Pareto Frontier

If you have been following model press releases, it is impossible not to have come across this phrase.

Do you know what it means?

The model companies are telling you that no other model is both smarter and cheaper than theirs.

On one axis if you plot price and on the other intelligence, the Pareto curve traces the optimal trade-off.

Pareto curves turn up wherever two things trade against each other, like in this case, price you pay for intelligence.

Our standing desk at home has a child lock but, only the child in the house knows how to unlock it.

One snag: macOS auto-brightness kept dimming the screen, from 100% to 59% in ten seconds. Claude Code tracked down the hidden setting that switches it off.

This is a golden era for personal, malleable software: you shape tools to how you work instead of waiting for someone to ship them.

A short, succinct podcast on one of the biggest achievements of the Modi government: eradicating Left Naxal terror from India.

Bharatvaarta: How India Is Ending Naxal Terror | The Untold Strategy Behind the Final Crackdown FT. Tuhin Sinha Episode webpage: https://www.bharatvaarta.in/

Media file: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/ISP9790010887.mp3

Open source software is a cheat code for AI agents.

Recently, I was trying to paste rich text into a tool, and the tool kept messing it up. I asked an AI agent what was going wrong. It looked at the source of the tool, figured out how it handled copied data in the text area, and gave me formatted text that I could copy into the text area while retaining the format.

Pretty soon, we will design our spaces to be robot-friendly.

@innate_bot: Today, we are open-sourcing the Innate OS, the intuitive agentic OS for general-purpose robots 🎮 Try it today in our simulator and make the smartest robot ⬇️ Here is a demo with two robots collaborating We are entering the physical agents era, but building for mobile robots is still reserved for PhDs. We designed the Innate OS for intuitiveness, so that everyone can start automating their lives. Innate OS runs on our <$1k open-source robot or on your computer. It takes just a minute to build your first agent in our simulator.

I’ve stopped deciding about new tools from their marketing pages alone.

Claude Code already knows my setup: my dotfiles, my hooks, the rules for how work gets planned and launched. So when a tool shows up, I ask one question. Claude goes through everything about the tool (its website, its GitHub repo, its issues, its code) and checks all of it against how I work. I don’t read any of it myself.

This week that was Paseo, an open-source app for running Claude Code sessions from your phone, browser or desktop. Could it replace my home-grown setup for running sessions in parallel?

Claude told me exactly what it could replace in my workflow today: juggling terminal tabs to keep track of parallel sessions, and reaching those sessions from my phone.

It also told me what it couldn’t: the machine that runs the sessions, the planning rules every piece of work goes through, the way I set up a fresh checkout for each task, and everything I’ve built outside session management.

Both lists, checked against my setup, made the decision for me.

An evaluation that used to take an afternoon of reading is now fast and automated. It’s also personalized, which no feature comparison is. The question was never “is this tool good”. It was “does it fit what I already run, and make it better”.

Founder-led. Founder-less. Wartime CEO. Peacetime CEO. Managers are crucial. Managers are bloat. Micromanage. Be hands-off. Strict OKRs. Fluid goals. Tech is the differentiator. Tech is a commodity.

Throw a dart at any of these extremes and you’ll hit a highly successful company that swears by it.

Pick what works for your reality, not what sounds good on a podcast.

@davidsenra: “We’re not big on founders.” “I know this is maybe ironic to say given your podcast.” “We try to eliminate the idea of a founder from this company as much as possible. We think it distracts people from the company. The company is the center and whether you’re a founder or you joined a little bit later, all that matters is your contribution, your trajectory.” — Bending Spoons CEO Luca Ferrari

I rent a small server that never sleeps and run coding agents on it. I installed Tailscale for one reason: I didn’t want a box sitting on the internet with ports open. It quietly took over three other jobs I hadn’t planned for.

The first is the obvious one. Nothing on that machine is reachable from the internet — not SSH, not the database, nothing. Scan it and there’s nothing to try. Everything I do goes over Tailscale.

Then the keys stopped mattering. Server, laptop, and phone all talk to each other over Tailscale SSH and I don’t copy a key anywhere. The device is already proven when it joins. I’d been rotating keys by hand before that and not enjoying it.

The one I didn’t see coming: plenty of sites just block datacenter IPs. So the agent’s browser goes out through my laptop or my phone at home, as an exit node. Runs on the server, looks like my couch. And if that path drops, the browsing stops — I’d rather it fail than quietly go out the datacenter IP.

Last one is my favourite. An agent hits a login screen at 11pm and gets stuck. One tap on my phone and I’m looking at the server’s desktop. I sign in, hand it back. No port forwarding, no VPN app, no jump box.

Four unrelated problems, all solved by Tailscale.

@apenwarr: That’s the problem with Tailscale, nobody ever talks about us. Best kept secret. Why are you all keeping your friends in the dark like this

Another day, another evaluation.

This time: terminal-browser, a real Chromium browser that draws inside your terminal.

Claude checked it against my setup and told me it doesn’t work with how I use tmux. It even found the exact GitHub issue that would have to be fixed first. On launch, terminal-browser changes tmux’s key settings for the whole server and never restores them, which would silently break keybindings I rely on.

http://github.com/zenbu-labs/terminal-browser/issues/99

@abhyrama: I’ve stopped deciding about new tools from their marketing pages alone. Claude Code already knows my setup: my dotfiles, my hooks, the rules for how work gets planned and launched. So when a tool shows up, I ask one question. Claude goes through everything about the tool (its website, its GitHub repo, its issues, its code) and checks all of it against how I work. I don’t read any of it myself. This week that was Paseo, an open-source app for running Claude Code sessions from your phone, browser or desktop. Could it replace my home-grown setup for running sessions in parallel? Claude told me exactly what it could replace in my workflow today: juggling terminal tabs to keep track of parallel sessions, and reaching those sessions from my phone. It also told me what it couldn’t: the machine that runs the sessions, the planning rules every piece of work goes through, the way I set up a fresh checkout for each task, and everything I’ve built outside session management. Both lists, checked against my setup, made the decision for me. An evaluation that used to take an afternoon of reading is now fast and automated. It’s also personalized, which no feature comparison is. The question was never “is this tool good”. It was “does it fit what I already run, and make it better”.

Busy weekend managing 15 agents.

I see everyone raving about Instinct. It feels magical when an agent handles things end-to-end without you having to specify every detail.

I haven’t used Instinct, but my personal agent does most of this. The secret is context engineering: give the agent the data (Gmail, Drive, etc.), permissions, and tools (like browser use) it needs, and even a barebones agent can go a long way.

@mvanhorn: Instinct’s “can do” go through walls attitude is still the best of any personal agent. It just did my son’s Global Entry application with no inputs from me. Found every country he’s been to, passport details and did everything on it’s own. WILD experience.

In the age of AI, owning your data is a must for the tinkerer and the curious.

I have set up a script that pulls my Pixel Watch vitals out of Google into a SQLite file on my own box. The file holds resting HR, HRV, SpO2, sleep, steps, and intraday heart rate: about 470 days and 17M heart-rate rows.

Claude queries the file directly using a custom medical paper-search tool I built.

I do Norwegian 4×4 interval training on a stationary bike. I recently came back from 17 days off, and the first session felt brutal. I was curious whether the data agreed, so I asked Claude straight away.

It did. It was the hardest of my recorded rides; across all of them, a longer break meant more time at high heart rates. It also noted that my resting heart rate had drifted up during the break, providing plenty of statistics along the way. The paper search told me this pattern has a name—detraining—and tied each finding back to clinical studies.

Six days later, I rode the same bike at the same resistance and asked Claude to run the analysis again. This time I held a higher cadence at a lower heart rate: more work per heartbeat.

I could only do this data detective work because I had the raw data on my own disk, alongside an AI that could reason over it and verify the findings against medical research.

Whenever I see any video today that makes me go “wow,” the first question I have in my mind is: Is this AI-generated?

The shuffle dance in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D5LPxkrfqo is “wow.” The first thought that came to my mind was: Is this AI-generated?

I replaced a paid dictation app with one I vibe coded in two days. The code was the cheap part — a model wrote most of it. What took the time was recording a corpus and measuring three speech models before writing a line of the app.

https://abhyrama.com/replacing-wispr-flow/

Stress testing my always-on Hetzner agent box: 24 agents at once on 4 vCPUs. Load average 2.09 — the CPU is bored. RAM is the wall: 6.8 of 7.7 GB gone.

Reality: I spend all my free time automating.

As I flossed and brushed my teeth tonight, I got a caveman-like feeling.

@Polymarket: JUST IN: Dyson launches a $499 AI toothbrush with a built-in camera that identifies gaps between teeth & automatically squirts them with mouthrinse.

Got a list of sensors and had a rough sketch in mind using an ESP32 for this. In passing, Gemini mentioned that the Apple Watch already has this feature. If you leave your iPhone behind and exit a certain geofenced radius, your Apple Watch will ping you with an alert. Asked whether the Google Pixel Watch has this too and got an affirmative.

Like the old saying—if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you have an LLM, everything looks like a tantalising side project.

Today’s protein duo.

Claude complimenting my debugging skills 😂.

TIL that NCB protection doesn’t carry over when switching insurance providers.

Quick breakdown: 🛡️ NCB = Your discount for claim-free years. 🛡️ NCB Protection = An insurance add-on that keeps your discount safe even if you make a claim. ❌ The catch = The protection add-on doesn’t transfer to a new insurer!

@nikitabier: @finkd Hello Mark, you do not need to put the links in replies anymore. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

From WordPress to a Static Site

https://abhyrama.com/wordpress-to-static/

Pit agents against each other, and let them duke it out.

Take the analysis of one agent and ask another to critique it. You will be surprised how effective this workflow is.

I use this for code reviews all the time. Ask one agent to review the code, and have another critique the review.

When you’re young, you’re bound to make juvenile mistakes. Every generation has done it.

The unique challenge today’s youth faces is that every foolish thing they say and do in public is recorded and follows them for life.

Past generations could mess up, grow out of it, and conveniently forget the past. Not anymore. Once it hits the internet, it’s there for posterity.

A common misconception is that it just means being anti-establishment.

No.

Nor does it mean adopting fringe conspiracy theories.

How do you know if you actually are?

Your belief system is a mosaic of ideas from diverse and often opposing schools of thought.

One of the things I keep hearing is that the investment in AI buildout is excessive. I have the opposite view. AI is still in its infancy and will be used in every domain.

Imagine someone who moved from manual calculations to a calculator. That person is never going to revert to manual calculation.

It is already happening in coding. Hardly anyone is writing code by hand anymore; it is all prompting.

There is going to be enormous demand for AI, and no buildout will be enough.

Or, convert your Mac Keyboard into one using @WisprFlow and Hammerspoon.

@OpenAIDevs: Meet kbd-1.0-codex-micro, built with @work_louder. Map the buttons and joystick to your workflow, and keep your pinned chats in view. Get yours before stock returns 410.

Recently watched Zero Day on Netflix, a riveting series.

A hallmark of good storytelling is not giving everything away but leaving spaces in the plot that the viewers ponder over and fill in themselves.

Netflix has mastered this.

https://abhyrama.com/2026/02/05/a-weekend-of-automation/

https://abhyrama.com/2026/01/28/shades-of-grey/

https://abhyrama.com/2026/01/22/code-is-the-new-assembly/

https://abhyrama.com/2025/11/26/the-new-compiling/

https://abhyrama.com/2025/11/13/vroom-vroom-performance-engineering-from-first-principles/

https://abhyrama.com/2025/11/04/wild-to-domesticated/

https://abhyrama.com/2025/10/28/ai-ai-ai/

https://abhyrama.com/2025/10/22/the-rhodium-age-of-learning/

https://abhyrama.com/2025/10/15/first-world-problems/

https://abhyrama.com/2025/10/10/the-good-old-days/

https://abhyrama.com/2025/09/13/protests-hope-and-the-illusion-of-change/

https://abhyrama.com/2025/05/17/adaptive-application-interface/

https://abhyrama.com/2025/05/11/tit-for-tat-indias-new-playbook/

https://abhyrama.com/2025/04/16/a-fit-body-and-a-wise-mind/

https://abhyrama.com/2025/04/09/inspiration-to-action/

https://abhyrama.com/2023/07/02/you-never-know-what-readers-want/

https://abhyrama.com/2022/09/10/old-and-not-jaded/

https://abhyrama.com/2022/08/31/oscillating-between-extremes/

https://abhyrama.com/2022/03/22/opposite-paths-to-extraordinary-outcomes/

https://abhyrama.com/2022/03/09/it-need-not-be-linear/

https://abhyrama.com/2022/01/26/what-is-water/

https://abhyrama.com/2022/01/19/the-first-90-days/

https://abhyrama.com/2022/01/12/the-golden-age-of-learning/

https://abhyrama.com/2021/11/19/composers-over-creators/

https://abhyrama.com/2021/06/23/democratizing-the-store-of-value/

https://abhyrama.com/2021/06/16/are-your-batch-jobs-giving-up-on-you/

Browser is the new OS.

https://abhyrama.com/2021/06/09/a-permissionless-world/

https://abhyrama.com/2021/06/01/the-day-you-became-a-manager/

When I started working, the term “Full Stack Engineer” was not to be heard. Today, everyone knows the “Full Stack Engineer.”

What gives to this trend?

https://abhyrama.com/2021/05/26/the-rise-of-the-full-stack-engineer/

The context of a tweet lies in the eyes of the beholder.

When things go wrong, people bay for change without thinking whether the change is for the good or the worse.

A bright side of the Cowin app is that all 18+ Indians are now familiar with “The Toyota Way.”

https://abhyrama.com/2021/05/18/your-true-edge/

Do not chase the perfect system; chase the perfect imperfect system.

More significant a decision, the tougher it is to verbalize the decision-making process.

Twitter is human-curated internet.

https://abhyrama.com/2021/05/13/the-next-frontier/

https://abhyrama.com/2021/03/02/bitcoin-gamestop-and-you/

https://abhyrama.com/2021/02/24/the-way-of-product-development/

Knowing the rule makes you great.

Knowing the exception to the rule makes you awesome.

The irony of life.

We are captives of the past and the future, but not of the present.

Earlier, lengthy books and guru’s live discourse used to be the ways to glean knowledge.

Today, you can pick and choose based on your temperament—audio, short video, long video, tweets, blogs, animation, slides, infographics, you name it.

Want to write regularly but somehow not able to do it?

Tips to get into the habit of writing regularly.

https://abhyrama.com/2021/02/16/how-to-write-regularly/

When you see a company succeed despite doing stupid things, you can think:

The company is successful because they are doing these stupid things.

or

How much more successful can the company be if they avoid doing these stupid things.

There is a lot of noise when the values of the majority who do not control the narrative clash with the values of the few who control the narrative.

My take on how to think while designing the architecture of an application.

https://abhyrama.com/2021/02/10/lagom-just-about-right/

Two rules for commenting code: \1. When you are doing something unintuitive(going against the grain or following an anti-pattern). \2. When you make assumptions that are not apparent(but you know to be true).

@riferrei: Developers commenting their code

Omitting needless words(brevity) is a writing best practice. Sounds easy but tough to practice.

Every time I read an old post of mine, I find a couple of words that I could do without.

https://abhyrama.com/2021/02/02/sound-of-one-hand-clapping/

Protestors of the world, unite!

• 1/ 6 A thread on an effective way to coach and give feedback based on the idea behind Zen kōan and Socratic method.

• 2/6 Kōans are open-ended, short, pithy statements(questions or riddles) that one reflects upon. Kōans do not have an accepted answer.

  The idea behind kōans is that the act of contemplating(journey) on the kōan is more important than the answer(destination).

• 3/6 The Socratic method is a teaching style involving a dialogue—asking and answering questions—between a student and a teacher to stimulate critical thinking.

• 4/6 You can inculcate these ideas while coaching and giving feedback.

  Encourage your team to think by asking pertinent questions and motivating them to arrive at answers independently instead of serving them solutions on a plate.

• 5/6 Link to my blog on this topic - https://abhyrama.com/2021/02/02/sound-of-one-hand-clapping/

• 6/6 Back to the top of this thread.

  @abhyrama: 1/ 6 A thread on an effective way to coach and give feedback based on the idea behind Zen kōan and Socratic method.

The appeal of Star Wars is in the juxtaposition of the primitive with the sophisticated.

Fascinating and frightening.

My system for listening to diverse podcasts without wasting time managing them.

https://abhyrama.com/2021/01/16/my-system-for-listening-to-podcasts/

Even after years of writing, I still have to force myself to write regularly—it is not easy.

Jerry Seinfeld talks about the pain of writing in Tim Ferriss’s podcast. I took some solace from that conversation.

https://engineering.sliceit.com/2021/01/06/deployment-of-static-websites-with-aws-amplify/

Technology choices at companies are driven by culture rather than technical difficulties.

