Author: Shrirang Karandikar

  • The Fifth Season, N. K. Jemisin

  • Death’s End, Cixin Liu

  • The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past), Cixin Liu

  • The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu

  • Rapoport’s Rules

    [From Dennett’s Intuition Pumps – guess what I’m currently reading!] How to compose a successful critical commentary: You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.” You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are […]

  • Where India Goes, Diane Coffey and Dean Spears

  • Air, Dean Spears

    This is a book that India needs now.  It is fantastically well researched – how the researchers went about gathering their data and drawing correlations from multiple sources is as fascinating as their conclusions.  It gently highlights the absurdities of the well-intentioned Indian state: Ordinarily, one places solar plants in the path of direct sunlight. […]

  • The 48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene

    I stopped reading after a few chapters. This book glorifies and promotes the worst aspects of human nature – I’ve seen enough of this crap when I was working to not want any part of it anymore. The world would be a much better place if everyone collaborated towards shared goals, rather than wasting time […]

  • Learning by Explaining

    It’s incredibly useful to have students work with a partner, rather than doing exercises alone. They start discussing approaches and ideas and have to explain their thinking to each other. This forces them to consider whether their approach is valid, and the act of talking about what they are thinking deepens their understanding as well. […]

  • Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt

    This is Bastiat’s ‘The Seen and the Unseen’ for the 20th century. A few quotes: As a consumer, he may advocate or acquiesce in subsidies; as a taxpayer he will resent paying them This is so true! All the economic protests that happen build on this nature, except that we don’t even realize that we […]

  • Learning from mistakes

    [Inspired by Dennett’s Intuition Pumps] My current approach and where I’d like to be works 1:1 or in a small group, much more difficult to do in a lecture-style setting. When I’m trying to teach a new concept – programming, algorithm, mathematics – I try to give students a bit of structure and context and […]

  • Big Business, Tyler Cowen

    I’ll eventually organize my thoughts, but a few reactions: This book should be dedicated to Steven Pinker. No matter what aspect of business one may pick up, here’s how to look at it in a positive light The amount of data to back up the positivity is of course, amazing I’m going to skip the […]

  • Links for easy navigation

    The old home page Article series on internships Article series on programming: for all, for electronics engineers, for mathematicians, for AI & ML, AoC Articles worth reading

  • You and Your Research – Richard Hamming

    Transcript Background This is the first article I recommend everyone read (currently, ‘everyone’ refers to students or recent graduates). Every paragraph is full of insights. It encourages a proactive approach to the world around us. It lays out an approximate framework for anyone interested in thinking about what they are doing, and where they would […]

  • This Happened…

    Eliud Kipchoge ran a sub-2 hour marathon

  • You and Your research – Richard Hamming

    Transcript Background This is the first article I recommend everyone read (currently, ‘everyone’ refers to students or recent graduates). Every paragraph is full of insights. It encourages a proactive approach to the world around us. It lays out an approximate framework for anyone interested in thinking about what they are doing, and where they would […]

  • Bringing Sanity to the Campus Recruitment process

    For the last 2 months, my interns have been MIA, because “companies are coming to campus.” When I speak with students about the process that they (the companies) follow and the torture that they (the students) undergo, a few things become apparent: Every company does things its own way. In broad terms, the process is […]