Reflecting What I didn't say then... I loved you then with a passion that used to overwhelm me when you weren't around. I loved your smell, your presence, your thought. I wish I had had the courage then to
Reflecting "Genius!" "Maverick!" Does calling someone a "genius" or a "maverick" say anything about the caller? Are they trying to call attention to their own facility at recognizing talent and ability where
Mind Process, not prizes Sporting successs by individuals is a steady, never ending source of motivational memes and quotes. For example, Virat Kohli, India's cricket captain said that he regularly scores centuries because he does not, in
Mind Who leads whom - art or life? At my college fest many years ago, I was asked if art imitated life or vice versa. I gave some word salad answer which people barely heard. The gist of the answer, if
Mind How to do things for their own sake? I do things because I like being known to have done them or to be seen doing them. This blog gets less than a visitor a day. No one knows it exists. For
Mind Creating without boundaries I want to create without self consciousness. Each time I write, I write knowing that I'm writing. Each time, I'm singing, I sing knowing I'm singing. I want to create now knowing that
Hacking Marketing is hard I am an engineer. I am used to giving an input, waiting a second or so for the _system_ to do its magic, and then seeing an output. Marketing is structurally similar. There
Mind The bowl split exactly down the middle Premonitions come in various forms. People see loved ones dying, the imagine natural disasters. My most eerie premonition was ultimately very prosaic. This happened in the latter part of 2016. I want to
Reflecting Work solo but not alone A close friend of mine lost his wife a few years ago to cancer. They were both in their early thirties when she died. To cope with his grief, his therapist advised him
Reflecting Kahaniyaan Kahani - कहानी - is pronounced Ka (like Casimir), ha (like hard), and ni (like niece). It's a Hindi word meaning story. Kahaniyaan is the plural form of kahani. Alan Kay, deep
Hacking Gut microbes I love that every few weeks there is news, that microbes in our gut keep us safe from disease X or condition Y. Let the Pfizers and Schering-Ploughs of the world invent blockbuster
Hacking On DNSSEC If you have ever called a customer care number and the operator asks you for the last 4 if your SSN to confirm your identity, you have experienced the human version of DNSSEC.
A new online growth strategy? My parents invest their money through an agent. This guy has been with them for nearly two decades. They trust this guy with the most intimate details of their lives and he has
Hacking Treat stable websites as "REST" services? Now that both Firefox and Chrome can easily be run in headless mode, can we treat stable, never tweaked websites as RESTful services? For example, consider Mozilla's recently launched service Send - a
Hacking You.S.A A few days ago, I wrote about my hack to stay in touch with friends and family in the US without spending a fortune on calling cards. Yesterday, I launched that as a
Hacking Keep your US number and call from it too (for free) Now that I have relocated to India having sold my car among other things, I was confronted with a new problem - many tools and products assume or prefer that their users are
Car Talk The experts were right I recently sold my basic but first hand Honda Accord. The experts were right - buying a new car only makes sense if you are planning to run it into the ground. Yet,
Looking Ahead The new Glass-Steagall repeal The 2008 financial collapse had its roots in the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act back in the 90s under Bill Clinton. It took 10 years for banks to chip away at barriers separating
Topical The (female) ghost in the machine James Damore got fired for telling Google that he thinks their policies to encourage more women to take up technology are misguided and likely, ineffective. Regardless of the research and science behind his
Hacking It's been solved I have a Fermat-esque declaration to make. I may have resolved the moral conundrum at the heart of adblocking but this space is too small to go into the details. The conundrum is
Topical How is this for an upcoming WTF moment? Donald Trump is going to lead the American commemoration of 9/11.
Datajoy Questions! Questions! Questions! Google wants to improve ads by forcing advertisers on their platform to adhere to CBA (Coalition for Better Ads) standards for non invasive, non annoying online ads. They are also introducing ad-blocking technology
Reflecting The exorcism For the past 9 years, I have been carrying a burden. I always fancied myself a cricketer. I always told myself that if only I had the drive and the bloody mindedness for
Reflecting I don't get it Twice, (thrice actually because I took the same horse to two different wells,) I took a horse to water and each time, the horse ignored it. What gives, horsies? What gives?
Hacking The world hates shorts Back in March 2015, I had a trading idea. Today, I'd like to report its results. My big idea back then was to buy and hold UDOW, a 3x ETF which tries to