Links on Pavan Yarahttps://pavanyara.com/tags/links/Recent content in Links on Pavan YaraHugo -- gohugo.ioen-USpavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)Pavan YaraTue, 22 Dec 2020 23:39:53 +0530Resources Compilation- The 2020 Editionhttps://pavanyara.com/blog/2020-resources/Tue, 22 Dec 2020 23:39:53 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/2020-resources/<h2 id="book-recaps-and-recommendations">Book Recaps and Recommendations</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.alexjhughes.com/booknotes">Alex Hughes Book Notes</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.allencheng.com/">Allen Cheng Book Summaries</a>* </li> <li><a href="https://blas.com/">Blas Moros “The Rabbit Hole”</a></li> <li><a href="https://sivers.org/book">Derek Sivers</a></li> <li><a href="https://durmonski.com/category/book-summaries/">Durmonski</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/mgp/book-notes">Michael Parker Book Notes</a></li> <li><a href="https://paulminors.com/resources/book-summaries/">Paul Minor Book Summaries</a></li> <li><a href="http://investorfieldguide.com/bookclub/">The Investor Field Guide Book Club</a></li> <li><a href="https://jasonzweig.com/best-books-for-investors-a-short-shelf/">Jason Zweig Book Recommendations</a></li> <li><a href="https://patrickcollison.com/bookshelf">Patrick Collison Bookshelf</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.bookadvice.co/">Book Recs</a></li> <li><a href="https://medium.com/@rabois/reading-list-604c88ecefa4">Keith Rabois Reading List</a></li> <li><a href="http://mastersinvest.com/further-reading">Master Investors Reading List</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.perell.com/recommendations">David Perell</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.theinvestorspodcast.com/exec-summaries/billionaire-book-club-executive-summary/">The Investors Podcast Book Summaries</a></li> </ul> <h2 id="blogs">Blogs</h2> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html">Paul Graham</a></li> <li><a href="https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part1.html">Marc Andreessen</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/authors/morgan/">Morgan Housel</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/">Brain Pickings</a></li> <li><a href="https://fs.blog/">Farnam Street</a></li> <li><a href="https://jamesclear.com/articles">James Clear</a></li> <li><a href="https://firstround.com/review/magazines/">First Round Capital</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles.html">Jim Collins</a></li> <li><a href="https://nav.al/rich">Naval Ravikant: How to Get Rich</a></li> <li><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1w1_kh02m8tljVx6ZIRfGfaPyuMt1126I/view">Investor Amnesia Sunday Reads</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.oaktreecapital.com/insights/howard-marks-memos">Howard Marks Memos</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.principles.com/">Ray Dalio Principles</a></li> <li><a href="http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/">Aswath Damodaran Investing Tools</a></li> </ul> <h2 id="startup-advice">Startup Advice</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://playbook.samaltman.com/">Sam Altman Startup Playbook</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/resources/">Y Combinator</a></li> <li><a href="https://angel.co/blog">AngelList</a></li> <li><a href="https://airtable.com/embed/shrB8JfKvo5JUCxLD/tblJ2X6UftGY4hSWZ?backgroundColor=yellow&amp;viewControls=on&amp;blocks=hide">Master List of Startup Articles</a></li> </ul> <h2 id="talks">Talks</h2> <ul> <li> <p><a href="https://www.valueplays.net/wp-content/uploads/The-Best-of-Charlie-Munger-1994-2011.pdf">The Best of Charlie Munger</a></p>Book Recaps and Recommendations

Blogs

Startup Advice

Talks

Awesome Memos

Leadership/Management

Others

Free Coures

]]>Read.Think.Reflect.Improve.001https://pavanyara.com/blog/links-2020-july-05/Sun, 05 Jul 2020 20:14:22 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/links-2020-july-05/<ul> <li> <p>How McKinsey Helps Companies Avoid Responsibility <a href="https://slate.com/business/2020/06/mckinsey-companies-avoid-responsibility-management-consulting.html">link</a></p> <ul> <li>McKinsey started as a business that sold candid, dispassionate advice to corporate managers, but selling advice and building a brand around it also sets up a mechanism for diffusing responsibility. The managers can say they’re just following the best available advice, and the consultants can say they’re just trying to help their clients boost profits and efficiency.</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p>Newsletter Stack <a href="https://newsletterstack.com/topics">link</a> is a directory of newsletters grouped by learning topics like COVID-19, Philosophy, Design, Wellness, etc.</p>

  • How McKinsey Helps Companies Avoid Responsibility link

    • McKinsey started as a business that sold candid, dispassionate advice to corporate managers, but selling advice and building a brand around it also sets up a mechanism for diffusing responsibility. The managers can say they’re just following the best available advice, and the consultants can say they’re just trying to help their clients boost profits and efficiency.

  • Newsletter Stack link is a directory of newsletters grouped by learning topics like COVID-19, Philosophy, Design, Wellness, etc.

  • Working from Home Temporarily - Free EBook

    • Take Control of Working from Home Temporarily is a free 66-page book tailored for the sudden onset of telecommuting. It’s our way of trying to help. We advise you on how to stake out a space to work, how to equip it either with material you already have or what to buy if you can afford to invest in the space. Do you want to stand or sit? (Get a better chair or a laptop or monitor riser.) Should you get an external monitor if you don’t have one? (Yes!)
    • ]]>    Tool - RSSHubhttps://pavanyara.com/blog/tools-rsshub/Tue, 01 Oct 2019 12:47:13 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/tools-rsshub/<p>RSSHub is an open source, easy to use, and extensible RSS feed aggregator, it&rsquo;s capable of generating RSS feeds from pretty much everything.</p> <p>For example, to subscribe to a twitter feed of a favorite username, try this URL - <a href="https://rsshub.app/twitter/user/pavanyara">https://rsshub.app/twitter/user/pavanyara</a>_ - to get timeline.</p> <p>Since this is open source, you can also <a href="https://docs.rsshub.app/en/install/">self deploy</a> in your VPS or use as a NPM package.</p>RSSHub is an open source, easy to use, and extensible RSS feed aggregator, it’s capable of generating RSS feeds from pretty much everything.

    For example, to subscribe to a twitter feed of a favorite username, try this URL - https://rsshub.app/twitter/user/pavanyara_ - to get timeline.

    Since this is open source, you can also self deploy in your VPS or use as a NPM package.

