Heartcrossings

I was sitting by the window with my young friend - a kid named P a few days ago. A cicada sat there unwilling to move. We tapped its wings gently but there was no response. After a while, it flew away on its own. Later in the evening, the woods were humming with the sounds of cicadas - loud and overpowering. By then it was dinner time for us. P noted that most creatures are much louder and noisier than humans adjusted for body size and weight. The cicada is loud, so are bird and cats and dogs. Humans are relatively much quieter. His interesting observation made sense and made me look up ex actly how loud cicadas can be . A cicada is capable of  causing such a racket  due to vibrations of its "tymbals," or sound production organ composed of corrugated exoskeleton. The insect will actually deform its body to contract at rates of 300 to 400 times per second. In humans, this would be tantamount to sucking in your ribcage to the point of collapse, and then releasing it again. An...

Nice article on cooking and Ismail Merchant . The style of Merchant's cooking is described thusly: The food was sly, giving convention a knowing glance before tilting it ever so slightly. On the  role of gender and specially sexuality in cookin g , the author quotes John Birdsall Birdsall wrote of his own impulses as a young line cook working in a casually homophobic San Francisco kitchen. He weathered prejudice routinely in these spaces, resulting in a fury that he soothed into spirited artistic output. He was “fueled by sublimated rage, the outsider with something to prove, taking the ingredients I was handed and making sure they transcended their limits.” This brought to mind the experience I had of eating the exact same recipe cooked by a mother and two of her adult kids at different points in time. It was easy to see the source of the recipe being the same. The mother had taught them both alike and yet they interpreted it very differently. The son's version was agg...

I spent some time with an old couple recently - both in their 80s. Theirs has been a long marriage with a fair share of tumult - some of their own making and others brought on them from the outside.  There have been deaths and complicated diseases along the way that touched them and those they love. Looking back there were good years and decades along with the rougher patches. In the twilight of their lives, when they look back, they are able to see the good more brightly than the bad. They allow themselves to glamorize and romanticize the past as a way to deal the many difficulties of old age. It was a wonderful thing to observe and learn. But the most fascinating thing for me was to see the bond between them - one of deep friendship and being attuned to each others.What they have felt solid and immutable - love may have come and gone out of their marriage in cycles but what remains sustains them through every adversity. I learned that they both had parents who had marriages tha...

People management is an incredibly hard job and very few do it truly well. Read this article on the lessons learned first time on the job .  One observation particularly resonated with me - about the impact of a manager expressing destructive emotions when upset with a team member who is upset with them The only difference is that when you do it, it’s worse. Your blast radius is so large that if you let yourself get lost in your emotions, you’ll never be the safety net that your team needs you to be. Reading this reminded me of a manager I once had - H. We hit it off well when I first started, the person was extremely mercurial and it took me a while to understand how they operated. We did good work together for the most part - there was much to learn from H and I did. And then there was the time, when they completely lost it with one of my colleagues.  Things spiraled out from there and though the rest of us who witnessed this meltdown were not in the line of fire,...

There is a brutal simplicity to This Be The Verse by Philip Larkin that is meant to punch any parent in the gut I suppose. When I read it, I think about parents I have known in my life including my own and also the kind of parent I have been myself. Many of my cousins have chosen not to have any kids exactly for the reasons Larkin cites. One of them said to me once that he wishes to end the bad cycle at him - do the morally responsible thing and not leave society heaving the burden of yet another broken person who cannot contribute their fair share.  That was likely his way of describing how he viewed himself and the failings of his parents along the way that resulted in such outcome. On the scale of dysfunctional, broken, disturbed and more, C is hardly topping the charts. He failed to deliver the social markers of success, achieve age appropriate goals and such. If he had kids, they would have likely "failed" much the same way- "It deepens like the coastal shelf...

As my parents grow older, they seem to live in each other's shadow bereft of individual identity. It did not used to be this way when I was growing up. They were deeply unlike each other and strife was the order of the day. Over the years as their energy to die on every hill has faded, they have morphed into this unified persona which does not exercise much if any independent thinking. The one way to see some of the old spark in my father is to discuss politics with him. The recent events in Kashmir made for a lot of animated conversations and brought home some sobering realizations about old age.  It seems like his field of vision has narrowed to what is immediate and in proximity. When he speculates the future of India a few decades out, he does so from a position of nonchalance. He will not be around to be part of it. What matters more is today, the next month and the year. His radius likely does not extend past the city limits of Kolkata. Given such lens, his views surprise m...

