As per this wikipedia article{:target="_blank"}, Nehru was the first person to use the phrase "scientific temper". The article says:

The Scientific temper is a way of life (defined in this context as an individual and social process of thinking and acting) which uses the scientific method and which may, consequently, include questioning, observing physical reality, testing, hypothesizing, analysing, and communicating (not necessarily in that order). "Scientific temper" describes an attitude which involves the application of logic.

In other words, apply the ideas of scientific thinking (like observations, logging, testing, analysis etc.) to your life and take better decisions. For a layperson not accustomed to the working of science and its practitioners, this seems to be a good "life-hack".

If you are a grad student and in need for something to procrastinate instead of doing real work, read on, I share with you my experiences of trying to track my time that I think will help me in the long run. ¹

As an entrant into the PhD program at IISc, I discovered the use for my learning from my earlier corporate days. If at any point in your career you have worked independently you will realise the need for tracking your work.

I had the same question when I was in college and did not know what to do. But now, with some reading and experience, I know how much I don't know. Here's a short introduction to get you started:

You should know that when somebody talks about computational materials science, they are talking about using a computational technique to solve a problem in materials science or metallurgy. These computational techniques could be FEM, DFT, Phase-field Modelling, Molecular Dynamics or anything else.

A few days back, I got a call from somebody who wanted to collaborate on a venture with me.

Hi Jitin, so I see you are an engineer who has worked in consulting and design stuff and now make videos. You have an “interesting profile” but what is it that you actually do?

I have always struggled with this problem. For my first interview, I was asked why I wanted to get into Risk Consulting when I had a profile in academic research? But, that was sometime back. I was in the same situation more recently when I left my job at KPMG to start something of my own.

I have written a few answers on Quora - the curated and better version of Yahoo Answers for the uninitiated (this is only a dumbed down description to be fair).

What sets Quora apart is that the moderation and the BNBR - Be nice, Be respectful - policy and also quality control that was in place a few years ago.

The quality of answers has got worse with time over the last few years (so says every other Quoran second day of usage onwards)

This is the text of the email I sent out to colleagues on my last working day at KPMG.

Hi,

Today is my last working day at KPMG. As some of you may know, I’ll be ‘starting up’ something of my own – into the content design and related space.

When I tell this to people, I feel they see it as - getting funded, acquired and having an innovative product. The actual experience is like starting a ‘kirana’ store – the market is crowded, it is not something new and you don’t expect to be the next Zuckerberg. But you have to start somewhere, right? (:

There are times when I felt bad about moving out, especially when I recall the interesting conversations I’ve had with some great minds here. But then, the push for experimenting with my career was slightly higher.

Looking back, I now realise that, all that I have learnt here, being a part of KPMG, is something that will help me immensely going forward. My interactions with all of you have also shaped my professional and personal perspectives. Thanks for being a part of this amazing journey. Do stay in touch – the world is a small place, I am sure our paths will cross again.

Regards, Jitin Nair

Free Education - an ambitious problem that many startups worldwide have wished to solve and are doing too - Coursera, edX etc. But then Coursera and edX are for-profit ventures.

They generate their revenue from strategic partnerships with universities to offer certificates issued to end users on successful completion of the course. One needs to pay to get certified and this is one of the revenue streams for these MOOC providers.

What would you do if you were hungry at 11.00 pm on a weekday and don't have anything in your kitchen? Go to your friend's place or some late night chai-wallah place? But now, you have an option of ordering online, something you did not have a couple of years back. With startups entering this space, food ordering is the easiest way to satiate your hunger quickly. I have ordered from a few of them and decided to put down my experiences and notes from content available online on the matter.

What is the business model like?

I was recently asked to write something on “What is wrong with India’s education system? What are the solutions?”

Here's what I could come up with :

I've taken more than 120 trips using the Uber app in the last 10 months. Until last month, UberPOOL wasn't an option and I used to be the only rider in the cab. Curiosity (and also a good way to kill time in Bangalore's traffic) made me ask a lot of questions on Uber, it's service model, it's app and I tried to understand their business model which the Uber Partners (yeah, they're not called drivers by Uber and this is one of the reasons I like Uber) were happy to discuss.

My first thought was "Why did not someone think of this earlier?" This reminds me of how ice was initially marketed - something that people did not realise they needed! {:target="_blank"}

I remember I first heard of WhatsApp from some of my friends back in 2011-12.

I admit, my first impression was that the idea was neat, and I recall I had read an article that it could potentially put out the entire SMS business to rest (turns out it did) but since I did not own a smartphone then, I did not try it out.