    ]]>    Links - Sep 28, 2019https://pavanyara.com/blog/why-large-companies-rescue-difficult/Sat, 28 Sep 2019 20:38:59 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/why-large-companies-rescue-difficult/<p>Why are large companies so difficult to rescue (regarding bad internal technology)<a href="http://www.smashcompany.com/business/why-are-large-companies-so-difficult-to-rescue-regarding-bad-internal-technology">link</a></p> <p>There are two big problems that plague rescue efforts at big companies: history and trust&hellip;</p> <p>All of which helps explain why technology rescues at bigger, older companies are so difficult. One is constantly fighting against history&hellip;To a large extent “be agile” is almost synonymous with “trust each other.” If you’re wondering why large companies have trouble being agile, it is partly because it is impossible for 11,000 people to trust each other the way 5 people can. That is simply reality. Until someone can figure out the magic spell that allows vast groups of people, in different countries, with different cultures, speaking different languages, to all trust each other as if they were good friends, then people in the startup community need to be a lot more careful about how carelessly they recommend that larger companies should be more agile.</p>Why are large companies so difficult to rescue (regarding bad internal technology)link

    There are two big problems that plague rescue efforts at big companies: history and trust…

    All of which helps explain why technology rescues at bigger, older companies are so difficult. One is constantly fighting against history…To a large extent “be agile” is almost synonymous with “trust each other.” If you’re wondering why large companies have trouble being agile, it is partly because it is impossible for 11,000 people to trust each other the way 5 people can. That is simply reality. Until someone can figure out the magic spell that allows vast groups of people, in different countries, with different cultures, speaking different languages, to all trust each other as if they were good friends, then people in the startup community need to be a lot more careful about how carelessly they recommend that larger companies should be more agile.

    ]]>    Tool: AP DataKithttps://pavanyara.com/blog/datakit/Wed, 18 Sep 2019 11:35:12 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/datakit/<p>AP Datakit is an open source CLI tool for better structuring and managing projects. It helps to standardize and share work with your team members, and accessible for future references. All your project parts including data, code, configuration and documentation are cleanly separated using AP DataKit.</p> <p>It has a core product framework along with plugins to manage storage and updating of data files. Though it is written in Python, it can support any language including Javascript, Ruby, HTML, CSS etc, through <a href="https://github.com/audreyr/cookiecutter">CookieCutter</a> templates.</p>AP Datakit is an open source CLI tool for better structuring and managing projects. It helps to standardize and share work with your team members, and accessible for future references. All your project parts including data, code, configuration and documentation are cleanly separated using AP DataKit.

    It has a core product framework along with plugins to manage storage and updating of data files. Though it is written in Python, it can support any language including Javascript, Ruby, HTML, CSS etc, through CookieCutter templates.

    Link: http://datakit.ap.org

    ]]>    Collection of Investing Resources (Valuewalk)https://pavanyara.com/blog/collection-of-investment-resources/Wed, 11 Jul 2018 10:16:09 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/collection-of-investment-resources/<p>Edit: Fixed some typos and links. Originally conceived to be part of my personal collection, I see that there are financial twitterati following this article. I&rsquo;m glad you found this collection useful. Please share your feedback at @pavanyara_ (or pavanyara at gmail dot com)</p> <p>Original Source: <a href="https://www.valuewalk.com/2018/02/collection-investment-resources/">https://www.valuewalk.com/2018/02/collection-investment-resources/</a></p> <h2 id="collection-of-investment-resources">Collection of investment resources</h2> <hr> <p>Thanks to the Internet I have managed to put together a collection of investment resources. Below are various articles, books, speeches, videos to anybody interested in becoming a better investor. Some are all-time classics, and others are just articles that I enjoyed reading. The collection is not complete and I will update it when times permit. Why am I doing this? First, I wanted to gather some of the most important investment material under one roof. Second, somehow stuff gets lost on the Internet.</p>Edit: Fixed some typos and links. Originally conceived to be part of my personal collection, I see that there are financial twitterati following this article. I’m glad you found this collection useful. Please share your feedback at @pavanyara_ (or pavanyara at gmail dot com)

    Original Source: https://www.valuewalk.com/2018/02/collection-investment-resources/

    Collection of investment resources

    Thanks to the Internet I have managed to put together a collection of investment resources. Below are various articles, books, speeches, videos to anybody interested in becoming a better investor. Some are all-time classics, and others are just articles that I enjoyed reading. The collection is not complete and I will update it when times permit. Why am I doing this? First, I wanted to gather some of the most important investment material under one roof. Second, somehow stuff gets lost on the Internet.

    The resources are not simply about investing. It is about becoming a better human being. Learning from the success and failure of others is the fastest way to get smarter and wiser without a lot of pain.

    The best thing a human being can do is help another human being know more.

    – Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, 2010

    The resources are classified by alphabetical order.

    Allan Mecham (Arlington Value Management)

    Benjamin Graham (Father of Value Investing)

    Bill Ackman (Pershing Square)

    Bill Gates (Microsoft/Cascade Investment)

    Bill Gross (PIMCO/Janus)

    Bill Nygren (Oakmark Fund)

    Bruce Berkowitz (Fairhome Funds)

    Carl Icahn (Icahn Enterprises)

    Charlie Munger (Berkshire Hathaway)

    Daniel Kahneman

    David Einhorn (Greenlight Capital)

    David F. Swenson (Chief Investment Officer, Yale University)

    Elon Musk (Tesla Motors, SpaceX)

    Ed Thorp (Princeton/Newport Partners)

    Francois Rochon (Giverny Capital)

    Henry Singleton (Teledyne Inc.)

    Howard Marks (Oaktree Capital)

    George Soros

    Guy Spier (Aquamarine Fund)

    Indexing

    Irving Kahn (Kahn Brothers & Company)

    Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan Chase)

    Jeff Bezos (Amazon)

    Jeffrey Gundlach (DoubleLine Capital)

    Jeremy Grantham (Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co. LLC)

    • Jeremy Grantham’s letters at GMO.com

    Jim Chanos (Kynikos Associates)

    Jim Simons (Renaissance Technologies Corp.)

    Joel Greenblatt (Gotham Asset Management)

    Joel Tillinghast (Fidelity)

    John Malone (TCI & Liberty Media)
    Articles & Letters

    Jorge Paulo Lemann (3G Capital)

    Lei Zhang (Hillhouse Capital)

    Li Lu (Himalaya Capital)

    Lou Simpson (Former CIO for Geico and current Chairman of SQ Advisors)

    Mark Cuban (Entrepeneur, Owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Shark Tank)

    Mark Sellers

    Monish Padrai (Padrai Funds/Dhandho Funds)

    Morningstar

    Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Author of Fooled By Randomness and The Black Swan)

    Paul Singer (Elliott Management)

    Peter L. Bernstein

    Peter Lynch (Fidelity Investments’ Magellan Fund)

    Ray Dalio (Bridgewater Associates)

    Seth Klarman (Baupost Group)

    Stanley Druckenmiller

    Ted Weschler (Berkshire Hathaway)

    Todd Combs (Berkshire Hathaway)

    Tom Russo (Gardner Russo & Gardner)

    Vanguard

    Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway)