Could not have said it better about why I like to write and what it does for me. Author Kate Zambreno says it beautifully: Writing is a way into and out of existence. I often write when I’m feeling the most ghostly and I felt extremely ghostly right after I gave birth. There was a desire to write myself back into existence, to mark, like the On Kawara paintings, I am still alive. I can relate to feeling ghostly and not existing. There were many phases in my life when that happened. Indeed, this blog came to be during one of the peak periods of such ghostliness. It was like being behind a thick glass wall, seeing the ebb and flow of life around me while I was struck by aphonia. So the only way to be heard was to write.  Over time, the ghostliness faded and with it the desire to write. I needed to float out of existence for a bit - deal with the nerve shattering din of reality. The glass wall had broken and I was in the flow and clamor. Lately, writing is just about a ste...

Reading this, its hard to imagine the laws being described are for real . The absurdity is simply too great. While such staggering idiocy must be fought hard, change can also be brought about by raising our kids differently. Parenting is a very hard job with serious implications for society at large. Your kid could be blessing or bane for the community depending on what kind of parenting job you do. Most of us end up being middling parents and don't rock the boat too hard one way or the other - also a missed opportunity for the child and the world.  Perhaps all would-be parents should be advised to take parenting classes, earn qualifications that enable to perform their job right. It's one thing to be a terrible cook and produce food no one really likes but a terrible parent is a menace to the child they are in charge of raising and everyone in the world who comes into contact with this kid. As a society we should demand better, ask that there be consequences for a job very b...

Love this story about common-sense innovation from India . Specially love the fact that the product in question does not need life-support by association with words like blockchain, Machine Learning and AI. No cloud deployment needed either. It is simple and honest - has one job to do and presumably does it well.  It is great to see young people bringing their passion and energy to bear on their high quality education to solve real problems in the world. Having abandoned core engineering right out of college and moved into a world where it is all too easy to over-state impact, I have a lot of respect for those who stay in their field of study and give back to the world.

This story about female farmers going womb-less to be more productive makes for incredibly sad reading. It brings to mind watching my mother recover from this procedure before she turned forty. Given the history of cancer in her family and her age, the doctor determined this was the safest bet. I recall her suffering both physically and emotionally - the feeling of being hollowed out and emptied as she described it. An assortment symptoms including persistent aches and pains followed. She was never quite the same again; just learned to cope and move on with her life.   My mother was told there was no other choice and that was probably right in her case. But for these young women, the lack of choice that drives them to such resolution is a product of societal apathy. For the want of access to period products, these women have to be emptied and hollowed out, made to suffer the rest of their lives from botched procedures they did not even need. It was deeply sobering to think...

I have travel plans late Fall that will have me in the same city as two of my young relatives I have never met. Both young men are few years into their careers but still single - one is my nephew and the other is my cousin. In hopes of meeting them during my short visit, I wrote to both as soon as I had my travel dates confirmed. The responses were tepid to mildly warm. Sure, would love to meet was all that was said.  A generation ago, their parents would have given a relative such as myself a good bit more. They would have offered to come by since I was new to their city. Questions like where will you be staying, how long will you have etc would get asked - there would be communications back and forth advising on the best options for staying and getting around - specially if the plan was to meet them somewhere midway. The person requesting to meet and greet would not need to worry if they had over-stepped and even asked. During my trip to Kolkata last year, another cousin of s...

In preparation for a trip, I opened up a box of saris and other clothes I have not used in a long time. Most are gifts from people who are no longer a part of my life or have moved so far away mentally that I can no longer feel their presence. The history of these clothes is mixed. Some even belong to J so they are not mine to discard. The acting of dredging through the past that afternoon stirred emotions I was unprepared for. There was anxiety and guilt for the most part and the overwhelming desire to forget. But the process of taking them all out and putting them back again took time. As always, good, bad and the ugly coalesced in an immovable lump.  I showed J clothes I had designed for myself when I was younger than her with some tailoring help from my mother. She tried them on and commented on their vintage feel. They have no place to go except back in the box where many vignettes from my past reside. As I struggled to fall asleep that night, I realized that box is like a p...

