Heartcrossings

It had been one of those days where there had been long and mentally exhausting. The kind of day that makes me reconsider my position on retirement. Since I work from home, I like taking a few minutes to put my lunch together and on a good day sit by the window in the living room to eat it. It is a minor pleasure but it sets the tone for how I feel about my day and over time it impacts my mental well-being. This particular day I could not even recall what I had had for lunch and was thinking about what do do about dinner. In times of stress I auto-default to curd rice served warm. This is a fix that never fails to settle the mental upset I might be feeling. If that is not the definition of comfort food, then I don't know what is.  My earliest memory of this dish goes back to childhood, a friend's mother who often served it if I showed up around lunch time to play with my buddy. A few years later, I replicated the dish on my own amazed by how simple it the process was. Fresh ou...

Watching Stalker was a contemplative experience. What was most remarkable for me is how Tarkovsky is able to keep the viewer fully engaged in a movie that moves very slow and is also long. Every scene is replete with atmospheric details that gets you immersed into the enigmatic world that you step into with the the Stalker, Writer and Professor. What you make of each scene, the telling of the story or the conclusion feels entirely upto the viewer. their biases and life experiences. Given when the film was made, it is easy to imagine a political message - one of protest or an expression of subversion.  Removing that layer, one might see a metaphysical perspective there about human beings being too afraid have their inner-most desires come true, the propensity to self-destruct instead of taking a chance on the unknown. The three characters who make it to the "zone" have curiosity in common but little else. It could stand for uneasy alliances we make in life to fulfill goals we ...

One Friday on our way back from our usual post-dinner walk, I wanted to stop for ice-cream at a store we pass by all the time. It had been a long week and I had spent days worrying about my mother's health, not being able to accept that might be declining and there is no way to turn the clock back. The Wildberry Lavender ice-cream produced a soothing effect that I might connect to stress relief. This was my first time at the store and the flavor. As we walked back home I wondered what about the ice-cream made it so perfect for my downcast mood. Childhood memories of my mother include Lavender Dew talcum powder which was a her summer staple.  I realized I am mentally preparing to lose her maybe well before it is time to do so(or  at least I hope that is the case) and creating some mosaic of memories to latch on to. Maybe there is a part of me that imagines by preparing and being ready, I can somehow move that day further out. There has to be smells, tastes, sounds and places t...

Reading this NYT essay about anti-ambition being in the air, makes me think of how folks like me have been early to this trend by decades. It was harder then because the zeitgeist required an absolute devotion to work and trying your best and hardest to get ahead. I recall back in the day, seeing my peers getting promoted left me feeling confused, I was not even in the running and people were crossing finish lines. Was I doing something wrong? In my heart I knew I was not but rationalizing it mentally was a struggle.  These days watching people get promoted makes me feel a tinge of pity for that person. They already worked 80 hour weeks, exceeded every impossible goal that was set for them in order to even get promoted. Now the goal post will only move further. They will need to need to make hard decisions about running or stopping because stopping may not be an option at that level. I get the feeling there are many others like me who don't want to take that next step, try and rem...

It started with deciding to paint my nails lime green on a cold and rainy evening. The following morning we were able to find someone who was interested in a piece of furniture I had wanted to get rid of for the longest time - it was a purchase fraught with too many bad memories that remained embodied in the piece of wood and glass. It did not have a place in my home or life but there it sat without meaning or purpose for a decade. Later that day after the furniture had found a new home, I pulled out a hot pink coat I have not worn in over a decade and decided it to wear it. We went to a craft store and got myself sketch pad, some pencils and pens so I would have a way to doodle in a structured manner and see how things evolved over time.  After spending a good hour sketching after we got home, I found myself thinking about a few light fixtures that needed to be updated around the house. It was interesting how a chain of change was triggered by the simple act of wanting to paint my...