    Walter Schloss (Walter & Edwin Schloss Associates)

    Will Danoff (Fidelity Investments)

    William N. Thorndike

    ]]>    Notes - June 22, 2018https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-june-22/Fri, 22 Jun 2018 14:55:03 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-june-22/<blockquote> <p>“I think the tech world has this problem where we go out and say ‘We think we’re really smart and the rest of the world is really dumb, and so why don’t we build apps to make their lives more like ours.’ What you end up doing is building products with judgement at their core. But when you find founders that are building products for themselves and their friends you find products with empathy at their core. That empathy translates to features and functions that understand the seemly non-pragmatic nuances of a given industry.” - Ali Hamed</p><blockquote> <p>“I think the tech world has this problem where we go out and say ‘We think we’re really smart and the rest of the world is really dumb, and so why don’t we build apps to make their lives more like ours.’ What you end up doing is building products with judgement at their core. But when you find founders that are building products for themselves and their friends you find products with empathy at their core. That empathy translates to features and functions that understand the seemly non-pragmatic nuances of a given industry.” - Ali Hamed</p> </blockquote> Notes - June 11, 2018https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-june-11-2018/Mon, 11 Jun 2018 12:07:35 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-june-11-2018/<ul> <li><a href="https://github.com/DovAmir/awesome-design-patterns">Awesome design patterns</a>. A software design pattern is a general, reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem within a given context in software design. It is a description or template for how to solve a problem that can be used in many different situations.</li> <li><a href="http://www.databaseanswers.org/data_models/">Data Models in 50 categories</a>, This page shows a list of our Industry-specific Data Models in 50 categories that cover Subject Areas and are used to create Enterprise Data Models. There is a <a href="http://www.databaseanswers.org/downloads/Short_Tutorial_on_DWH_by_Example.pdf">Short downloadable Tutorial</a> on creating a Data Warehouse using any of the Models on this page.</li> <li><a href="https://github.com/tuvtran/project-based-learning">Project Based Learning</a>. A list of programming tutorials in which learners build an application from scratch. These tutorials are divided into different primary programming languages. Some have intermix technologies and languages.</li> </ul>
  • Awesome design patterns. A software design pattern is a general, reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem within a given context in software design. It is a description or template for how to solve a problem that can be used in many different situations.
  • Data Models in 50 categories, This page shows a list of our Industry-specific Data Models in 50 categories that cover Subject Areas and are used to create Enterprise Data Models. There is a Short downloadable Tutorial on creating a Data Warehouse using any of the Models on this page.
  • Project Based Learning. A list of programming tutorials in which learners build an application from scratch. These tutorials are divided into different primary programming languages. Some have intermix technologies and languages.
    • ]]>    Notes - May 25, 2018https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-may-25-2018/Fri, 25 May 2018 20:21:09 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-may-25-2018/<ul> <li><a href="https://github.com/learnbyexample/Command-line-text-processing">A note on CLI text processing</a>. ⚡️ From finding text to search and replace, from sorting to beautifying text and more 🎨</li> <li>A HN list of tech talks. <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16838460">part1-2018ed</a>, <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12637239">part2-2016ed</a></li> <li>Quote for the day - The secret to great investing is having an edge.</li> </ul> <blockquote> <p>“Julian Roberts had said it best, ‘What is your edge?’ When having a bear and a bull discuss a stock at his shop he would constantly say,</p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p>‘What do you know that the market doesn’t?’</p>
  • A note on CLI text processing. ⚡️ From finding text to search and replace, from sorting to beautifying text and more 🎨
  • A HN list of tech talks. part1-2018ed, part2-2016ed
  • Quote for the day - The secret to great investing is having an edge.

    • “Julian Roberts had said it best, ‘What is your edge?’ When having a bear and a bull discuss a stock at his shop he would constantly say,

    ‘What do you know that the market doesn’t?’

    ‘What is in your process that gives you an edge, trading-wise or research-wise?’

    ‘What makes you see things differently?’

    ‘Where you see the reality rather than the perception of reality?r’

    ]]>    Graduation Speech Links from Evernotehttps://pavanyara.com/blog/graduation-speech-links/Sat, 19 May 2018 22:49:19 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/graduation-speech-links/<p>Link: <a href="https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2018/05/18/the-graduation-speech-excellent-advice-not-just-for-students/">https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2018/05/18/the-graduation-speech-excellent-advice-not-just-for-students/</a></p> <p>Highlights:</p> <ol> <li>Love what you do or stop doing it. The price of hating your life is too high.</li> </ol> <blockquote> <p>“I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.” — <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc">Steve Jobs</a>, Stanford, 2005</p>Link: https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2018/05/18/the-graduation-speech-excellent-advice-not-just-for-students/

    Highlights:

    1. Love what you do or stop doing it. The price of hating your life is too high.

    “I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.” — Steve Jobs, Stanford, 2005

    “I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.” — J. K. Rowling: Harvard University, 2008

    “I implore you to not fear what you are drawn to, for rejecting that is to stymie the very patterns that make you, well, you. Imagine the torture of putting yourself through that. No matter how much money you make, you will not be happy spending your time imagining the path you wished you’d chosen.” — Max Londberg: University of Oregon, 2013

    1. Success and failure. Decide for yourself what these ideas mean to you.

    “If everybody followed their first dreams in life, the world would be ruled by cowboys and princesses.” — Stephen Colbert: Northwestern University, 2011

    “David Letterman wanted to be Johnny Carson, and was not, and as a result, my generation of comedians wanted to be David Letterman. And none of us are. My peers and I have all missed that mark in a thousand different ways. But the point is this: It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It’s not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right, your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound reinvention.” — Conan O’Brien: Dartmouth College, 2011

    “If you don’t fail, you’re not even trying. My wife told me this great expression, ‘To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did.” — Denzel Washington: University of Pennsylvania, 2011

    1. Open Up. Explore. Question habits. Listen up. Change.

    “Because as my grandmother used to tell me, every time a fool speaks, they are just advertising their own ignorance. Let them talk. If you don’t, you just make them a victim, and then they can avoid accountability.” — President Barack Obama: Howard University, 2016

    “As you start your journey, the first thing you should do is throw away that store-bought map and begin to draw your own.” — Michael Dell: University of Texas at Austin, 2003

    1. Explore. The good stuff is worth looking for

    “One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, right here, right now, in this single, solitary, monumental moment in your life, is to decide, without apology, to commit to the journey, and not to the outcome.” — Joyce DiDonato: Juilliard School, 2014

    “Just because something doesn’t confirm your existing beliefs does not mean it’s a hoax. The smartest and most successful people I know are the people who are constantly evolving, always learning. And some of them, believe it or not, are smart enough to occasionally change their minds.” — Stephanie Ruhle: Lehigh University, 2017