Affability is a superpower.

https://abhyrama.com/2021/01/09/affability-is-a-superpower/

@abhyrama: Do not mistake affability with competence.

Abhi’s podcast rule.

Ten minutes into the podcast, if you are not hooked, move on.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/12/15/future-of-work/

Every configuration language attempts to expand until it becomes a poorly implemented replacement of a Turing complete programming language.

In a fight positioned as “David versus Goliath,” irrespective of the merit, sympathy is on David.

Practical tips to identify when you are over-engineering.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/12/09/hmm-will-this-scale/

All exorbitantly expensive wireless noise cancellation headphones look dirt cheap now.

Which is the Miami of India?

A simple self-contained plan that takes more time is better than a complicated plan with lots of ifs and buts that supposedly takes lesser time.

• Every application looks easy to build when you are not the one building it.
• This was a play on Jeff Immelt’s quip—every job looks easy when you are not the one doing it.

Most of the western meditation gurus that I have heard have a soothing, hypnotic tone and voice.

Cause and effect?

Compounding progress is tough to spot, and so is compounding decline.

Do not mistake affability with competence.

Tips and tricks gained from experience to scale your tech stack really, really fast.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/12/02/blitzscaling/

When you read a success story, it looks linear—one thing leads to another.

In real life, it would have played out parallelly—multiple things happening at the same time.

This is why insiders have a vividly different view than outsiders of success stories.

Experienced engineer in a young team.

@PDLComics: not scared

“Man in the middle”—is a common communication (anti?)pattern in companies.

You relay messages from one to the other without adding any value.

You are an adult the day you start seeing the world in shades of grey instead of black and white.

Protesting does not make you a victim.

Supporting a protest does not make you a sympathetic person.

The secret to getting remote work right is not trying to model it on how work used to get done in the office.

A complete re-think is needed.

The path to good health is simple and well known, but the world is filled with unhealthy people.

If you are a manager and not doing these, you are doing a disservice to your team.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/11/24/three-not-so-obvious-duties-of-a-manager/

At @sliceit_ , we said goodbye to SSH and bastion hosts and moved to AWS Session Manager.

A crisp and short write-up on this journey by our engineering team.

https://engineering.sliceit.com/2020/11/25/session-manager-driving-operational-excellence-at-slice/

Every advice is not applicable to someone.

Board games are a constant tussle between eager and lazy optimization.

Many leadership interventions are like helping to choose the most likely lottery number to win.

While the 10x engineer is a hotly debated and contested topic, what you really need to be worried about is the 1/10x engineer.

Instead of focussing on critical feedback, companies would do better if they focus on creating an environment where the behaviors they do not want cannot be exhibited.

Most new business ideas are founders believing a self-delusional story of creating a better version of an existing product and investors buying that story.

Scaling is a commodity in today’s cloud world.

Acquiring users is not.

Do not fret over how your architecture will scale for million users.

Fret over how you can rapidly scale the product to acquire those million users.

On Twitter - Mental models, first principles thinking, behavioral science, psychology.

In real life - Let me do the dumbest short-term thing possible.

A play on Parkinson’s law.

Virtual machines enabled the “write once, deploy anywhere” paradigm for server-side development.

Graphics engines will do the same for mobile application development.

@FlutterDev is the trailblazer. Many more will emerge.

Slack is how we communicate internally at @sliceit_ . We developed a framework to make it easy for our developers to send notifications to Slack.

https://engineering.sliceit.com/2020/11/11/jarvis-slack-notification-framework/

The popularity of anonymous Twitter accounts boosts the idea of “Preference Falsification.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification

If you are paranoid about security but at the same time believe in the democratization of access to infrastructure and resources, Cloud Custodian is a must-have in your tool belt.

https://cloudcustodian.io/

Book

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/D4hHASaZuLCW92gMy/is-success-the-enemy-of-freedom-full

Versus

Blog

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/D4hHASaZuLCW92gMy/is-success-the-enemy-of-freedom-full?commentId=DaeBBzxcKowqwu6aD

Individuals think they are indispensable to a company.

Companies think they can replace individuals like cogs in a machine.

The truth as always lies somewhere in between.

A smug reminder.

@abhyrama: Do not mistake Twitter for the mood of a nation.

Have users ever welcomed a popular product’s UI/UX changes with open arms and hugs?

• 1/9 Saw lessons from the US election in today’s newspaper.

  A thread of an old post of mine on the same topic.

• 2/9 Election season is the best time to get a front-row seat for the show on human behavior and psychology.

  It is the best time to witness hindsight bias in action.

• 3/9 “Skin in the Game” and “Accountability” are best seen during these times.

  People who say one thing before the election write diametrically opposite words post-election.

• 4/9 The thing I find fascinating is no one holds these individuals accountable for what they wrote before elections; no one questions their credibility and so-called expertise.

• 5/9 It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future - Yogi Berra.

  I believe it is almost impossible to predict the future, but what we can do is observe the broad trends; the trends should be the guide to the future.

• 6/9 The idea that the future is unpredictable is undermined every day by the ease with which the past is explained - Daniel Kahneman.

• 7/9 A counter idea to the thought that the future is not predictable is the school of Superforecasting.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superforecaster

• 8/9 The blog post.

  https://abhyrama.com/2019/05/26/lessons-from-indian-elections/

• 9/9 Back to the top.

  @abhyrama: 1/9 Saw lessons from the US election in today’s newspaper. A thread of an old post of mine on the same topic.

https://engineering.sliceit.com/2020/10/28/s3-redshift-propagator/

You cannot go through life cocksure of your ideas all the time. You cannot go through life skeptical of your ideas all the time.

How does one resolve this dichotomy?

https://abhyrama.com/2020/10/29/cocksureness-and-skepticism/

Operating from own experience versus operating from reading other’s experiences.

People who operate from their own experience know when to break rules and conventions.

People who operate from reading other’s experiences rigidly stick to rules and conventions.

Cost-saving in startups can be summed up as spending 1000 rupees to save 100 rupees.

Questions of the kind—will you do this or that? have an answer of—somewhere in the middle.

Twitter threads are the classic case of—if you have the distribution, they will come.

Twitter is ill-suited for long-form posts. Reading long posts as Twitter threads is anything but pleasant. But, Twitter has the distribution. Hence, they will come.

@abhyrama: Users will find unique ways to use your product, which you would not have thought.

Why process is important and where companies go wrong with process.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/10/12/like-the-f1-pit-crew/

At @sliceit_ , we are experimenting with Immutable Infrastructure.

A post from our engineering team on this.

https://engineering.sliceit.com/2020/10/14/deployments-using-immutable-infrastructure/

In today’s age, where access to propoganda is readily available, thinking for oneself is an essential skill.

https://engineering.sliceit.com/2020/09/30/dynamic-feature-modules/

Some developers, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I’ll use the latest fad/tech/framework/language”. Now they have two problems.

The question is never—Should I do that thing?

The question is always—Why should I do that thing?

Trying out an experiment.

Summarising my blogs as Twitter threads.

Brace for it ⚡️.

https://abhyrama.com/

• A thread on product development.

  @abhyrama: Trying out an experiment. Summarising my blogs as Twitter threads. Brace for it ⚡️. https://abhyrama.com/

• If the success of your product depends on changing a deeply ingrained habit, it is going to be challenging.

  Your product should be attractive enough for people to overcome the inertia associated with behavior change.

• Sometimes, the most crowded markets are ripe for disruption.

• Competition may not always be harmful, especially when you are trying to create a new category.

• Think about product ownership and usage asymmetry.

  Ex—online payment solution for schools.

  Parents want this but the want is not strong enough to use this as criteria for picking schools. A product that exhibits asymmetry needs to have powerful incentives for both sides.

• Every time a customer reaches out to you; it is an opportunity to make your product better.

  Product enhancements should stem from customer service requests.

• Users will find unique ways to use your product, which you would not have thought.

  @abhyrama: Good products will be used in ways beyond the wildest imaginations of its creators. Some apparent examples - Github as a collaborative crowd-sourced document store, Twitter as a replacement for long-form blogs.

• More features are not always better.

  Be ruthless in culling features. New feature addition is a tug of war between simplicity and complexity.

• Do not get attached to a feature based on the amount of effort you put, the technology used, or the uniqueness of the idea.

  Usage is the only benchmark for a feature’s success.

• Customers do not always know what they want. Be careful while actioning on user feedback.

  Look around your house to see the plethora of unused stuff you brought thinking you need them.

  Mix your product insight and intuition with customer feedback before acting on them.

• You need something, does not mean the entire world is craving for it.

• You spot a problem does not mean others are looking for a solution to the problem.

  People are happy to live with minor inconvenience than change their habits.

• Do not look at product features from your point of view.

  You might have a refined sense of UI, but your customers may not. Always assume a customer-centric viewpoint.

• Assume no one reads anything.

  Figure out ways to make instructions implicit in product flows.

• Treat customers differently based on their lineage.

  Someone new to the product needs more hand-holding than one who is used to the product.

• New features may not pick up on their own.

  Figure out ways to incentivize a user to try out a new feature.

• Do not be drawn to complexity.

  A simple feature trumps an overly complex one.

• Figure out all the metrics to track before launching a feature.

  If you do this post-launch, it becomes a shifting goalpost where you are trying to prove the success of the feature rather than figure out whether it met the intended goal or not.

• The blog.

  https://abhyrama.com/2019/08/15/thoughts-on-product-and-feature-development/

There are things that add value.

The intersection between these can be tiny.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/09/19/day-to-day-application-of-the-cap-theorem/

Early-stage product management is about experimentation.

Run MVP experiments. Analyse the outcome. Double down on wins. Ruthlessly cull failures.

Rinse and repeat.

You build the instinct of when to break the rules by rigorously following the rules.

Whether there ACTUALLY is a problem or not is immaterial.

https://engineering.sliceit.com/2020/09/04/pulse-keeping-a-check-on-our-services/

A small business’s competitive advantage comes from creating an environment where employees can spend their time creating value instead of posturing.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/09/08/small-company-advantage/

https://abhyrama.com/2020/09/01/do-not-rage-against-the-machine/

https://abhyrama.com/2020/08/24/why-the-heck-is-she-doing-that/

https://engineering.sliceit.com/2020/07/27/hercules-the-job-scheduler/

Processes should not hamper speed, introduce friction, and kill creativity.

Principles to keep in mind while designing a process.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/08/02/fade-to-back/

Do not outsource your thinking.

When your code fails, make it fail spectacularly.

Spectacular failure is amenable to debugging.

Why we shy away from giving hard feedback or saying no.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/07/12/uncomfortable-and-confrontational/

If you care about engineering productivity and tooling, this is “THE” role for you.

https://recruiterflow.com/slice/jobs/13

The truth lies somewhere in between the shrillness and the silence.

Progress is made thanks to the irrationals.

The function of wealth is to move one from a zero-sum to a positive sum mentality.

You not believing in something does not make it not true.

Senior: Solves the problem and takes steps to prevent it from re-occurring.

Veteran: Pre-empts the problem.

Does code quality matter to the outcome of a business?

https://abhyrama.com/2020/06/17/does-code-quality-matter/

One person’s strong opinion is another person’s trolling.

Frustration is the difference between how you want the world to work and how the world works.

Today, curators of ideas are more renowned than ideators themselves.

Rudeness is in the tone, not in the message.

Conventions over gating rules.

Designing the internal communication architecture of organizations.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/06/10/communication-architecture/

Output is not only about what you see, but also about what you do not see.

Thinking is over-rated, doing is under-rated.

Thinking is under-rated, doing is over-rated.

Everyone’s obsessed with something. It is the sophistication and smugness that varies.

Life is easy when no one takes you seriously.

Socially acceptable norms are not dictated by the majority but by the vocal minority who have monopolized the communication mediums.

Good code compounds positively.

Bad code compounds negatively.

Life situations are asymmetric. You will be better off if you get this and ponder over it.

Do not mistake Twitter for the mood of a nation.

Software developers love structural abstractions. Structural abstractions are also considered a good practice.

Structural abstractions do not always add value. Knowing when not to abstract is crucial.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/05/31/when-not-to-abstract/

Do not mistake thought leadership with execution.

All speeches are equal, but some speeches are more equal than others.

Social media has created a world where everyone believes they are the last authority on everything.

Communicate in specifics, think in generics.

In the search for meaning, living is lost.

Observe without judging.

The generational rich and famous would be having a good laugh now.

Earlier, only they were under undue pressure to signal wokeness.

Now, thanks to social media, everyone is.

Every platitude can be disproved.

What fits the popular narrative may not be what is true.

The purpose of a habit is to remove that action from self-negotiation. You no longer expend energy deciding whether to do it. You just do it. Good habits can range from telling the truth, to flossing - @kevin2kelly.

What habits do to individuals, processes do to organizations.

There is something mystical and soothing about Kirtans.

When it comes to philosophy, Hinduism gets short shrift.

Popular ideas of Buddhism, Stoicism, etc. are all mentioned in Hindu pieces of literature.

So much of life is wasted in pondering over others’ intentions when it makes no difference to our lives.

Things that add value are the ones that do not sound cool.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/05/10/fighting-fud/

There is always room for improvement.

Whenever you start believing you have the best system, think of all the people who know more Kung fu than you. There is no way they have a system identical to yours.

Always be on the lookout for better.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/04/28/the-three-pillars-of-scalability/

https://abhyrama.com/2020/04/21/how-do-i-know-i-am-right/

We do not build anymore as all energy goes into perception management leaving little to build things.

Do not dismiss fads. Get curious about them.

More is lost in trying to recoup losses.

Two words to avoid inconsequential debates.

I AGREE.

We believe what we WANT to believe, not what we SHOULD believe.

A lot of angst stems from us wanting others to live the way we deem right.

Three-word solution to all economic problems.

Tax the rich.

Everyone needs an obsession.

Like they say, failure is the best teacher.

Writing advice that I repeatedly see is to figure out your niche and build a brand.

If you are writing for catharsis and fun, I say do the opposite. Write anything and everything under the sun.

You will have more fun that way than deliberating over building a brand.

We spend a significant amount of time on insignificant things and insignificant amount of time on significant things.

A framework for making new technology choices.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/04/14/should-i-or-should-i-not/

Winning is important. It feels great to win. Put your all into winning.

But, winning is not everything. Especially, winning at all costs.

A lot many take pride in the fact that they have not changed at all. This is the worst you can do to yourself.

If you do not feel like banging your head at the person you were before, it is time for a re-think.

How many times have you kicked yourself for great outcomes with a bad process?

Great sales people do not sell. They make you want to buy.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/04/07/let-go-of-stereotypes/

There is a lingering beauty in code that uses idiosyncrasies of a programming language to the hilt.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/03/31/wild-wild-world-of-external-calls/

https://abhyrama.com/2020/03/24/centralization-and-decentralization/

Two kinds of security practices.

Security practices for compliance. Security practices for fortifying the company.

Funny thing is, many a time, they are mutually exclusive.

Python notebook is a great concept. Boggles me why other programming languages have not adopted this lock stock and barrel.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/03/15/working-hard-to-be-lazy/

One day, neuroscience will end up explaining every quirk and fetish of humans.

The book “The Brain that Changes Itself” is an eye-opener.

In a globalized world, there are no local problems. Everything is everyone’s problem.

Some example: COVID-19; civil wars, and refugees; oil hegemony cold war.

Today’s “Oh shit, I am going to die” scenarios become tomorrow’s “Hell yeah, I lived through that” party stories.

No-code tools have mainly targeted non-developers until now. The next wave is going to be the ones aggressively targeted at developers.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/03/03/the-million-dollar-question/

In the past, sitting idle was seen as a sign of laziness.

In the future, sitting idle will be seen as a sign of self-control.

@abhyrama: With mobile phones becoming the companion for every mundane activity, will we lose our Eureka moments?

Along the lines of - Eat Sleep Race.

Fast Train Meditate.

One of the advantages of knowing multiple programming languages is that when new features are introduced in a language, it is easy to understand and start using these features as you would have already seen these in some other programming language.

Also, the machine cost is constant whereas the developer cost compounds and worsens with time.

All software abstractions eventually leak, and it hurts when this happens.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/02/26/murphys-law-of-software-abstractions/

Tip for stress free and no things left behind packing.

Make a checklist of all items to pack, drop them one by one into the bag and keep checking off the items from the list.

Worthless are the fights from which you do not gain anything, the ONLY reason to fight is that you have an axe to grind.

They are also the most enticing ones.

It is the middle class of a country that empowers and buttresses loony socialist politicians. The middle class is also the worst affected by these policies once they come to power.

The rich always have options. The middle class gets stranded.

