Heartcrossings

I discovered Scratch when J was in elementary school and got her started on it - to play and make things with. In her case the curiosity and fascination was rather short-lived - started strong but the drop off came just as quickly. She's one of those that never took a real interest in coding - it reminds me of me in some ways. I atleast tried, had a mix of success and failures before deciding this was not for me. J came to the conclusion without taking any of those intermediate steps - a sign of the time perhaps where gratification and feedback come about very fast. The reasons that the author cites why Scratch may continue to grow in popularity make sense:  ..browsing projects shows you what’s possible. A kid begins by playing games, starts to get curious, and next thing you know, they’re changing the code to give themselves extra lives. It believed this to be true myself but did not see J take that leap from the early stages of familiarity, curiosity and game-playing to wondering...

Saw this story recently and could not help thinking that I would not score one of those free tickets - but it would be a great to see more small public service give-aways like this one. If not a free ticket atleast a small discount or even reward points for effort. Same idea like Sweatcoin except it could be less intrusive. Little incentives like this one to make people get a bit more fit adds up when calculated across the population.  Fitness always pays off and the Indian Railways, under its initiative to promote the culture of fitness among the people, wants you to save your hard earned money. As little as only thirty squats can get you a free platform ticket at the Anand Vihar railway station in the national capital now as part of the railways' Fit India initiative. In a first-of-its-kind scheme, the Indian Railways has installed a squat machine at the Anand Vihar station and 30 squats in 180 seconds in front of the machine will generate a free platform ticket. I can't see...

All around me I am seeing the push and pull about returning to the office . In many situations no one is insisting that you do but rather leading by example that you are not beholden to follow. The argument that working from home can be more efficient and productive does not hold much water as this author points out. Everyone understands the costs and inconvenience of needless travel back and forth but the powers that be don't care so much about the drop in productivity. To me it always seemed like an issue of control - see the person face to face for a fixed period of time everyday, focused on Office business no back and forth dance between Work and Life. Without such control, the worker's proclivities become difficult if not impossible to fathom.  Back in the day when I went to a physical office every day, I was always able to see the signs of a person on their way out months before they actually resigned. Sometimes multiple people demonstrated those signs and it was clear to...

Watched The House of Gucci recently. The story is made for the movies and a testament to truth being stranger than fiction. Everyone in the cast seemed to try a little too hard to act Italian and somehow missed the mark. De Sica movies  get the ambience exactly right without going overboard (from the perspective of someone foreign to the culture). In that regard expectations from the movie fell short.  It is the kind of difference I would experience as a desi watching Slumdog Millionaire as opposed to the nuanced works of Nihalini or Benegal They all speak to the Indian condition but the manner in which that story is told makes all the difference. A lot of local folks have asked me over the years about Indian movies and I have done my best to steer them in the direction of the masters and often successfully.  Those gripes apart, it was an interesting movie just on the weight of the plotline. Any story that commands attention as this one certainly does, it leaves the view...

The idea of being in a state of controlled hallucination makes you wonder what that means for the art of the possible. We take in the same scene but the highlight reel looks different for each one of us. Say a group of friends as sitting on the beach, each person would focus on what matters to them - the setting sun among the clouds, the rhythm of the waves, the birds flying around, the children splashing in the water, building sand castle and so on. Depending on where the person's center of attention is, the scene would look quite different. So when one person points out the a dolphin sighting only a few others are able to tune in to see the fleeting vision. The rest miss it. This is not about hallucination but more about perspective. When aggregated over a life time, perhaps we develop our own versions of the world, our truths and lies about it.  “Experiences of free will are perceptions. The flow of time is a perception.”  These lines from the article are very relatable. I...

I was forced to live apart from J for over a year when she was a baby. That experience stands out in my life for how dark and depressing it was. To this day, I wish the clock would turn back and I would have those precious months I missed with her - this time in a way a mother in a normal family situation might have it, the way I imagined my early motherhood would be.  What I would give for memories of more touch from my baby who is now a grown woman living her own independent life. When I read this article I was not able to relate at all - it fades away in a flash, that time when you are your baby's center of the universe and their comfort object. “The fact of the matter is that not many mothers are prepared for the developmental—both the physical and psychological—changes during the transition to motherhood. The touched body, the degree and frequency it is touched—how much and how often—is not even imagined as a potential stressor until it happens or reaches a crisis,”  Nev...