    “If you love only yourself, you will serve only yourself. And you will have only yourself. So no more winning. Instead, try to love others and serve others, and hopefully find those who love and serve you in return.” — Stephen Colbert: Northwestern University, 2011

    “So how do you know what is the right path to choose to get the result that you desire? And the honest answer is this: You won’t.” — Jon Stewart: College of William and Mary 2004

    1. Forget about it. Sometimes a short memory is your very best friend.

    “Fall forward. Reggie Jackson struck out 2,600 times in his career, the most in the history of baseball. But you don’t hear about the strikeouts. People remember the home runs. Fall forward. Thomas Edison conducted 1,000 failed experiments. Did you know that? I didn’t know that because the 1,001st was the light bulb. Fall forward. Every failed experiment is one step closer to success.” — Denzel Washington: University of Pennsylvania, 2011

    “I wish someone had said to me that it’s normal to feel lost for a little while.” — Ira Glass: Goucher College, 2012

    “Rehearsal’s over. You’re going out there now, you’re going to do this thing. How you live matters. You’re going to fall down, but the world doesn’t care how many times you fall down, as long as it’s one fewer than the number of times you get back up.” — Aaron Sorkin: Syracuse University 2012

    Polonius Advice

    Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel,
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledged comrade.
Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear ’t that th’ opposèd may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear but few thy voice.
Take each man’s censure but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy—rich, not gaudy,

…Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

— William Shakespeare: Hamlet (Act I, Scene iii)
    ]]>    Notes - May 15, 2018https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-15-may-2018/Tue, 15 May 2018 18:18:46 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-15-may-2018/<ul> <li> <p><a href="https://cloudevents.io/">CloudEvents Spec</a>. Events are everywhere. However, event publishers tend to describe events differently. The lack of a common way of describing events means developers must constantly re-learn how to receive events. This also limits the potential for libraries, tooling and infrastructure to aide the delivery of event data across environments, like SDKs, event routers or tracing systems. The portability and productivity we can achieve from event data is hindered overall. Enter CloudEvents, a specification for describing event data in a common way. CloudEvents seeks to ease event declaration and delivery across services, platforms and beyond.</p>

  • CloudEvents Spec. Events are everywhere. However, event publishers tend to describe events differently. The lack of a common way of describing events means developers must constantly re-learn how to receive events. This also limits the potential for libraries, tooling and infrastructure to aide the delivery of event data across environments, like SDKs, event routers or tracing systems. The portability and productivity we can achieve from event data is hindered overall. Enter CloudEvents, a specification for describing event data in a common way. CloudEvents seeks to ease event declaration and delivery across services, platforms and beyond.

  • 💻 Wonderful world of OSX apps List of applications, alfred workflows and various tools that make my macOS experience even more amazing

  • Scaling Event Sourcing at Jet. Event sourcing is a paradigm where changes to application state are recorded as a series of events.

  • nuage with support for org-mode. A Dropbox-like interface for your existing data (with support for many backends). Need to explore more.

    • ]]>    A list of terminal focused toolshttps://pavanyara.com/blog/favorite-cli-programs/Tue, 08 May 2018 23:03:56 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/favorite-cli-programs/<p>Listing down links from the recent [HN discussion](HN Discussion - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17011227">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17011227</a>) on favorite terminal programs:</p> <ul> <li>Erstwhile <a href="https://inconsolation.wordpress.com/">popular blog</a>, not updated in last couple of years.</li> <li>Twitter CLI client, <a href="https://github.com/orakaro/rainbowstream">https://github.com/orakaro/rainbowstream</a></li> <li>Git Standup, <a href="https://github.com/kamranahmedse/git-standup">https://github.com/kamranahmedse/git-standup</a></li> <li>Rq, Record Query - A tool for doing record analysis and transformation, <a href="https://github.com/dflemstr/rq">https://github.com/dflemstr/rq</a></li> <li>AsciiCinema, <a href="https://github.com/asciinema">https://github.com/asciinema</a></li> <li>A cat clone with wings, <a href="https://github.com/sharkdp/bat">https://github.com/sharkdp/bat</a></li> <li>Visidata, with super powers, <a href="https://github.com/saulpw/visidata">https://github.com/saulpw/visidata</a></li> <li>Curl-size, <a href="https://github.com/egoist/curl-size">https://github.com/egoist/curl-size</a></li> <li>RipGrep, <a href="https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep">https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep</a></li> <li>jq, <a href="https://github.com/stedolan/jq">https://github.com/stedolan/jq</a></li> <li>autojump, <a href="https://github.com/rupa/z">https://github.com/rupa/z</a></li> <li>notif tool, <a href="https://github.com/variadico/noti">https://github.com/variadico/noti</a></li> <li>tmux, <a href="https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki">https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki</a></li> <li>glances, <a href="https://nicolargo.github.io/glances/">https://nicolargo.github.io/glances/</a></li> <li>rtv, <a href="https://github.com/michael-lazar/rtv">https://github.com/michael-lazar/rtv</a></li> <li>discurses, <a href="https://github.com/topisani/Discurses">https://github.com/topisani/Discurses</a></li> <li>tg, telegram client, <a href="https://github.com/vysheng/tg">https://github.com/vysheng/tg</a></li> <li>PDFtk, <a href="https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/">https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/</a></li> <li>gdb+peda, <a href="https://github.com/longld/peda">https://github.com/longld/peda</a></li> <li>CLI diassembler, <a href="https://github.com/radare/radare2">https://github.com/radare/radare2</a></li> </ul>Listing down links from the recent [HN discussion](HN Discussion - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17011227) on favorite terminal programs:

    ]]>    Notes - May 07, 2018https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-07-may-2018/Mon, 07 May 2018 23:03:26 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-07-may-2018/<ul> <li> <p><a href="https://buffett.cnbc.com/annual-meetings/">The “Warren Buffett Archive” CNBC Website</a>. This CNBC website features recordings of every Berkshire shareholder meeting since 1994 with synchronized transcripts.</p> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://www.fs.blog/smart-decisions/">The Ultimate Guide to Making Smart Decisions</a>. “I don’t want to be a great problem solver. I want to avoid problems — prevent them from happening by doing it right from the beginning.” Starts with this Peter Bevelin&rsquo;s quote, Shane Parrish runs through a list of general thinking concepts - inversion, second order thinking, the map is not the territor; top articles, books and a compendium of resources.</p>

  • The “Warren Buffett Archive” CNBC Website. This CNBC website features recordings of every Berkshire shareholder meeting since 1994 with synchronized transcripts.

  • The Ultimate Guide to Making Smart Decisions. “I don’t want to be a great problem solver. I want to avoid problems — prevent them from happening by doing it right from the beginning.” Starts with this Peter Bevelin’s quote, Shane Parrish runs through a list of general thinking concepts - inversion, second order thinking, the map is not the territor; top articles, books and a compendium of resources.

