Phone a friend

Read a few weeks back that it has been 10 years since iphone was launched, that's the device that spawned the 'smartphone' era. Having any smartphone in pocket has totally transformed our lives for the better I believe. There is suddenly renewed discussion and flurry of articles examining the role of smartphones the good, the bad and the ugly part. I for one have always been an early adopter for these technological advances and think it has really really helped make our lives better. It is of course upto individual on how to effectively use the phone in their lives.

I wanted to cover this in a couple of posts as smartphone which I will just call as phone going forward has helped me.  But a personal anecdote to get started

If I needed to go somewhere on my own, I used to ask my friends for directions, bus route/number, some landmarks etc to reach my destination.There used to be an era not too long back when phone used to be something for just talking. But things have changed rapidly in last 4-5 years, everything is available online. Any information you need you can get it online through message boards, blogs or social media. Availability of information and quality of info became even better and more easy to access with advent of smartphones

While I used to depend on lot of people I knew in any place I moved into to find my way around including Seattle when I moved there in 2013, moving to Dallas in 2015 was different. I did not know too many people here, had no friends at all here. So everything from apartment hunt, restaurants, grocery stores was all identified only most often through phone. 

It was early Dec and the winter was just setting in and as expectant dad was trying my best to support my wife who was in the 2nd trimester of her pregnancy. It was a weekday and suddenly in the afternoon she told me she wanted to eat a hot pretzel. Now keeping my wife happy always is my goal and during pregnancy was doubly focused on making her happy and satisfying any craving during this stage. But it happened to be a week-day and though both of us were working from home and it was not exactly the busiest time of the year it was still a working day. None of that was going to stop me even though she immediately said it was ok, we can go and eat during weekend. It was almost 3 PM and I had my next conference call at 4 PM and the shop in question was in a mall nearby which meant I could make the round trip in 30-40 mins. So I could easily go, order and pick up hot pretzel and get back and eat and still have some time to spare before next call.

So I set out on mission pretzel and as I was driving the distance of 5 miles to the nearby mall the radio was playing some 90s Hindi film music adding to my already upbeat mood in having managed to sneak out during middle of a working day. All was fine until I reached the mall which was a huge sprawling property as land is never in short supply in Texas. So this meant the parking was at ground level and unfortunately the entrance usually has lot of visitors and hence parking is always difficult. It was no different that day, as it was cold I did not fancy parking far away and walking to the mall entrance. Then at the very last minute I saw a vacant slot at ideal place from corner of my eye. With great joy I swung my car at last minute to the slot and I think it was combination of quick sharp turn and my heady celebratory mood and plain dumb luck perhaps but what happened was I parked and the steering wheel seemed to have moved too much that it just got stuck and decided to stay put. 

I was not sure what happened and got out and car seemed to be parked fine though wheels were not aligned, but I had a feeling something was not right with the way I parked. So went in and tried to turn the steering wheel to align the front wheels and found that the thing was stuck. Was it broken? I was not sure, I had no idea what just happened. Suddenly things had changed. The car was not new but was doing pretty well and major breakdowns meant lot of money for a car like that. Something I could certainly do without at any point especially at that time. I had no clue what to do and first impulse was to call home but did not want my wife to worry and feel guilty about sending me out. Then there was that meeting I was supposed to attend via phone in sometime.and it will look very bad if I did not turn up as I did not inform anyone before stepping away. It was cold outside but I was feeling hot near my neck, you are just nervous I told myself and you are panicking. Even at that stage I knew standing there dazed and confused was not going to help. So went into the car and just sat back to think for a minute on what to do next and take a few deep breaths while I was at it.

