Sweet Failure

 Today I failed to secure my first position despite having it under control till last 45 minutes. It was fun and learnt good lessons in German language. Looking forward to being first in Ruby league 

Sticking to the point

 “You don’t care to have somebody stick to the point when he tells you something?”

“Oh, sure! I like somebody to stick to the point and all. But I don’t like them to stick too much to the point. I don’t know. I guess I don’t like it when somebody sticks to the point all the time.”

…

“But what I mean is, lots of time you don’t know what interests you most till you start talking about something that doesn’t interest you most. I mean you can’t help it sometimes. What I think is, you’re supposed to leave somebody alone if he’s at least being interesting and he’s getting all excited about something. I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It’s nice.”

Excerpt From

The Catcher in the Rye

J. D. Salinger

After death

“Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody.”

Excerpt From

The Catcher in the Rye

J. D. Salinger

This material may be protected by copyright.

About night clubs

 There isn’t any night club in the world you can sit in for a long time unless you can at least buy some liquor and get drunk. Or unless you’re with some girl that really knocks you out.

- The Catcher in The Rye

A visit to barber shop

 Today is Saturday. Rohit was planning to get his hair trimmed for past one week. It has grown uneven from all sides and high time to get a hair cut.

He decided to visit the nearby hair salon. Recently he has found out that this salon charges much less that the other salon. Being a spendthrift he is it suited him perfect.

When he reached there, he found that instead of the regular middle aged barber a boy was sitting there who must not have been more that 20 years of age. He had seen this boy in his previous visits and thought he must be his son or some other relative. With the customary question of how he can help, to which Rohit answered by saying he needs hair cut, boy asked him to sit on the chair.

This was the usual chair where he used to sit in his previous visits. Boy asked him whether he will like hair cut by machine or scissors, Rohit replied that he can go with machine. Even though there was some doubt in Rohit's mind that whether this boy is any good with job or not, Rohit decided to give him a chance and especially he is not very particular with how his har should look perfect.

Boy was attentive and meticulous. He progressed well and asked for more inputs on whether back of hair should be straight or cut, which was again an amusing question to Rohit as he never cared. Eventually the job was done and it was not a bad job after all.

When Rohit asked how much to pay, the boy said Rs 130 which was much cheaper to Rohit's delight. Boy asked him if he can pay him by cash insted of mobile pay, Rohit told him that he doesn't have change and showed him his Rs 500 note. Boy took his money and said that he will get it changed.

Now it was waiting game for him. As minutes started passing, he began regretting first for wasting his time. He could have insisted on paying by mobile and would have been in home by now. Then he started doubting. Has the boy ran away with his money? It must be an easy money for him. Do I even know this boy? How will I get rest of my money back. Shall I come back later. But will barber shop owner even aknowledge my claim? What will happen if he refuses to recognize this boy. Oh man, I should have never trusted him.

Then he saw that a phone was lying there. He thought if the boy doesn't come in next 5 minutes he will simply grab the phone and leave. Of course this phone must be of some value to anyone and he has a chance of getting rest of the money back. But at the same time it didn't feel very right to grab some one elses phone. In this conundrum another 5 minutes have passed. There was no sign of boy on the street. Rohit was getting restless. He had almost made up his mind to take the phone and leave for home, when the boy came running up the stairs to shop. He gave him Rs 370 back and started serving other customer who was waiting.

Rohit felt little bit guilty, little relieved. He wanted to tip, but then hold back thinking that this fellow had made him wait unnecessarilty and went home.

(c) Anup Mayank

Enjoying food during Ramadan in Hyderabad

 Hyderabad is a place to be if you want to enjoy good non vegeterian food with generous servings. During Ramadan, you can get Haleem and many varieites of delicacies. We went to visit Charminar area and below is the scenery from eatery of Sonu Kebabs

Mental health and well being

My thoughts on recent tragic news of an IIT, IIM graduate employee suicide. 

 

Book : A Wild Sheep Chase

 How will you react if someone says that a "Sheep" has entered me. Well for followers of mysticism and believers of supernatural it is totally plausible. But in the society of scientific minded people it will be hard to digest.

Author Haruki Murakami doesn't disappoint with his dual mode of writing. It is both commonplace and bizarre at the same time. The main character of this story is forced by powers of much importance to find a particular sheep in a months time or else his life will be destroyed. All this because he has a picture of a flock of sheep which contains this peculiar sheep.

A story of absurd notion. Where will someone find a sheep in any city or place based on a picture. However it is all possible in Murakami world.

My other writings on book  are here

Flying man and artist robots

 These days we are living in a strange and exciting times. Past one and half years have been buzzed up by the capabilities of AI where machines can answer any question you ask, write a story or poem for you. They can paint you a picture and even create a movie. It truly looks like Genie is out of the bottle. Will it make us superhuman or will it subjugate us?

