K. Kumar's Blog, page 6
February 2, 2016
The Big Short
I recently saw The Big Short, a movie about the 2008 financial crisis and the traders who profited from the decline in housing prices. The movie tries to condense a very complex narrative into a neatly fit, two-hour story. And it is entertaining. But the movie is also a good example of the narrative fallacy, and what serves as good entertainment will not likely take you any closer to understanding what really happened and who is/was at fault.
The way to tell a narrative fallacy story is t...
January 28, 2016
Youth in Asia
Youth In Asia: 1968. Vietnam. The Central Highlands. Young Men Will Change. Some Will Die. by Allen TiffanyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Youth in Asia is a short story set in Vietnam, following a group of U.S. soldiers as they patrol the border between Vietnam and Cambodia. The American troops are not allowed to enter Cambodia, while the NVA and Vietcong can cross the borders freely. This puts the U.S. troops in constant danger. Youth in Asia is told from the perspective of one of these soldiers as...
January 26, 2016
40 Chances
40 Chances: Finding Hope in a Hungry World by Howard G. BuffettMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
40 Chances is an interesting series of vignettes by Howard Buffett with useful development lessons. The book centers around the idea that we all have a limited number of chances to learn lessons and improve on what you are trying to accomplish. Each chapter is a different story and a different lesson. Mr. Buffett has a unique perspective because of the life he has lived and the money he has been granted for...
January 21, 2016
Written On The Apple Tree
Written On The Apple Tree (Tales of the Unexpected #4) Mystery, Psychological Suspense by Ann GirdharryMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Written on the Apple Tree is a short, intriguing story about Kim and her mysterious encounter with Oliver. They meet and Kim begins to slowly realize her strong connection with him, and that she had been waiting for him. The setting of this story is a short time frame, mostly between three characters, but throughout the story it became clear that this tale spans a life...
January 18, 2016
Montevideo
#montevideo
A photo posted by K Kumar (@sicstrap) on Dec 14, 2015 at 6:21pm PST
I was in Buenos Aires speaking with the woman I was staying with and she me told about Montevideo. "Montevideo es Buenos Aires hace 50 anos." She was right. Uruguay is supposed to be one of the most progressive, equitable places in the world, but you wouldn't know that traveling through its largest city. To me it resembled antiquity and decay in the port or old city and then more of a conventional, suburba...
January 17, 2016
January 14, 2016
Human-Animal Conflict
I have been reading
40 Chances
, and I was intrigued by a chapter discussing human versus animal conflict in Africa. The story was that elephants in Botswana were in conflict with humans because the elephants would graze through farms and eat and damage crops. According to the book, farmers in Botswana have the right to kill an elephant if it steals their crop. And in the chapter, the author details how a farmer killed an elephant and later a woman was apparently trampled in retaliation. The i...
January 12, 2016
Sunday in Buenos Aires
Some months ago, I spent a couple days in Buenos Aires. I stayed in Palermo, in a room that I rented on Airbnb. It was the later part of winter and it was still cool in the mornings and generally throughout the days as well. I arrived on Sunday morning, the week of Thanksgiving and took a bus from the airport to a spot in the center of the city and a cab to Soler, in Palermo.
The house had an older facade, and my room was up three flights of stairs and then I took rest for the morning. Later,...
The house had an older facade, and my room was up three flights of stairs and then I took rest for the morning. Later,...
January 7, 2016
Star Wars
I saw Star Wars:
It was ok. On the one hand, movie story-lines about the fight of good versus evil are useful for discussion, entertaining, and potentially instructive. It may even be a good reminder of why the good have to fight the fight and be on guard against evil, even while holding on to the thought that no one wants to believe that evil exists.
A purely superficial story focuses on the fighting or action aspect and ignores everything else, and so this is where this movie fails. It is nei...
It was ok. On the one hand, movie story-lines about the fight of good versus evil are useful for discussion, entertaining, and potentially instructive. It may even be a good reminder of why the good have to fight the fight and be on guard against evil, even while holding on to the thought that no one wants to believe that evil exists.
A purely superficial story focuses on the fighting or action aspect and ignores everything else, and so this is where this movie fails. It is nei...
January 5, 2016
Politics in 2016
The political season in the U.S. has gotten rather ugly in the past couple weeks and I think it says a lot about the state of the country and the world. It is hard to see how the election will bring about any meaningful changes in the U.S. and, because the influence of the U.S., the world. The divisions are predictable and more or less the same in America as in the rest of the world. One party represents nationalism, fiscal discipline, social conservatism, while the other seems to represent l...
