Heartcrossings

 In this Guardian article technofossil is a one word, but it feels like in need of two. There is a very high level of arrogance combined with uncertainty around technology these days. Once day all humans are going to displaced by AI and robots, the next day a contrary opinion about the AI will get dumb to the point of self-destruction because the average intelligence it depends on is getting lowered by the day. Between these wide swings, people in technology are getting by day to day.  Some are much more concerned than others but such is always the case not matter what the issue at hand. But at no point is there talk of fossils we will create and perpetuate and how chicken bones and plastic grocery bags are not hitting the high notes for the persistent markers of a civilization. It may be quite fitting though that our collective hubris about so-called achievements dies a forgotten death and the all that remains are relics of our reckless and mindless consumer culture Computer ...

Once a year in spring I clean up the thick carpet of pine needles under the line of pine trees in my yard. They suffocate the earth until nothing but the most tenacious weeds can grow there. Cleaning the pine needles is hard work and at the end of many hours there is nothing much to see other than the ground being visible once again. I walk away tired and somewhat satisfied and the pine cones continue to fall, the trees have mostly greened by now.  This annual ritual reminds of the changes that this part of my yard has gone through over the years and how each phase of its existence was deeply entwined with my own life's ebb and tide. J's middle school years left me with absolutely no discretionary time. There was a guy who cut the grass to keep the place from turning completely wild. Every once in a great while I would trim some bushes. The line of pine trees had been overcome by some invasive brush that grew furiously all around the trees, giving them no room to breathe. High ...

Stealing time is one thing but money a bit different but there could be a logic to say that they are one and the same. What is interesting about the stories is that all the thievery is going on in the office not away working from home though showing up at noon could go one way or the other. While its easy and tempting to blame a whole generation as lazy, the real problem lies elsewhere.  There are no competent or inspiring people managers or leaders of any sort that these young folks work for. So no surprise they feel no desire to perform at work. If a person was able to read 74 ebooks a year pretending they were reading their email, that person should not have been hired to begin because they have no measurable job to do. Every account in the article points to the same problem - one of over-hiring and not having a well-defined job where performance can be tangibly measured. That and no sense of team, shared vision, common purpose and the like. These folks are sleep-walking throug...

The call (or not meant to call) from N triggered a lot of old memories and not in any particular order. Most are actually not even associated with her. She represents a place and time in my life long gone. Yet there are threads that remain and can be tugged even by such accident as that call. Such is the power of those faded, long ago days. It got me thinking about the time I had heard Soumitra Chatterjee live reciting poetry and specifically Bonolata Sen . That was not the first time I had heard the poem recited but certainly was the version that etched the deepest impression. The words came alive in a way they had not ever before. Then fast forward to my marriage.  Most of my cousins sat out of it for reasons I am not entirely sure of but then I always lacked the social intelligence to thrive in Indian families. That was an arranged marriage and everything about it would have checked off the requisite boxes of acceptable. Yet it was met with a seething disapproval which would com...

Calling in your website changes sounds a bit wacky but a nice experiment all the same. I am trying to imagine a practical application of such a thing. Imagine you launch a minimal beta of a product and then open up the phone line to the users to call in their issues, aggravations and brilliant ideas for improvement. If the system processing the requests is intelligent enough, it can create a prioritized product backlog out of all these phone calls and write up specs for the engineers to develop and release.  Lately there is a lot of noise about said engineers being replaceable by AI. If that were even partly true the whole thing could be set up to run on auto-pilot and the product would be continuously improved based on evolving user needs. It all sounds quite magical if actually feasible and if the chatter did not drive the bot absolutely crazy. That would have the product burn itself to death because most requests were at odds with each other, solving one problem naturally creat...

This story about comedians and Botoxed audiences reads like a piece from The Onion . It had a hard time accepting its veracity but figured there was some logic to the story so maybe its true.  “Comedy thrives on connection, and facial expressions play a huge part. We want people to laugh, cry, frown, sneer, but frozen faces from Botox impact the entire atmosphere. “We hope trialling this ban will help move the needle and get facial reactions back into the room – for the benefit of our comedians and the audience.” Andrew Mensah, one of the venue’s regular stand-up acts, added: “Performing to an audience with frozen faces can be incredibly tough. “Comedy is a two-way street – we feed off the energy and reactions of the crowd. Mark and the team are always devising new ideas to support us comedians – this must be his best one yet.” I have an interesting experience each time I am in my Pilates class. One of the women was a former client and I've known her for over twenty years now. Her...

N is my cousin. We are close in age and about nothing else. When we were younger, I spent a lot of time in her house in Kolkata when visiting there. Much of those times were spent with her mom (my aunt) in the kitchen. I found it easier to be there watch her work and help where I could than be with her kids - N and her brother B. I felt close to my aunt, we had things in common and even where we diverged, it was easy for me to understand why.  Being around her was frictionless and she appreciated the company because her own kids were never there beyond being physically present in their rooms. My aunt shared her anxieties about them - she had tried to be a supportive mother but the kids had both interpreted that as a sign of weakness that they could leverage and exploit. So they did. Her expectations for them were never met, nothing she asked of them (which was very minimal to begin) was ever done.  In contrast my mother had a very high performance bar for me - she simply would...