The bit of advisory on micro-segmenting storage of data in a hospitals as a safeguard against ransom-ware attacks caught my attention in this article . Having spent my career with clients who need to get better organized around data to help them serve their customers better, this is counter-intuitive at first blush but then it starts to make sense. If there is no systematic way to connect the the dots between the data about a patient, their treatments past and present then it would be impossible to target anyone specifically or completely. There is definitely protection in that. All the medical devices if working in air-gapped mode are also similarly safe from attacks. The more you fragment the data and keep each in its own bin with no way to connect multiple bins except via spreadsheet, then you have significantly reduced the risk of a ransomware attack. On the patient end of things, the experience will be horrendous with lack of a holistic view of what is going on with them. It will ...

One of the ways that toxic masculinity manifests itself in the workplace is the inability of many men to work in co-operative manner, manage their emotions (which they have plenty of) productively and engage like responsible adults working on a common goal. Frequently it falls to the "team mother" to bring order and harmony in the environment. The men who operate within this misguided concept of masculine are unable to give or receive help. The only way they feel in control of the situation is when they are in charge, when no ideas other than theirs receive any air time. Being in this environment is draining for women professionally just as dealing with this is in personal life.  Lucky are the women who have male colleagues and bosses who are male but non-toxic. Luckier are those who have such men in their personal life. I had an amusing experience not too long ago with a man who was advocating we stick with the facts and not get emotional about a situation with a client tha...

This post about a tweet is a great example of how once you establish yourself as a thought-leader or visionary, even a pedestrian observation in a sentence fragment can send the world into a bloviating tail-spin. There are people who are better with math-related things and others who are good with word-related things. The point of convergence is actually ideas and abstraction. One side will be able to describe it in words, the other might be able to make something with it that has digital or physical shape. There is no asymmetry and no pre-determined outcome at all. It just depends what the fight is about. But it does not even have to be this way. My grandfather was a humble university professor, a victim of partition who raised a big family on his meagre means. When he died he did not even have a bank account, the kids took care of him to the end, he took pride in the fact that he was like a collect-call - the sign of a life well-lived, his children were vying for his time, he was no...

Not sure if I have experienced a full climate anxiety attack as this article describes but the very visible effects of climate change leave me feeling blue. The lack of fall foliage, flowers blooming ahead of time or not at all, the ceaseless rain leading to dreary days and ashen skies, untimely snow, crazy heatwaves - and the complete unpredictability of how the day or the week will shape up to be.  I do notice all of these things and experience a sense of sad hopelessness about them. To overcome, I do the small things that I can - reduce my consumption footprint in every way. Small format stores with limited inventory make me feel way more comfortable than some national chain with endless aisles. When shopping online, I leave things in my basket for days until there is enough to ease the guilt getting stuff delivered to me.  She understands how privileged she is; she describes her anxiety as a “luxury problem.” But still: The plastic toys in the bathtub made her anxious. Th...

The idea of bologna face-mask is silly and attention-grabbing. And it pokes fun at the fancy skin-care products made of super-esoteric stuff that is meant to connect you to the eternal fountain of youth. This is the kind of advertisement I would totally click a banner-ad to watch - it's plain amusing and makes a great gag-gift for the person in your life who loves make-up “Oscar Mayer has a legacy bringing levity to things that have gotten too serious, and beauty is a ripe territory to playfully subvert,” says Oscar Mayer Sr. Marketing Analyst Lindsey Ressler in a press release. “This is the latest in our brand movement to create work that feels more like pop-art and less like traditional commercial advertising—inspired by the old, modernized for today.” Being that it was sold out within hours of launch goes to prove that the marketers have great instincts and at least for now, this campaign is a winner. Once the novelty fades they will need to come up with something else just as ...

