, packaged on the need of the individual, happens to be the gist of this concept. Couple of weeks back I was reading about hyper personalization. The term was the buzz word with the famous cadbury’s ad, using AI, rousing the interests of many about this topic. One thing tha...

Indian cricket would have given so many scripts for Grimm brothers that their fairy tale series would’ve had so many moments that would’ve made that blood pumping organ, break into pieces many times, miss a beat on million occasions and jump with joy at times when everyone think of an otherwise result. The miracle at Gabba - would be an apt name I guess for the last match in the Border-Gavaskar series (2020-21). If at all there was a David vs Goliath parlance in test cricket, this would’ve been it. Your top pacer and top spinner are out. 4 of your batsmen were never part of the original team list. The main pacer who was included as the best fit for the pitch, limps off with just 7 overs, with the rest of the bowling squad having a sum total of test match experience which will leave couple of fingers vacant and still be counted in one hand. The wicketkeeper was carrying an injury from previous match and even fit, his catching skills were borderline lucky. This is a team you’ve to marsha...

After a long time, a movie review post!! The hype around the movie was the main reason behind this post. It has been a much awaited and much delayed one for almost an year now, with several teasers and constant news about the movie keeping it afresh on viewers mind. In fact the family drama around Vijay’s dad launching a political party without vijay’s knowledge, their much publicized fight, the controversies around raids on his house, everything was used to gain the publicity mileage around this mega expensive movie. What could’ve been the costliest release for Amazon, turned out on theaters and brought back the crowds in big numbers for ticket booking, Corona be damned. There was a direct conflict with center and state with former restricting seating capacity to half while latter allowing full capacity, distributors who paid through their noses be damned. Was the movie worth it with a new age cinema director of 2 hits old helming the film? die-hard fans who braved their lives and wan...

I am fascinated by origin stories of famous personalities. Like how their first attempts at fame would’ve been received on their area of expertise. Especially for novelists I am always curious as to how the first novel was received, how much they’ve changed their style over the years and their first success story, how different or unique it was for that time etc. I am hell bent on reading all of Agatha christie’s Poirot novels at the least and wanted to read her first novel for long. Happened to get a copy recently and needless to say, the master has been shining bright right from her debut. The more I read her novels, the more fascinating it becomes especially considering the timing of those books. How she could’ve made herself so versatile? How she could’ve got so many references? I read that she was much married and travelled a lot. But still her grasp of poisons, laws, human psyche, criminal procedures have all been absolutely riveting. All the more curious has been her brilliant c...

Sapiens was probably the most different of all the books that I’ve read and was super impressed with the author. Homo Deus, as rightly highlighted by Thala when I had mentioned last year that I was planning to start with it, had been quite a different experience. It was very dark and hard hitting even for a vegetarian like me. All said, I didn’t finish even 1/3rd of the book the whole of last year as I found the content too disturbing, especially around the way humans have domesticated animals, the food needs, how we treat other species especially the animals being mass produced for food, how we’ve become the scourge of this planet for other species etc. It was very depressing to read and couldn’t be more honest of an account. I’ve seen complaints on newspapers and been quite vocal about stray dogs and their menace. After reading this book, the outlook changed totally. I still can’t stand to think of pigs and pigsties. But from the perspective of food industry, poultry farms and pigsti...