Then I turned to my trusted friend - my phone and started 'googling' about this, just took me a few seconds to type the right words and the friendly auto-suggest did the rest and I had some promising links infront of me on screen. One of which was a youtube video on how to fix the steering if it got locked. 2 mins of video watching later, I got the car steering unlocked and managed to smile at the ridiculousness of the solution. It was unreal how quickly the problem got fixed, it was infact like having a friend around right when you need. That pretzel sure tasted even better than ever before

2016 - List of Books

This is the annual list of books post that I have been putting up for 5-6 years now. Someone did ask me earlier this year what was the point of counting books, thats a good question. I love reading but unlike in past there are several other things to occupy your time and sometimes setting targets is what helps us do even things we like.  Putting up this sort of list does motivate me to spend some more time reading rather than watching tv or some other activity and does give an opportunity to talk about it with others and hopefully get to know about some more good books.Was not hoping to read too many books this year with all that excitement in life and was pleasantly surprised that I did read 16 books. Not bad at all!

Massively helped by Kindle, I'm so happy I decided to switch to e-books a few years back that has certainly helped me read quite a bit. Now lunch time at office or waiting for car to be serviced etc has been transformed easily into reading time. Sure it is not like a holding a physical book, but a good book is a good book it makes you forget the quality of print or if it is electronic and just transports you into a different universe

Again another year with minimal fiction, just read 2 I think and all others have been non-fiction. That phase of life I guess :)  Also the list below does not cover several baby and parenting books I read

So without much ado the list for 2016 :

1.Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson

Bryson has become of my favorite authors for his style of narration and this was a delight as Bryson revisits Britain. Great combination of humor and interesting insight and trivia, read this book on and off and books like this are ideal for reading this way.

2.City of Victory: The Rise and Fall of Vijayanagara - Ratnakar Sadasyula

This is about Vijayanagara empire, how it rose to glory and how it faded away. This is written by someone I know, the author is an IT professional who I had interacted with on social media. He is an avid quizzer and trivia buff and it is wonderful to see someone successfully move from writing code to writing books as well!  This was a good read and also hoping to read more on other South Indian kingdoms

3.One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment - Mei Fong

Chinese growth and policies were always object of wonder for folks like me from a chaotic democracy where consensus evolves over time and radical decisions are very rare. As with any system there is always something that is wrong even if things look well. The book is solid reporting at ground level of the damage wrecked by one-child policy imposed by the rulers on China. Author believes this was the most damaging policy decisions taken ever in the world and explores various facets of this decision and the impact on the country. It is equally tragic and horrific, the tales that emerge of parents who have are forced into late term abortions or kids snatched away. Almost like the cultural revolution but this time accepted better by people who believed this was for the good of the nation. I was more looking for people stories and how a whole generation of kids without any siblings are coping, how a two single kid families support their parents and Fong does cover that but not in detail. The scope is pretty vast as she makes her case against this policy which the govt of China eventually relaxed recently

4.Playing It My Way: My Autobiography - Sachin Tendulkar

Written by Boria actually, it was truly bore ya!

I perked up when I read passages related to Multan test, when Dravid declared with Sachin at 194. Sachin was upset then and he still is at being denied a shot at double hundred, he truly believes the landmarks count as well and does not see this a purely individual thing! Mumbai thing I guess. Guru Greg is slammed as well with some stories of how bad he was and there is some personal anecdotes but otherwise was a snoozefest. It was readable for sure, but no one reads the autobiography of India's most popular cricketer and most famous sportsperson to get highlights reel with scorecard ( yes they actually had it in the book) of most of the matches. Instead of free spirited Sachin of 90s, it was a painful accumulator on view. Expected a bit more from my most favorite cricketer


5.The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts - Joshua Hamme

'Timbuktu' in the title caught my attention, this is an incredible true story of how some ordinary folks waged an extraordinary resistance against Islamic terror reign of Al Qaeda in Mali to save huge trove of precious centuries old manuscripts. Good story it was, thriller as the title seems to suggest it was not. Also led me to read up quite a bit on rise of Islamic terror in Africa and also covered Islamic world in Africa with its own culture of music and various traditions and laws before Wahhabi ideology spread


6.When to Rob a Bank: ... And 131 more Warped Suggestions and Well Intended Rants - Steven D Levitt

7. The World of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin

When season 6 of Game of thrones ended, after a few weeks I started missing the world of Westeros and then found this companion book in my library and borrowed it on my kindle. This was written by GRRM along with some other assistants to give fans something to read while he takes eternity to write the next book. This was lightweight stuff, history of Westeros and covered some good background to the whole story was a fun read. The book is not Martin or any author narrating events straight forward, rather interestingly this is shaped like a modern history book which pieces together events from various sources or narrators some of which even contradict each other and the book writer deduces what might have happened and presents it to us