  • 12 “Manager READMEs” from Silicon Valley’s Top Tech Companies. What does tech management at Slack, HubSpot, Netflix, Etsy, Shopify, InVision, and more have in common? A lot, apparently!

  • The quote that Jeff Bezos has had hanging on his fridge for years:

    • “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of the intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the beauty in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that one life has breathed easier because you lived here. This is to have succeeded.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

    ]]>    Notes - May 3, 2018https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-2018-may-3/Thu, 03 May 2018 10:23:02 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-2018-may-3/<ul> <li><a href="https://github.com/flyingrub/scdl">Soundcloud Music Downloader</a>. Just do a <code>scdl -l &lt;link&gt;</code> of your favorite soundcloud track.</li> <li><a href="https://github.com/davideuler/architecture.of.internet-product">Chinese Internet Archtiectures</a>.A collection of tech architectures for FANG + other big chinese services including WeChat, TenCent, Alibaba.</li> <li><a href="http://vxposed.com/">Virtual Xposed</a>. Use Xposed with a simple APP, without needing to root, unlock the bootloader, or flash a system image.</li> </ul>
  • Soundcloud Music Downloader. Just do a scdl -l <link> of your favorite soundcloud track.
  • Chinese Internet Archtiectures.A collection of tech architectures for FANG + other big chinese services including WeChat, TenCent, Alibaba.
  • Virtual Xposed. Use Xposed with a simple APP, without needing to root, unlock the bootloader, or flash a system image.
    • ]]>    Notes - 18th April 2018https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-18-apr-2018/Wed, 18 Apr 2018 23:13:48 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-18-apr-2018/<ul> <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNrODmzoJwwrVrcKsqcENLsV4S7aCp9KJ">Flipkart SlashN 2018 Vidoes</a>. I missed noticing and thus, attending this annual event at Flipkart. Adding to my #watchlist</li> <li><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/icymi-serverless-q1-2018/">AWS Serverless Log- Q1 2018</a>. A compendium of things happened in AWS Serverless world in the 1st Quarter, 2018. #readinglist</li> </ul> <h4 id="george-orwells-six-rules-of-writing">George Orwell&rsquo;s six rules of writing:</h4> <ul> <li>Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.</li> <li>Never use a long word where a short one will do.</li> <li>If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.</li> <li>Never use the passive where you can use the active.</li> <li>Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.</li> <li>Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.</li> </ul>
  • Flipkart SlashN 2018 Vidoes. I missed noticing and thus, attending this annual event at Flipkart. Adding to my #watchlist
  • AWS Serverless Log- Q1 2018. A compendium of things happened in AWS Serverless world in the 1st Quarter, 2018. #readinglist

    • George Orwell’s six rules of writing:

    • Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
    • Never use a long word where a short one will do.
    • If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
    • Never use the passive where you can use the active.
    • Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
    • Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
    ]]>    Notes - 16th April 2018https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-16-apr-2018/Mon, 16 Apr 2018 12:35:09 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-16-apr-2018/<ul> <li> <p><a href="https://github.com/serhii-londar/open-source-mac-os-apps">🚀 Awesome list of open source applications for macOS</a>. List of awesome open source applications for macOS. This list contains a lot of native and cross-platform apps. The main goal of this repository is to find open source and free apps and start contributing.</p> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://hackerdaily.io">Hackerdaily - Daily Podcast for HackerNews</a>. Try at <a href="https://hackerdaily.simplecast.fm">https://hackerdaily.simplecast.fm</a>, if this is to your taste.</p> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16838460">AskHN: What is your favorite tech talk?</a>. Found a lot of useful resources from this link. Listened to Martin Kleppmann&rsquo;s StrangeLoop'14 talk - <a href="https://youtu.be/fU9hR3kiOK0">Turning the Database Inside out</a> as a first step in this direction. Looking forward to share my notes from these talks as part of my blog series.</p>

  • 🚀 Awesome list of open source applications for macOS. List of awesome open source applications for macOS. This list contains a lot of native and cross-platform apps. The main goal of this repository is to find open source and free apps and start contributing.

  • Hackerdaily - Daily Podcast for HackerNews. Try at https://hackerdaily.simplecast.fm, if this is to your taste.

  • AskHN: What is your favorite tech talk?. Found a lot of useful resources from this link. Listened to Martin Kleppmann’s StrangeLoop'14 talk - Turning the Database Inside out as a first step in this direction. Looking forward to share my notes from these talks as part of my blog series.

    • ]]>    Notes - 14th April 2018https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-14-apr-2018/Sat, 14 Apr 2018 11:56:02 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-14-apr-2018/<ul> <li><a href="https://jameshfisher.com/2018/04/07/the-dots-do-matter-how-to-scam-a-gmail-user.html">The dots do matter: How to scam a Gmail user</a>. In Gmail, dots do not matter but is not the same case with other online accounts including paid serviceslike netflix, dropbox, airbnb and others.</li> <li><a href="http://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/an-art-leveraging-a-science/">An Art Leveraging a Science</a>. Albert Einstein’s favorite idea was called gedankenerfahrung.It’s when he’d close his eyes and imagine how physics worked in the real world, instead of formulas drawn on a chalkboard. Many quotes are misattributed to Einstein. But one he actually said was, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” For him, it was an art leveraging a science. Communication is the same to investing.</li> <li><a href="https://www.labnol.org/internet/best-android-apps/28644/">Labnol&rsquo;s list of best android apps for 2018</a>. I use (or used) these apps - Authy, Newpiple, Files Go,Timbre, Sesame Shortcuts, APK updater, Keep, zoho notebook, Photoscan, Reddit Sync, Recent Notifications, Samsung Voice Recorder, Trello, Firefox Focus, Hermit, Twilight, Vidoder, SnapSeed, SMS organizer, Push Bullet, Airdroid, Pocket, Office Lens, IFTTT, Fing, Fake GPS etc.</li> </ul>
  • The dots do matter: How to scam a Gmail user. In Gmail, dots do not matter but is not the same case with other online accounts including paid serviceslike netflix, dropbox, airbnb and others.
  • An Art Leveraging a Science. Albert Einstein’s favorite idea was called gedankenerfahrung.It’s when he’d close his eyes and imagine how physics worked in the real world, instead of formulas drawn on a chalkboard. Many quotes are misattributed to Einstein. But one he actually said was, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” For him, it was an art leveraging a science. Communication is the same to investing.
  • Labnol’s list of best android apps for 2018. I use (or used) these apps - Authy, Newpiple, Files Go,Timbre, Sesame Shortcuts, APK updater, Keep, zoho notebook, Photoscan, Reddit Sync, Recent Notifications, Samsung Voice Recorder, Trello, Firefox Focus, Hermit, Twilight, Vidoder, SnapSeed, SMS organizer, Push Bullet, Airdroid, Pocket, Office Lens, IFTTT, Fing, Fake GPS etc.
    • ]]>    Notes - April 10, 2018https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-10-apr-2018/Tue, 10 Apr 2018 19:18:48 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-10-apr-2018/<ul> <li><a href="https://awesomerepos.com/">A list of awesome repos as a web page</a></li> <li><a href="https://databaseflow.com/">DatabaseFlow - Query your database using a modern web interface for SQL and GraphQL</a>. An open source self-hosted SQL client, GraphQL server, and charting application that works with your database. Can support visualizing schemas, query plans, charts, and results.</li> <li><a href="https://alestic.com/2018/03/aws-documentation-jennine/">AWS Meta Documentation</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.inqdo.com/aws-explained-the-basics/?lang=en">A Good Intro to AWS basics</a>. A good primer.</li> </ul> <h4 id="how-to-delete-large-s3-buckets">How to delete large s3 buckets</h4> <ul> <li>set expiration policy to 1 day on the target s3 bucket.</li> <li>do not choose any prefix.</li> </ul>
  • A list of awesome repos as a web page
  • DatabaseFlow - Query your database using a modern web interface for SQL and GraphQL. An open source self-hosted SQL client, GraphQL server, and charting application that works with your database. Can support visualizing schemas, query plans, charts, and results.
  • AWS Meta Documentation
  • A Good Intro to AWS basics. A good primer.

