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I sometimes wonder if I should just enroll and do a certificate course in UX. UX, not UI – my visual sensibilities are a tad retarded, but I am good at spotting failures. And I love research. I may not be the best guy to talk to people yet, but I haven’t tried that first hand as well. So maybe I can learn. I think UX is a very interesting topic. A good understanding of the principles and knowledge of how to apply them to a system/product/solution/problem at hand is an immensely useful skill to have. Of course, I don’t think it will fetch me any salary to start, but maybe I will be good at it. And If I am good, then I think I can get closer to the design field that I believe is the next most important horizontal going forward. ...

… is that you may end up having little to no understanding of domains where there are actual problems worth solving. For instance, Noni and I were discussing one of Noni’s ideas for payment processing. As software people, both of us can quickly locate the api and frameworks required and even build an MVP in little to no time. But neither of us are aware of what regulatory aspects control such finance apps. That means we now need to engage with a finance specialist (like an auditor or a chartered accountant or a banker). No, that’s not a bad idea as is. But it leaves us looking naive even though we pack close to 10 years of programming expertise each. ...

In general, aggression is not a good idea. But I think aggression is the fundamental reason I have come some far in my life. I believe you need to be aggressive in your work. This has nothing to do with the proverbial rat-race. Of course, you need to be very aggressive to actually achieve something in the race as well. But that aggression possibly only gives you bad health and nothing much else. ...

I got this idea as I was in the middle of my yoga session. I have this app called “noizio” installed in my mac. There is nothing special about this app and there are many variants on this app as well. It can generate ambient noises like being present in a cafe, beach, grass, etc. You can choose if it is raining, windy, thunderstorms, riverside and others. It works quite well, especially if you like to work in a noisier environment. I don’t, but I just installed it for seeing what options I can get 🙂 ...

Isn’t it a tad surprising to see that so many vegetables and fruits are so good for a human body? As in, there are specific fruits that can help improve specific organ functions. You can see it as a wonderful gift from God, or as an evolutionary thing. But what if they aren’t either? What if these organs are essentially evolved from those fruits or vegetables? After all you can trace human species as an evolutionary successor in a chain. So what if somewhere along the chain, the atomic/chemical structures in these fruits or vegetables are what became base structures to modern organs? That is perhaps why they seem to cure/fix/help certain organs? ...

We are busy questioning if there is intelligent life outside of earth. What if it was the other way around? What if the human race is what was abandoned by intelligent life to live in the extreme conditions of this planet? What if some intelligent life forms wanted to create a prison for criminals. They surveyed multiple planets and figured out that earth has the harshest yet conditions while the other two hadn’t even cooled down. Only they found huge lizards that were wreaking havoc. So they decided to use their state of the art pest control to eradicate the lizards. You know, those lizards could have caused easy death to their criminals. Then they left the last of their worst criminals to die in this planet. Maybe their society learned a lesson and never repeated the offences. ...

I find this an oft-returning thought to me. I completely believe in assuming responsibility to what happens with my life. And truly, my career and life so far is a reflection of conscious decisions I have taken thus far in my journey. But every time I look back, I clearly see the mistakes I make. Some of these mistakes are fairly disastrous. I sometimes wonder I shouldn’t have joined IIT. I always knew I wanted to be on my own. IIT was not a logical step in that direction – as in – not a step aimed to directly equip me for this. IIT was a dream and I pursued it. But should I have pursued that dream in lieu of a losing a bigger dream? ...

Two years of iPhone has served me very well. Now I need to renew my contract and I can get another device with the new contract. I could forgo a device, but I may not be able to get a device in the contract later on. So, it put me in a fix. Fix because the contract does not support picking a 5S device. Or even a 4S device. And I am not sure if I want to lug around a bigger handset than that. iPhone 6 is big. Its bigger than I like a personal handset to be. Maybe I am stuck in the 2000s and the world has moved on. But I can choose to remain in my own little time warp, can’t I? ...

If you have to hesitate to make a decision, then perhaps you are not yet ready to go ahead with it. You lack the clarity or confidence or the rigor needed to keep up with the decision. I hesitated again today to do something. A hesitation I would not have had 4 years back even if I was earning only half of what I do today. Growing up does not always make your life easy. ...

 As I was rolling in the bed y’day night trying to sleep, I weirdly started thinking how Hindi as a language fared in my life. When I entered middle school, I had to make a choice for the second language. And my parents rightly made my choice for studying Hindi. They felt, I would anyway pickup Tamil and knowing the national language is very important. Yes. I totally agree today – besides, I am sure Hindi was simpler than Tamil. In those times, choosing Hindi has its own disadvantages. For instance, during Engineering college admissions, if two candidates had all parameters equal, then the candidate who chose to study Tamil would get preference. At least that is what I was told. I never had to validate it though. ...