My last birthday day before J becomes an adult reminded me of that last one before she was born. They are book-ends of the time when almost my entire life was about motherhood. It was the strongest signal in the noise of everyday. She got me some flowers and matcha mochi ice cream this year. And took me out to lunch at our favorite Chinese place. We save this place for my birthday lunch ever since J has had a job and was able to pay for it. Small traditions that have come to matter more now that she will be gone. Everything is now about the last time we do things together on certain dates. As she begins her own life, those dates will find her in other places doing other things. She will be missed here at home.  But I will remember the flowers in the vase, eating mochi ice cream together and that lunch where we talked about the hard life of young people in the food service industry. J made it a point to tip very generously and add a smiley and "Thank you" to the check to sho...

This story would be funny if were not sad and true . I used to work with a programmer who graduated college the year I was born. He worked with antiquated technology and guarded his job and the secrets of his code with his very life. His whole demeanor at the workplace was a product of his fear of being made redundant. Yes, there were automated spreadsheets involved there too. Last I heard he had retired from the job after a multi-decade run exactly in the same role.  When I first met him, I was taken aback by his resistance to any new idea and his unwillingness to share anything he knew. Over time, I was able to earn his trust and maybe some grudging respect. He would talk about his weekends and grand-kids occasionally. I showed him pictures of J. I am certain given a choice, he would have lived a different kind of life, worked a job where fear of unemployment was not the daily guiding force. Yet, with each passing year it became just a little harder to make change, illnesses in...

Reading about these expat ventures is inspiring. So easy to settle into what is traditional, well-worn and predictable but if the soul of the person craved for another kind of life, they would never feel at home being settled. My own life due to choice and happenstance has been very much in the normal and boring mold. The dreams of going the offbeat path foregone a long time ago.  Yet, I held on to some part of it and tried to pass it on to J. Tell her over and over that there are only a few windows of opportunity to take those big, dizzying plunges in life. Experience free fall into the unknown and make the most of where you end up finding yourself. And I have nudged her little by little to try some of what I never could or did with hopes that she may go where I have never been, live the life I only imagined for myself. To that, she will add what is uniquely her, remove that is alien to her nature.  I hope that she will live a life far more bold and colorful than mine bu...

I have a few friends who have tenants on their property and from what I hear it is neither easy work nor easy money. They have decades of experience along with a fair share of war-stories. That said, it is still good income so people persist despite the challenges. Was reading about a start-up idea around building and renting homes in people's backyards . It sounds a little too dreamy for all concerned. The homeowner just sits around and collects monies. When you hear of a scheme like that you really need to think really hard. There is the presumption that the presence of this pre-fab appendage in the backyard will not hurt the home value in anyway and when time comes the home-owner could just sell and move on with their life. Because if that does not happen they will need to pay.  Home owners associations might have their thoughts on such enterprise rooting on their turf. There is also the blissful assumption that such close proximity renting arrangements will work out for the...

Sometimes the a short comment can outdo an article itself. Here is an example where the topic under discussion was scientific experiments to discover if mirror and parallel universes exist . It's hard for the average person to understand the point of the experiment and what it seeks to prove or disprove. But the same is hardly true about the comments. My favorite being " The existence of a parallel universe would certainly help to explain Brexit". A sentiment shared by many no doubt and one that people even far removed from the action can appreciate. When you are a layperson and read " But if the detector does register the presence of neutrons, the theory is that they may have gone through the wall by “oscillating” into the mirror world – becoming mirror neutrons – and reappearing in this universe, and more specifically the lab in Tennessee." you have to wonder if that is physics or voodoo they are talking about. The Brexit observation is way easier to gra...

Pairing Cheez-It with boxed red-wine is an idea stupid, simple and definitely fun. It's certainly not aimed at folks who know their wine and treat it with respect. Its more for the rest of us who don't and can't be bothered to educate themselves. Our rules tend to be very elementary - red or white and dry or sweet - there could be some scaling and then permutations. In that scheme of things there is a spot for the humble house wine that presumably pairs well with Cheez-It - a snack that I love and therefore studiously avoid.  Having a big bag of Cheez-It at home to me is playing with fire. It will only promote distracted over-eating in stressful times and craving for even more. Add a wine to it and only worse can happen to the likes of me who can't master their snack portion size. I will stick with my hundred percent avoidance strategy that has served me well over the years.