    • How to delete large s3 buckets

    • set expiration policy to 1 day on the target s3 bucket.
    • do not choose any prefix.
    ]]>    Notes - April 9, 2018https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-09-apr-2018/Mon, 09 Apr 2018 21:10:28 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-09-apr-2018/<ul> <li>For Einstein, the five ascending levels of intellect were, ‘Smart, Intelligent, Brilliant, Genius, Simple’</li> </ul> <blockquote> <p>Simplicity is a very powerful construct. Henry Thoreau recognized this when he said, “Our life is frittered away by detail . . . simplify, simplify.” Einstein also recognized the power of simplicity, and it was the key to his breakthroughs in physics. He noted that the five ascending levels of intellect were, “Smart, Intelligent, Brilliant, Genius, Simple.” For Einstein, simplicity was simply the highest level of intellect.”</p>
  • For Einstein, the five ascending levels of intellect were, ‘Smart, Intelligent, Brilliant, Genius, Simple’

    • Simplicity is a very powerful construct. Henry Thoreau recognized this when he said, “Our life is frittered away by detail . . . simplify, simplify.” Einstein also recognized the power of simplicity, and it was the key to his breakthroughs in physics. He noted that the five ascending levels of intellect were, “Smart, Intelligent, Brilliant, Genius, Simple.” For Einstein, simplicity was simply the highest level of intellect.”

    • Why you stink at fact-checking. The Moses Illusion demonstrates what psychologists call knowledge neglect – people have relevant knowledge, but they fail to use it.

    o

    Daniel Kahneman told his financial advisor he didn’t want to get rich. He just wanted to continue living like he had.

    “She told me, ‘I can’t work with you,’” Kahneman wrote.

    I asked Kahneman about the incident a few years ago. “She was very puzzled in the context of somebody coming to get financial advice and not trying to get richer,” he said. “I’m not sure that I’m all that unusual. Many people retired on pensions and are perfectly satisfied with it and they are not desperate to have more.”

    • How Hedge Funds Get Rich. Nick, shows with his R program, that no matter what initial capital you give the hedge fund to start with, the hedge fund will become richer than you since its real talent is transferring your wealth into its coffers. And, one of the better ways to get rich is to pay lower fees.

    The moral of the story is that fees matter, a lot. When it comes to investing, a little more in fees can go a long way (for those charging them). So though 2% (or 1%) might sound small now, within a short time frame it can add up very quickly. I recommend keeping your average fees below 0.1% across your portfolio. Thank you for reading!

    ]]>    Notes - April 08, 2018https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-08-apr-2018/Sun, 08 Apr 2018 20:43:44 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-08-apr-2018/<h4 id="cli-tools">CLI Tools</h4> <ul> <li><a href="https://github.com/dbohdan/structured-text-tools">A list of command line tools for manipulating structured text data</a>. A github compilation of cli tools manipulating text formats including CSV, XML, HTML, JSON, INI, etc. <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16784850">This HN discussion</a> packs additional tools and HN-sytle comments. I&rsquo;ve always been fascinated by unix cli tools and I can&rsquo;t count the number of times they&rsquo;ve helped me build my career :)</li> </ul> <p>Some tools I&rsquo;ve used time and again include: cut, join, paste, sort, uniq, awk , csvkit, q, textql jq,</p>CLI Tools

    Some tools I’ve used time and again include: cut, join, paste, sort, uniq, awk , csvkit, q, textql jq,

    Other noteworthy github collections are:

    FaaS, because why not?

    • GO Functions as a Service. Running a Go application on AWS Lambda is easier than ever, once you figure out how to configure Lambda, API Gateway and 10 or other “serverless” services to support the Go functions. This is a boilerplate app with all the AWS pieces configured correctly and explained in depth. See the docs folder for detailed guides about functions, tracing, security, automation and more with AWS and Go.
    ]]>    Notes - April 6, 2018https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-06-apr-2018/Fri, 06 Apr 2018 11:55:39 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-06-apr-2018/<ul> <li> <p><a href="https://github.com/miguelmota/cointop">Interactive terminal for tracking crypto currencies</a>. Go Project (ensure that your go path is set properly). Data gets polled every minute from <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/">coin market</a></p> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://github.com/bluzi/jsonstore">Free, Secured and JSON based cloud data store for small projects</a>. Just enter <a href="https://www.jsonstore.io/">https://www.jsonstore.io/</a>, copy the URL and start sending HTTP requests to communicate with your datastore. POST requests will save data, PUT requests modify data, DELETE requests delete data and GET requests retrieves data.</p> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://github.com/miedzinski/import-pypi">One dependency to rule them all</a>. Copy pypi.py into your site-packages directory or straight into your project. Don&rsquo;t bother using pip, requirements.txt and all that crap. <code>import pypi </code> is what all you need.</p>

  • Interactive terminal for tracking crypto currencies. Go Project (ensure that your go path is set properly). Data gets polled every minute from coin market

  • Free, Secured and JSON based cloud data store for small projects. Just enter https://www.jsonstore.io/, copy the URL and start sending HTTP requests to communicate with your datastore. POST requests will save data, PUT requests modify data, DELETE requests delete data and GET requests retrieves data.

  • One dependency to rule them all. Copy pypi.py into your site-packages directory or straight into your project. Don’t bother using pip, requirements.txt and all that crap. import pypi is what all you need.