Reading this story was a great way to end a long day. It's about a creative young boy who wrote and illustrated a story about Christmas and really wanted to share it with the world. He found a way to do it quite successfully. It's such a charming way to accomplish what any wannabe writer would kill for - a five year waiting list to read their book.  The staff librarians who read Dillon’s book agreed that as informal and unconventional as it was, the book met the selection criteria for the collection in that it was a high-quality story that was fun to read. So, Hartman asked Helbig for permission to tack a bar code onto the book and formally add it to the library’s collection. Dillon’s parents enthusiastically said yes, and the book is now part of the graphic-novels section for kids, teens and adults. The library even gave Dillon its first Whoodini Award for Best Young Novelist, a category the library created for him, named after the library’s owl mascot. Great idea, perfect ex...

An omnipresent Big Brother keeping scores cannot be anyone's idea of a good time but every system will gain its adherents given time.  People with good scores can speed up travel applications to places like Europe, Botsman said. An unidentified woman in Beijing told the BBC in 2015 that she was able to book a hotel without having to pay a cash deposit because she had a good score. The outlet also reported that Baihe, China's biggest dating site now owned by Jiayuan, is boosting the profiles of good citizens. Citizens with good social credit can also get discounts on energy bills, rent things without deposits, and get better interest rates at banks. Its like a story of consequences or training a monkey by a system of rewards and punishments to behave a certain way. In reality, the death by thousand cuts - slow internet, no plane tickets, being locked out of schools, jobs and more will likely result in a high degree of compliance from those who survive and that's when the me...

When I first started my current job, S and I were thrown into the same project by a random quirk of fate. She in a decade younger than me and more world-weary than she should be. Fifteen years on the road will do that to a person who does not particularly love living out of a hotel Mon-Thu. That was how she lived until the pandemic struck. Suddenly she was at home and loving it. There was time to spend with her boyfriend it was possible to get a dog as she had long wanted to. Having had a chance to take pause and stay home for weeks and months at a time changed S in the most dramatic ways. She is one of the many people who I know transformed for the better by the pandemic because they were lucky to be in professions where their skills became even more valuable because of it. S and I get together for a chat every few weeks and each meeting I see a better version of the person - calmer, more thoughtful and deliberate about what she does or chooses not to. Reading these lines from Seth Go...

Reading this could not have been more timely . There is this individual (let's call her Q) that I need to deal with quite routinely in my personal life. She is one of those people no one particularly likes and each person has their own reason. Getting to the level of universal love or revulsion sets a person apart from the masses. Most of us are the mediocre in-between place loved and disliked by a relative minorities. For the most part those who know us can't summon up any strong feelings - they are largely indifferent. If we are lucky more people love us that not.  But Q is not one of those average people. She is very easy to dislike and promotes more intense feelings than that among those who know her well. I am sadly in that mix. Recently something she did infuriated me to the point that I started to shake with anger just reading an email. It took me a minute to understand the effect she had on me and that prompted a great sense of failure - to give someone that much power ...

Love how these stories are interwoven with data to make them come to life. The fact that women are still making news at the same rate for various "firsts" is very telling: Speaking of firsts, the first similarity we noticed between all the countries is the high frequency of the word FIRST. There are thousands of mentions, nearly 8,000 to be precise, of trailblazing women that shattered glass ceilings. In the recent past, outside Kamala Harris’ widely covered ascension to vice-presidency, Zuzana Čaputová became Slovakia’s first female President, and Ana Brnabić became Serbia’s first gay and first female prime minister. Depending on perspective, you could see that number at high or low. 8000 firsts is not really enough, many more glass ceilings need to be broken to come anywhere close to parity. If you are being more optimistic, you could see that as a sign of plenty of glass already broken and tremendous progress made so its only small numbers left to go - that's why 8000...

For women of certain age and history the storyline of Who You Think I Am can feel uncomfortable. It reminded me of single years when J was little and how I tried to date men under conditions that made a real relationship an impossibility. My reason was that I had to be present for my child as I was the only parent she had and if that presence was impaired in some way by a serious relationship then I would fail at my primary and only job.  Truth is that being alone was hard, I longed for company and love and more. My efforts to deny myself all that did not always serve J well but no one could have talked me out of that entrenched way of thinking about what was right and wrong for my family unit of two. In the movie, the character of Claire is mentally absent while physically present for her sons - it is uncomfortable to watch how that works out for the children.  Even more uncomfortable to know that there were days in my child's early life where my worn out physical presence w...