Indian businesswoman Barbie seems like a hit based on the reviews. Would be great to see it taken a step further, the power suit traded for a beautiful saree. A lot of powerful Indian women have worn sarees and looked like perfection in them - grace and power come together. I would love to see that look on a Barbie - the saree become acceptable as business attire for an Indian woman no matter what part of the world business takes her. I have had a lot of male and female coworkers encourage me over the years to break glass and wear a saree to a business meeting - set the standard. If only I was that bold.  While I have appreciated the sentiment and the show of support, I have not been able to travel the distance. Wearing Indo-western clothing is as far as I have made it and chances are I have reached my limits - its where the sweet spot lies for me. Being comfortable in my own skin, expressing my cultural identity and still being able to blend in with the larger crowd. That said, I...

In the last couple of decades there has been a lot of talk about following the digital exhaust of consumer behavior to better learn their needs and wants. Better yet, be ready to fulfill those in anticipation. Yet, the simplicity of this idea to meet the customer where they are shows empathy, creativity and commonsense.  ..the United States was engaged in World War II. Americans who were not on the frontlines made sacrifices so the soldiers could have provisions. All available cotton and wool was diverted to the war effort. Desperate for fabric for clothing, homemakers crafted clothes out of the cotton sacks. The flour sack dress became a common, and trendy, outfit. Everywhere you looked there were flour sack dresses. There were even sewing competitions where women would go head-to-head and show off their sewing skills. These dresses were a way for rural women to show off their fashion sense all while being frugal. Flour sack dresses were all the rage up until around the 1960s. To...

Missed this piece of news while being inundated by stuff all around - at home and work. Customer data tracking is butting up against a raft of regulations these days and as I customer I am very much in favor of not being tracked.  The advice for businesses  is simple "..  start working on finding other ways to track consumer data in a way that is safe and follows privacy laws". In real terms that means establishing an upfront "contract" with the customer you want to track. Show them a sliding scale of value in return of information collected. No data collection no value, highest data collection, highest value.  Let the consumer decide where there appetite for giving up privacy fits and what price they are willing to pay for the value. I personally found the in-home Covid tests fairly intrusive in terms of data being collected while not doing enough to understand the patient's infection and recovery in the context of their profile, medical and travel history. ...

Watched Antardwand and it was a sad experience. Having spent a good part of my growing up years in what is now Jharkhand, the cast of characters felt realistic and that compounds the miserable after-taste from the movie. This is not meant to be entertainment and no one wins. The treatment and social status of women is a big part of the problem but the emasculation of sons by the patriarch is the other. They have no power to do what is right even when they are well-intentioned. The system is designed for submission to the will of the highest ranking male. Everyone's fate hinges on that man's ability to be human. In this movie we see two that simply cannot summon themselves and wreak havoc on the lives of many.  They make bad decisions without remorse or consequence, willing do anything to prevail - have their word be the final one. Looking at this bizarre way of life now far removed from it in time and distance, I had to wonder if all this was not the result of cripplingly low e...

I had Covid a few weeks ago and travel a long way back home after that. By now this is so common and routine that it goes without remark or attention. When I tested positive, my thoughts turned to people close to me that died of the same thing - just a year or so ago. It was not quite as mundane back then. It was sobering to consider how much timing mattered in life.  Loss of smell and taste to the point of nothingness was deeply unsettling for me until once again I recalled the deaths of loved ones. I also recalled my former co-worker M who was got Covid in the early days and has yet to recover her sense of smell. That is well over two years now and she has learned to make peace and live with a handicap. I was close to losing my mind in days.  After things turned to normal, I am trying harder than ever to be grateful for all that went well for me - not being forced to put myself in harm's way, having the ability to work from home, being able to recover without much difficulty...

Finally finished watching Ozark, it had been on our list for the longest time but four seasons felt like a big commitment. Much has been written about the show and everyone has their own perspective. To me it was a story about putting family first. The operating definition of family must of course adapt because only so many people can be put "first". The fringes of the family unit will not experience the protections afforded by the "family first" doctrine. And so it happens that a ex-husband can get roughed up so he is more able to fall in line, a couple of uncles are electrocuted and a brother is left to be disposed off by a hit-man. There are many such family units in the show and they all follow the same guiding principles for the most part - do what is right for the family and the rest does not matter.  Right is always relative and mileages vary a great deal. These stories and sub-plots unfold in view of modern society that is deeply cynical. There are no conse...

