Thoughts

Late bloomer is a term often associated with developmental milestones in kids. It turns out the actual meaning is a lot more generous than that, despite what Urban Dictionary has to say on the topic. I always topped my class in school. Even through undergrad classes, I stayed in the top 5 ranks. So, “late bloomer” is not a term that anyone would associate with me. Frankly, I haven’t considered the possibility until very recently. I did well in most of what I took up doing. And if you look at my career path, I’ve dabbled with a lot of technologies across the spectrum. I mean, does anyone even remember SSI clustering anymore? Until recently, I even had a google alert setup for “Mosix clustering” - if you even remember something like that in the first place. Just out of college, I had the opportunity to setup both SSI cluster as well as a Mosix cluster :-). So to say, that I had the opportunities and then I had the capability to pick up on those opportunities is somewhat humble. So where is this thought of a “late bloomer” even figuring in all this? ...

Hello Hugo! Today I moved my blog to hugo. Frankly it doesn’t make intuitive sense to run a blog on a static site generator. But when I think about it again, my blog is my expression of ideas. I rarely engage on the comments section. And the best way to let me know your thoughts is still to tweet at me. Given these, it makes sufficient sense to run the blog as a static site. And the site is now stupidly simple. I found a fabulous theme, and am editing the site using markdown on my emacs. This is actually faster than editing on wordpress editor :-) ...

What and Why? Personally, newsletters are the new blogs. While I don’t write or curate my own, I read a lot. And I am over-subscribed too. I subscribe to about 15 different newsletters but manage to read 1 or 2 in a week. That isn’t good. Luckily, I don’t yet pay to subscribe for any of them – and precisely for this reason. The only newsletter that I pay and subscribe to is the Blackbook newsletter by Vijay Anand. When I wondered how I would organise and streamline my newsletter subscriptions, there was a post on the Blackbook discussing the very problem in good detail. Perhaps, I was mulling over a problem that hadn’t been solved very well for the first time. Of course, even as I write this, I am sure dozens of startups are solving this and probably very elegantly too. ...

I, accidentally, noticed that my WordPress instance was compromised. Of course, I would be the person to blame for this. It’s not a commercial thing, so I don’t nearly spend enough time looking under the hood. This cost me a couple of hours yesterday fixing and cleaning up the mess. I’ve taken some precautions to ensure I won’t need to look under the hood too frequently but also ensure I don’t sponsor some botnet or click-fraud elsewhere on the tubes. ...

I have an axe to grind with Siri. I use Siri every day to time my yoga routine. These are short reps of 30s poses. It takes about 30 mins to complete them. I searched for a good timer a couple of times in the past and then gave them up altogether once I figured I could use Siri to set up the timer for me. On a good day, it’s all good. But on most days, Siri is deaf. Not just any deaf, she’s so deaf that I’ll be screaming at the top of my voice to get her to effing wake up. Eventually I figured, maybe if I used a headset, things might get better. So I picked up a $75 Beats headset. Excellent headset actually. Stays snug fit in my ear – something the default iPhone headset doesn’t for me. Apparently, I don’t have the generic ear that the rest of the world has. Turns out, though, Siri doesn’t care if I used a Beats headset because it still depends on hearing me properly. Incidentally, Beats has a small button that I can press to summon Siri. The problem for me, though, is that I need to start the timer after I get into the pose. When I am in the pose, I can’t move around my hands much. So summoning Siri with a button is a non-starter. ...

I am largely techie guy. In the sense, I can rarely understand what it is to be a non-technical person. Let me explain that a bit. I cannot fathom why some people cannot see how a certain idea or logic could be written as software. While here I am, trying to see the world around me as though someone wrote down code to make it work the way it does. I guess people are just wired differently. I have more recently come to terms with this fact and that some people are just better at other things than visualizing software. Its perhaps the same way that some people are visually challenged or aurally challenged (is that correct?). And I continue to remain indifferent to this difference. ...

The International Airport in Chennai (MAA) is a statement. But before you start assuming its cultural significance, let me quickly say this: I don’t know how to frame the statement itself, but I’ll attempt to elaborate my understanding. As someone interested in UX and wanting to improve UX every here and there – no I haven’t improved UX anywhere yet – I cannot help but notice this about the MAA airport. The departure happens from the new terminal. This building has constructionally stabilized and withstood Vardah, so I guess its a safe place now. And since its a new building, they have incorporated a slightly better queueing system for immigration. Nothing great here and of course, there is a tonne to improve. The arrival happens in the older terminal. The arrival immigration hall is probably half as big as the new terminal itself and yet, it is the most time consuming and unorganized aspect of the entire “arrival” process. Baggage should have taken the spot, but immigration wins hands down. ...

Its 2018, almost. And I still find it hard to compose long form content on a handheld phone (iPhone/android). Its just not comfortable to enough to get out of the way and allow the thought flow. iPad was better definitely, but I decided not to upgrade since the last one. Seemed too redundant to our lifestyle and given that my Mac Pro is not all that heavy, I end up composing all long form content on the Mac Pro. Overkill you say, I’ll bet right with you. ...

My favourite TED talk is the talk by Larry Smith on “Why You Will Fail To Have A Great Career”. It is also my worst nightmare. It is what keeps me looking hard for problems that I believe in, that I want to be assosciated with. I take part in multiple forums just trying to see what would interest me. After all, if you want to commit all your time to working on something, you might pick up something that you really believe in. Or you have to be one motivated personality (which I know I rarely am). I need a reason to do things however silly the reason may be. But I cannot fool myself into believing there is a good enough reason. Catch-22, right? ...

The biggest update since the last time I posted something is that I have moved to Chennai. Singapore is fun and a great place to live, but perhaps it didn’t work out very well for my career aspirations. It did work great for the wife, but she is happy to back in Chennai as well. Besides she is on the planned break for Sid, so maybe it doesn’t matter all that much in the short term. ...