I'm not a tech blogger, much less an activist. I usually never write reviews about tech gizmos. I just buy devices that I think will be useful, and if my expectations aren't met, I just quietly move on to some other product. But after the experience that I've had with HTC over the past month, … Continue reading Why I’m Never Buying HTC Again
Imagine yourself shipwrecked on a desert island, with thousands of other people. You're forced to build a society from scratch, and as part of that, you need to figure out how to design a criminal justice system. What are some goals of this system that you may have? Prevention: The system should prevent criminals from committing … Continue reading We Need Cruel and Unusual Punishment
As a lifelong democrat, I've never considered voting for the Republicans. Even when there were certain ideals that I could agree with them on - welfare reform, reduced regulation and free trade - I could still not even imagine aligning myself with the conservative movement. Beyond individual policy prescriptions, the deeper spirit and character behind … Continue reading The Two Faces of the GOP
As someone who’s given a number of talks on personal finance and managing your investments, there’s one piece of advice that I keep hearing from people over and over again. “Buy low, sell high”, they usually whisper to me in a sagely tone, as though they have discovered some profound truth that will unlock investment … Continue reading Buy Low, Sell High: The Worst Financial Advice of All Time
Given the frantic pace of the 24 hour news cycle, stepping back from it all and looking at history provides some immensely valuable perspective. The modern news cycle may care only about what happened in the past few years, but in reality, World History is measured in centuries. First there was the Roman empire. Then … Continue reading China is Going to Rule the World – This is America’s Last Chance to Stop It
Regular readers have probably noticed my extremely low posting frequency lately. I would usually explain this with some excuse about being busy, but this time, I actually have a good reason behind it. I've been spending the past couple of months building a site of my own. For years, I've been frustrated by the state … Continue reading Caucus: The Next-Generation Community-Discussion Forum
Around the world, xenophobia seems to be everywhere. In the US, anti-immigration rhetoric fills the airwaves in half the country. People like Donald Trump, the leading republican Presidential nominee, describe Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers. Eastern European countries like Hungary are not only politically lobbying to restrict the rights of asylum seekers escaping … Continue reading Conscience Driven Politics
In a previous article, we discussed the problem with banks guaranteeing fixed deposits while actually investing the money into speculative, long-term ventures, and how such an arrangement naturally leads to bank runs. There is a second problem in this scenario as well; one that is so commonplace that most people do not even stop to … Continue reading We Need to Break Up Banks to Prevent the Next Financial Meltdown
The story of financial crises is an old and oft-repeated one. Bank runs have been occurring since the time of the renaissance, were a key factor in the great depression, and its variants have necessitated billions of dollars in bailouts in the past decade after the subprime crisis. Is this really inevitable? Is this really … Continue reading Banks can Prevent Bank Runs by operating more like Bond Funds
What comes to mind when you hear the term “Machine Learning”? A bunch of programmers hunched over their computers in a dark room, working on something completely virtual & divorced from reality? A group of scientists creating a Frankenstein monster that has no resemblance to us whatsoever? It may certainly seem that way, but you’d … Continue reading Life Lessons from Machine Learning
Anna dies due to a motor vehicle accident involving a drunk driver. The world moves on.Alice dies due to the actions of a lunatic while running the Boston Marathon. The entire world mourns her death & embarks on a manhunt to avenge it. Trevor dies while walking back home, in a botched robbery. He gets … Continue reading The Silent Killers
We live in a world today, with statistics all around us. Opinion polls. Confidence Intervals. Margin of Error. Risk estimates. But do we actually understand what any of these things mean? I must have been in college when I first heard the quote popularized by Mark Twain: “There are lies, there are damned lies, and … Continue reading Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
Do you want to be a millionaire? The odds may certainly seem to be stacked against you. Less than 0.2% of the world's population can claim to be millionaires. The average American household before the financial crisis in 2008 had a financial net worth of roughly $100,000. Today, the situation is even more dire, with … Continue reading The ABCs of Personal Finance
Can you imagine disowning your parents because you think you can do better? What about disowning your kids because you "just weren't compatible with each other"? After all, our relationships with our family are such an essential component of our lives. Doesn't it make sense to carefully pick and choose exactly the right parents, children … Continue reading We Don’t Get To Pick Our Family – That Is Why We Love Them
For most of human history, people lived in a world where information was as rare as gold. And just as valuable too. A world where the common man had no access to education, which was exclusively a domain for the rich and nobility. A world where this lack of education was a real insurmountable barrier … Continue reading Life Changing Knowledge is All Around Us – We Simply Need to Reach for It
In the past, we had discussed the reasons why democracy is fundamentally flawed, needs to be overhauled, and what its replacement should look like. Admittedly, it was a highly abstract topic. Hence why we had also discussed a simple idea of how democracy could be reformed, to look more like the Jury system, as opposed … Continue reading Reinventing Democracy – The Google Way
There was a time when Philosophy was one of the most respected intellectual disciplines in humanity. Philosophical greats such as Aristotle, Plato and Kant are world renowned today, even centuries after their death. Others like Pythagoras and Newton considered themselves to be natural philosophers, and their contributions to mathematics have made them scientific idols even today. … Continue reading Why Philosophy gets no Respect in Society
We as a society recognize that discriminating against someone based on the color of their skin, or sexual orientation, is flat out wrong. That discriminating on the basis of inborn qualities that cannot be controlled by the individual, is deeply & fundamentally unfair. Well, what about height? Is it ok for major institutions in our … Continue reading Anyone over 6-feet should be Banned from the NBA
The month of April brought to national attention two bigots, one more sympathetic than the other, and the need for a soul searching discussion over what Freedom of Speech really means to us. First came Brendan Eich: the hapless CEO who lost his job within months, because of his political opinions. Immediately after being crowned … Continue reading A Free Marketplace of Ideas Requires Economic Protections
Just two weeks ago, we had discussed the bias in international reporting, and the tendency of media outlets to report the most sensational facts without providing proper context and a full-view of the situation. How time appropriate, given the outbreak of the Russia-Crimea situation in the past few days. As we hear the reporting of … Continue reading The Crimean “Crisis” and Western Bias
Outlook Zen 