The question all organizations face - which problems to solve by introducing a process and which ones to leave to human judgment.

It is always a tight rope walk.

If you have hired well, you can leave a lot to judgment.

You can STRONGLY believe in something without being vocal and militant about it.

You can do a lot of the tasks in the time you spend arguing why it should not be done.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/02/19/charlatans-and-us/

A trend I have seen increasing these days.

Product marketing outreach in the guise of asking for feedback and advice.

Dangerous are the folks who agree with everything you say but do what they had planned to do.

Looking at the pithy messages on the backs of cabs and autos, sometimes, I cannot help but wonder whether these guys are like superheroes.

Mundane driver job by day and revolutionary philosopher by night.

Bollywood movies make plausible action sequences seem implausible.

Thoughts after watching Hrithik Roshan starrer War.

Disclaimer: Connoisseur of mindless action movies.

Everything is a means to an end. This gets lost in the hustle and bustle of life.

Four uses of twitter: \1. Short notes to oneself - reinforce thoughts and ideas. \2. Writing practice - compressed spaces enhance learning. \3. Grow grey cells - exposure to novel ideas and opinions. \4. Share your ideas and opinions with the world.

Will electric cars be the Nokia moment for automakers?

This is why I do not understand the appeal of blockchain in a closed eco-system. A database is sufficient.

@jimmy_wales: @DanielKrawisz @Ckatoshi @Wikipedia We already store data. In a database. It works well.

Indexing data in a DataFrame should be straightforward. By providing umpteen ways to do this, Pandas makes this simple operation a cognitive overload, especially for newcomers.

Brought back memories of good old Perl.

Disproportionate returns come from identifying the start of a wave, investing at the trough, holding on the way up, and selling out at the crest.

The tricky part - identifying a wave, it’s trough and crest 😂.

A framework to think through non-cooperation scenarios that we encounter in our daily lives.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/02/11/the-games-we-play/

@abhyrama: If you want to understand the problem with uncoordinated local optimizations, look at Bangalore traffic. Everyone is selfishly optimizing locally for themselves under the illusion that it will make them reach their destination faster, and everyone suffers as a whole.

With mobile phones becoming the companion for every mundane activity, will we lose our Eureka moments?

Always be on the lookout for opportunities to ignite healthy and passionate discussions in your teams.

The best are those where you light the fire with a short sentence and the team takes over.

Which one do you want to be a carrier of?

Good software design is about delegation.

Doing less yourself and delegating to established libraries, tools, and frameworks.

If you succeed, you are a visionary.

https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/3/18511544/amazon-prime-oral-history-jeff-bezos-one-day-shipping

If you fail, you are full of hubris.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-03/amazon-s-hq2-fiasco-was-driven-by-bezos-envy-of-elon-musk

Hindsight bias in action?

Are you in awe of Guru Programmers who write bugless code? How can you become one?

https://abhyrama.com/2020/02/04/becoming-a-guru-programmer/

A key to developing good habits is not going too hard on oneself when one falls off the bandwagon. Instead, figure out ways to get back on track.

When someone comes to a platform engineer with a problem, if the engineer’s response is - let me solve it for you - instead of - here is how you solve it yourself, you need a rethink of your platform engineering practices.

@abhyrama: Positioning Platform Engineering teams as enablers instead of doers is critical for running effective Platform Engineering teams. https://abhyrama.com/2020/01/25/enablers-not-doers/

When someone asks you - Which one is better? Your question should be - Better in what terms?

Better is relative and contextual.

Two things which make a presentation or public speech good: \1. Humour. \2. Interacting with the audience.

Ask - What happened?

Changes the accusatory tone to fact seeking.

There are no rules for success, only guidelines.

Looking for disconfirming evidence is easy.

Accepting and assimilating is hard.

cynicism != coolness

Positioning Platform Engineering teams as enablers instead of doers is critical for running effective Platform Engineering teams.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/01/25/enablers-not-doers/

Do pessimists make better coders?

https://abhyrama.com/2020/01/13/optimists-pessimists-and-better-coders/

Irrespective of what technique you use or how hard you try, you are not going to strike oil if you are digging in a place where there is no oil in the first place.

If you have always wanted to read but struggled with it, try reading a couple of pages with your morning coffee.

This is a great way to start and build a reading habit.

All part-time, armchair revolutionaries should familiarise themselves with the term “Useful Idiot.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

Kids do not try to seek meaning or a point in the activities they indulge in. They immerse themselves in pointless pursuits, which brings them joy.

Adults do the opposite and complain of hollowness in life.

At the airport, a couple turned up at the wrong terminal. Wife berated the husband - I told you to check the terminal before.

When things go wrong, first instinct should be what can I do to fix this right now, not what should/could have been done to avoid this. Introspect later.

Much of life is wasted in pointless debates whose outcome does not matter either way just to satisfy our ego.

Data is useless without a plan of action.

Do not fix decisions, fix the process of arriving at decisions.

Do not pronounce judgment, ask questions.

We are reason seeking creatures is apparent when we deal with kids.

When an infant cries, everyone seeks a reason even though no one has a clue.

She is feeling hungry.

She is feeling cold.

She is feeling hot.

Daughter - Ask Google Home Mini to ring your phone.

@abhyrama: Daughter, nephews and I stepped out of our apartment to buy Uno cards. Me - Keep your eyes open for a toy store. Them - Open Google maps and type “toy store near me.” This generation is going to be digital natives and that will have massive implications.

Adopt the “NOT - Not Only Testing” strategy for Quality Assurance.

https://abhyrama.com/2020/01/08/not-not-only-testing/

Is it time to add “Recreational Revolution” in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?

The environment that one operates in is more important for success than individual brilliance.

Competent people can fail in a non conducive environment.

Regular people can succeed in a supportive environment.

If you are trying to start, do not search for the perfect/best/optimal way to begin.

Pick the easiest one with the least resistance.

Perfection and optimization can come later.

You can either view the new year with disdain as an arbitrary date or see it as a glorious opportunity to start something new.

Most businesses define customer service as sending unnecessary greetings and offers when you do not have a need and being non-responsive when you have a real problem.

If you put your critical thoughts out in public, you are bound to say something wrong or change your mind in the future.

You need to make peace with this.

Criticizing is an ineffective way to bring about change. Criticizing puts people into a defensive mode.

The effective way is to ask questions and trigger introspection and curiosity.

If you are into recreational fitness, you will be more served by doing a wide range of activities - different sports, lifting, cardio, etc.

You will be exposed to a wide range of movements as well as different heart rate zones.

Instead of starting a new diet, tweak your food habits.

Reduce carbs and processed food.

Dry fruits as munchies instead of junk.

Replace sugar with artificial sweeteners, Stevia, etc.

Fruits for desserts.

You will see a difference.

To get into a habit, find a trigger point.

For example, I used to forget to sync my running watch with the app, and the watch would run out of memory.

Now, I do it as soon as my run is over. The end of the run is the trigger point, and it has become a habit.

Daughter, nephews and I stepped out of our apartment to buy Uno cards.

Me - Keep your eyes open for a toy store.

Them - Open Google maps and type “toy store near me.”

This generation is going to be digital natives and that will have massive implications.

Leaders should be actively on the lookout to give up control of things where they are becoming a bottleneck, not adding value and hindering speed.

It is not either THIS or THAT, it is something in between.

If you only concentrate on the WHAT, you miss the opportunity to create a system for decision making.

A neutral, emotionally unattached third party can figure out when people start talking past each other in a heated involved argument.

In a world where knowledge is abundant and easily accessible, knowing WHAT to do and the questions to ask is more important than knowing exactly HOW to do something.

I attended this year’s Amazon AWS re:Invent. A reflection on the fun+learning experience.

https://abhyrama.com/2019/12/20/reflections-from-aws-reinvent/

Everyone keeps talking about how hiring is a big challenge.

Yes, hiring is a challenge.

But the more significant challenge is in creating an environment where the people you already have can thrive and realize their full potential.

There are no stark original ideas or thoughts.

Everything is incremental and built on something previously known and understood.

In Twitter debates, it is not the best idea that wins. It is the person who can craft the pithiest reply in 280 characters that wins.

You can either

Make decisions for others.

Or

Give a framework to others to make their own decisions.

Two is what delegation is all about.

In the cacophonous din of US versus THEM, the ability to hold nuanced opinions is dead.

Does social media make one’s beliefs rigid?

If you broadcast a stand on an issue publicly, you would be unlikely to change your stance even in the face of counter-evidence.

Even though the path to success in anything is mundane and known, why are we eternally in search of hacks for everything?

We thrive on hope.

Hacks give us the hope of being wicked smart and reaping disproportionate rewards with minimal effort.

Irrespective of what the news and social media make you believe, you are not obligated to take a polarising stand on issues.

It is fine to say - I do not understand what is happening, I have my own shit to deal with.

It is easy to miss compounding gains as they are slow, gradual, and occur over long periods.

By the time we reap the benefits, we tend to forget where we started.

The problem with leaky abstraction is that it bites you where you least expect it to.

The quality of a product lies in the eyes of the beholder.

It is futile to argue with someone on the quality of something.

Apt for today.

@abhyrama: Do not mistake a vociferous minority for the preference of the majority.

Every issue has two faces - the actual problem and the perception of what the problem is.

If an environment forces one to spend all energy on perception management, little energy is left to solve the actual problem.

Irony.

Celebrities turning up at protests with an entourage of bodyguards and the protesters whom they sympathize with running amok and damaging hapless common man’s valuable properties.

The part about tests and university admissions that @paulg talks about in this essay applies to the way most tech interviews are conducted these days.

http://paulgraham.com/lesson.html

A majority of bugs can be avoided just by taking a step back and asking - What can go wrong here?

If you have a defined, well-known rubric for selection for something sought after, someone will find a way to game it that defeats the intention behind the entire process.

What is obvious to you, may not be obvious to others.

What is obvious to others, may not be obvious to you.

Before adopting any advice, contextualise to your situation and then apply if it makes sense.

Generalizing the lessons learned from specific instances aids in pattern recognition so that you can apply the lessons in the future for other similar circumstances.

How to get better at decision making and the game of life.

https://abhyrama.com/2019/11/17/generalization-the-superpower/

The best practiced should be the first thing you should search for if you are adopting such a platform.

You cannot throw at it what you want and expect everlasting flexibility.

https://instagram-engineering.com/python-at-scale-strict-modules-c0bb9245c834

@abhyrama: There is immense potential for a programming language with optional typing built in to the language to go mainstream. Startups that crossed the chasm to a big corp end up trying to tack a static type system onto the dynamically typed language that took them from zero to one.

On every debacle, you can either: \1. Cry hoarse and curse fate. \2. Reframe it as a learning experience and seek lessons for the future.

@abhyrama: Mind tricks for a mindful existence. https://abhyrama.com/2019/09/11/zen-and-the-art-of-mind-tricks/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21274511

@abhyrama: Workplaces should ban political discussions. Political debates are never about understanding others point of view but more about reinforcing already held beliefs. Also, it is easy to be mean if these debates happen over asynchronous discussion forums rather than face to face.

In today’s world, creating an application that works “MOST” of the time is a child’s play.

It is the last few decimals reliability that is hard to achieve.

Debunking critiques of Daily Standups and how building the habit of doing a daily standup helps you to rein in the chaos.

http://abhyrama.com/2019/10/23/critique-of-critiques-of-daily-standups/

To understand how prevalent “Sunk Cost Fallacy” is, think of the no of times you have walked out of a bad movie in a cinema.

When you think of something as rocket science, think of all the things you are good at that someone else feels undoable.

A lot of people feel like this about programming, but as a programmer, you know it is not that tough to pick up.

All learning techniques rely on compression.

The idea is to chunk so that it easily fits in the brain.

Given a choice between:

A simple solution which solves a problem crudely.

A complicated solution which solves the problem elegantly.

Choose the simple one.

Every now and then, I see a HackerNews thread ranting on startup valuation; this stems from not understanding how venture capital works.

@abhyrama: Startups and VC La La Land http://abhyrama.com/2018/12/16/startups-and-vc-la-la-land/

Ranting originates from not understanding how something works.

Feeling the need to rant indicates you have to put in the effort to understand things.

Prolific investors in the Indian stock market - ones who have skin in the game, are painting a positive picture.

BOCTAOE.

Treating life as a work in progress is a great way to learn from life.

Never give up.

Cut your losses and move on.

@abhyrama: All advice is contradictory.

You do not have an obligation to justify anything to anyone.

All meetings at some level are forced collaborations.

In a Utopian world, we would not need meetings at all.

The problem with trying to dissect a person’s actions rationally is that a lot of our actions are driven by emotions rather than rationality.

Talking of failures is easy once you have succeeded.

Do not conflate non-belief with disrespect.

All advice is contradictory.

Voicing a dispassionate observation does not mean one supports it.

Eagerness to virtue signal and wokeness make online lynch mobs jump on someone pointing out an observation.

Either you can crib about unfairness or work extra hard to compensate for that.

The principles you espouse support equality of opportunities or equality of outcome?

While the world is getting rapidly globalized and commoditized, it is equally getting localized.

There has been a Cambrian explosion of niche consumer brands, artisan products, and localized boutique experiences.

Technology is the backbone of this localization.

https://abhyrama.com/2019/09/23/on-competition/

The easiest path to fame?

Peddle doomsday scenarios and abject negativity.

What looks stupefying today was the norm in the past.

The norms of today will feel stupid in the future.

The queue that you are not in is shorter and moves faster.

We waste time justifying our actions to people we hardly know to keep our self-esteem intact.

• 1/2 Technology evolves to an extent where you no longer have to think about the underlying foundation.

  Container technology is still in its infancy, the abstraction seeps through. To troubleshoot, it helps to be aware of DNS, Cgroups, bridge network, iptables, etc.

• 2/2 To contrast, when we code in interpreted languages, we no longer think about optimizing the byte code. We rely on compilers and VMs to take care of this without giving a second thought.

  This is a boon rather than a bane. Dumbing down things is good.

Interesting to see VCs becoming full stack and offering a wide range of services in an attempt to attract entrepreneurs and startups.

Multiple Python versions, multiple environment management tools and to add to it, native library dependencies.

The experience is the antithesis to “The zen of Python.”

If you want to get someone interested in a tool, tell them what they can do with the tool instead of what the tool does.

Do not mistake a vociferous minority for the preference of the majority.

It is the unquantifiable that have the most impact.

The efficiency of an organization is inversely proportional to the number of back and forths required to get tasks done.

Mind tricks for a mindful existence.

https://abhyrama.com/2019/09/11/zen-and-the-art-of-mind-tricks/

Great communication is not flowery language or good grammar, but communication which leaves no room for ambiguity.

All want to serve but in a big way.

Every day you will find small things that make a difference to someone.

One example is not honking madly at someone learning to drive.

Things happen. Never at the pace, we want.

All the things you worried silly in the past look literally silly today.

A lot of angst stems from an inflated sense of self-worth.

Concentrate on the message, not the choice of words.

Knowledge leads to skepticism. Ignorance leads to absolutism.

If someone does something that you could not, figure out what/why they did that you did not.

Instead, people endlessly theorize why they did what they did.

Example of how popular products mold user behavior.

In Slack, you can edit a message after you send it. No one knows this or even thinks of it.

Popular consumer chat apps have conditioned people into not editing a message after sending because none of them have this feature.

State what you want, not how you want it to be done.

People stress on the latter without ensuring the former is well understood.

The administrative overhead of running a team is underestimated.

Keep this in mind as your team grows.

Code reviews devolve into convention and style checks because the reviewer does not have enough understanding nor the context of the problem being solved.

How do you differentiate between the Utopian and Pragmatic?

Appeals to heart - Utopian. Appeals to the brain - Pragmatic.

In the age of abundance, curation becomes the key.

Hence the explosion in curated newsletters and podcasts.

Perfection and Getting Started do not go hand in hand.

When starting, getting into the HABIT is the key. Seek perfection only once it becomes a habit.

Upsides and downsides are hands in a glove. You cannot wish for one without being ready for the other.

To the outside world, glamorous jobs look like “All play and no work.”

Only the people doing it know of the struggles.

Moderation is essential but tough.

Either we are in a state of obsession or indifference.

Ride the wave but be aware of it. Refrain from self-delusion.

In the age of outrage, being indifferent is a superpower.

https://abhyrama.com/2019/08/25/intuitive-introduction-to-big-o/

When faced with a production issue: \1. Do not play the guessing game of what the problem might be. \2. Do not try to work around the problem.

Reproduce the problem with the below: \1. Add observability interventions like log. \2. Zoom in by reducing the surface area of the issue.

If you want someone to do something make it extremely easy for them to do it.

A mantra for everyone to live by.