  • Extract API endpoints from APK. Diggy can extract endpoints/URLs from apk files. It saves the result into a txt file for further processing.

  • Convert text documents to high fidelity audio(books). Extract text from a document (textract) and convert it into a natural sounding synthesised speech (Cloud Text-To-Speech), which is able to leverage Deepminds Wavenet models.

  • Learn Block Chain in 2 months. This is the code for “Learn Blockchain in 2 Months” by Siraj Raval on Youtube

  • A tool to scrape LinkedIn without API restrictions for data reconnaissance. Tool to scrape LinkedIn. This tool assists in performing reconnaissance using the LinkedIn.com website/API. Provide a search string just as you would on the original website and let ScrapedIn do all the dirty work. Output is stored as an XLSX file, however it is intended to be used with Google Spreadsheets. After importing the XLSX into Google Spreadsheets there will be a “dataset” worksheet and a “report” worksheet.

    • ]]>    Notes - April 5, 2018https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-05-apr-2018/Thu, 05 Apr 2018 12:09:42 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-05-apr-2018/<ul> <li> <p><a href="https://avwo.github.io/whistle/">HTTP, HTTPS, WebSocket debugging proxy</a>. whistle is a cross-platform web debugging tool based on Node.js.</p> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://www.anishathalye.com/2018/04/03/macbook-touchscreen/">Turn a MacBook into a Touchscreen with $1 of Hardware</a>. The basic principle behind Sistine is simple. Surfaces viewed from an angle tend to look shiny, and you can tell if a finger is touching the surface by checking if it’s touching its own reflection.</p> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://github.com/tomnomnom/gron">Make JSON Greppable</a>. gron transforms JSON into discrete assignments to make it easier to grep for what you want and see the absolute &lsquo;path&rsquo; to it. It eases the exploration of APIs that return large blobs of JSON but have terrible documentation.</p>

  • HTTP, HTTPS, WebSocket debugging proxy. whistle is a cross-platform web debugging tool based on Node.js.

  • Turn a MacBook into a Touchscreen with $1 of Hardware. The basic principle behind Sistine is simple. Surfaces viewed from an angle tend to look shiny, and you can tell if a finger is touching the surface by checking if it’s touching its own reflection.

  • Make JSON Greppable. gron transforms JSON into discrete assignments to make it easier to grep for what you want and see the absolute ‘path’ to it. It eases the exploration of APIs that return large blobs of JSON but have terrible documentation.

    • ]]>    Notes - 1st April 2018https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-1-april-2018/Sun, 01 Apr 2018 09:48:17 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-1-april-2018/<ul> <li><a href="https://jgthms.com/javascript-in-14-minutes/">Javascript in 14 minutes</a></li> </ul>
  • Javascript in 14 minutes
    • ]]>    Notes - 31st March 2018https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-31-march-2018/Sat, 31 Mar 2018 08:47:27 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-31-march-2018/<h4 id="links">Links</h4> <ul> <li> <p><a href="http://www.niemanlab.org/2018/03/this-is-how-cambridge-analyticas-facebook-targeting-model-really-worked-according-to-the-person-who-built-it/">This is how Cambridge Analytica&rsquo;s Facebook targeting model really worked</a>. The whole point of a dimension reduction model is to mathematically represent the data in simpler form. It’s as if Cambridge Analytica took a very high-resolution photograph, resized it to be smaller, and then deleted the original. The photo still exists — and as long as Cambridge Analytica’s models exist, the data effectively does too.</p> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://blog.insightdatascience.com/moving-towards-managing-ai-products-5268c5e9ecf2">Lessons for building AI-Driven Products</a>. 1. Track how the market is using AI technology 2.Follow the trends in deep learning research 3. Cut through the AI hype — focus on practical use cases 4. Be obsessed with customer-centric data 5. Build a usable product with a simple model before exploring complicated AI models 6. Iteratively build use cases where AI directly impacts a metric 7. Build Breadth-first (Data/Pipeline/Model) instead of Depth-first (AI model) 8. Ensure your product fails gracefully 9. Insist on AI model explainability 10. Establish clear communication with your teams — know the fundamentals and language of data and ML. <img src="https://pavanyara.com/img/external/1_FCoHl9-TeFV5ZJj8xEhtzQ.png" alt="AI-Driven Product Management"></p>Links

    • This is how Cambridge Analytica’s Facebook targeting model really worked. The whole point of a dimension reduction model is to mathematically represent the data in simpler form. It’s as if Cambridge Analytica took a very high-resolution photograph, resized it to be smaller, and then deleted the original. The photo still exists — and as long as Cambridge Analytica’s models exist, the data effectively does too.

    • Lessons for building AI-Driven Products. 1. Track how the market is using AI technology 2.Follow the trends in deep learning research 3. Cut through the AI hype — focus on practical use cases 4. Be obsessed with customer-centric data 5. Build a usable product with a simple model before exploring complicated AI models 6. Iteratively build use cases where AI directly impacts a metric 7. Build Breadth-first (Data/Pipeline/Model) instead of Depth-first (AI model) 8. Ensure your product fails gracefully 9. Insist on AI model explainability 10. Establish clear communication with your teams — know the fundamentals and language of data and ML. AI-Driven Product Management

    The top HN comment, on this topic, summarizes as follows: As someone who is a product manager in the commercialized AI SaaS space, the most important pieces of feedback I would give a new PM here:

    1. Don’t let your -brilliant- colleagues try to force their -brilliantly complex- solution of a problem - clearly define market problems, and don’t let the team try to go the route of trying to force fit a solution to a market problem. Market problems come first.

    2. Frame the market problems appropriately for your ML/AI teams, and practice trying to frame the problem from a variety of angles. Framing from different angles promotes the ‘Ah-ha’ moment in terms of the right way to solve the problem from the ML side.

    3. Don’t commit serious time to a model before having a naive solution to benchmark against. Always have a naive solution to compare against the AI solution. ‘Naive’ here may be a simple linear regression, RMSE, or multi armed bandit/Thompson sampling.

    ]]>    Pmarca Guide to Personal Productivityhttps://pavanyara.com/blog/pmarca-article/Fri, 30 Mar 2018 21:39:36 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/pmarca-article/<p><a href="https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_personal_productivity.html">Pmarca Guide to Personal Productivity</a> was written by Marc Andreessen and originally published on his blog, blog.pmarca.com. These articles are probably some of the best writings on business and startups anywhere but they were taken down years ago.</p> <p><strong>Techniques</strong></p> <ul> <li> <p><strong>Don&rsquo;t keep a schedule</strong>. By not keeping a schedule, you can always <strong>work on whatever is most important or most interesting</strong>, at any time. The idea came from <strong>A Perfect Mess</strong> book.</p>Pmarca Guide to Personal Productivity was written by Marc Andreessen and originally published on his blog, blog.pmarca.com. These articles are probably some of the best writings on business and startups anywhere but they were taken down years ago.