I am hanging on to my car which is going to a decade old soon because it does not bristle with technology that I don't want. Given my options in the market today, not sure if there is a path for a buyer like me to get a new car that leaves them alone . I don't much like the sound of where cars are headed: How would you feel about paying $5 each month for the ability to lock and unlock your car from a distance through an app? What about a $25-per-month charge for advanced cruise control or $10 to access heated seats? What if those charges continued long after your car was paid off?   As vehicles become increasingly connected to the internet, car companies aim to rake in billions by having customers pay monthly or annual subscriptions to access certain features. Not content with the relatively low-margin business of building and selling cars, automakers are eager to pull down Silicon Valley-style profits. But unlike with   Netflix , you won't be able to use your ex-girlfrie...

I am not sure what to make of this piece of analysis that got folks buzzing on LinkedIn (that's where I first saw it). The data used for the story is here and the analysis is a classic case of manufacturing insight. The Axios story claims to have spotted a trend with CD sales based on the numbers in that industry report. There are two take-aways from the author CD sales grew to $584.2 million nationally last year, up more than $100 million from 2020. By comparison, 2021 vinyl sales increased to $1 billion annually, up from $643.9 million And CD Sales increased for the first time since 2004 The graph shows a decline percent of CD sales from 2020 to 2021. It went from 4.0% to 3.9%. The other data point that the author ignores in the analysis is the huge spike in total revenues across all categories from 2020 to 2021 - the rising tide lifted all boats and that contributed to the higher revenue from CD sales despite the drop in % of the total revenue contribution relative to total. T...

Being the bridge generation between my parents and J is complicated business. There is very little they have in common to hold a meaningful conversation. They default to acting like she was still in kindergarten - that is the last time they probably felt comfortable with her and could relate to her world. They started to see each other less over time, J lost the language skills she once had with them and her life changed in ways that is hard for them to fathom. These days I feel like I am translating between two foreign languages using the usable parts of my language that both sides can understand. Every attempt demonstrates my limited abilities. Neither side is much closer to comprehending the other.  Reading this story about India's first blockchain wedding was oddly comforting. I cannot imagine this couple has parents or grandparents who can understand what this is all about. As time goes by, the marriage will settle into a steady state and start resembling other marriages incl...

Nice article about the benefits of gift card balances to Starbucks (or any other purveyor of in-store gift cards). When J was in middle school, the single most popular birthday gift seemed to be gift cards. She got plenty of them and was prolific about giving them out too.  Lack of planning and bit of laziness might have contributed - last minute this was likely the only choice. Kids were coming in from different elementary schools and had limited history which each other so coming with a personalized gift idea was harder. Many a time, we would make a mad dash for the grocery store right on the way to the birthday party so J could pick up a card, chocolate and the gift card.  The ease of trading gift cards made them popular too I guess. Someone with a Starbucks habit could trade the other person for a card of the same amount from a store they would never shop at. All the benefits of money without exchanging any cash - a good old-fashioned barter economy but the tax implicatio...

I never understood why any parent would let their baby cry and not hug and soothe them.  The pair examined childrearing practices here and in other cultures and say the widespread American practice of putting babies in separate beds — even separate rooms — and not responding quickly to their cries may lead to incidents of post-traumatic stress and panic disorders when these children reach adulthood. The early stress resulting from separation causes changes in infant brains that makes future adults more susceptible to stress in their lives, say Commons and Miller. Despite our efforts to comfort our babies and be there for them when they are hurting physically or emotionally, we cannot ensure that they will be able to withstand stress that the real adult world with throw at them. They will struggle with decision making, make bad ones that make them unhappy and against their better judgement do things that are not in their best interest. As a parent you ...