The best time to submit interview feedback is right after the interview when it is fresh in your mind.

What people claim they want and what they actually want might be two different things.

What people say and what they actually mean might be two different things.

If you build it they will come - said no person ever who built chat into an existing application.

Would you call a person who keeps changing her stand based on ground realities a turncoat or a pragmatic?

Dissatisfaction leads to progress.

Hard critical feedback is a must for growth. Be thankful to the one who gives you unflattering feedback.

If everything HAS to happen tomorrow, it will all be done next year.

Mistaking years of doing something with expertise is a common occurrence.

Deliberate practice leads to expertise, not JUST doing the same thing for ages.

HOW you say matters more than WHAT you say.

Avoidable and hard to avoid phrases - I TOLD YOU SO BEFORE ONLY.

We do not follow best practices, we follow practices which our brain tricks us into believing are the most convenient.

Result over process - said no successful poker player ever.

Wisdom is tough to measure.

One yardstick that can be used is whether one paints everything black and white or sees different shades of grey in things.

Practises outlive the context in which they evolved.

https://abhyrama.com/2019/08/15/thoughts-on-product-and-feature-development/

Virtue signaling in public is a net loss for organizations.

The good will generated is short-lived. People who feel wronged are more passionately vengeful than the ones who support you leading to a net downside.

This is pure hypothesis without any backing data.

Develop the ability to distinguish between speed and illusion of speed.

Developing nations should do everything to promote the sharing economy.

It is unique leverage for the masses, which leads to unlocking of opportunities as well as productivity gain for the ordinary people.

This will lead to a spurt in economic growth.

A question I see repeatedly is - “What is that ONE thing that lead to <WHATEVER>?”

It is usually a combination of multiple things; not “ONE” thing.

Never advice unless: \1. Someone explicitly asks for it. \2. You are paid to do so.

When someone comes to you with a problem, if your default reaction is to put the onus on them to solve it, slowly people will stop coming to you.

You do not want to be always in control of everything.

Letting go of control is as important as being in control.

Be judicious with what you want to control.

Talking to newcomers is the best way to detect inefficiencies in your organization. They come with a fresh set of eyes and perspective.

Tenured folks would have either resigned to the status quo or found ways to work around the system.

Static code analysis is - testing for free -for programs written in dynamic programming languages.

• 1/2 The advantage of asynchronous communication is you are not forced to respond immediately. You can take your time to think through, weigh the pros and cons and give a measured response.
• 2/2 This is though in synchronous communication mediums as you are under pressure to say something at that instant. Long pauses and silence feel awkward when you know the other person is waiting for your response.
• Tough*

Everything that everyone does is self-serving; there is nothing called a selfless service.

If you help someone, you are doing it because it makes you happy. Same goes for the opposite.

As long as these actions move the world in a positive direction, all is good.

What you are and what the world perceives you are - are two different things.

If you do not agree with how the world sees you, do not blame the world but yourself.

A useful heuristic to figure out whether a food is good or not is to sense how you feel after eating.

If you feel like shit after consuming something, probably it is not suitable for you.

Workplaces should ban political discussions.

Political debates are never about understanding others point of view but more about reinforcing already held beliefs.

Also, it is easy to be mean if these debates happen over asynchronous discussion forums rather than face to face.

All the flowery eulogies that people shower on dead people, if they had done it when they were alive, it would probably have made a difference to their lives.

It is the first hurdle that is most difficult to pass.

While fasting, it is the first pangs of hunger that you have to fight. After that, it is smooth sailing.

While running, early into the run, you will get an irresistible urge to give up. Resist that, and you are good to go.

When you are new to an organization, you will see some behavior which may not make sense. Instead of trying to change it immediately, observe for some time, understand the motivations, and then try to change.

Commenting code adds value when you are doing counter-intuitive things which may not be obvious later.

Liberal use of Gmail filters and labels is the first step towards Inbox Zero.

If someone is implementing an idea or a concept that you believe is untenable, instead of outrightly dismissing it, get curious about it.

It is an opportunity to update your beliefs without incurring the cost of failure.

Before using new technology, assess whether you have the expertise to maintain it in the future.

Using is just half the battle won. The real struggle is in maintaining it.

Two kinds of meetings: \1. Information proliferation and strategy - daily standups, all hands, etc \2. Tactical decisions.

Two should always end with - who does what by when.

It is usually small tweaks and boring stuff that make a big difference. But our complexity seeking minds like to think the opposite.

Some find it incredulous that new age internet companies do not have separate QA teams. This is based on: \1. What is the cost of a bug in production? \2. How quickly can you detect production bugs? \3. How fast can you fix production bugs?

2 and 3 require constant focus on tools.

If the stability of your system depends on your users behaving a certain way, it is bound to fail.

On the other hand, your system should enforce the right user behavior.

If you spent a long time diagnosing a problem: \1. Do a self-retrospection to figure out what you could have done differently to cut short the time. \2. Ask yourself what observability interventions would have helped and add it.

Conflating authentication with authorization is one of the most common causes of security bugs.

Authentication - Is this the person who she is claiming to be?

Authorization - Is this authenticated person allowed to carry out the said task?

If you say something is important, it does not imply some other thing is not important.

Have seen conversations and arguments getting derailed with this line of reasoning.

When interviewing for senior roles, keenly observe whether the person talks in terms of strategy along with tactics.

Implicitly knowing the difference between the two is essential for senior folks.

Building non-scalable systems is fine as long as you are aware of this and have a rough idea of when it is going to burst through the seams.

Anything good you do, there will always be someone who will be like - “But what about that?” or “This is not enough.” or “This is just superficial.”

Ignore them and keep doing what you set out to do.

An ideal team is one where there is not too much variance in the output of its members.

Whenever someone blames a framework, usually it is not the framework, but their inability to use the framework in the prescribed manner and follow the best practices.

If you think something is not going to work, also think - What tweaks are required to make it work?

It is a useful exercise in opening your mind to new possibilities.

Moral Licensing - One does something good and then believes that the good act empowers them to overindulge.

Example - Because you worked out, you overeat.

Keep an eye out for this; all of us do this.

In the future, the challenge is not going to be access to knowledge. It is going to be the availability of time to think and introspect.

As we figure out novel ways to keep our minds in a state of constant stimulation, making time for oneself is going to get tough.

Being a team’s manager does not mean you are their life coach too.

If you want to understand the problem with uncoordinated local optimizations, look at Bangalore traffic.

Everyone is selfishly optimizing locally for themselves under the illusion that it will make them reach their destination faster, and everyone suffers as a whole.

Why work at a startup? https://abhyrama.com/2019/08/05/why-work-at-a-startup/

Should one contextualize one’s tweets or let the reader fill in the context themselves?

A psychological trick to hit that rep count in the gym.

If hitting 10 rep sounds ominous, count till 5 and then 3 and then 2.

Trip the brain and hit the rep.

Life is an eternal struggle between instant and delayed gratification.

It is not that event loops are more performant than threads.

The problem with threads is that to eke out performance, you need to tune and benchmark. With event loops, you get it right out of the box.

How do you prioritize tasks? By the averseness Index.

The tasks that you want to put off the most are probably the ones you should do first.

You will not be able to foster a culture of excellence if you do not distinguish between “doing things” and “doing things well.”

Always get confused between Python modules and packages.

Module is a single Python file.

Package is a combination of Python files.

When you do not have skin in the game, give opinions and feedback, but do not insist that others follow them.

You will not be able to change one by being overly critical of their current beliefs.

When you are new to the industry, you will occasionally feel rudderless, indulge in self-doubt, and think - What am I doing here?

Experienced folks around you will be blazing through while you totter along.

All go through this. Hang in there; it gets better day by day.

What you get out of experiences is dependent on you, not on the experience.

Rephrasing the eponymous philosopher Master Oogway - There is just experience. There is no good or bad.

It is challenging to keep away from phones as utility and distraction have been bundled into a single device.

You go to the phone for utility and then get distracted and spend hours on it aimlessly.

Every tweet has an exception.

BBMP and BWSSB have taken the SUV and crossover ads on TV a bit too seriously.

They are hell-bent on converting entire Bangalore into a 4x4 zone.

Software security is about reducing the surface of attack and isolating instances. There is nothing called as enough security.

Planning is over-rated, quick adaptation to change is under-rated.

Most advise is common sense which you want to hear from others.

What is common to OnePlus, XUV 500, and Duke motorcycles?

All are luxury wannabe products at a sweet price point which customers have lapped up.

Even though Starbucks has two washrooms, they are unisex.

Why don’t more places adopt this?

It is a more efficient model than designated washrooms.

The root cause of many software bugs - Someone did not assert the assumptions they made.

If someone meets the stereotype for a particular role, we overestimate their abilities. If not, we underestimate their abilities.

Avoiding this stereotypical mindset is the key to great hiring.

The advantage of working out with a heart rate monitor is you can quantitatively assess which exercises are strenuous.

Also, you can time the rest between sets well.

A zero or one approach to life does not work. It is fine to start with 0.1 and slowly progress towards 1.

Do not beat yourself up if you oscillate between these two states. Everyone goes through this; the trick is to stick around for long enough until it becomes a habit.

Aimlessly browsing the web - jumping from one link to another, one video to another, is a great way to expand the mind.

Poor are more attuned to the development happening on the ground as small improvements make a big difference in their lives.

This is also why they are more tuned to politics and vote enthusiastically.

Would you balk if I told you - in the future, no one will cook at home. All cooking will occur in cloud kitchens and delivered to home.

Imagine the reaction of our hunter gatherer ancestors if someone had told them - in the future, no one will hunt or forage their own food.

Recovery Oriented Computing (ROC) is all about restarting components frequently and proactively to reset their state.

Did not know that this was even a thing!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovery-oriented_computing

Programmer parallel to “Strategy and Tactics” is interfaces.

Think of interface definition as the strategy and the way you go about implementing these as the tactics.

Clearly understand the strategy(interface def), tactics can vary depending on the situation(usage context).

Could a retail brand carve a niche by saying - we never discount?

Great sales people do but sell the product; they sell the virtues of the product.

Quick hack for making a series of Redis operations atomic - put them in a Lua script and call the script.

• If someone loans you money, do not be surprised when they ask you to return it. The loaner really does not care about your financial state, she just wants her money back.

  My beef is that personal loan advertisements make it sound like they are throwing money at you for free.

• Do not create excessive leverage based on your current income. The music can and will stop at some point.

  Take small risks that do not ruin you completely in case of failure - Taleb. This is the best advise I can think of in this context.

One of the most under appreciated aspect of VCs is that they let you take asymmetric risk - huge risk without the downside of complete person ruin.

In a country like India, where traditionally, access to capital has not been easy, this is a boon.

Saw a product on Amazon priced at 350 ₹ with a 300 ₹ discount and 50 ₹ delivery charge.

From a consumer psychology perspective, would it not be better to price this at 400 ₹ while nuking the delivery charge?

If you want to understand the perilous relationship between an entrepreneur and debt, read the excellent book “Shoe Dog” by Phil Knight - founder of Nike.

I reviewed the book sometime back.

https://abhyrama.com/2017/10/02/shoe-dog/

“I think the minute you have a backup plan, you’ve admitted you’re not going to succeed” - said no distributed systems engineer ever.

If you want it to be done, then go, else, send - said no manager ever.

When it comes to the psychology of money, one needs to get used to the idea of trading money for one’s time.

It is challenging to measure developer productivity and assign a dollar value to it. Hence this area sees the least investment in many organizations.

You can condense useful writing tips to a page. The difficulty is not in remembering, but practicing them.

Practice good writing everywhere - from official emails to tweets to inane chat messages.

Experience is not valuable if you cannot draw lessons from it.

How do you detect opportunities to make your organization more efficient?

If one asks for something and the other one says, let me give it to you instead of laying out the steps to guide the other person get it - you have inefficiency and an opportunity for self-service.

There is immense potential for a programming language with optional typing built in to the language to go mainstream.

Startups that crossed the chasm to a big corp end up trying to tack a static type system onto the dynamically typed language that took them from zero to one.

Trying to invalidate an idea is a great way to validate an idea.

Some of the best podcasts that I have listened to are with obscure uncelebrated people. That is the power of democratizing communication mediums.

Great brand advertising does not sell the brand, they sell aspirations.

You are doomed once you start believing you need money to have fun.

Good products will be used in ways beyond the wildest imaginations of its creators.

Some apparent examples - Github as a collaborative crowd-sourced document store, Twitter as a replacement for long-form blogs.

Security practises are a trade-off between convenience and safety.

To what degree you want to implement security is highly contextual; there is no one size fits all suggestion.

Seek diverse opinions, do not be obligated to follow all.

Code review is not about surfacing bad variable names and deviation from conventions.

It is about unearthing logical errors, lousy architecture choices, and faulty assumptions.

• When you read a post on lessons from startup failure, to the reader, the lessons sound obvious - not from a hindsight bias perspective but in absolute terms. I believe the protagonist does not see this for two reasons.
• \1. When you are in the thick of things, you get blindsided to some obvious realities - like the fish that asks what is water.
• \2. You wilfully ignore some of these realities like a self perpetuated reality distortion field. Doing anything new, requires you to suspend a part of your rational mind as you are going against the grain. If it was that obvious, everyone would have done it.

Every rule has an exception, few have the judgement to exercise this. If you find people with this rare talent, latch on to them.

I am at that stage in life where I am skeptical than happy when someone claims their service is free.

Every time I re-read a research paper, I come away with something new.

Hypothetical question - If there is a super human who is acutely aware of persuasion techniques and own biases at a subconscious level, would that person have a dull and boring life?

Why security by obscurity is a bad idea. https://abhyrama.com/2019/07/18/security-by-obscurity/

• Gut instinct - Biases, metal models, and principles that you have not or cannot put into words.
• @harish224227 Hahah, yes.

If someone starts appearing in too many podcasts, either they are publishing a book or, they are starting their own podcast.

Side hustle to earn an active income is a big rage. Instead of side hustle, invest that time in becoming the best at what earns you bread and butter. This will more than make up for the income from side hustle.

If it happens to you, it is a tragedy; if it happens to others, it is a statistic.

Software observability is an addiction. If you have never done it before, difficult to see why people go ga ga over observability. Once you have reaped the benefit from observability, impossible to let go.

Is it possible to sell big hairy audacious goals (Elon Musk, Narendra Modi like) to the masses without being pompous, bombastic, and overt optimism?

Phrasing pithy intelligent sentences in the virtual world is easy. Doing things in the real world is hard.

• Came across the concept of Kind and Wicked learning environments thanks to @DavidEpstein’s recent podcast appearances. When you think of this, parenting is probably the wickedest of all learning environments.
• The paper on Kind and Wicked learning environments by Hograth et al is highly readable - https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5c5d/33b858eaf38f6a14b3f042202f1f44e04326.pdf.

Central engineering teams should act as enablers for other teams building observability and productivity tools, proliferating best practises and providing guidance. In today’s world, where speed is of essence, hand off of tasks to central engineering teams does not work.

Two kinds of interviews: \1. You tailor the discussion based on someone’s previous work. \2. You have a set of expectations and you validate that completely ignoring the resume.

2 works for big corps, startups vying for talent should do 1.

Hackathons should mandate - only demos, no presentations.

The ability to truly hold conflicting ideas and do justice to them is one of the most important mental gymnastic ability one has to develop.

Twitter requires you to compress your writings and eliminate context for brevity.

Prose writing requires you to expand your writings with context to make a joyful fulfilling read.

Both are orthogonal exercises but important to become a better communicator.

You can cover up a mediocre idea/ product with a great presentation.

Be aware of this when someone presents you something.

On the flip side, develop good presentation skills.

Go introduced me to structural typing through its interface implementation which is a pretty cool concept and probably the only mainstream language to do this.

With recommendations getting better day by day, in the future, would everyone have a narrow band when it comes to tastes?

Low investment, high ROI distributed tracing. https://abhyrama.com/2019/07/12/distributed-tracing/

• New hires, especially senior ones, should be asked to take it easy during the initial couple of months. When you are new, there is so much pressure to prove yourself that one ends up optimising for the short term which is detrimental to an organisation.
• This may not apply to startups which are still trying to figure out their core strategy.

Apparently people are shying away from debt funds. A few bad apples have brought disrepute to the entire eco-system thus taking down the ethical funds too. This is why you should have a vested interest in keeping the eco-system that you are part of sane and healthy.

How do you arrive at your acceptable tail latency? Based on the cost you are ready to bear to take it from x to y.

For example, if your current 99.9 %tile latency is 500ms and to take it to 99.999 %tile you have to spend a million dollars, it might not be worth it.

Finding a pair of simple denim without artificial fade, whiskers, holes at inappropriate places and random embroidery is a challenge these days.

