Steve Jobs - Walter Issacson

Listening to this audio book. Why did Issacson choose this guy to write about. There is zero inspiration to be derived from his life and accomplishments. Smart guy who is rude and throws childlike tantrums - thats all that I got from the book. No subtle lessons to learn from his life - No taste of the impact  of any of his accomplishments - the life of bouazizi would've been so much more interesting. What a bloody waste !! 

Revolution 2.0

Revolution 2.0 

Wael Ghonim's book on the egyptian struggle is inspiring, insightful and fast. He has a good story to tell - his personal and that of his country's. Although there are sections where it seems as if he is not telling the whole truth. But what was interesting to me was that the demands that the protesters in Tahrir square were all problems that India is blighted by as well. Corruption, Poverty, unemployment. Maybe the level of police atrocities was too much in Egypt and the level of unemployment was  higher too. But the way I saw it - if these hadnt been at the levels that they were in Egypt the youth wouldn't have had the balls to come out in protest. Indian youth has no incentive to participate in something like this. Especially after what we see is the long term result of a leader-less revolution that has no constructive plan on the other side of the revolution. Living in a society does mean having strong institutions - if the existing institutions are all rotten it makes sense to tear them down. But then until new ones replace these you have no roof over your head. And then you have people ready to fall back into their old groves making the emergence of newer institutions even more difficult. I dont know if we have examples of societies that have been able to get rid of such major rot in the systems. Would be nice if someone funded studies and experiments on these things instead of investing in enabling farmville. 

 

caliguli

Images from caligula are still making rounds underneath my scalp - bouncing of my visual areas. I am thinking a lot of Indian kings must have led this lifestyle as well, wouldn't they ?