Now it begs the question, what is real or what is unreal? Is a content generated by machine authentic for human taste? If not, then why not? Why is a story by another human imagination is better than machine imagination (or hallucination). With growing automation, it was predicted that humans will do more of humane things (aka search of knowledge and creativity). But even that is taken away from them, then what next?

It is not as if humans are not doing anything. Straight out of movies, men are flying around in jet packs. Can this become the main mode of commute in a condensed city of future world.

उस रात की क्या बात

 फरवरी का महीना और वो चांदनी रात 

उस रात की क्या बात 

पेड़ों से लिपटी हुई मदहोश हवायेँ और

तुम से होना पहली मुलाकात 

उस रात की क्या बात 

फक्कड़ से घूम रहे थे हम, कुछ सकुचाती हुई आई तुम 

दिल में उठे जज़्बात 

उस रात की क्या बात 

शायद तुमने देखा भी न हो,  फिर मिलो अगर तो पहचानो भी न सही 

लेकिन मुझे रहेगी ताउम्र याद 

उस रात की क्या बात 

Cereal

 Ceres is the goddess of agriculture, and thus "Cereal" is named after her.

Additional information is here

Daily Learning 1

 Universe has mass and light. We can see certain objects such as planets, moons, sun, stars, galaxies etc through our eyes or advanced telescopes. These heavenly bodies are huge. However 85% of the mass of universe is hidden in something invisible called as Dark Matter

Element Helium was first seen in Spectrum signature of Sun rays and later discovered in laboratory. It's name is derived from the Greek word 'Helios' (the Sun)

Source : astrophysics-for-people-in-a-hurry

Book : How to Stay Smart in a Smart World

 AI is the buzzword in Software Industry these days. Recently there has been lot of buzz on ChatGPT . It is definitely a fun application which makes you feel as if you are chatting with an all knowing person in a very human friendly way.

So when I got my hands on this Book (How to Stay Smart in a Smart World), I was very excited.

Here are the main storylines of this book

• Finding love through AI assisted matchmaking sites such as Match.com or any other such app or site is dubious and misleading. The main reason behind their failure is that people are not profile they create. Human nature is very complex and people are not very truthful in expressing what they are and what they want in these apps. Thus no wonder AI is a failure here.
• In a stable world scenarios such as game of Chess or Go, AI can definitely outperform humans. Also that is not because of Intelligence rather the fast computational capability. 

My newfound love for Rap music and artists

 It all started with a very cool rap song (Chill Kinda Guy) from Srushti Tawde. The song blew my mind. I watched and listened to it several times. Even played it for my team in scrum time. :-)

Now this brought memories of Eminem. His song Mockingbird has been my favourite. Recently heard "Cleaning my Closet" and "Stan". Amazing songs. 

Then one thing led to another. Got to appreciate the camarederie artists such as Dr. Dre, Eminem and Snoop Dogg share. Superbowl halftime show is just awesome.

Digital Rupee

 The notion of launching digital rupee doesn't make much sense to me. We already have UPI (for small retail transactions), NEFT and RTGS for higher value. Then exactly what value is this new technology bringing is very ambiguous.

I am yet to find any government circular explaining the merits of it. Ex RBI director Raghuram Rajan opposes it saying that it will give un-necessary edge to Public Sector (Govt owned) Banks and private banks (arguably more efficient) will lose out.

Storyboard in iOS

 Disclaimer - I am in the process of learning iOS and SWIFT application development. These are my learning notes with the hope that it can be useful to someone out there.

storyboard is a xml document representation of UI view. Here I have broken it down to very basic elements. As you can see a storyboard consists of one or more scenes. Each scene has a ViewController which contains view with subviews. Some of the views such as StackView can further nest other views. There you go, it is simplified now.

<document>

<dependencies>...</dependencies>

<scenes>

<scene>

<objects>

<viewController>

<view>

<subviews>

<imageView>..</imageView>

<stackView>

<subviews>

<label>..</label>

<stackView>..</stackView>

<slider>..</slider>

..

</subviews>

</stackView>

<button>..</button>

..

</subviews>

</view>

</viewController>

<placeholder>..</placeholder>

</objects>

</scene>

</scenes>

<resources>

<image>..</image>

..

</resources>

</document>

Black Friday Sale in India

 In papers and online advertisements I saw several mentions of Black Friday Sale happening in India. I am truly amazed and astonished at this development.

Black Friday Sale happens in US after ThanksGiving Day. 20 years ago I had seen people queueing up for whole night in chilly cold near Best Buy, Staples and other famous stores to buy discounted items. Many a times I have heard people bought unnecessary stuff, just because they had put so much effort to be there and returning empty handed didn't seem like a wise move.

Now commercialization is making it happen in India, as if Diwali, Dussehra, Independence Day, Republic Day sales are not enough. God knows how many sales are happening and there is mindless consumption.

I wonder if it is happening in India or other major economies such as China, Korea etc. In any case I hope sense prevails.

Book Reading : So Good They Can't Ignore You

 Who doesn't want to be good. I want to be good and succeed in my career. Thus when I saw this book by Cal Newport in my office library, I had to pick it up.