At one point, growth hacking was all the rage in the startup world. What a lot of the startups missed is that for growth hacking to be successful, you had to have a great product and experience or a product that solved an acute problem. Otherwise it is just a house of cards.

Design interviews are a trade off between depth and breadth. As an interviewer, you need to actively guide candidates on this giving them hints to go deep or gloss over details.

They key to a successful internship program is to figure out independent units of work which need minimal domain knowledge for execution, for example, internal tools.

Irrespective of what anyone says, WeWork made co-working space vogue which is a big boon to small businesses. Setting up an office is an extremely time consuming and draining activity and a complete diversion of time, energy and resources during the early days of a business.

AI abuse has moved over from startup pitches to consumer electronics. Saw a TV with AI sound, AI picture, AI etc.

Quality control of sellers is a big challenge for Platform businesses. Bad service of individual sellers gets associated with the Platform thus tarnishing the image of the Platform.

Balancing between being a producer and a consumer is a tightrope walk.

When someone tells you their problems, try to figure out whether they seek solutions from you or are they after a sympathetic ear to listen to their woes.

Thought experiment in designing a great meeting room experience. https://abhyrama.com/2019/07/04/designing-a-great-meeting-room-experience/

Refreshing read from the co-founder of Dribble. http://simplebits.com/2019/06/25/dribbble.html

• Knowledge economy depends on someone’s ability to go deep into something and connect the dots. Quick street smart on the feet thinking is not of too much value. Interviews as they are conducted today are geared towards latter.
• I have been thinking of an interview format where you give questions well before the interview so that the candidate has ample time to think and organize her thoughts for a productive discussion. This would reflect the true skill needed to thrive in knowledge economy.

Space would probably be the best frontier to expand the pie for humans in an automated robots do everything world.

When someone gives you feedback, irrespective of whether you agree with it or not, shut up and listen. Feedback is a great way for you to understand how the world perceives you and your actions.

One should keep narrative fallacy in mind while reading success stories, especially stories that try to figure out the reasons for success.

Simple hack for being accountable; if someone asks for a favor, tell them you will do it by a certain date and ask them to remind you on that date if they do not see you fulfilling the ask.

Seeing tweets on 10x, 20x, foox engineers. One thing you for sure want in your engineers is the ability to distinguish between micro and macro solutions. https://abhyrama.com/2018/09/23/micro-versus-macro-solutions/

Attempts to archetype productive people in the form of 10x engineers, Steve Jobs type CEO make it sound like one has to be an anti social jerk to be successful. I believe “Being Nice” is the most overlooked super power to a fulfilling and successful life.

• In software, it is difficult to correlate specific input (architecture, coding guidelines, tech choices, product features) with specific output (product adoption, user growth, revenue).
• This creates a view where complexity of the input gets conflated with the efficacy of the output leading to an environment where simplicity is shunned and unnecessary complexity is celebrated.

The problem with personality tests is that the questions are deviod of context. I believe human nature/behavior is highly contextual which the personality tests completely miss. Irrespective of that, it is always fun to answer one and see the assessment.

• Whenever someone writes a blogpost on using a particular technology, there are a lot of comments saying why the said tech is not the best for the use case.
• Tech choices are usually not made in absolute terms. The current context of the organisation, existing stack, talent, team structure, last but not the least - personal proclivity to the said tech play a much bigger role in the choice than we like to think.

Electric scooters designed specifically for last mile delivery - https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/companies/li-ions-elektrik-launches-e-scooter-spock-price-starts-at-rs-65000/article28204211.ece. My thoughts on this - https://abhyrama.com/2019/05/11/re-think/

Diving into distributed stream processors like Kafka and Kinesis. https://abhyrama.com/2019/06/25/kafka-is-not-a-queue/

Management in a couple of sentences.

https://abhyrama.com/2019/06/12/management-distilled/

A re-take of Joel Spolsky’s classic post on leaky abstractions. https://abhyrama.com/2019/05/23/intentionally-leaky-abstractions/

I feel prophetic.

https://abhyrama.com/2019/05/26/lessons-from-indian-elections/

https://abhyrama.com/2013/01/20/gandhians-with-keyboards/

Since it is election result season, re-posting a 2014 post on why infrastructure matters. https://abhyrama.com/2014/04/13/poor-cannot-eat-roads/

Election season is the best time to get a front row seat for the show on human behavior and psychology. http://abhyrama.com/2019/05/26/lessons-from-indian-elections/

Are you confused as to whether to do a daily standup or not for your team? Read on why you should - https://abhyrama.com/2019/04/26/daily-standup/

Startups and VC La La Land http://abhyrama.com/2018/12/16/startups-and-vc-la-la-land/

Idiomatic Code http://abhyrama.com/2018/12/02/idiomatic-code/

Altruism FTW http://abhyrama.com/2017/09/02/altruism-ftw/

@amanmohla yeah

@eternal_nut @amanmohla moral of the story, never run with @eternal_nut

Thanks to HN, got a new term today, “Guilty Perfectionism” - When you comment a code you are authoring saying something can be improved.

When someone does a product demo, you can figure out whether it has been built for startups or enterprises.

You can annotate comments in Google Spreadsheets too \m/

At a meta level, all high level programming languages are declarative, you tell the computer what to do, not how to do it.

Take your favorite language’s function syntax, reverse it, you get golang’s function syntax.

Do the English speaking population care about Land Bill? Should not BJP be trying to reach the people to whom it actually matters?

Ignored the golden tenet, “when in trouble, look at logs” and wasted a couple of hours.

Chandrakanta can be the Game of Thrones of India.

Ur well being as a company is inversely proportional to the coolness of the tech you use, more mundane and boring the tech, better off u r.

If you are building for yourself, do not start out with the idea of building a platform or library, gradually evolve into one.

Some website wanted me to download their app to play a song, promptly opened YouTube and played.

Scaling organizations is more difficult than scaling servers to handle C10K.

Organization scaling at Spotify - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1018963/Articles/SpotifyScaling.pdf

Makes you want to visit Chile - http://ouropenroad.com/novannewplan/

Great write up on Breach - https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/08/06/anatomy-of-a-cryptographic-oracle-understanding-and-mitigating-the-breach-attack/

Want to get an idea of the tech stack of a company, check careers page.

There is a world beyond Hadoop, big data != Hadoop

Pull requests and unit tests are the new documentation.

Wow, snake case - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_case

Selfie http://wp.me/s35C7f-selfie

Docker hub documentation leaves a lot desired for, spent a day trying to figure out how a collaborator can pull your private images.

Drama in AAP reminds me of this poignant piece from @msuster - http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2013/03/09/the-importance-of-benevolent-dictators/

We usually tend to under estimate performance, computers are capable of doing much more than what we think :).

First stab at writing a Jenkins plugin - https://github.com/abhirama/selfie

I love this Lamson FAQ - http://lamsonproject.org/docs/faq.html

#OrganizationProblems People complain there are no fun activities in the organization and when HR organizes one, no one shows up.

#OrganizationProblems People complain company vision does not trickle down but no one wants to attend all hands etc.

I find it strange when people think that designing for failure is akin to saying the code they wrote is not robust enough.

For the Nth time, Apache Kafka is not a queue.

Media houses ranting against the documentary ban participated in a self imposed ban on Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

• People know Jenkins as a continuous integration server, but it can act as a great front end for your scripts and cron jobs.
• @amanmohla Tired go from @thoughtworks - http://www.go.cd/? I have no experience, but have heard people praising.

When evaluating open source projects, peek at the issues/tickets, gives an extremely good perspective of status quo.

CTE feature in @postgresql is neat - http://www.craigkerstiens.com/2013/11/18/best-postgres-feature-youre-not-using/

Next step is to create a robot which does this - http://finance.yahoo.com/news/disturbing-image-chinese-worker-close-183146218.html

Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. Hope without critical thinking is naïveté. - http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/02/09/hope-cynicism/

A big advantage in this cloud era is that you can be open and still make money by charging for hosting, storage etc.

If you are on the look out for a NoSQL db, give @aerospikedb a shot, it has some cool features like auto sharding, hot upgrade etc.

Puts into perspective a lot of ideas around event processing - http://blog.confluent.io/2015/01/29/making-sense-of-stream-processing/

Who will now start a Ring Delivery on a Drone As a Service(RDOADAAS) startup? - http://www.forbes.com/sites/hengshao/2015/02/09/a-dji-drone-becomes-magic-weapon-for-marriage-proposal/

Acche din for multimedia/image processing experts, AAP plans to install 15 lac CCTV cameras in Delhi.

Python web app frameworks flask and bottle have so much in common.

Took me 5 minutes to migrate a simple web app from bottle to flask.

• AWS SNS and SQS are great to architect event driven applications.
• @deapubhi not available in Singapore, we have so many use cases for it.

That feeling when your team removes redundant code without you having to prod them to do that.

This is pretty cool - http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/22/the-new-jamstik-is-a-musicians-best-friend/

There is an idealistic way to develop software and then there is a pragmatic way.

More you get to know about bash/linux utils, more there is to learn.

X-Men never disappoints.

@amanmohla @deapubhi Congratulations on the release, may the force be with you :)

When using open source libraries, if you find something missing in the wiki, refer the tests, they are an amazing source of usage examples.

Has no one yet claimed sunanada pushkar’s report is politically motivated?

The activity tab in JIRA is awesome, cursing myself why I did not click on it before.

A lot of people diss on training but where training helps is it structures your knowledge of the topic and reinforces what you already know.

One often overlooked aspect of security is you know about attacks how to carry them out but you don’t really fathom the implication of them.

python -m SimpleHTTPServer 9080 - There you go, you get an HTTP server running on port 9080.

If you are in Mysore do not miss greens restaurant, heavenly ambience.

Addicted to Instagram, outdoing myself in tagging photos with cheesy captions.

India today group has an editor for analytics.

Nike frees make for great trekking shoes.

Most of the times people who claim titles do not matter in an organization are the ones with fancy titles.

Now I have to watch Homeland - http://nypost.com/2014/12/27/pakistani-officials-furious-over-countrys-portrayal-in-homeland/

Great error messages do not just tell you what is wrong but also how to fix it.

RCA is useless if not followed up with concrete plans to address it.

Good explanation of iostat output - http://dom.as/2009/03/11/iostat/

A guy from Bangalore != A techie

Docker cheat sheet - https://github.com/wsargent/docker-cheat-sheet

Find it tough to quantify why someone should be hired. For me it works at a subconscious level & till now my instincts have served me well.

SSR by @intellijidea https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/documentation/ssr.html saved the day, added two method parameters to 50 or so instances in the code base in one shot.

Do not know how to use a Linux utility, hit the man page, resist the temptation to Google, you will be wiser by the dozen.

All the people hailing Microsoft open sourcing .NET as a great business strategy, Java did not prevent SUN from westering.

Anyone coming to Shell scripting from other programming languages gets maimed by the white space land mine.

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/run-code-cloud/ Feels great to pat one’s own back -

@abhyrama: In near future, operating systems might be immaterial, your preferred stack will be the layer you deal with.

In the modern age, nirvana is defined as the state where you can resist this - http://xkcd.com/386/

What’s up with Bruce Willis acting in all sort of crap movies?

Dark brooding roles and Keanu Reeves are made for each other.

Usually when people say they love open source what they are really saying is they love the fact that it is free.

From the looks of it, @DocumentDB beats Dyanamodb hands down, time for AWS to up their game.

From a feature parity perspective, looks like @Azure is on par with @awscloud except for RDS, @Azure is seriously lacking there.

At the @TechEDIndia event, one of the oft repeated message from the @Azure team was that @Azure is not only for @Microsoft technologies.

ML offering from @Azure is awesome, do not think any of the other cloud platforms have anything close to it.

Whenever I look at a new fitness wearable, my expectation from the segment goes up a notch.

Initially it was, these products should track heat rate continuously. Now that a lot of these do that, it should also auto detect swimming.

The auto ticket kiosk @ fame Shankarnag is awesome, thumbs up for anything that reduces friction.

Was fascianted with these bikes in US, got to know the story behind them today - http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/business/how-a-bicycle-maker-saw-the-light-and-found-its-balance.html

How many reviews of Interstellar will have the title “Interstellar is stellar”?

Godzilla looks like an alien in the new movie.

The alien looking animal is not Godzilla, Godzilla sticks to his old looks, whew, relieved.

Great intro to @ApacheShiro - http://www.infoq.com/articles/apache-shiro

Make your code review comments non confrontational.

This is why people shy away from shell programming - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3601515/how-to-check-if-a-variable-is-set-in-bash/3601734

One of the traits of a good programmer is the ability to work with sucky code.

s3cmd put does not work with huge files - http://www.markhneedham.com/blog/2013/07/30/s3cmd-put-fails-with-connection-reset-by-peer-for-large-files/. aws cli to the rescue - http://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-chap-welcome.html

• Midlife crisis, whether to go out for a run or hit the the gym and lift weights.
• @deapubhi Dude, what is wrong with you, no one disagrees respectfully on the internet, it is made for flame wars @fartfree

We are in office everyday till 1 in the morning is not a badge of honor.

Private maven repos - Spring S3 wagon https://github.com/spring-projects/aws-maven and S3 IP restriction bucket policy - http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/example-bucket-policies.html

PVR Cinemas competing with TV who is going to show more ads.

Looks like @Microsoft band is pretty good - http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/2kw04x/microsoft_band_day_1_review/

Mangers, don’t take upon yourself to code - http://goo.gl/RuPFqp. Something I had written long back on this - http://wp.me/35C7f

SQS versus Kinesis http://wp.me/p35C7f-6w

When interviewing candidates, a lot of stress is laid out on design, architecture, algo, data structures etc but not on debugging skill.

Irony is, we spend as much time or more on debugging as writing new code.

Media is one of those occupations where performance does not matter.

If you state a problem with only, “There is an issue”, that is a moron alert for me.

Planks of the push up style seem to be more effective than the normal one.

Great videos for improving your badminton - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCprsl6i5xHgeSviUJlxhkaw

Release early, release often http://wp.me/p35C7f-6p

How about bringing in a viral factor like ALS challenge to swach Bharat campaign?

Being resilient to machine failures/restarts is critical when you are on cloud - http://techblog.netflix.com/2014/10/a-state-of-xen-chaos-monkey-cassandra.html

Government should make Khadi a trademark and let anyone sell Khadi branded products.

http://theoatmeal.com/tag/grammar - Would this be a good way to teach kids grammar(of course, without the profanity)?

Sore is not excuse, sore is the goal - http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/2i6slc/what_single_fitness_moment_impacted_you_the_most/ckzj9cv

Generating Java client for a rest api - http://square.github.io/retrofit/

Want to clear a blocked nose? Swim.

Doing something for a long time does not make you good at it, doing it consciously is the trick.

Lesser your code does, more robust it is.

I like that @Uber is empowering taxi drivers by allowing them to rate passengers, do other taxi companies do this?

Feels great when someone promotes the country on the positives rather than the negatives.

Hope this marks a welcome departure from the Indiana Jones, Slum Dog Millionaire and White Tiger kind of negative highlighting.

The Expectation Test http://wp.me/p35C7f-6l

If you say do not do something, at least suggest or give directions on how it needs to be done in your opinion.

Oxymoronic - Going up to the gym in an elevator.

If you trying to replicate a version control system with your own half baked methods to keep your code repo small, you are doing it wrong.

Google’s api documentation leaves much to be desired.

In any task involving data, you always underestimate the time it takes to sanitize/format the data.

Common sense driven software development instead of <insert your favorite software development methodology here> driven development.

Everywhere you go, real estate ads follow you, signs of a buoyant economy or impending bust?

Never make fun of someone’s caring nature, you are doing a disservice to humanity.

In Kerala, looks like all the major gold players are into real estate now.

Even if you think you know everything about a problem, listen to what the other person is saying, we are always blinded by our biases.

In a meeting with a conf call, more time is spent in setting up the call than discussing the agenda.

Hunt for the elusive 1.25 kg plates.

Do not keep your enhancements hostage to too many outcomes, define one and stick to it.

Like army’s motto, coders motto should be “No dead code left behind.”

Most hobby sites look the same these days thanks to bootstrap.

Whenever a problem has a third party component involved, instinct is to blame that component rather than deep dive into the problem.

Google’s prediction api looks interesting.

Was watching TV and all I saw was dot com ads, acche din for Indian software industry.

A friend was cribbing about xamarin, long back someone was cursing GWT.

I do not believe that cross compile to some other language tools work for complex scenarios.

They might be good for prototyping but not for the final end user product.

“Basically” is the Indian version of “You Know”.

Lesson learnt, never deploy your changes on the day you head out for a holiday.

With love from 19th floor.

Btw, as per Google, ALS is almost non existent in India just like Lupus.