I had a female boss who wore her vulnerability like a suit or armor. When people first encountered her they saw that as different and bold for a woman. Men and women agreed that F was not a weakling just because she dared to project vulnerability- she could fight like the best of them and win. Not everyone felt comfortable with her over-sharing but they grudgingly respected that she could without feeling in the least awkward. Sadly that winning streak came to and end recently. Her reporting structure changed and her new manager who came from outside the company (an uncommon move at that level for this organization), had earned the reputation of being petulant and temperamental like a child in his prior roles. When I heard about F's new boss through the grapevine, I knew this relationship would be fraught.  F and this new guy needless to say did not hit it off and in a few months she was gone. It was interesting to observe how the consensus opinion of F's controversial managemen...

I would be more a "periodical" reader than a book reader these days but good to know that every little bit of reading helps.  When traveling, I am always curious about books people are are reading in planes, trains and buses. A high schooler on her way to a state level sports competition was seated next to me recently. It was heartwarming to see her reading a physical book for the entirety of the five hour flight, no distractions by phone or wifi (even though it was freely available). She was in a zone with the copy of young adult fiction and close to the end of the book by the time we deplaned.  I had been that person when I was her age but the ability to successfully immerse in fiction faded over the years until I its all but impossible now. It probably has to do with lack of uninterrupted time in daily life - getting into the zone used to take me several hours and that was part of the joy of reading fiction. Easier access to movies that tell the story in a shorter period o...

A robotic replacement of a pizzeria is a sign of the times I suppose. Food service workers have been underpaid and overworked for the longest time. For a bit, wages crept up due to labor shortage but it also prompted automation. There is a sweet spot for cost vs quality of human rendered service compared to automation. If this becomes the fate of pizzerias and more, it would mean the balance has titled in favor of robots . If the quality of the finished product is on-par with the human made equivalent, then for many it will make no difference that a robot made it.  This is specially true if the quality of service provided by the human staff was nothing to write home about. The customers would trade the hassle-free interaction over the dubious benefits of humans processing their pizza order. I can think of a dozen establishments where the customer may have a better experience without disgruntled staff serving them. It is unfair to the workers in the the short run but one would hope...

A robot that could take over household chores could be great for the elderly who want to live independently but are not quite able to take on all the work that comes with it. My parents are able to take care of themselves so far and have not had any domestic help for a couple of decades. It was an unusual choice in their social milieu back then and they are still in the minority. They have managed by dividing tasks between themselves and acquiring a few appliances. To them that beats hiring help and dealing with everything that comes with it. I asked them about their opinion of this story on Salon about the plight of domestic workers in India . Their position is that while those stories in the report are likely accurate, things can look very different for the elderly and vulnerable. They could be at the mercy of the domestic worker and can be abused in many ways. The fact that being a domestic worker can be the only source of livelihood for so many people is a problem that has yet to ...

I met the group of people I work with after a year of having been part of the team. The first day was awkward, the second was better and the last day was a relief - both to have had this chance to see people in person and to also have it over with. It was with very mixed emotions that I left my intense foray into "normal". The a different sort of reality was shaped in the last couple of years where the person slides into the virtual behind a screen showing up only sometimes on camera. The intensity of the in-person interaction could be a little much to recoil from and return to the quiet, secluded zone. I was very glad to have performed my obligations and being able to head on the flight back home. I might not be alone in the sense of disorientation in the wake of an event like this one which used to be very routine back in the day. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), 79% of employees had experienced work-related stress in the month before the survey, w...

A  few days ago, we woke up to a loud thunderstorm with huge lightning flashes. Majestic and scary sight with a dark and brooding sky to match. At some point we realized that the basement might get flooded given the vigor of the downpour. It was already late by then and we spend the next couple of hours to contain the water. Then just as suddenly as it had started, the rain was gone and the sun came out shining bright. If we had not been at home or if the flash flood had lasted much longer, we would have had a big problem on our hands. This is a well known problem but the solutions are not quite smart and connected as one would hope. Any number of water leak detectors exist in the market and there are a variety of pumps that can take care of a flooded basement but as with many problems in the world, you have access to the pieces of the puzzle but have to work out your own solution.  The event brought to mind Mrs. T with whom had lived as a house guest for a few months decades ...

