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Sai Ramachandran

117 posts •
Reflecting

Contrarian on Caste

This is going to sound extremely callous. You will feel I am making a case for ignorance, chauvinism, intellectual withering, the caste system, and all sorts of other ills that the Enlightenment so

  • Sai Ramachandran
4 min read
Hacking

SES gotchas

AWS' documentation for setting up SES to receive emails at your custom domain (instead of say gmail.com) is pretty self explanatory but there are a few gotchas that tripped me up for

  • Sai Ramachandran
2 min read

The Absent Indian

I get it. I was you. I was also a middle-class, middle of the road, rule following, who-me-rebel? kinda guy. I believed, like you, that I don't have to be the fastest deer

  • Sai Ramachandran
2 min read
Reflecting

The Lie

Hitler it was who said, in essence, that the larger the lie, the easier it is to sell. The largest lie told to us is of Western exceptionalism. Before I continue, I want

  • Sai Ramachandran
3 min read

Engagement Photos 2018

Time: June 12, 2018 Place: A remote corner of India Occasion: An engagement Copyrights: Reserved.

  • Sai Ramachandran
14 min read
Looking Ahead

Borderless Worlds

A small mid-twentieth century experiment to connect American universities is catalyzing the next phase of consolidation among countries. We are moving towards a world government and single planetwide nation-state​.

  • Sai Ramachandran
2 min read

Do I have to be alone?

Before I begin, I am going to plainly state two things. I am not an trained psychologist, data scientist, statistician, sociologist, or really anything which qualifies me to comment on a subject like

  • Sai Ramachandran
3 min read
Hacking

Can you hear me now?

Get on a plane. Arrive in Mumbai or Bangalore or New Delhi or Cochin. Exit the contrived conveniences of the aircraft. Look around you. People. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people living

  • Sai Ramachandran
1 min read
Hacking

Deep Dive​

Of late, this blog and its sister publications on Medium have been feeling a little neglected. Where I used to try to write a long form post every day, my output had tapered

  • Sai Ramachandran
9 min read

Hubli - a budding T2 software hub

(In this interview, we talk to a 21 year young entrepreneur from Hubli who is already thinking about giving back to the community from where he comes.) Tell us a bit about yourself.

  • Sai Ramachandran
5 min read
India

Horse Trading is Art

The spectacle of BJP scrambling to pull together a simple majority in Karnataka where the recent Assembly elections threw up a hung parliament had much of my Twitter feed up in arms. People

  • Sai Ramachandran
3 min read
growth hacking

The #1 Reason Why No One Signs up for Your Mailing List

I am going to level with you - if you are hoping to make a living on the internet, without a tribe of loyal fans things are going to be rough. The tribe doesn't have to be massive, even a thousand loyal fans will do.

  • Sai Ramachandran
2 min read

Facts are fiction

Walt Mossberg covers (has covered?) technology for a long, long, long time. He has earned the trust of many for his balanced views on technology in general and his quick read of trends.

  • Sai Ramachandran
3 min read

Show. Don't tell.

The other day, I asked my sister to critique a sci-fi story I had started writing. Like you do (right?), I sent her the piece half expecting to be patted on my back

  • Sai Ramachandran
2 min read
India

I'm glad I flunked my driving test

If you've lived in India for any length of time through the 90s and (probably) the early 2000s, you develop a sixth sense and start picking up subtle language which tells you that some palm-greasing is expected of you. Not this time...

  • Sai Ramachandran
2 min read
growth hacking

Does Your Website have a Personality?

Your website has a certain ethos, certain spirit but it is likely different from what I am used to in unsettling ways. This is probably costing you a conversion. How to overcome that?

  • Sai Ramachandran
3 min read
India

Wazzeer - a legal eagle in your corner

Wazzeer normalizes the relationship between customers and legal and accounting professionals bringing transparency and consistency

  • Sai Ramachandran
4 min read
startups

How to get responses to your emails

While there are no sure bets in life, the chances that your email to a customer asking for feedback is going to be ignored is pretty darn close to it.

  • Sai Ramachandran
2 min read
Mind

Evolution

Now that was another business that hadn't existed in the Before. Barbers? Yes. Epilators who went over your body with a fine toothcomb to dehair you? They were a product of the age.

  • Sai Ramachandran
4 min read
India

The new new Koh-i-Noors

A few months ago, I wrote about the new Koh-i-Noors of India. These Koh-i-Noors were, to me, the fruit of the work done by stalwarts of the Indian IT industry who were able

  • Sai Ramachandran
4 min read
India

Go! Be an Extremist!

This essay is a call for and a defense of extremism which gives people the chance to define themselves in opposition to that extremism. This extremism though has to be preceded by an end to the monopoly of violence that the Indian state enjoys.

  • Sai Ramachandran
3 min read

Why do they hate us?

First, if you are looking for a reprise of Fareed Zakaria's piece with the same title in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, this piece is unrelated. That piece is on Newsweek here.

  • Sai Ramachandran
3 min read
Twitter

Three (Brand New) Strategies to use Twitter Effectively

Twitter is cacophonous but the noise suggests engagement. Here are some ways to capture that same engagement.

  • Sai Ramachandran
3 min read
cricket

Raining Rupees

The other day, I came across this post on Reddit which described an extract from Allan Border's memoirs. (From the above linked Reddit post) Understandably, the comments on the Reddit thread were scathing

  • Sai Ramachandran
1 min read
Short Fiction

Sambit

Sambit's life comes into focus.

  • Sai Ramachandran
3 min read
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