Books on Islamic Finance and Economics and the Merdeka Tower

Here is the link to the recommended books in 2020. Happy reading. I include below the one that I am going to read because Shariah perspective in construction industry should be intriguing.

Note: I spent the weekend at Kuala Lumpur. From the hotel room at the 20th floor (The restaurant is located at the 27th floor), I could see the Warisan Merdeka Tower (KL118 or PNB118, Translation - Heritage of Independence). The megatall skycraper is set to be the second tallest in the world, after Burj Khalifa. More information here, and some awesome pics. I really want to talk to the person behind the idea of KL118. Remind me of 'The Matrix Resurrections.'

Image credit - World Scientific

'The raising hand of Tunku Abdul Rahman inspired the design of the spire of PNB118'

Image credit - The TowerInfo.com

7 Books to Read

If you are an Economics students, here are 7 Books to read in 2022. The list is compiled by Chloe Lane in October 2021. 

1. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

2. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky.

3. The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford.

4. 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang.

5. Animal Spirits by Akerlof and Shiller.

6. The Armchair Economist by Steven E. Landsburg.

7.The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nissim Nocholas Taleb.

Image credit - goodreads.com

36 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. 

A Book from 1896

Political Economy for Beginners. The 280-pages book is available here, thanks to Internet Archive.

Image credit - Internet Archive.

40 Awesome Inventions to Note in 2022

United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) notes that 3.3 million patents were granted in 2019.  This article handpicked 40 of them. Mostly comprises inventions in the fields of technology.

Here are the Lists:

1. Starkey Livio AI – Advanced Hearing Aids
2. Valve Index
3. SkinCeuticals Unique Skin Care
4. FLYTE Levitating Light Bulb
5. Verilux CleanWave Sanitizing Wand
6. Flexwarm Smart Jacket
7. Water Walker & Spa
8. Phree Electronic Sensor Pen
9. Copy & Paste
10. MIITO
11. Arubixs Foldable Smartphone-Cum Smartwatch
12. The Wearable Reading Light
13. Ambassador Headphones Translators
14. iMicro C – a Fingertip Microscope for Any Phone
15. OrCam MyMe – AI for Humans
16. Smart Buckle
17. Spin On
18. NANO1 – World’s Smallest Astronomy Camera
19. SiB – The Simple Internet-Connected Button that is only $5
20. ATOMIC Pi – A high power alternative to RPi
21. Xiaomi Handwarmer Powerbank
22. Solar Roadways
23. Enomad Uno – Portable Water Power Generator
24. Dolfi – Next Gen Washing Device
25. Bimoz – World’s lightest and smartest e-bike drive
26. Eyelights – The First Holographic Car Assistant
27. Padrone Ring – Coolest Mouse Ever
28. Hoversurf
29. HiMirror Mini
30. LUMZAG – The Smart Bag Packed With Cool Features
31. US:E – Camera Equipped Smart Lock with Facial Recognition
32. CleanseBot – World’s First Bacteria Killing Robot
33. Cubinote – Smart Sticky Note Printer
34. Nybble – World’s Cutest Open Source Robotic Kitten
35. KEY-X – Smart Keyboard for People with Disabilities
36. PWR 27 – Your Traveling PowerStation
37. Unagi – The Ultimate Electric Scooter
38. Geopress Purifier – Clean Water, Anywhere in the World
39. Hover 2 – The 4K Drone that Flies Itself
40. Levia – Unique Levitating Marble Lamp

No 4: FLYTE Levitating Light Bulb

Made in Sweden, powered through the air. Made of oak, ash, and walnut. FLYTE uses highly efficient LEDs that are rated at around 50, 000 hours, i.e. 12 hours of usage a day for 11 years.

Image credit - BeeBom

Inventing Ideas

Diane Coyle reviewing the book on "Inventing Ideas" in her Blog The Enlightened Economist. She found the book 'very interesting.'

Image credit - Amazon

The Young China

You can read the rest of the article here from the Harvard Business Review.

Pigouvian Taxes and Biden's BBB

An article written by Prof. Mankiw in 2009. In his recent blog post, Prof. Mankiw commented on Biden's signature BBB's (Build Back Better) plan.  

Image credit - Environmental Economics

Inflation and the 'Great Lockdown'

The Great Lockdown (IMF, 2020) could either lead to high inflation (eg. Brazil) or deflation (eg. Japan). According to this article, the structural changes that could occur through inflation channels moving forward are:

1) Shift in consumption patterns during the pandemic;

2) Change in competitive dynamics; and

3) Impact from economic scarring and shifts in labour market.