Good article on the gradual "demise" of classical music . Many reasons could be cited for this but the author argues the main reason is :  .. the near-total inability of post-World War II America and Europe to produce more than a small number of classical works that any normal person would want to hear. That failure is slowly killing classical music. You can’t expect the public to remain engaged with works of the distant past if the present doesn’t produce anything interesting. Today’s concertgoers are not antiquaries; they, too, no less than music lovers in centuries gone by, want to enjoy and rave about the latest thing.  Maybe people who love classical music don't appreciate modernism. Its "classical" or a reason. If new music is produced that has the qualities of what old composers wrote and yet had certain novelty and sense of being in touch with the times, it is likely aficionados would enjoy it. Big events have come to pass even apart from the World Wars....

I remembered my grocery list too late and Walmart was my only option by then. At the checkout lines that evening was predominantly Afghan. I live close to the neighborhood in my town where refugees arrive are helped by a number of community and faith-based organizations to establish in America. So seeing a bunch of young Afghans at the store was no surprise. There was only one among them that could speak English. The young man who was checking my items out had to match the item to a picture and he truly struggled to get things right. Behind me the line of frustrated and impatient customers was growing. The woman right before me had waited a long time as he struggled with her debit card. The English speaking friend was summoned many times during the process.  It took forever but I was done. It had been a long day and I was not expecting my quick grocery run to take this long. I am sure the same was true to others there waiting behind me. As I put my things in the car and drove home,...

Watched The Phantom Thread recently. The characters may not be average but the complications of the relationships are such that the average person can relate. In a healthy relationship there is smooth and easy back and forth transition of power. One person does not hold it the entire time but they get their fair and equitable turn. Things turn unhealthy when the transitions are no longer painless and without struggle - when power grows in one person at the cost of their partner whose only role in the relationship is to cede it. The greater the skew and unfairness the higher the level of toxicity in the relationship. This story is about all that and yet how equilibrium is forced in the situation is rather unique. It reminded me of my cousin R who is only a few years older than me and had been bedridden for years - a tragedy the family wants to look away from because no one has a solution for what ails her. The husband oscillates between caregiving and ignoring her. We have to wonder if...

Always a fan of Photoshop never an owner of the product, this is exciting news for me - a chance to play with a fair set of the features in a free online version . Getting your prospective buyer used to a great product is the perfect way to increase the odd that they will buy. I was an early adopter of Tableau Public when they launched in 2010. I grew to love the product as I used it and with a year convinced my employer at the time to buy two licenses.  I have converted many over the years to Tableau and some have gone on to become power users bringing adoption in their organizations. With Photoshop going democratic, many of us who had been on the sidelines admiring the software but unwilling to buy will jump at the chance to learn and experiment. Chances are many will convert to paid customers. Wish this had happened a long time back but better late than never.

No surprise that a Chinese smart coffee maker collects data quietly . It would be ironic (but entirely plausible) that the same data will get sold to an American data aggregator that can now learn new insights about you by mashing your coffee drinking and behavior around the kitchen with your bank transaction data to glean some unique insight. They could find a way for the smart speaker in your car to take real-time action on such "insight"  The Chinese coffee machine case "provides evidence as to the scale of the data privacy issues as more [Internet Of Things] IOT devices are adopted by consumers and businesses," says New Kite Data Labs.  "IOT devices are widely known to suffer from widespread security shortcomings that are not generally covered by security patches ." Once such data collection practices become ubiquitous most consumers will stop caring. It will be the cost of having "conveniences" using smart devices and people maybe willing to...

Love the idea of converting fallen trees into beautiful furniture . I did not realize all these trees were destined for the landfill: ..people are incentivized to dispose of trees “as quickly and cheaply as possible,” says Christensen. On top of that, there’s no established network to connect the arborists who manage tree removal with local millers who could take them off their hands. In a quest to create a closed-loop, circular model, Cambium uses software to connect both parties and help millers track, sell, and manage their inventory. This process could work for the trees that are cut pre-emptively to prevent them from falling over the roof of a house and causing damage for instance. Recently, I replaced some old light fixtures with modern more energy efficient ones. For days, I stared at the old fixtures hoping inspiration would strike and I would find a way to recycle them. It felt wrong to throw them away. Sadly, no ideas came to mind and after a month I donated them to the l...

This post  about the protests in the wake of the Roe v. Wade leak (now a reality not just a possibility) reminds of the documentary on the subject I had watched a while ago. The justices at the time did not have to content with protestors demonstrating outside their homes and assassination attempts, but their decision making was influenced by family members . The fact that it is possible to sway the decision at all no matter which way the pressure comes from makes you question if the bedrock of the justice system, It is supposed to be objective, unbiased and unprejudiced. Clearly none of that is true.  In our neck of the woods a local judge got a grand send-off on his retirement which puzzled many in the community because his record was very far from stellar. His claim to fame was that he dispensed "holistic justice". Some of his decisions ended having terrible outcomes for individuals and families. Reading about these rulings in the local papers back when he was still on the...