The tweener button is indeed a nice thing to have on shirts. I add improvements like this to my clothes all the time just did not realize it could be called "innovation" and merit a patent even. The celebration of commonsense in the story felt almost satirical. Its interesting to see what folks are excited about these days - for instance not having a keyhole on the front door.   From an utilitarian thing as an old fashioned lock, this smart device becomes something that occupies disproportionate space in our lives. It comes with an app, batteries and USB port and whatnot. All to lock a door. There is a cleverness about the tweener button specially that it is hidden and makes that casual look seem effortless. It adds value without taking up too much space of any kind. That could be decent test for anything that claims to be innovation.

I have been a Headspace user for a while and never considered paying for it. Have often cycled through Basics and appreciate the calmness it provides. Somehow the idea of buying serenity for a price seems wrong. It is as if once I bring a credit card into the equation I have with Headspace, it will just stop working for me. There is certain benevolence in the voice that guides the user through the ten minute Basics lessons.  The simplicity is amazing as is the lack of judgement. Anyone can do it - that is the promise and the power of Basics. Once you try the first lesson, you will no longer feel intimidated by meditation and mindfulness, wonder if you have what it takes. I am definitely a fan. However, I will never be converting to the paid app. This Ars Technica article goes over in considerable detail the good and bad of mobile mindfulness .

The idea of a subscription that bundles your needs into one service option is not novel but interesting coming from Uber . It would be a bit more attractive if a user created a travel schedule for the month and got an fixed price for the Uber rides needed for it. For weekday commutes to work that could be a great option, specially on a ride share basis, creating an income pipe-line for the drivers and reducing the cost of transport for the rider.  A flat fee subscription does not appear to buying the user all that much. They would need to use UberEats every meal every day for it to start making any sense. But an a monthly Uber pass for a designated commute plan could be a replacement for public transportation and even the need for car ownership. Definitely the right kind of thinking around how to make Uber more sticky in the user's life. Now we need to see how it evolves over time.

On my drive home from out of town a few days ago, I heard Piper Kerman describing her prison cheesecake recipe during a Wait Wait Don't Tell Me! segment on NPR. What struck me as particularly remarkable about the whole thing is Kerman's open embrace of her mistakes that led to time in prison but ended up being a profitable venture for her. Having watched a few episodes of the show, it was illuminating to hear the first person perspective. Her narrative seems to be that, she continues to make the best of her past misadventures and create value for others along the way. This would all be quite wonderful and even inspirational, if Kerman did not exude such an air of nonchalant privilege. It was hard to see how her triumphant re-entry to society could be replicated even remotely by the average incarcerated person. 

I shared this Jack Ma video with J so she could learn something about the business of navigating life and career. Recently J asked me to read the Neflix Culture Memo in its entirety and asked what I thought of it having been in the workforce as long as I have. The point of sharing the wisdom of Ma was to show her the difference in approach. He tells it like it is borne out of his own life lessons - his many successes and failures along the way. The lessons are such that just about anyone can use them in their own lives. Now the Netflix thing has a few problems - it is not a culture for one and all to emulate. It sounds more like a manifesto of the ideal workplace where both employer and employee win at all times.  There is this presumption of perfect equilibrium and also that human beings are entirely rational. Both ideas are fairly misguided. Furthermore, conditions are far from alike across the spectrum of businesses. Being a media company sets Netflix apart from many others ...

Interesting story about how the Japanese rent cars but not to drive them .  The idea of using a car as a nap pod, a phone booth, or even a private YouTube studio to record a rap session is fascinating, and it highlights how the primary function of a service is always up for interpretation.  Reading this reminded me of that last summer before J drove herself wherever she needed to be. Given the places I needed to take her and the timing of these things, I worked from inside the car for the better part of two months. Snagging free wifi at a Starbucks was easy but presenting while on a conference call was not an option. So I used my car much like the Japanese did.   For ride-sharing and rental companies this is an easy way to make money while the cars sit idle waiting to be driven. Imagine an pesky six hour layover in a big city with horrendous traffic. Its not enough time to check out the sights but an awful lot of time to waste just sitting around being uncomfortable...