    Techniques

    • Don’t keep a schedule. By not keeping a schedule, you can always work on whatever is most important or most interesting, at any time. The idea came from A Perfect Mess book.

      If you have at any point in your life lived a relatively structured existence – probably due to some kind of job with regular office hours, meetings, and the like – you will know that there is nothing more liberating than looking at your calendar and seeing nothing but free time for weeks ahead to work on the most important things in whatever order you want.

    • Keep three and only three lists: a Todo List, a Watch List, and a Later List

    • Into the Todo List goes all the stuff you “must” do – commitments, obligations, things that have to be done. A single list, possibly subcategorized by timeframe (today, this week, next week, next month).

    • Into the Watch List goes all the stuff going on in your life that you have to follow up on, wait for someone else to get back to you on, remind yourself of in the future, or otherwise remember.

    • Into the Later List goes everything else – everything you might want to do or will do when you have time or wish you could do.

    • If it doesn’t go on one of those three lists, it goes away.

    • Each night before you go to bed, prepare a 3x5 index card with a short list of 3 to 5 things that you will do the next day.

    • And then, the next day, do those things.

    • People who have tried lots of productivity porn techniques will tell you that this is one of the most successful techniques they have ever tried. Once you get into the habit, you start to realize how many days you used to have when you wouldn’t get 3 to 5 important/significant/meaningful things done during a day.

    • Then, throughout the rest of the day, use the back of the 3x5 card as your Anti-Todo List.

    • And then at the end of the day, before you prepare tomorrow’s 3x5 card, take a look at today’s card and its Anti-Todo list and marvel at all the things you actually got done that day. Then tear it up and throw it away. Another day well spent, and productive.

    • Structured Procrastination.

      The gist of Structured Procrastination is that you should never fight the tendency to procrastinate – instead, you should use it to your advantage in order to get other things done. Generally in the course of a day, there is something you have to do that you are not doing because you are procrastinating. While you’re procrastinating, just do lots of other stuff instead.

    All procrastinators put off things they have to do. Structured procrastination is the art of making this bad trait work for you. The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing.

    Structured procrastination means shaping the structure of the tasks one has to do in a way that exploits this fact. The list of tasks one has in mind will be ordered by importance. Tasks that seem most urgent and important are on top. But there are also worthwhile tasks to perform lower down on the list. Doing these tasks becomes a way of not doing the things higher up on the list. With this sort of appropriate task structure, the procrastinator becomes a useful citizen. Indeed, the procrastinator can even acquire, as I have, a reputation for getting a lot done.

    • Strategic Incompetence.

    The best way to to make sure that you are never asked to do something again is to royally screw it up the first time you are asked to do it. Or, better yet, just say you know you will royally screw it up – maintain a strong voice and a clear gaze, and you’ll probably get off the hook.

    • Do email exactly twice a day – once first thing in the morning, and once at the end of the workday. Allocated half an hour or whatever it takes, but otherwise, keep your email client shut and your email notifications turned off. Only doing email twice a day will make you far more productive for the rest of the day. The problem with email is that getting an email triggers that same endorphin hit I mentioned above – the one that a mouse gets when he bonks on the button in the cage and gets a food pellet. Responding to an email triggers that same hit.

    • When you do process email, do it like this:

    • First, always finish each of your two daily email sessions with a completely empty inbox.

    • Second, when doing email, either answer or file every single message until you get to that empty inbox state of grace.

    • Third, emails relating to topics that are current working projects or pressing issues go into temporary subfolders of a folder called Action.

    • Fourth, aside from those temporary Action subfolders, only keep three standing email folders: Pending, Review, and Vault.

    • Don’t answer the phone. Let it go to voicemail, and then every few hours, screen your voicemails and batch the return calls. Say, twice a day. Have two cell phones with different numbers – one for key family members, your closest friends, and your boss and a few coworkers, and the other for everyone else. Answer the first one when it rings, but never answer the second one.

    • Hide in an IPod. People, for some reason, feel much worse interrupting you if you are wearing headphones than if you’re not.

    • Start the day with a real, sit-down breakfast.

    • Only agree to new commitments when both your head and your heart say yes. If you get that little adrenaline spike (in a good way) when you think about it, then your heart is saying yes. The corollary, of course, is that when your head says no and your heart says yes, your mouth should generally say yes as well :-). But not when your head says yes and your heart says no

    • Do something you love.

    ]]>    Notes - 28th March 2018https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-28-march-2018/Wed, 28 Mar 2018 22:08:43 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/notes-28-march-2018/<ul> <li> <p><a href="http://idea-sandbox.com/what-we-do/">Idea Sandbox</a> I see this linked from Derek Sivers article and bookmarking it. Seems to be a repository of problem-solving articles and creative tools. Here is an example of PMI decision making method, from one of the articles:</p> <blockquote> <p><strong>PMI Method</strong></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p>A third way to examine choices is the PMI Method, invented by Edward de Bono. PMI is an acronym for Plus, Minus, Interesting. It takes the Scored Pro &amp; Con a step further by forcing us to think about “what is interesting” about the choice.</p>

  • Idea Sandbox I see this linked from Derek Sivers article and bookmarking it. Seems to be a repository of problem-solving articles and creative tools. Here is an example of PMI decision making method, from one of the articles:

    PMI Method

    A third way to examine choices is the PMI Method, invented by Edward de Bono. PMI is an acronym for Plus, Minus, Interesting. It takes the Scored Pro & Con a step further by forcing us to think about “what is interesting” about the choice.

    Plus are the pros. What’s good about the idea.

    Minus are the cons, the bad points of the idea. And finally,

    Interesting. What is interesting? What are the possibilities?

    This chart is especially handy when brainstorming and you have ideas that are not a pro or a con. Rather, ideas interesting to think about. To calculate your PMI score add up your (Plus) + (Minus) + (Interesting) scores. Items in the “interesting” column can score as a plus or a minus depending on the implication of the thought.

  • Derek Sivers Blog Post - Detailed dreams blind you to new means.

    New technologies make old things easier, and new things possible. That’s why you need to re-evaluate your old dreams to see if new means have come along. Some actors move to Hollywood hoping to get noticed. Others use every new outlet to make themselves unavoidable.

    Some authors are just waiting for a publisher to sign them. Others are getting rich just self-publishing.

    You need to distinguish between what is your real goal, and what are the unnecessary details. Don’t let the details distract you from your goal.

    For each of your dreams, occasionally ask yourself what was the real point. Then look for a better way to get to that point.

    Let go of out-dated dreams that keep you from noticing what’s here now.

    • ]]>