Watched In a Lonely Place recently. The story is about love and fear, set in a time when societal norms were very different from what they are today. As the plot unfolds, the modern viewer must find a way to parse out the element of time and find the kernel that is story - a flawed man who is attractive but volatile in love with a kind, sweet-tempered woman. She loses power in the equation as soon as she falls in love - is no longer being wooed and pursued.  The more she entangles herself emotionally, the greater her loss of agency and equilibrium. Dix Steele played by Bogart acts out in proportion to the woman's closeness to him. Dix needs a therapist well before he needs a relationship with anyone - but those were not the norms of the times. As his agent puts it - anyone who wants to deal with him needs to take the good with the bad. There was social  (and even medical) acceptance for behavior that would be considered outrageous today.  The dynamic between Bogart and ...

 For a woman to decline marriage is still hard in India. This "first" of its kind marriage in a great act of courage. I was not familiar with the word or concept of sologamy  - the concept is logical at some level and not at others. It begs the question of what is the operating definition of marriage these days when society allows for a variety of  "non-traditional" unions. To gain acceptance as another kind of marriage, there will need to be strength in numbers. If even say 10% of single women described their relationship status as "married to myself" it would no longer be something that could be ignored as some sort of distortion. For the longest time people have been described at being married to their work for instance. It would be the hyperbolic way to describe their degree of engagement with said work if the person was married and had a family.  Under those circumstances, one would conclude that this person valued their work over everything else in ...

 Listening to this quote by Theroux during my walk recently was most timely "the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run". The audiobooks I listen to can be a hit or miss, but some authors generously share the wisdom of others (such as in this case) that make it worth my while. In the context of my present life where I am pursuing goals for no defined reason other than that I don't know what else to do, am too afraid to stop without knowing what is next. And unless I stop, breathe and think I will never know what is next and so in a classic Catch-22, I will never stop to discover what is good and right for me. In the meanwhile, I am expending copious amounts of this thing called life. The minutes and hours will all be consumed in the pursuit of things that do not hold intrinsic value for me.  In my younger years, I was never one to shy away from risk or choose not to do things because ...

I would not know the difference between a dead father and an absent one. My father is thankfully still alive and if anything he was always hyper-present in my life. I have swung between resentment and gratitude for all that he has done and not done for me.  It is far from the perfect relationship but I cannot imagine a world where he did not exist. If a person has grown up experiencing an absent biological father and the death of the adoptive one, that can create a void that nothing can fill. I have seen this up close and reading this essay helped me understand what it feels to be in that person's shoes.  The loss of an absent father is complicated. It doesn’t always dominate, the way grief over a death might. It’s something you trip over, often when you are least expecting it. I have seen some of this tripping up happen. A kid learning to ride the bike with his dad, a movie about a strong father daughter bond, an inside joke between a father and his adult son, a dad helping ...

In the last week, while traveling abroad I met a few American families with daughters around J's age. The had either done a study abroad program or are currently doing their masters in Europe. Consistently, the young women do not look forward to returning to the US. They are doing what they can to stay on - they see the quality of life as being much better overall and specially for a woman now.  One young lady told me she does not want to waste her life trying to fix what is broken in America - this coming from a law student with interest in constitutional law. Instead she wants to take care of her own life and find a place where she can live without having her rights taken away one by one.  She described it at as a level of broken that can no longer be fixed in one lifetime. This conversation was extremely reminiscent of those I had with friends in my college days - just about everyone agreed that there was no way to fix India and certainly not something they would put any ef...

It has been an intense few days getting my house in order. The detritus from times past needed cleaning up to make way for the here and now. Once I got started, it became impossible to stop until that degree of order had been achieved. Something that would make the past go away like a bad dream, dredge out every last shred of it and leave things clean. When I embarked on this purge journey, I had no idea what "done" would look and feel like. It was supposed to be one of those - you know it when you see it. The first day it was over ten hours of work with some short pauses. My appetite had completely disappeared by then. The next morning, I was back at it and with lesser intensity but still plugged away until midnight. Day three saw me sore and spent from running on fumes. The job was just about done but not quite. Dropping of the remains of what had once been my life to the thrift store was the final step in the deep detox. That was also the first time I experienced any feeli...