Fix an issue for someone, you have solved the issue for that day, teach him how to debug it, you have solved the issue for a lifetime.

All tax payers are by default participants of the rice bucket challenge, our state governments have made sure of that.

Looking at the rice bucket challenge, our political parties must be patting their back for their prescience.

jstack saves the day.

Simplicity over OO purity.

Meditation tip - Take an ice cold bath and keenly observe your body as it slowly adapts to the cold.

Micro service or not, code to interfaces as much as possible.

Had asked a technical question to @awscloud business support and got a top notch reply with zero bullshit, kudos.

When logging is your bottleneck you know that you have hit significant scale.

Beware of the person who is not interested in knowing how you fixed a problem.

Log4j2 performance - http://www.grobmeier.de/log4j-2-performance-close-to-insane-20072013.html#.U_9Bk3V515Q

Low bar squat seems to be easier on the body than a high bar one.

Abstract

When faced with a problem, do not try to second guess it, look at the log file, will save your sanity and time.

Skate boarding shoes are great for squatting too.

Annotations or xml for configuration? I like xml for the fact that all your configurations are in a single place.

Get over whatsapp’s valuation.

Where do you draw the line on security?

Kannada movies on Amazon, nice - http://www.amazon.in/gp/browse.html/ref=pe_418781_52952391_pe_ecg/?node=4847769031

VIM swap file saves the day.

A pull request is the best way to say you care :).

Nice way to onboard people - https://x.com/kamens/status/483701926874189825/photo/1

We are a startup http://wp.me/p35C7f-6e

It is so cool to be a cynic.

Seen on a motorcycle - the righteous are bold as lion.

Just because someone died does not mean that you have to eulogize that person with false epithets.

Best thing about expendables is that there is no pretense of it not being a bro movie.

Mardaani is one great watch, but sort of disturbing too.

Some moronic pretentious reviewer on tv is rating expendables with 2 stars, how dare she.

Since we are all about data these days, you can present this next time your holiday is rejected - http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/opinion/sunday/hit-the-reset-button-in-your-brain.html?_r=0

Marvel is cross selling their super heroes in their movies these days.

As much as possible, never scrap a project and start from scratch, do small incremental changes which finally shapes into the new project.

Deleting redundant code is more painful than adding new one, that is why you see code bases littered with redundant code.

Engineering tasks become ASAP when shit hits the fan.

The thin line between stupidity and boldness.

Spot reduction - http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/spot_reduction_is_real_heres_how_to_do_it

After the awesome Hercules and Captain America, “That awkward moment” was an epic bore.

Why is it socially acceptable to wear the same shoe every day but not the same trouser or shirt?

Saw someone doing kung fu bench press in the gym today.

Are kids self directed in the modern age of unbridled electronic distractions? - http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/nature/Unschooling-The-Case-for-Setting-Your-Kids-Into-the-Wild.html

When will people realize the developer productivity impacts revenue?

No amount of process can trump personal responsibility, ass backwards process makes orgs regress towards mediocrity.

I only see premium and luxury apartment and housing, no one lives in ordinary apartments any more :).

• If you code in Java and have not looked into Guava, you are missing out a lot.
• @eternal_nut Kya kya hua and why sorry?
• @eternal_nut Oh crap, I did not recognize your word play, sorry man #sob.

If you do not invest in automated testing, you are going to pay with interest at some point of time.

Let us set up an office http://wp.me/p35C7f-65

This is how public swimming pools in Bangalore look during weekends - https://x.com/thei100/status/493773627243122688/photo/1

Working with third party apis is mind numbing.

Another day goes to waste thanks to Google’s sucky OAuth documentation.

If you work with Mogo, read this before anything else - http://aphyr.com/posts/284-call-me-maybe-mongodb

Epic reply from @Pinboard - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8105712

In tech, it does not boil down to using the best possible tech, but knowing the limitations of the tech you are working with.

Your growth is determined by the no of releases you can push out in a day, not by the no of growth hackers you have.

Tyranny of consensus by committee - http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2013/03/09/the-importance-of-benevolent-dictators/

Epic win, I have found out a way to squat and bench press safely without a spotter \m/.

People are not following process, ok, let us add more process to fix that.

Zero process leads to chaos, too much process saps spirit, key is finding the balance and this is where most fail.

When measuring latency do not be fooled by average, check p99, p95 and median to get a better picture.

Really loved the on boarding of Stellar, kick ass.

Coined a new term on the lines of full stack engineer, full stack commentator, someone who comments on everything under the sun.

@deapubhi people usually want the opposite dude :p

Totally rad fitness equipment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnIJe3QR-7Q (NSFW)

What will others say/think? Root cause of most miseries in life.

• When will Amazon come out with a Heroku/Google app engine equivalent? They have all the key pieces to build this product.
• @amanmohla @deapubhi Aha, was under the impression beanstalk is more of a deployment/configuration management tool, looks like it is PAAS.

Non stop - edge of the seat thriller.

“Correlation does not imply causation” is one of the hippest terms these days.

Last couple of movies of Liam Neeson that I have seen have all been great.

• Next time when you squat or dead lift try going bare feet, you will thank me :).
• @eternal_nut better balance, better support, better form.
• @eternal_nut yeah, give it a shot.

Why is no one doing an Indian version of american ninja warrior?

Sabotage was one piece of crap movie.

Sensible framework from @zen_habits to base your decisions - http://zenhabits.net/sundown/

Do not think of Redis as a database, it is an in memory data structure server backed up by disc.

If you are just starting up, in all probabilities you do not need a cache.

Keeping your application architecture dumb and stupid helps business, keeping it complicated and latest buzz word compliant helps ur resume.

Most of the start ups are using NoSQL not because it lets them scale, but because it lets them be sloppy with their data model.

Lots of companies hire great people but only a few vest them with enough powers to affect change.

Companies that are just starting up talking about big data is oxymoronic.

• A lot of companies that use Hadoop probably do not need it, a postgres database would have sufficed in most cases.
• @deapubhi High time investors hired rock solid tech advisers like me B-).

But then postgres is old and boring, Hadoop/HBase/HDFS are the new kids in the block.

Done with ranting, time to watch Lone Survivor :).

In conferences, while asking question, why do people introduce themselves as “this is so and so here”, sounds weird.

@amanmohla That was pithy comment on the current state of web dev where people think jQuery is JS.

How to revert a revert in GIT - http://git-scm.com/blog/2010/03/02/undoing-merges.html (Last section). Something I had to do recently and pulled my hairs out doing it.

Crunchbase does not link to company’s website, weird.

geekgoodies.in - Indian version of http://www.thinkgeek.com/.

Is any biotech company working on diet fruits? Imagine mango without all the carbs :).

http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.in/2014/07/announcing-project-zero.html - How many will rant about this taking NSA’s name even though this is highly altruistic of Google?

Result of some higher up in Vodafone saying we need a social media strategy? - https://x.com/surnell/status/489079469919830016/photo/1

Wow, SGI was involved in Terminator 2.

• Great read - http://news.genius.com/B-horowitz-the-hard-thing-about-hard-things-chapter-1-annotated. Now I want to read the book.
• @eternal_nut Justbooks?

A friend of mine is mightily confused between an init script and a shutdown script and laying down some asinine arguments.

Bitten by a bug due to naming convention not being followed. I just do not get it why people do not follow conventions. Argggh.

This is my go to doc for any doubts on HTTP caching - https://www.mnot.net/cache_docs/

Pick up the phone and talk is not a solution to all communication problems.

This would have been fun to attend - http://flugtag.redbull.com/in/index.php?page=home

• There is a scene in Humpty where one actor tries to avoid a fight but the hero goes in full on. Reminds me of this - http://goo.gl/qA0cle
• @amanmohla @harish_io is emotionally attached to hump-tea because he designed a home page banner for the movie :).

Wow - http://www.alphawarrior.com/

Inspiring read - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8050106

Board games are great fun, started playing when I was in Zynga, stopped when I moved on form there, miss them - http://goo.gl/yD5vtX

Watched a great Kannada movie Oggarane at an old school cinema after eons.

Everyone is a climate expert nowadays.

First day of training in Nike Frees, initial reaction, comfy.

Multiple property files in the classpath with the same names caused us much heart break yesterday and today, argh.

To add to the travail, the property file was hidden inside a jar.

Replaced a self coded functionality with one from a lib. There is no joy like the joy of seeing the no of lines in your code reduce :).

I keep reading this every few months and every time I have an aha moment - http://henryr.github.io/cap-faq/

Behind the scenes, unsexy, non credited work/followup you have to do as a manager, argghh.

A guy I was interviewing today personalized it, I was wearing Nike shoes and he is like “Say you want to buy Nike shoes”.

Looks like Diet coke cost will not go up, saved :p.

Nothing is sacrosanct http://wp.me/p35C7f-60 via @abhyrama

• Time to watch the latest Robocop.
• @amanmohla This was a total bore.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804463/?ref_=nv_sr_1 - We all hear, think and believe what we want to hear, think and believe.

Does Djokovic know Sachin?

Shit loads of enthusiasm in people to cheer for sports persons but not so much in emulating their fitness.

Tweeting on the move, novel experience for me :P

At what cost? http://wp.me/p35C7f-5P

Your vote is valuable, navigate to your polling station using http://where-do-i-vote.in via @WhereDoIVoteIN

@eternal_nut The surgery, ah yes, you can try to push the free Chiwda into their manifesto, might be a game changer in Pune.

Future is in the photos http://wp.me/p35C7f-3X

@eternal_nut Are you referring to flirting in politically correct language? ;)

@eternal_nut In udupi.

Feels good to move away from struts to stripes. Now can write automated test cases and re factor like crazy. \m/

Tinkering with vlc source code to make it compile on my Arch Linux head less set up.

Thinking of setting up a NAS server using archlinux.

Decided to give Capistrano a pass. Using Fabric for automated deployments.

Redis is freakishly fast for auto suggests provided you give it enough RAM. Getting instant suggests with 3 million dummy strings.

Spent an insane amount of time trying to fix a USB Grub booting issue when the real problem was with the BIOS. Flashing it fixed it.

Now on to installing Arch Linux on a 4 Gb pen drive for the NAS server.

Finally, my NAS is ready with Arch Linux running on an thumb drive of 4 Gb. Phew, adventurous weekend :).

Time for Nobel laureates fury 2.0 - http://goo.gl/2n8Vy

Spain, Germany, Switzerland, UK and now France - Domino effect in Europe? - http://goo.gl/2ao2b

Tinkering with amazon ec2. Btw, the micro instances are free.

Familiarizing myself with Puppet and Capistrano.

Evening well spent playing with ssh.

Kudos to Decathlon’s customer services. Responded to my e-mail with a phone call and replaced the bicycle stand no questions asked.

“The Mechanic” was not something I expected from someone who directed “Con Air”. Huge let down.

Did not know Epinephrine is just another name for Adrenaline.

JWZ on days before Mozilla’s imminent launch - http://goo.gl/VhzLS

Dismantled and assembled the front wheel of my bicycle. Back wheel next week \m/.

“The Mechanic” is directed by the director of “Con Air” and “Lara Croft”. Have high expectations from it.

Bike porn(SFW) - http://www.pinkbike.com/

In papers saw an Argentinian female in tank tops supporting Egyptian protesters. Is the Brotherhood ok with women wearing tank tops?

Fell off my chair reading that infidelity and kids born out of wed lock are now considered as women empowerment.

Screw the critics who said “Sanctum” sucks. It is an outstanding movie.

127 hours was not as good as the reviews made it sound.

One step closer to becoming a cycle mechanic. Fixed the stands, lubed the chains and tightened the brakes. \m/

Next task is to dismantle the bicycle to it’s nuts and bolts and assemble it again.

Looking forward to watching season 7 of House.

Appreciate the courage of John Perkins in writing “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”.

How many of the people who cry hoarse over bandhs in twitter and facebook actually go out and vote?

If politicians see a correlation between advocating bandhs and votes going down, they will themselves stop declaring bandhs.

The acting is very fresh in Dhobi Ghat but the movie screams “Give me an international film festival award.”

Reading “Money Culture” makes you wary of money culture :).

Green Hornet started on a promising note but waned as it progressed.

“Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” is a must read for everyone.

The Texas Sharp Shooter Fallacy - http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/09/11/the-texas-sharpshooter-fallacy/

Why does Hero make it’s MTBs in weird shapes?

How about the Communist heaven Cuba where there is abundant “FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION” - http://goo.gl/TC9nh

Times now advertises using Raja’s image. Why were they silent on the scam for 2 years?

How do you classify a person as a liberal?

Till I collapse by Eminem \m/

Bought a Rock Rider 5.1. Feels good to ride a 21" bicycle.

Fair Game is a riveting political thriller. Must watch.

Interesting thing about Fair Game is the movie has been financed by an Abu Dhabi production house. Is the Jewish grip on ent biz waning?

Watching Lin Dan and Peter Gade play badminton is like watching two people doing tango against each other.

Why is the media only highlighting opinions in favor of Binayak Sen?

The only thing the left liberal elites have not “YET” asked is rewriting the laws as per their discretion - http://goo.gl/k9dQL

While our media is busy defending Binayak Sen, WSJ puts something of real import - http://goo.gl/zxbFW via @satyamevajayate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came… - Today is the 20th Homeland Day of Kashmiri Pandits.

Good explanation of the physiology of running - http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/training2.htm

You can send your data drive to amazon for them to import it into S3 - http://aws.amazon.com/importexport/

Don’t go el-cheapo on swimming goggles. Buy a good one. Makes a ton of difference.

Came back after visiting @aakashd s c42s awesome office. Whole set up looks very hackerish :).

Time to put away Gilani also for life.

Get ready for another round of op-eds on how Indian justice system has betrayed the common man.

Justice system taking 100 years to decide property disputes is ok but putting a terrorist supporter behind bars is anathema. Irony.

All this noise around Binayak Sen points out the real problem in India - misplaced priorities.

Shows how much Tehelka is about reporting news RT @tehelkadotcom: #freebinayaksen via @barbarindian

Good to see Open give writing space to an RSS ideologue - http://www.openthemagazine.com/category/author/mg-vaidya

Liberal elites of this country do not believe in justice, they believe what they believe is justice.

Haj subsidy for Muslims, Jerusalem subsidy for Christians but Hindus have to pay extra to visit Sabarimala - http://goo.gl/WXqkQ

Moved all my code into one single monolithic class to avoid method call stack overflow. Travail of processing huge docs.

After the Naxalites, the credit goes to media for holding Kangaroo courts in India.

Kanti sweets has a menu written in Kannada. W00t \m/

Started reading “The Money Culture” by Micheal Lewis. Extremely fascinating. “Greed is good” all the way.

Do start ups which advertise positions as Ninjas required, know that Ninjas were “DISPOSABLE” warriors in feudal Japan?

Upendra’s “Super” is a setting stone for his entry into politics. But the movie sucks big time.

Watched Faster yesterday. Was boring.

Trivia: Figo means cool in Italian (with reference to Ford Figo).

Times better get ready for the wrath of Anonymous/4chan, Zuckerberg beats Assange as Times person of the year.

Sagarika Ghose and Hindu taking pot shots at each other on twitter.

Love JustBooks. Had asked for a book yesterday and today got a mail asking me to come and pick it up from the branch.

It is amusing to see the media muse on who will perform the most vulgar song next - http://goo.gl/S9N0l

Jealous jeans comes in 3 hip sizes for every waist size. Wht would they be? Big ass, medium ass and small ass? ;)

After the recent raids I really feel CBI is an abomination in the name of investigation.

Digvijay Singh’s protege shows real promise - http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article956996.ece

I see an opportunity for marriage tourism industry in India - http://www.telegraphindia.com/1101217/jsp/nation/story_13312480.jsp

Cold December midnight + Yum ice cream = Bliss

Finished the 8 book Buddha series.

The only enjoyable thing in Tron was the music by Daft Punk.

If we start observing black days for evry temple ransacked by Islamic invaders 365 days in a year would be black days I guess.

Not even one prominent Indian editor has the balls to write something like this - http://goo.gl/1vQfg via @SandeepWeb

I am expecting SUN to be the first channel to break this on tv - http://goo.gl/HWzLq #sarcasm

Golden rule of debugging - Instead of running to Google try the log files.

Love the introductory videos Google makes for their product launches - http://goo.gl/XQzmK Even the priority mail one was awesome.

Google puts Amazon in a spot with their ebooks launch. Will be interesting to see how this pans out.

I guess media would be very disappointed with the world cup going to Qatar.

No opportunities for skimpily clad women with cell phones wedged between their big you know what.

Saw Tron trailer yesterday. Was not impressed.

