Hi, I am Pankaj Kumar. I work in the enterprise software space as a Principal Technology Consultant at SAP America of Palo Alto, CA. I use this weblog to share my thoughts about my professional life as a SAP professional.Digitopoly is becoming my favorite blog…
Digitopoly is becoming my favorite blog as they seem to touch the very topics I am interested in. Future of libraries and books is something I think often. Let us say everytime I visit the local library. Here is there thinking on why reading book should be more like going to cinema rather than owning a physical artifact. You can always argue that there are folks who like to own discs/tapes but that would be minority compared to folks who see the movie.
“Here is the central fact about book publishing: lending is the natural state. Authors produce a book that is improved by others (including editors etc). Then people read the book and that is where it has primary value. Notice that there is no ‘then people buy the book’ stage in the middle or ‘then people place the book on their shelves forever more’ after these. Those are things people did because (a) they had to buy a physical copy and (b) they got used to keeping the physical copy. But for libraries, none of that was relevant.
The issue book publishers face — and so many have said it I really shouldn’t bother, but I will — is that they are wedded to a strategy whereby they sell owned copies rather than reading. That model did translate over to eBooks and, in many respects, eBooks are actually harder to share as owned copies than physical books. Amazon and others have tried to break those constraints but it is safe to say that sharing is hard. Although, when you have a family account things become simpler. But institutionalised lending of eBooks may be very attractive to readers.”
Lending is the right model | Digitopoly
Digitopoly. About; Authors. Erik Brynjolfsson; Joshua Gans; Shane Greenstein. Posts by Author. Erik Brynjolfsson; Joshua Gans; Shane Greenstein. Blog Network. Core Economics; Economics of Information;…
Me Myself and Big Data It seems the future…
Me Myself and Big Data
It seems the future for self big data is not very far and I think it would be a good thing. Few days ago I read about Up from Jawbone (http://jawbone.com/up) which tracks activity data you in the hope it would nudge you for healthier style. But Larry Smarr from UCSD, chronicles
Quantified Health:
Towards Digitally Enabled Genomic Medicine:A 10-Year Detective Story of Quantifying My Body (Link below)
The amount of data collected as part of this detective work is truly amazing. I am sure it must have required a lot of effort and motivation to do this over 10 years. This required effort to collect self bio markers over long periods would definitely decrease in future with more and more things like Up resulting in insights that were unthinkable earlier.
Strategic News Service – Recent IssuesSTRATEGIC NEWS SERVICE
In This Issue. Feature: Special Letter: Quantified Health: A 10-Year Detective Story. of Digitally Enabled Genomic Medicine. Nutrition, Exercise, and Sleep: The Foundations for a. Healthier Self. Your…
Trouble with bright kids There is very good…
Trouble with bright kids
There is very good discussion going at Hacker News (http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3284169) on an HBR blogs article. TL;DR version is that bright kids get praised for smartness plus our education system works for the lowest common denominator which means less challenges for the bright ones. These two things work against the bright kids.
The Trouble With Bright Kids – Heidi Grant Halvorson – Harvard Business Review
Business bloggers at Harvard Business Review discuss a variety of business topics including managing people, innovation, leadership, and more.
Photography is an art. Dance photography…
Photography is an art. Dance photography is an extreme form of it due to low light conditions, fast moving objects etc. Peter Norvig, a legendary programmers shares his thoughts on Dance Photography in a really good tutorial form. Read and learn (Most of the indoor parties are simpler examples of dance photography
Table of Contents 1: Initial Disappointment 2: Basic Photo Editing 3: Basic Equipment 4: Types of Blur 5: Subject Motion Blur 6: Camera Shake 7: Plane of Focus and Depth of Field 8: Noise 9: Exposure …
Happened to read a bit of silicon valley…
Happened to read a bit of silicon valley history from couple of sources recently. One recurring theme is as follows (this bit is from What the Dormouse Said)
"but before long he was bored with building xxxxx that required little of his creativity, and he began looking for something more interesting to work on"
imported from Google+When thinking about giants of computing…
When thinking about giants of computing one easily forgets that they were young once, this tidbit from What the Dormouse Said about Doug Engelbart is very interesting. His manager is complaining about him to his manager
"Jerry, I know you well enough. I have two things to say, and it will only take sixty seconds point number one is that you have to choose.you either have to risk it on this guy our you have to fire him the second thing I have to say its that this the brightest guy I have ever worked with."
imported from Google+Very tough story to read. It is just terrifying…
Very tough story to read. It is just terrifying to know that there are millions of girls who are pushed into this every year.
When 6-year-olds are sold to be tortured and raped, it’s time for a 21st-century abolitionist movement to end human trafficking.
Lumia 800 looks good
Lumia 800 looks good
There has been a lot of noise about this new phone from Nokia called Lumia 800. Finally got a chance to read up on it. Following the cues of its earlier buddy N9, Lumia 800 looks very good. Let us see how it goes in the world with MS Mango.
Nokia’s first Windows Phone has a great design and performs solidly, but the Lumia 800 lacks a few perks its competitors flaunt
Can USPS? part two
I recently wrote about if USPS can survive as webvan, on a similar note it was refreshing to see this NYT story about Deutsche Post and how it is thriving and evolving for digital age
The Deutsche Post office across from the train station here offers DVDs, umbrellas, phone cards and toys — with the processing of mail appearing nearly an afterthought. And the facility housing it is not a post office at all. Deutsche Post occupies a corner space in a bank.
What was news to me was how USPS is constrained by law not to evolve or play in limited markets
It’s easy to say that the U.S.P.S. is a bunch of morons, but they live under legislative restrictions on what businesses they can enter and are expressly prevented from entering business unless it’s related to physical mail.
Now thats a bummer. I wonder if these legislative restrictions would be relaxed as things get more digital.