I hope I am in the 10% here for eating healthy . For me that has meant shopping for produce exclusively from ethnic grocery stores - we have one here that caters to a diverse set of ethnicities and is my favorite place to browse and learn about sauces, spices and condiments. This place carries an assortment of fruit, vegetables and greens so its possible to create some variety in our meals. If my only option was the larger grocery chains, it would be a lot harder. There is not enough to work with given what I grew up eating. People stay with what they know as a baseline and add new things to it. Without my favorite grocery store I could not have established the much needed baseline where I can combine comfort with eating healthy. With that, it is possible to venture further afield and try new things that are also good for me.  It may well be that a lot of people in this 90% set are unable to establish a baseline of healthy and comfortable with the options they have easy access to s...

Reading these lines from You're Leaving When ? made me smile:  I was drowning in doodles, sketch pads, and DIY manga. The walls were already decorated with favored pieces. Ezra was talented, but no Picasso. Even Picasso’s mother might have had the same thought when culling the most precious of his childhood drawings: “Pablo’s talented, but he’s no El Greco.” J's childhood artwork can be found around the house specially in my office. Some of the pre-elementary production was repurposed into collage or compacted in other ways to preserve. The abundance of the early art is indeed a challenge to deal with.  The book is a breeze to read and though the author's has more than her fair share of troubles, she is has a fantastic sense of humor about her situation and is also very self-aware:  As is typical, when faced with a truly important decision, I approached it with all the planning of someone fleeing a burning house. I’ve made several major life decisions in this way—moves ac...

There are dreams we remember upon waking up and much that we forget. Some linger fleetingly in that place between sleep and wakefulness. To be able to record and replay all of that could reveal so much about who we are. The researchers now want to look at deeper sleep, where the most vivid dreams are thought to occur, as well as see whether brain scans can help them to reveal the emotions, smells, colours and actions that people experience as they sleep. Dr Mark Stokes, a cognitive neuroscientist from the University of Oxford, said it was an "exciting" piece of research that brought us closer to the concept of dream-reading machines. Maybe having access to such technology would get us to focus inward, try to answer the question "Who Am I?" instead of wasting our lives trying to keep up with friends and strangers who over-share about their lives while taking care to edit out the flaws and blemishes to the point the most mundane moments in their day project the level...

I first heard of Maus when J read it in school. It definitely made an impression on her and she highly recommended I read it to. Sadly, I have not so far but now in light of the ban , I feel that an obligation to do so. When I first read about the ban, I made a mental note to ask J next time we spoke, what might have prompted it, but learned about it on my own: ..Maus  was awarded the  Special Award in Letters Pulitzer Prize  in 1992, the only graphic novel ever to do so to this day. Alas, these merits weren’t enough for the McMinn County Schools board, who voted to ban the book from their eighth-grade curriculum due to its use of swear words and a naked illustration of a mouse. Spiegelman himself says he is baffled by the decision and even referred to it as an “Orwellian” measure.  I had imagined far more complex reasons than a "naked illustration of a mouse". Following that standard, innumerable illustrated children's books will be prime for the chopping block. Onl...

Watching The Tender Bar was the uplifting experience I needed after a hard week. My problems faded away as I got immersed into the story. The character of Uncle Charlie was my favorite. It takes one person like that in a child's life to make a real difference. He is able to pull the main weight of the void in JR's life so the surrounding cast of characters can do their part to move this kid's life in a positive direction. Without Uncle Charlie things would quickly fall apart. Yet he carries his significant responsibility and influence on JR's life with a deft, light touch. And that makes all the difference - his words of wisdom have staying power, he is able to navigate his nephew with an ease that parents would find enviable. The forces of adversity shaped the literary talents of this writer. A normal, suburban family upbringing would unlikely be able to produce the same outcomes. The grandfather was an interesting character too - depicted as not being generous with h...