Good introduction to redis by building a twitter clone - http://code.google.com/p/redis/wiki/TwitterAlikeExample

Which sickular dimwit will be the first one to write a piece linking Varanasi blast to Gujarat riots?

Price of glory? - http://godheadv.blogspot.com/2010/04/abandoned-on-everest.html

After listening to the Indian home minister I was under the impression saffron terror is the gravest thread to India. #varanasi

Did not know this feature of Chrome - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/08/google_on_native_client/

@SandeepWeb Somewhere read that it was on the front page of ET.

Do Indian cyber laws cover DDoS?

I fell US security forces will make an example out of some hapless guy who took part in the DDoS attacks on financial portals.

Assange and Nobel peace prize? Wtf has he done for peace?

Did not know a name has been given for this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/27_Club

Modi is the devil in human form while Sanjay Dutt is Sanju “BABA”. Wow Indian media. Way to go.

Insight into why people may be comfortable stealing digital content in the name of sharing but not a car - http://goo.gl/COylX

If Varun Gandhi can be booked for hate speech why not Antulay and Digvijay Singh - http://goo.gl/nRkyr via @barbarindian

Finished a book called “Drugs are Nice” - Shock writing + philosophy.

Connect - http://goo.gl/5Wvi0 and http://goo.gl/r7Yqn

For issues that really matter to the country twitteraties make noise. For things which do not matter media makes noise.

Next wave of land scams will be for the nuclear plants I feel.

Is media covering the Digvijay Singh news with the same belligerent attitude it did towards Varun Gandhi?

Legendary Cradle of Filth Ninja Scroll video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C6KwVkOkCE

Another awesome song by Cradle of Filth, Nymphetamine - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dW6aNAZGTM&NR=1

Did any one ask Digvijay Singh as to whether RSS carried out the Stockholm bombing?

Irony - We need wikileaks to figure out that our prime minister is a slave.

RED - Kickass.

Does this zero tolerance to disloyalty apply to people fueling sedition? - http://goo.gl/bbpa7

Finished “Skeleton Coast” by Clive Cussler. Brings back memories of Dirk Pitt.

Why does the media make it sound stripping your clothes to a bare minimum and dancing to raunchy numbers as an act of courage?

Next on reading list is the graphic novel series Buddha by Osamu Tezuka.

Buddha was a good read but takes liberties with the history of the time.

AFAIK, during those periods, slavery was not practiced in the way the book caricatures.

Also winning kings never indulged in wanton destruction and barbarianism. All these horrendous acts started after the Islamic conquest.

Girls with name Sheela will have a tough time for sometime :).

Saw a huge hoarding advertising google chrome browser. Surprised.

Question for the media to ask is not can Modi move beyond the taint of Gujarat riots? It is who tainted him based on hogwash?

As long as money is not amassed by ill gotten methods what is wrong if someone spends it lavishly?

Newspapers hardly print a pic of Sarkozy without Carla Bruni accompanying him.

I really do not get it when people complain about Gadkari son’s lavish wedding or Amabani’s new house or Mallya’s lavish life style.

If no one spends money, how economy will move? Look at the no of employment opportunities they create due to their lavish spending.

Cult classics like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance, catch 22 etc were yawn yawn. Fight Club is a must read.

#barkhagate is the sign of things to come. In the future looks like news will really be democratized.

Scam worth billions of rupees != nepotistic distribution of land

Shawn Fanning giving it back to Lars Ulrich, awesome - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q0Z3gBActg

TOI is trying it’s level best to make it sound like the Bihar elections were all about Nitish’s charisma.

http://goo.gl/MpHmm - Has Kumaraswamy converted to Islam or is he breaking the law? via @prasannavishy

A pretty thoughtful comment as to why netflix might not work out in the long run - http://goo.gl/tKkrS

On the eve of 26/11, a gentle reminder as to how Israel retaliated after Munich massacre - http://goo.gl/aoBPi

How many candles will be burnt today? #fakesymbolism

People who claim “Music is just music”, pls take a look at this - http://goo.gl/0bFAk, http://goo.gl/SwJDd

GOI should start a fund to subsidize all the mombatties that are burnt as part of the the various candle light vigils.

Holy cow, Zynga’s valuation is more than that of EA.

Is it coincidence that star movies is playing Munich on 26/11 anniversary? - http://goo.gl/H8WlX

“Ustoppable " - an intense movie. Good watch.

Funky Indian online store - http://www.chumbak.in/ via @NischalShetty

Reliance foot print has Asics running shoes.

Love the automated book check in and check out in @JustBooksCLC. Also impressive collection of books.

Guys sitting behind us in Break ke Baad were worried about the future of manhood seeing Imran Khan’s antics in the movie.

Is Volkswagen paying to showcase Beetle in movies? First Aisha and now Break ke Baad.

Decathlon store in Sarjapur road has awesome sports/hiking/cycling good.

What were the news channels doing for two years since the Raja corruption saga broke out? Oh yeah, I forgot, they had to bitch abt Modi.

It takes a Pakistani columnists to lay down facts that our history books should tell us http://goo.gl/vfdvY via @RajeevSrinivasa

The extent to which TOI has brain washed our kids minds is scary - http://goo.gl/poK3d

Expecting blogosphere to get wild. Facebook and apple will be announcing some world take over plans in a few hours.

Gujarat riots, the non sensational version by @offstumped - http://goo.gl/cDzf2

Good read on stoic philosophy - http://www.boingboing.net/2010/10/27/twenty-first-century-2.html

Diligence behind Raja’s expose - http://www.dailypioneer.com/296854/The-man-who-felled-a-king.html. Stuff for a good movie IMO.

Hmm…Smart move by Tata? - http://goo.gl/4p0BZ

Imagine that PM had no role to pay in the scam. If he cant rope in his ministers how do u think he will administer the country?

Now they are trying to do the same with Raja saga. Kudos to the “IMPARTIAL” media.

Finished book 1 of the millennium series, “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”.

Brace yourself for a barrage of reporting on every eccentricity Pamela A exhibits.

Good paper on session handling in web apps - https://www.isecpartners.com/files/web-session-management.pdf

Like the name of the file scanning program of Avira anti virus, Luke Filewalker, clever.

Listening to Siddhartha in Space by Red Buddha, soulful music.

I have an idea for a programmer’s version of Big Boss.

Lock up Linux freaks,MS proponents,agile enthusiasts,no-process programmer,enterprise evangelists,ROR fanbois,Python enthusiasts together.

Open magazine has arrived.

@SandeepWeb Second that.

Awesome website - http://dallasclayton.com/

Would be interesting to know how many bucks have stopped in Barkha Dutt’s pocket? #BarkhaGate

And these guys demand accountability from politicians, what a charade - http://goo.gl/wOL6O via @barbarindian

Hawa Mahal and Mystical Tribe from Red Buddha, mellifluous.

There was an interview in TOI today with Kashmiri actor Aamir Bashir who has made a movie on Kashimr.

He talks about Army’s excesses in Kashmir but does not squeak a word about Kasmiri Pandits who have been forced out of their homeland.

Citing lack of solid evidence as a reason for not reporting #barkhagate is a sham.

Instances where media has gone ape shit without solid evidence - http://goo.gl/bSuRw http://goo.gl/fexNF

Folks asking for proof, it is time to introspect - http://goo.gl/bSuRw http://goo.gl/fexNF #barkhagate

Is “MIGRATE” the right word to use here? - http://news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx?700521

An interesting take on jQuery - http://importantshock.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/jquery-is-a-monad/

Java and multithreading - http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-5things15/index.html?ca=drs-

Some awesome hacking around MySQL - http://yoshinorimatsunobu.blogspot.com/2010/10/using-mysql-as-nosql-story-for.html

Tables are starting to turn thanks to technology.Substance matters more than your name- http://goo.gl/mH67U http://goo.gl/MWFJb

Foreign university educated != propriety in character

Much anticipated “The Social Network” is releasing tomorrow in India - http://j.mp/aaQR7n

When you are not enjoying life, someone else is. When you meet him, you will regret :) via hacker news thread.

The Social Network is a must watch.

Gelato Naturals Corner House, you have some serious competition on the way.My maiden attempt @ ice crm making turned out to be lip smacking.

http://apps.facebook.com/n-puzzle/ crosses 250 user mark \m/

Nicely written satire by @auldtimer - http://j.mp/8ZqnX8

Had been to http://goo.gl/etYDo yesterday. Fond memories of the public library which I used to frequent as a kid wafted through my mind.

Politicians should boycott talk shows with hosts like Karan Thappar whose only agenda is self aggrandizement rather than meaningful dialog.

I see that more and more designer labels are shedding the 5 star boutique model and getting onto the streets.

Good explanation of CSRF - http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Cross-Site_Request_Forgery_%28CSRF%29

Finally watched Robot. Bore of epic proportions.

I love the national anthem they play at Fun Cinemas.

A simple facebook game I created - http://apps.facebook.com/n-puzzle/. src - http://bitbucket.org/abhirama/n-puzzle/

This is awesome - http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-close-to-victory-in-war-against-polio/Article1-617446.aspx

What difference does it make if Tony Blair’s half sister is a Muslim, Christian, Hindu or Pastafarian?

Along with smoking related news why do new papers print images of seductive women in skimpy clothes puffing?

Create a smart phone of your own fancy - http://synapse-phones.com/order.php

My facebook game - http://apps.facebook.com/n-puzzle/ has more than 100 users now. Yay.

Indian motorcycle scene hotting up - http://autos.in.msn.com/gallery.aspx?cp-documentid=4499574

http://apps.facebook.com/n-puzzle/ is down as the hosting provider @joyent is down.

http://apps.facebook.com/n-puzzle/ is back online.

Again, faith triumphs over logic - http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/karnataka/article857188.ece

Time for the sickulars to make noises saying judiciary has been saffronised.

Had an awesome swim in the pool. The whole setting looks surreal in the flood lights.

How long before someone calls his wife a distant relative?

Off on a road trip.

Badly wanted to go to Himalayas but the air tickets were exorbitantly priced :(

Media routinely calls BJP as the saffron party. Is it not high time it started calling !BJP parties as the “GREEN” party -http://goo.gl/9TnZ

How many ever times I watch this video I do not get bored - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z19zFlPah-o

First day of artificial Wall Climbing. Hands are comfortably numb \m/

Is it necessary to highlight his caste in the title? - http://goo.gl/s3Ao

Command line tool which compresses the images in the passed directory using yahoo!’s smush.it image compression utility - http://goo.gl/LmI0

Whenever someone calls me sir I have this deep urge to tell them that the Queen of England has not knighted me yet.

Sound at PVR sucked. Just watched “The Town” and came.

Tripping - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIL2ttBqTsM&feature=related

For the Apple Fanbois ;) - http://i.imgur.com/51f9p.jpg

How abt changing title to - Kashmiri Hindu activists create ruckus at “ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST” Syed Ali Geelani seminar - http://goo.gl/Vnfm

Reminds me of South Indian movies whr te heroine falls head ovr heels ovr the hero and the heros disinterest towards her-http://goo.gl/9tMs

These are the kind of people who represent Indian abroad - http://kanchangupta.blogspot.com/2010/10/secede-from-bhukey-nangey-hindustan.html

Oxymoron - Liberals/secularists supporting causes of setting up Islamic Sharia compliant lands like Kashmir/Palestine.

This is pretty cool but a better way would be to provide wifi on the buses for your own lap tops - http://goo.gl/Q87V

DJ Skazi FTW \m/

What is wrong with calling a spade a spade? - http://goo.gl/5VZv

JP would twist in his grave reading what his reincarnation’s organization is doing - http://goo.gl/69Lf via @i_panchajanya

Expecting this news to be buried in some inner page in tomorrow’s newspaper - http://bit.ly/adeZfg via @ProjectDharma

FYI - @joyent gives free space to host Facebook apps - http://www.joyent.com/developers/free-facebook-developer-program/

Is this what you call regret? - http://goo.gl/N19I

Yay, I can predict the future \m/ - http://twitter.com/#!/abhyrama/status/28492053982

Rakth Charitra = (The God Father + The Last Don + The Sicilian) * (Telugu movie gore)

Went to a photography exhibition titled New India. Their show case photo was a female baring her back to exhibit her tattoo. New India? Hmm

Looks like dimple boy’s hollow charm is no match for Modi’s administrative skills - http://goo.gl/Qiqj

A rhetorical question. Will the liberals and sickularists be outraged by this? - http://goo.gl/jrqw via @king00kobra, @ProjectDharma

Went clubbing to ICE in Taj but the music was not to my liking.Prefer Electronic/Trance while clubbing.Review on burrp! - http://goo.gl/vPTA

How is it that the CWG games is a big success when no one friggin watches it?

Would be interesting to know how many of the people who want Olympics in India watched at least one CWG sport event.

The opening/closing ceremony does not merit being called a sporting event. How is it different from say filmfare award ceremony?

How disconnected are these so called “POLITICAL COMMENTATORS” from ground realities in India? Case in point - http://goo.gl/Advw

Remember something called the cash for vote scam during UPA1 rule and how the country resoundingly voted for UPA in the next elections?

I guess sitting in AC offices, going around in chauffeur driven cars, partying in 5 stars makes you believe whatever you write is the truth.

Pretty cool image compression tool from YUI - http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/smushit/

Jived to awesome Electronic music at http://bangalore.burrp.com/listing/hint_residency-road_bangalore_bars-pubs-restaurants-cafes/154175455

If you liked “Lord Of War” you may find this fascinating - http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,721532,00.html

Looks like this time Nobel Peace prize goes to some one who actually deserves it - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Xiaobo

End of Chinese cheap products? - http://yhoo.it/9bQIQy

And the pseudo liberal sickularists are wailing about “Hindu” terror - http://bit.ly/aitWV1 via @offstumped

Looks like things are going awry in God’s own country - http://bit.ly/bfGSle

Looks like the start of a Gobbelsian propaganda against RSS - http://bit.ly/95XpmJ

Mulayam, how about going on HAJ and washing off your sins? - http://bit.ly/crphlB

Don’t we have some ‘REAL’ problems to worry about rather than shit like this? - http://bit.ly/9s9RWI

Sounds like the making of some one like Arundhathi Roy - http://bit.ly/bJn0gx

Waiting to see the contradicting ways in which the RSS attack will be reported and the hand chopping incident was reported.

Weekend Hoysala trail - http://abhirama.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/on-the-hoysala-trail/

An impressive message - http://bit.ly/9gDTwc

I am imagining all the breast beating that would have happened if the Christian professor’s arm was chopped off by some fringe Hindu org.

Wen Varun G allegedly says he will chop off hands media is outraged. Wen actually hand is chopped off no one gives a shit.

YAPL rust - http://wiki.github.com/graydon/rust/language-faq

http://nyti.ms/bGFnH5 - reminds me of this fable - http://bit.ly/amexjF via @acorn

And these terrorists moan that there is no development in their area - http://bit.ly/cmZSlP

“Knight and Day” is a must watch.

Skynet is on the way - http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=12+tacos+%2B+60oz+beer

Get ready for another bout of “Hindu terror” shrieking - http://bit.ly/dnbQz5

Never knew so many startups owned their genesis to PayPal - http://bit.ly/99P1hT

Fell off my chair reading the title - http://bit.ly/by543t

“A Team” was bang bang.

Good news for Islamic Jihadi terror networks - http://bit.ly/bjqk5Y

Kudos to Omar Abdullah for saying things as it is - http://bit.ly/aIBcR2

Great anti corruption crusader Deve Gowda is yet to pay his aircraft hiring dues of 1996/97 - http://bit.ly/athDAM

Weekend trek - http://abhirama.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/chingara-and-tadiandamol/

Why is no Indian news paper doing this? - http://bit.ly/9QpVxD

I feel in the coming years, west will really tighten it’s immigration policies - http://bit.ly/aY8sFM

State of Pakistani society - http://bit.ly/aWUcuZ via @InternetHindus

“Raavan” was like a hamming contest in which everyone has given their 100%.

TOI does an integrity check on Bangalore using some cheap wallet gimmick.

TOI, how about looking inwards and restraining yourself from publishing advertisements as articles?

The rumors were indeed true - http://bit.ly/9YTik6

For all the people in stupid Hindi serials trying desperately to prove someone is their dad, have you heard of paternity test?

A disingenuous attempt by TOI to pass off a terrorist as a social reformer - http://bit.ly/cDplgH

This is interesting - http://yhoo.it/9T12Jr

If BJP does not call off it’s alliance with Nitish in Bihar, it is setting up a precedent for allies to kick it’s butt.

Time to buy stocks in candle companies - http://bit.ly/cB6QJG

Criticizing Modi for everything is Indian press’s favorite pastime - http://bit.ly/9SxaWT

Looking out for a good vps. Tried a lot to hack it out in app engine but sadly app engine is not made for large data processing.