Book starts with Steve Job's famous speech at Stanford, and advises its readers to 

Do what Steve Jobs did, not what he said.

As per author, following one's passion might just be terrible advice. Following passion means that we know from the begining what we love. But people change with situation and so does passion. 

Further it takes time to get good at anything. You have to force yourself to do the work, learn the skill.

Those who are looking for a high paying or highly satisfying job offer, need to have something called Career Capital (the skills which you are offering). Author argues that you need to build this capital over time and you will have to start with something less glamorous. But you will keep working and keep polishing your skill.

Anyone who wants to excel, will have to practice a lot. And in each iteration of practice, it has to be different and pulling out of comfortzone. Then only it will be effective.

Author asks you to put small bets continually. A definition of small bet is as follows

• It is a project small enough to be completed in less than a month
• It forces you to create new value (e.g. master a new skill and produce new results that didn't exist before)
• It produces a concrete result that you can use to gather concrete feedback

In summary, we have to continually hone our skill, do something which others will value, find a mission which compells us to do more and continually innovate or strain for excellence. It is a tough job no doubt, but brave individuals will reap the reward.

Book Reading : Bored and Brilliant

 These days all of us are in constant state of physical and mental motion. Especially with the advent of computing devices (laptop, mobiles etc) we have become like monkeys jumping from one branch to another branch in Internet, of which I am also guilty. So when I found this book by Manoush Zomorodi it was a must read for me. Here are some of the findings of this book.

In a world where entertainment is 24/7 and with a tap or click away (Facebook, Quora, Twitter, Youtube and myriads of such websites and apps). We don't every give ourself a chance to be bored. It would have been great if these activities helped us in getting more mental peace or advancement in life, but it does none of that. Instead of that it leaves us exhaused and confused.

Author argues that we have to give our brain a chance to be bored. Then only we can reflect and think of ideas which can change us and our lives or in a sense make us brilliant.

Have you noticed number of tabs open on your browser. In my case it definitely goes more than a dozen. Why do I have them open? Because I feel a need to absorb information from vastly different number of sources (listen, read, watch). What am I doing with all this information. Probably not much.

People are afraid of boredom, in one study a candidate preferred to shock himself 190 times instead of spending time in thinking. It is becoming ever harder to read a physical book, or even to concentrate on an article and derive learning and meaning out of it. Even taking notes on electronic devices in classroom and meetings are not making us focussed. Taking notes on pen and paper forces us to slow down and think.

People are getting afraid of conversation. They are preferring email/text over face to face communication. But communication over text/email doesn't have empathy. It may appear efficient, but it feels very transactional. Conversation happens because there is history and empathy among the group of people.

PGS (Phantom Gadget Syndrome)  Having a feeling that your phone is budging or ringing even when it is not. It is a symptom of our emotional dependence on these devices.

Enormous amounts of pictures are taken and shared everyday. We spend countless hours on looking at digitally enhanced pictures. It has become a photomania. Author asks the question - "Are we indulging in visual gluttony?"

Video gaming is another tech intrusion in our lives. My 14 year old's favorite is Minecraft. There are many addictive games like Candy Crush, Two Dots. These games suck up your time like anything. If left uncontrolled 10 minute thing will spiral to 2 hours. Game advocates claim to help in improving brain functions, but these claims have no solid scientific backing. Popular advice is to set a time limit of 10-20 minutes (self-regulation), but we know that self regulation is very hard to follow. Gaming and advertising industries are based on mind control.

It is getting harder and harder to do deep work. Work emails, text messages are claiming our attention all the time. In this fully connected environment we don't have time for being alone, which  is reducing our creativity. 

Book talks about challenges for readers. Here are them

1. Observe yourself - Without changing your habit, observe how many a times you are picking phone, browsing internet etc. As they say understanding self is very hard.
2. Keep your devices out of reach while in motion - Dependeing on individuals, but in short it can mean no phone usage while walking.
3. Photo free day - Restrain all your impulses of taking photo that day.
4. Delete that app - Is the app serving me or hurting me? Does the app make me feel bad about myself?
5. Take a Fakecation - Vacation in the form of break from digital onslaughts, which distracts us and keeps us from thinking beyond everyday.
6. Observe something else - Go to some public place. Spend some time there. Observe what is happening there. You can use your imagination to think of what is happening.
7. Bored and Brilliant 
1. Identify an aspect of life which is challenging or confusing to you
2. Do mind numbing or boring thing in isolation for 30 minutes. E.x. watching water boil
3. Now go back to step 1 above, and start writing down in physcial paper on how will you solve it.

The main essense is to bring focus back in our life. If you try to do a bit  of everything, you are going to make a millimeter of progress in million directions.

My Trip to Coonoor

 Recently I got a chance to spend a very relaxing time in Coonoor. I have tried to capture some of my emotions in videos.

Above is the view from our hotel. Mysterious mists came so often and covered the mountains.

A view of tea gardens