Such a great idea for these two women to pool their resources for the greater good for their kids . Ofcourse any number of things can go wrong but for them to be brave enough to try this is amazing. Being a single mom should not entail not being able to build home equity and financial security. What one woman could not afford alone she can with the "platonic spouse". When women pull together and help each other out real magic happens.  I wanted to live in a familial community. Furthermore, I knew it was possible. When my marriage fell to pieces, I vowed to be open to unique opportunities.  Serendipitously, one of my closest friends shared my "commune dream," and she had separated from her husband around the same time I had.  A failed marriage does not have to destroy all hopes for home and family for the kids impacted by it. I have been there for the longest part of J's childhood and have a keen appreciation of what a child's can lose out on for no fault of ...

I was able to fit a walk in between meetings right around the time students from the neighborhood high-school head home. It was interesting to see the evolution in their clothing choices during the pandemic. Many paired the PJs with a a fleece or a tee-shirt of some kind. Some girls were had shawls covering them like blankets and so on. I did not see a single kid dressed in the kind of clothes kids used to wear to school even a few years ago. It seems as if after many lock-downs and months spent remote learning, things had changed for good in terms of back to school fashion .  From what I could see, most kids were dressed cozy and took their remote learning wardrobe with few changes to the classroom. Overall everyone I passed by on my walk look relaxed and comfortable about how they were dressed . Back at work, I have not seen most of my co-workers in business casual clothing since the beginning of the pandemic. Athleisure is the the most common dress-code. Even when meeting with c...

What a perfect treat to watch The Red Balloon . It makes the viewer want to return to childhood, relive that ability to find magic in ordinary things. It was easy then to imagine stories and characters from stories coming to life, being part of the here and now. Pascal find a loyal friend in a red balloon and to a child that is the kind of magic they dream of and so its completely possible. The storyline is amazingly simple yet captivating - the child and the balloon become friends and inseparable.  The other kids act in envy reminiscent of adult behavior - they can't befriend the red balloon like Pascal so they will not allow him his unique friendship. The balloon dies a sad death towards the end of the movie at the hands of its tormentors but Pascal wins even bigger. This is story is for kids and has the suitably uplifting end. For the adults jaded by the harsh realities of life, it is an invitation to imagine what if. Best half hour I have spent on a screen in a very long time. ...

Picked up Coders after a pause and chuckled when I read this line : Clara Jeffery, the editor in chief of Mother Jones noted in a tweet, “So many Silicon Valley startups are about dudes wanting to replicate mom.” It’s also a symptom of how coding has evolved. The way Clive Thompson describes it, there is method to the madness when it comes to the nature of apps being created The blizzard of “do stuff for me” apps is what you get when you populate a tech hub—San Francisco—with a plurality of young men just out of college, and give them the tools of optimization and geysers of money for start-ups. The odds are high the “problem” they’ll decide needs most urgently to be solved is the re-creation of the conveniences of dorm and home-life—where everyone prepared their meals, cleaned up after them, and ferried them around in vehicles. If instead of privileged boys replicating their mothers it could be about the rest of the world making interesting and useful things. Such a cohort of builders...

The story-telling in The Space Barons is engaging and offers interesting insights into why the commercial space companies came into existence. Millions around the world are fascinated by space exploration, science-fiction, the possibility of life beyond earth yet only a handful have the wherewithal to convert that fascination to a commercially viable venture. This book is about that ultra select minority and the origin stories of their space companies. Much closer to the earth and for way lesser mortals there could be some useful lessons to learn. If you are able to hold on to a big and impossible dream close to your heart for a very long time, chances are you will make the incremental moves to be able to give that dream a shot at reality. It does not have to be about colonizing Mars. There are other dreams that could feel just as outrageous when adjusted to the scale of the person dreaming that dream. These men stayed tethered to their big dream and found ways to realize it. That was...