Is there any point in asking people what do they think about the fuel price hike?

Having a ball of a time in Thadiyandamol base camp.

Antonio Sonia Maino, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones - http://bit.ly/dl2YR0

I bet you can whine about any culture like this. What a bunch of crappy nonsense - http://bit.ly/bI3K9j

Fascinating read on Norway’s petrol industry - http://bit.ly/dq4tIf

Watched Robin Hood. What a difference in culture between 12th century Britain and 12th century India.

TOI takes vox populi of pub and restaurant owners on whether pub/bar timings should be extended in Bangalore? Any guesses on what they say?

Next TOI vox populi. Asking crack addicts whether crack should be made legal.

Karate Kid follows the archaic student master Kung Fu movie formula. Mediocre is all that I can say.

Kudos to ING Vysya bank. The tele caller who called me just now started talking in Kannada. A first in my life.

State of temples in J&K - http://yfrog.com/froggy.php?username=pawandurani @pawandurani

Who was in power at the center for the majority of the time in the last 26 years? - http://bit.ly/canQix

Holy shit, this is an awesome way to defend nudity - http://bit.ly/caG1cB

Why would the US govt give two hoots about Bhopal when the Indian government itself is apathetic - http://bit.ly/du1Hqh

On the cow slaughter bill - http://www.sandeepweb.com/2010/06/18/the-mow-mow-of-the-secular-cows/ @SandeepWeb

Good talk on GitHub architecture - http://bit.ly/9Y91VU

Had an extremely bad experience with airtel customer service yesterday @airtelnews

A Muslim friend of mine was lamenting how they do not get study visa in US. Due to the despicable acts of a few the majority has to suffer.

Hope our country is not heading down this path - http://bit.ly/btcSXG

“Shutter Island” was psychedelic.

Came to know that HTTP/1.1 requires the host name to be sent to the server. Came across this trying to figure out how virtual hosting works.

Now that world cup will start, good opportunity for TOI to put scantily clad women on the front page as world cup images.

Another Bhopal in the making? - http://bit.ly/c9kuCC

“Rajneeti” was awesome.

“There is no aphrodisiac like power” - Rajneeti.

Who was in power both at the state and the center when the mass murder happened? - http://bit.ly/dfqpFi

I am curious to see how this unfolds - http://bit.ly/c8RhMC

This is the kind of management that we need - http://bit.ly/ayo9da

Indian version of secularism - http://bit.ly/cspCaL and http://bit.ly/c8lp4O

Looking at Nitish Kumar’s hubris, I fee Bihar is the next Orissa for BJP.

None of the cinemas are playing “Nooru Janmakku”. Went all the way to Majestic and came back empty handed :(.

I feel in the coming years node.js is gonna explode. The target audience is everyone. Designers as well as developers.

Science fiction stuff becomes reality? - http://www.stevenkotler.com/node/49 via @ravi_mohan

Why is Vir spinning this off as resistance against big corps? How about govt’s role in protecting it’s citizens? - http://bit.ly/aB005o

Waiting for Indian “LIBERALS” and “PSEUDO SECULARISTS” to go lachrymal over Israel’s actions and obfuscate facts.

Why is this reporter not asking him how it is “OK” to blast a goods train? - http://bit.ly/bvxyIc

Weekend project - http://abhirama.wordpress.com/2010/05/31/weekend-project-custom-nas/

If it was India in place of Israel, instead of storming the ship, govt would have directed the Indian navy to escort the ship.

I find it amusing that people think the Israel incident will blow up. It will not. Just an opportunity for some diplomatic rituals.

The fact that people still vote for criminals like Shibu Soren reminds me of this article from @atanudey - http://bit.ly/bnRHaf

@SandeepWeb And people complain that govt schools suck at education. No one wants to get at the root of anything nowadays.

While Indians are busy severing Hinduism from yoga, it takes a Caucasian to write the truth http://huff.to/aUe0BL @prasannavishy

Why the hell should Indian government bother about what Israel does? Let us clean our house first - http://bit.ly/b3JX6l @barbarindian

Has this person ever written such a poignant piece asking Pakistan to be declared a terrorist state - http://bit.ly/b3JX6l @barbarindian

Check out the Pakistani jihadi connection with the so called freedom #flotilla - http://bit.ly/cNvlda

No wonder Israel can kick ass without bothering about political correctness - http://bit.ly/b30iYY

As usual, bias of TOI is very evident in the way it reported TMC victory in Kolkata and BJP victory in Bangalore.

List of windows short cuts - http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;301583

No wonder we are a country filled with morons. Most of the signatories in this list either are professors or NGO based- http://bit.ly/a56baH

Wow, never knew that you can carry out bomb blasts using bows and arrows - http://bit.ly/cD4bO9

@deapubhi You can disable it from your gmail.

TOI cannot write about the GIM without taking pot shots at the BJP - http://bit.ly/crLV21 via @prasannavishy

For the admirers of Dquack Chopra - http://www.sandeepweb.com/2010/06/03/the-hindu-roots-of-yoga/ @SandeepWeb

I hate it when people become philosophical over tragedies and start saying shit like ‘Life is short’

Throughout “Kites” I was wishing I was a kite and could fly off the theater

http://bit.ly/bVMZjM - Can the media hound her on the sensitivity part like they do with Modi every time?

Good read - http://www.zacharyburt.com/2010/05/the-neuroscience-of-buddhism-practical-tips-via-insightful-framework/

Israel’s got to ban Facebook now - http://trueslant.com/michaelpeck/2010/05/24/now-its-everybody-deny-the-holocaust-day/

Aman ka tamaasha - http://kanchangupta.blogspot.com/2010/05/secret-diary-of-hamid-mir.html

Elevator hacking - http://www.engadget.com/2005/08/02/elevator-hacking/

Why are the so called ‘LIBERALS’ mum over this? - http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100526/jsp/nation/story_12488838.jsp

WTF - Slimes of India cannot differentiate between Archies and Calvin and Hobbes.

As an ardent follower of Calvin I take offense at this sacrilegious gaffe and want to torch Slimes offices now

Compare this - http://www.ptinews.com/news/667387_PM-sends-mangoes-for-Gilani with - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wrath_of_God

What do the pseudo secularists have to say abt this? http://bit.ly/cOAXdR @satyamevajayate

Just came to know that there is an “NRI” layout in Bangalore 8-)

Shouldn’t this letter have been addressed to Sonia who is the actual head? http://bit.ly/cEUhOD

There is no point in fighting individual cases of injustice like Ruchika.Treat the disease not the symptoms.Campaign for efficient judciary.

Scott Adams on BP stocks - http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/betting_on_the_engineers/

Dont know whether to luff or cry when the so called eminent people of society produce trash like this - http://bit.ly/akQdgA @prasannavishy

UPA and bomb blasts seem to be blood brothers

http://bit.ly/dpb6XW -Is the party which ruled the nation for majority of time ready to shoulder responsibility for this neglect? @auldtimer

@deapubhi Congrats dude

Prince of Persia Sands of Time has some good action sequences.

How long do you guys think before Maoists carry out a brazen attack in one of the major Indian cities?

Oh yeah. Blasts happen on their own without any conspirators behind them - http://bit.ly/bWUMsA

All of you would have watched ‘Hotel Rwanda’ and sang accolades for it. To put things into perspective - http://bit.ly/axTmXd via @auldtimer

All the Bangladeshi PHP devs, rejoice - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/south_asia/10192755.stm

Indian media goes ballistic over Modi, Togadia, Mutalik, Bhagawat etc. Do we even hear a bit about this violence monger http://bit.ly/dmlmtf

Weekend of geeking out and my custom made NAS box running freenas is ready. Yippe \m/

Hard hitting and to the point on Naxalites - http://bit.ly/dDkYOz

On one side of the border we have emasculated attempts like ‘Aman ki Tamaasha’ and on the other side we have this - http://bit.ly/9B649L

Pakistan is playing the same role in the Facebook cartoon event as the Indian mass media in the Ram Sene pub episode

Good opportunity for MF Hussain to show off his nude artistic skills in the Facebook Mohammed caricature contest

Watched ‘The Backup plan’. Ok flick.

We have been trusting them since Independence and all we got was a knife in the back. When will we learn? - http://bit.ly/dhJM5n

Google’s tribute to Pac-Man is kick ass.

The whole Pac-Man thing has been done with CSS and JavaScript. Only the sound is in flash.

Investigative journalism at it’s pinnacle - http://bit.ly/dfbvN4

Political correctness - http://www.danielpipes.org/8336/why-blow-up-times-square

Subprime terrorist - http://article.nationalreview.com/433766/faisal-shahzad-subprime-terrorist/mark-steyn

Naveen Jindal, the man behind the Indian flag controversy supports Khap panchayats in Haryana. Shows what a phony he is.

I am curious as to how do they source all the morons for the stupid reality shows on tv

I am amazed at the extent of self degradation people are ready to subject themselves to in the name of voyeuristic reality shows

Iron Man 2 is not worth the hype

Very true - http://imgur.com/Gu0AH

How much more can you dumb down “NEWS” - http://www.hindustantimes.com/Rahul-Gandhi-is-clean-shaven-again/H1-Article1-542037.aspx

Skate boarding with Maiden playing in the background - http://shredordie.com/video/clint-walker

Muhammad cartoonist Lars Vilks attacked by Muslims in Sweden - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdyKmzEdHws

If this had happened in India how would it be reported by the Indian press?

A cartoonist who drew sacrilegious images was attacked by “people of certain community”

http://www.dealextreme.com/ is awesome.They ship worldwide free of charge.Got some parts today which I had booked one and a half week back.

When a guy does something wrong - http://www.thedoghousediaries.com/?p=1764

Political correctness - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOQt_mP6Pgg&feature=player_embedded

All this talk of declaring your caste as Indian in the census will only give rise to lop sided data and nothing else.

Finally got wet in the rain. Feels awesome \m/

Slash’s new album rocks

He he - http://pbh3.tumblr.com/post/576488683/magazines-for-women

After dark, the dirty work at Disneyland begins: http://bit.ly/badd8i via @addthis

Head banging to Slash’s new album \m/

Progress of Gujarat under Modi - http://www.supportgujarat.org/GujaratProgressSummary.pdf?q=gujarat-progress-under-narendra-modi

Hitchens on Animal Farm - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/17/christopher-hitchens-re-reads-animal-farm

Can any political party list out how ‘THEY’ plans to tackle price rise instead of creating public nuisance?

Hacking my slug

Spent a fruitless morning in SP road trying to source parts for my custom NAS server :(

Slug is running unslug firmware now. Yay, FTW.

Screwed up. Reinstalling the firmware.

Slug’s running bit torrent client :D

Good read on Wall Street raking in on Greece - http://bit.ly/dpJUiU

Slug hacking guide - http://abhirama.wordpress.com/2010/05/02/step-by-step-guide-to-installing-unslung-on-sluglinksys-nslu2/

Over clocked my slug. Now running at 263.78. Yay.

Modern man by George Carlin - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkCR-w3AYOE&feature=player_embedded

Instead of going after the IPL trail how about chasing the black money stashed in foreign shores?

With all the brouhaha surrounding IPL, I hope it is not squashed. IPL is good for the economy and I hope people understand this

WTF - Zee news calls Aishwaraya Rai ‘Kaliyug ki Sita’

After watching ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’ want to go to Spain :D. Movie portrays the country beautifully.

Tharoor thanks all his supporters and says we are the new India.

Ability to jabber in flawless English, serenade women and tweet does not make any one ‘New Indian’.

Why the hell is the police even spending energy and resources on arresting Nityananda?

““How to train your dragon” was awesome

‘Bounty Hunter’ was yawn yawn

Off to Ooty tomorrow early morning. Will be back on Sunday night.

Thanks God that TOI stuck to it’s page 3 reporting and did not carry a mind (n/d)umbing international integration article on Sania wedding

As usual, brilliant - http://www.deeshaa.org/2010/04/14/the-congested-shortage-economy/ @atanudey

“An Education” is a fresh movie with a good message

Hypocrisy of Indian yuppies comes out in the Tharoor Modi spat

An old article on the man behind facebook - http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2004/6/10/mark-e-zuckerberg-06-the-whiz/

Wondering why no one in Bollywood has ripped off ‘A Perfect Getaway’ yet

‘A Proposal’ was highly predictable but a good way to idle your time

Today’s TOI headline read “Shashi Tharoor could loose his job”. Fell off the chair. From when did corruption become an issue in India?

Looks like Tharoor is in the league of Berlusconi and Sarkozy going by this trashy article on his lady ‘companion’ - http://bit.ly/aQepPU

WTF - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Extramarital-sex-fuels-earthquakes-Senior-Iran-cleric/articleshow/5824736.cms

‘City of God’ was highly disturbing especially the kids with wanton desire to kill

@deapubhi Looks like u r craving for Chinese food ;)

Our latest trek - http://abhirama.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/to-heaven-and-back/

I keep getting promotional emails from bigflix but they did not give a shit when I complained to them about their crappy customer service

Worth a read - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303720604575169614063173730.html

NDTV spreading canard again by calling this Modi’s review plea - http://bit.ly/92gGFx

Do u know this-27 Hindu and Jain temples were demolished to provide the materials and space for the Qutb Minar in Delhi http://bit.ly/aYnKcp

Somethings wrong with TOI today. No Sania Sohaib drivel in the front page.

Fascinating read - http://www.sanfranmag.com/story/best-investment-advice-youll-never-get

An awesome talk by Sam Harris - http://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_show_what_s_right.html

Green zone was riveting

Good move by Maha govt - http://www.sakaaltimes.com/SakaalTimesBeta/20100409/4813564371513872944.htm

Clash of the Titans was drab but got to know more about Greek mythology.

Very good talk on node.js - http://jsconf.eu/2009/video_nodejs_by_ryan_dahl.html. Good intro to non blocking io.

Sad - http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=ayurveda-out-of-balance-93-percent-2010-04-05

Do the morons of JNU who celebrate the massacre of CRPF jawans know the no of schools destroyed by terrorists(Naxalites)?

Off to Himalayas tomorrow.

@deapubhi Taco Bell opening up their first shop in India in Bengaluru today

Kickass - http://code.google.com/intl/ja/edu/languages/index.html

Did not know something like this existed - http://www.projectdarkstar.com/

Yoo hoo…I created my first facebook app, although a dummy hello world one

Why the hell the media still calls the Naxalite(terrorist) butcher Kishen"JI"?

HDFC’s net banking site is better than ICICI’s.

Instead of going bad ass on Pakistan like the Mossad we beg for aman.

Our judicial system is a big joke. Arrest warrant now for crimes committed in 1984.

For TOI Tiger Wood’s sex life is front page material but Naxals(terrorists) gunning down villagers is not.

Please do not shift your focus from the grand national integration movement called MNK due to some minor aberrations like a bomb blast.

Bomb blasts are a way of life in India. Nothing to be enraged about. The same government will win the next elections also.

Go out and watch the movie starring someone who thinks Pakistan is a good neighbour. Oh yeah I forgot they even help people to blow places.

At least now will someone question SRK on why he thinks Pak is a good neighbor?

SRK’s criteria for being a good neighbor : Help to blow your neighbor’s house.

India is a county where symbolism rules..traveling in local train, living in a dalit’s house, flying in economy class…

But I guess the competition would end in tie, so no fun in there.

@GargiNDTV Instead of tweeting about this why don’t you take it up with your employer?

This month my internet bill was 1024 :)

State honors for someone whose party danced on the streets of Bengal when China invaded India is abominable.

Awesome show of nationalism by the IPL league. kudos guys.

Who wants to be alone by Tiesto rocks

Watched inglorious basterds, hurt locker, step up 2, finished house season 4 and some big bang theory this weekend

I don’t care by Apocalyptica rocks.

Came to know that avi stands for audio video interleave

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapharmakos - The four part cure

Avatar reminded me of the white man’s conquest of the Americas.

Hilarious http://www.sandeepweb.com/2009/12/08/december-8-vir-sanghvi-for-dummies/

Paa movie has a very good message for the mass media. A welcome break from the usual secular bull shit peddled by the movies.

Kurt Cobain - “Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.”

After working in Perl I really miss Array.join in Java. Had to write my own custom implementation. Should be part of Arrays lib.

I do not understand why people support new states. At the end of the day you get the same shitty governance.

Be very careful with your SQL queries. We just did some changes and our home page loading time improved by leaps and bounds.

Rocket Singh is entertaining and Ranbir Kapoor has done an excellent job

I really do not understand how someone gate crashing into Obama’s party is a front page news for Indian news papers.

Will be watching Ninja Assassin tonight. I love mindless action movies :).

Ninja assassin was not entertaining.

Defeated @mpavitra in a game of scrabble.

Hello world again