Beijing Part 2 & Outliers

This was my second trip to Beijing. Stayed at J.W. Marriott. It was neat. Never stayed in such a high end room before. The one feature I loved - TV right above the bath tub. Lot of amenities too!! Sure enjoyed the stay. Came back only for the better though. Have 9 days off from work. Took the Monday and Tuesday off along with the extended long weekend the company mandated for Thanksgiving. Finally loads of time to spend with Anya. :)

Read a book called Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. It is a must read. Highly recommended. He starts by explaining how Roseta, Pennsylvania has low rates of heart related problems amongst its population. He also explains why major league players for NHL in Canada have more players born in the first quarter of the year. He then goes on to illustrate how Bill Joy (co-founder of Sun) and Bill Gates were successful because of several intangible factors in addition to their hard-work and determination. It talks about how a combination of ethnicity, the demographics and failure of white-shoe law firms to accept takeover litigation made successful lawyers out of some Jewish immigrants including Joseph Flom. It also tries to explain why Asians are good at Math (however that was not as convincing as the other outliers). He also convincingly explains why Korean airlines had more crashes before the 1990s. A really awesome book.