Spent the holidays reading two books: one on SpaceX1 and the other on Tesla2. Both of them were really about Elon Musk (not surprising given his outsized influence in both these firms). While I don’t count myself as a Musk fan, it is difficult not to be impressed by what he and his teams have... Continue Reading →

A few weeks ago, I had talked about building an IoT device (Air Quality Index monitor) and how easy the process has become. In the last couple of weeks, I have been working with my 12-year old daughter to build another device – she wanted to build a sensor that would alert when someone walked... Continue Reading →

Some of you reached out to ask me how the idea of Natural Experiments is any different from the standard experiments (test/control, A/B testing  et al). The latter (let’s call them Controlled experiments) differ in two critically important ways: Controlled experiments have the ability to define the relevant populations upfront. This is a huge advantage... Continue Reading →

October is the Nobel Prize month – and most years, we really don’t pay all that much attention (except perhaps the Peace Prize where everyone seems to have an opinion). But then, every once in a while, the Nobel Committee ends up landing on a body of work that you can directly see around you.... Continue Reading →

First, the IoT project that I had mentioned in my previous post. Wrapped it up – I have a fully functional AQI device (which measures the Air Quality Indicator, temperature and humidity). All put together, it costed by less than $25 (a similar device retails for $279 from Purple Air, which means the economics of... Continue Reading →