8.The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories - Ken Liu

9.Hogwarts: An Incomplete and Unreliable Guide (Kindle Single) (Pottermore Presents) -J.K. Rowling

10.Harry Potter and the Cursed Child* - John Tiffany, JK Rowling,

Having lived through the mass frenzy that accompanied a Potter book release since book 4, it was a chance to relive those days. I did wait a few days for reviews and it was poor as expected, was tempted to give it a miss but then saw this at Costco one day and just did an impulse just like several others I end up buying at that store! Thought my mom or sis will like to read it but they didn't seem all that impressed. HP series seemed to have a good run and a perfect ending which satisfied almost everyone which is hard task indeed. Having achieved that any such attempts at trying to revive the series is fraught with danger and Rowling wisely avoided that by setting this as a stage play and handled it over to someone else but is closely involved and is credited with story. Personally I thought it was a decent read and a return to familiar surroundings but it was just like Peter Jackson's Hobbit series. Not quite the real thing, maybe the stage play format made it more weird, but it did appear to be a half hearted attempt to revive the story carefully without altering anything significantly


11.Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built  - Duncan Clark

Story of Jack Ma the famous founder of Chinese internet giant Alibaba written by someone who is a good friend and a trusted advisor to the man himself. This is a bit of hagiographic portrait  as it glosses over or just avoids any mention of Ma's shortcomings and sort of presents his side of his growth story. But not to say that it makes it any less interesting read as Ma's story is a fascinating journey from being an English school teacher  in a far away province in China to building from scratch a Chinese internet company which went on to have the largest IPO ever in the world!


12.Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future - Ashlee Vance

Elon Musk was in news most of 2016 with most of his crazy bets paying off. This book was very different from the one mentioned above in the sense though author did get access to Musk for writing this book he claims to have maintained his independence and not shared any draft with Musk. It shows as he showcases the good and bad of the person well. Musk is an extremely interesting character and perhaps the most significant inventor ( if that's the word) of this era. If things go according to plan he would have the most impact on planet earth and surrounding planets as well in this century

13.Serendipity : Accidental Discoveries in Science* - Royston M Roberts

Was a library book I got for my mom and since it was lying around ended up reading it. Explored the role of sheer chance and luck in many big scientific discoveries. Was an interesting selection, but narration was not very interesting and I did struggle to finish it

14. Ready Player One* - Ernest Cline

Was a gift from my sis, this was a rare fiction book this year. It was pretty good and made me wonder why I did not read similar books. One of the few books that I literally raced through and finished. Worked very well for me as it was a delightful combination of Video game culture and 80s pop culture set in future

15. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari

Was an excellent follow up to Guns, Germs and Steel I read last year. This book traces the journey of Homo Sapiens to identify what is is that made us the most dominant race and the factors and various ages we passed through and he identifies what is it that made us succeed ( if that is what we call this ;) )

16. Lab Girl - Hope Jahren

Ms.Jahren is a biologist in Hawaii, this memoir is both a story of her love for plants and what is takes to be a research scientist and the challenges faced in doing research especially for a woman in this field. Traces her journey from being a little kid in remote midwest town to how she became interested in science with alternate chapters covering the lifecyle of trees/plants and her own story


So that was the list, now target for 2017 is to do 20 books which again is a tall challenge with a very active baby girl and also hope to start using Goodreads more actively and engage with friends through that to find out what they learn and share book reccos as well as that was the main purpose behind putting up the book list blogs. Since I hardly ever blog, assume no one really reads these except for those who I ask to read by sending link this post. So if you come across this and want to suggest any book to me please drop a comment, likewise for any question of books I have read

Also hopefully as part of a tradition we established for a few years, my more well read cousins will be putting up their lists as well   - Here & here


All books read unless called out are Kindle e-books
* denotes this is a Dead Tree Edition ( aka paper book)