Image credit: Pew Research Center

Early Career Researchers and Covid-19 Pandemic

A perspective on how early career researchers have been impacted by the pandemic in the LSE Impact Blog. (6-minutes read)

Excerpt:

"In a blogpost from this time last year, I introduced Harbingers-2, a longitudinal qualitative research project, which seeks to understand the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the early career researcher (ECR) community. One year on, halfway into the project, it seems appropriate to revisit the oft-heard ‘horror’ scenario: the prediction that ECRs will become a generation of academics lost to research. Basing our appreciation of the situation on data gathered in two repeat rounds of depth interviews with 177 ECRs from eight countries (China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Spain, Russia, UK and US) held about seven months apart in 2021, we can report on how far this scenario has played out. Have ECRs been disproportionately affected by the crisis to the detriment of their research careers?"

Image credit - IU Blogs. Interactive Covid-19 Visualisation.

Samuelson and Friedman in One Book

Here is the featured post in EconLib.

Image credit - EconBlog

Shuto Suidobutso (Capital Submerged)

Japan has perfected the art of coping with typhonic rains and flooding rivers, and its flood defence system is an engineering marvel. The underground discharged channel was completed in 2006 and took 13 years to be completed. It is the world’s largest diversion floodwater facility.  The full story here. 

Excerpt:

"Cecilia Tortajada recalls making her way down a long staircase and into of one of Japan’s engineering marvels, an enormous water tank that crowns Tokyo’s defences against flooding. When she finally reached the tank’s ground, she stood among the dozens of 500-tonne pillars supporting the ceiling. In the cavernous, shrine-like cistern, she felt humbled.

“You find yourself being a tiny part of this humongous system,” recalls Tortajada, a water management expert at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy’s Institute of Water Policy, in Singapore. “You realise how well prepared Tokyo is.”

If Japan is a pilgrimage destination for disaster and risk-management experts like her, this is one of its main temples. The floodwater cathedral hidden 22 meters underground is part of the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel (MAOUDC), a 6.3 km long system of tunnels and towering cylindrical chambers that protect North Tokyo from flooding."

Image credit - BBC

Image credit - groovyjapan.com

Mare Tranquillitatis

What I appreciate the most is the knowledge gained after watching drama series. 'The Silent Sea' is a Netflix South Korea's sci-fi mystery thriller streaming television series. Read further and you will discover how Choi Hang-yong, the writer and the director's of the drama own-up to the eponymous title.

Excerpt:

"Astronomers Francesco Grimaldi and Giovanni Battista Riccioli were the first to use the phrase Mare Tranquillitatis in 1651 in the lunar map they created, called ‘Almagestum novum.’ Another astronomer, Michael van Langren, named the location “Mare Belgicum” in ‘Lumina Austriaca Philippica’ in 1641. Even though Mare Belgicum was coined earlier as a phrase, Mare Tranquillitatis is the one that stuck."

Image credit - The Cinemaholic. 'The Silent Sea'

Book to Read 2021: Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems

In Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems, Nobel-Prize winning economists Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo provide a grounded approach to tackling today’s most pressing global problems. The focus are on alleviating inequality and poverty. Shruti Patel writes the review of the book. 

Image Credit - Shruti Patel, Book Review

M1 Chip by Apple

Apple’s M1 chip has a total of 16 billion transistors onboard. Full story here.

Quote: "Apple’s more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it."

Excerpt:

"Back in 2019, Apple announced its intentions to break up with Intel, the company that had been supplying the CPUs for Macs since 2006. Then, at the end of 2020, Cupertino announced the M1. It’s a system-on-a-chip, which means one silicon slab contains the CPU, graphics processor, system memory, machine learning hardware, and just about everything else a computer needs to operate. Because Apple controls the software and hardware surrounding the M1, its systems can eliminate layers of inefficiency. The chip launched with refreshes to the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, laptops that obliterated benchmark tests for their classes. Apple also stuck its new silicon into the Mac Mini and the new ultra-slim iMac. They’re equally as impressive. The company has already updated the M1 with the new M1 Pro and M1 Max chips, which popped in October. Laptops with those guts are already outperforming pricier Mac Pros using the old architecture. It was a big swing for Apple and, at least so far, it has been a massive achievement. "

M1 chip. 16 billion transistors. Image credit - Apple.