I am a Coen brothers fan and have long taken it upon myself to familiarize J with their oeuvre.  We started with the Big Lebowski and meandered our way through Oh Brother Where Art Thou and Burn After Reading and many others to until finally arriving at Fargo. Always wanted to catch Fargo with her before she left to college. She absolutely loved it. For me, it was as good as new after all these years - and the magic was all intact. J is not nearly as indiscriminate as me when it comes to movies, so I try to make every recommendation count. There are atleast hundred more I wished she could have watched before going out into the world. But I have tried to give her the sampling platter of genres and directors so she has a decent point of reference to begin her own journey. I can't wait for the time when I get recommendations from J and make new discoveries.

Yet another example of wanton intrusion of personal space by employers coupled with the dubious goal of measuring performance. It is unclear what this passive monitoring achieves. It would be just as simple to render work devices inaccessible over the weekends so there is some space created between work and life. Similarly, incentives could be developed for focus on fitness and healthy lifestyle instead of non-stop monitoring by way of wearable devices. The elephant in the room is lack of focus on mental health. What could go a long way is finding ways to remove stigma associated with regular therapy - something everyone could benefit from. The idea is misbegotten, very easily gamed and abused. Needless to say, this is a very sad waste of resources by the institutions of higher learning noted as contributors to this research. 

Recently, just about everything I want to read is behind a paywall. The cost of entry is not one I am willing to pay though some of the content is great. I am definitely part of a large consumer trend here in my unwillingness to pay for content that may even be of interest. It seems like a pay per read would be a more palatable option for most people. Forcing a subscription down our throats can only meet with resistance. Consequently, everyone loses out - niche publications that are investing in content creation or curation will lose out because they lack in volume and variety to make  the subscription option attractive.  Mainstream publications that have the volume and variety issue solved do not offer enough in terms of spike in level of interest to trigger the subscription commitment. Add to this the growing use of ad-blockers. All of this makes for a very complex situation to negotiate between producers and consumers of content. In the meanwhile, I just go look for free ...

Good article on why the push to make coders out of everyone and their grandmother is not driven by altruism. Could not agree more But coding is not magic. It is a technical skill, akin to carpentry. Learning to build software does not make you any more immune to the forces of American capitalism than learning to build a house. Whether a coder or a carpenter, capital will do what it can to lower your wages, and enlist public institutions towards that end. Just like every carpenter is destined for greatness and fantastic material success, most will toil in obscurity and make barely enough. Such is the fate that awaits this unending legions of coders who will come into the workforce with questionable skills. They will serve to depress salaries all around and it would become all but impossible for seriously good developers to stand out and be counted never mind be compensated commensurate to their abilities.

Lot of interesting insights in this report on the state of the Internet in China . The idea of the super app as the means to a walled garden is not too different from what Facebook, Google and Amazon are trying to accomplish in their own ways Global technology companies are now replicating successful concepts from their Chinese counterparts, from the super app to social+ ecommerce to short video. China has pioneered the super app, a one-stop shop for services from shopping to ride hailing to money transfers to flight bookings. Love this particular application of AI Driving to work: AI-enabled cameras, installed near traffic lights, can adjust traffic lights in accordance with queuing vehicles and weather  conditions. Certain road sections in Shenzhen have seen traffic flow improve by 8%, with the average vehicle speed surging by 15%. And here is social credit at work as relates to the founder of Ofo - a billion dollar unicorn now close to bankruptcy High-profile founder a...

Nice reading on the important role of texture in food . As you strip processed food of all the traditional markers of taste - fat, sugar and salt then all there is left to play with is texture.  Psychorheology is why we like gummy bears in solid but not liquid form, why we enjoy carbonated soda but balk at its flavor when it goes flat. It's why we perceive gelato as creamier than ice cream—even though the latter has more fat. Experiments with texture could lead to new adventures with familiar food. The taste of soda in the texture of  peanut butter cup could be a random example of combining two popular foods where the context of texture is switched. So when you try this novel food, you will likely expect a dissonance between what you expect and what you taste. That could lead to some interesting outcomes.

This Quartz story about income gap and internet speed seems like a metaphor for speed of change and progress in various parts of the world. Speed confers advantage to those who are able to achieve it so the rest have no choice but to catch up leading to accelerationsim for all. For those who end up falling behind, they may gain in serenity what they give up in "progress".  It would be interesting to see if there might be an inverse relationship between the happiest countries and the overall speed of life including access to internet. If it took twenty two hours to download a movie, chances are the person will not indulge in binge watching. Furthermore, they might be a lot more deliberate in their choice of movie to download.