Slow Horses

 I recently read the Slow Horses by Mick Herron. I first heard about it when an apple tv series based on the name became popular. Last I heard it was renewed for another season. I am rationing my screen time by optimally allocating it in 'certain' sense -- it is either one of the comfort watch of re runs or completing my to watch list -- that I decide to first read the book and I was lucky. Book is very engaging, characters are very well developed, and plot was believable. It had a shadow of John Le Carre in that there is the British bureaucracy and spies -- or rather ex spies -- with human touch. Couple of things are not yet clear regarding the motivation of few characters and I hope it will be made more clear in subsequent books in the series. I can very much imagine it being written for the tv. An office settings, cast of front line workers and management, not too many outdoor scenes, a caustic boss, and a group of misfits. I am looking forward to watching it on tv as well sometime soon.  

Impossible City: Paris in the Twenty-First Century

I finished reading Impossible City: Paris in the Twenty-First Century by Simon Kuper who is also a columnist in FT, host of a podcast Heroes and Humans of Football, and author of other books few of which are already in my reading list.

It is an engaging book. I have not been to Paris - except during transit - but it is a city I would like to visit. Thanks to Netflix tv series such as Call My Agent and Lupin, and having read Simon Kuper's earlier articles, this book was long on my reading list. 

This book establishes why Paris is the centre of France and how that centre is expanding - both geographically as well as metaphorically. Simon moved to France sometime in his adulthood having lived in different countries and therefore brings an outsider's and comparative perspective. Book is divided into different chapters each dealing with one topic and all the topic taken together presents a picture of Paris which is rooted in its century old customs but also trying to grow. As a columnist for FT, he - I assume - has access to the people and places and he takes us to different types of people from other migrants to homeless to politicians and places within the Paris as well as at the periphery or suburbs. I recommend this book to any one having interest in the city and exploration of the city beyond usual tourist things.

A name i recognize

 IEEE Spectrum is one of the sources I really admire for sound and general purpose technical news. In a recent post excerpting a book on evolution of universities as innovation engine, I came across the name of Romesh Wadhwani whom I, and many other IITB students, know from WEL lab (second 'lab' is RAS syndrom) or Wadhwani Electronics Lab where we had our undergraduate electronics lab and where many students used to go for quick prototyping of circuits. 

26June25 links and followup

• Rooting for: Four minute barrier for women
• Good try
• EU considers mars chocolates and Pringles 'must have' for customers: Challenge to their merger bid
• CBSE board exams twice a year. Good move. I was surprised to find that many IIMs giving weightage to 10th marks. Then I was even more surprised to find many IT companies may use 10th marks as filtering criterion in campus placements.
• Not surprising that chatbots exaggerates scientific claims. Many papers do and almost all the abstracts. In that sense, these chatbots are acting more like an amateur journalists than a cautious scientist. But I am very hopeful that exaggeration is an issue which can be easily overcome with focused training.