journal

Happy New Year! As I’ve grown older, I would want to imagine that I am growing wiser. However, its more the case that I have more experience of things not turning out well. I am not just talking of high stakes risk, reward scenarios, but also the mundane straightforward tasks that we all have to perform from time to time. An example from a recent experience may help clarify: a regular oil change service that I reserved time for, and on the day spent 30 minutes queuing, and finally being advised that due to the rush, the shop will only deliver back my car in the evening (spoiling my weekend plans)!...

A trip down memory lane: the year was 1998, and it was my first ever exciting फ़ौरन trip! The destinations were right out of a romantic Bollywood movie: France, Switzerland and Italy. It was an official trip, and I was without Nidhi. Vanya wasn’t even born yet! I had a blast visiting various french towns near the quaint town of Saint Genis Pouilly, my company’s office. Paris’s siren song called to me, and on a weekend, all alone, I decided to visit the romantic city....

Beaches in winter have a charm that is hidden away by crowds that throng them in the Summer. You get to experience the vastness of natures bounty, and feel as if everything is on display exclusively for you. There are forensic remnants of a jostling summer with lots of cramped footprints, lonely beach facilities with scary warnings of riptides, secured lifeguard cabins, nearly empty beach cafes and cheerful shops hunting for patrons....

Vacations are a change from routine, and are a great time for reflection. With current medical progress and innovation, we have access to effective medicines for fatal and debilitating diseases. Our health span is also largely under our control based on our lifestyle. An exception to this control is genetic influence and unfortunate accidents. I realized that on average: \( yearsWithoutParents = ourLifespan - ageOfParentsWhenWeAreBorn \) \( ourLifespan \thickapprox 100 \)...

It took 2 tablets of 200mg ibuprofen and 30ml of dayquil to fight the flu. Total impact: miserable, tired, stuffy nose, headache, 2 days of missed work, self-righteous indignation, and a call with an advise nurse. The final amount of sweat and lifting of a dead weight from my head are signs of hope. Yesterday, after a nightly flush of saline spray and flonase (with a slight burning sensation the whole night), I was able to sleep till 4:20a or so....

2022 is the year of the flu. Multiple vaccine boosters and shots did not make much of a dent. So far, I’ve successfully navigated Covid in June, stomach flu again in June, and now going through a bout of cold/ cough/ allergy/ flu in December. Without the modern marvels of Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen, the headache and or suffering would be terrible. Flonase and Saline spray decongest the nasal passages. It feels blessed to live now, and not even 100 years prior....

Cavorting in union square is always nice, especially in the fall. Macy’s Christmas tree and the ice rink set the tone for winter festivities in the bay area. Nightly showers created a minty fresh city sidewalks, and the California Sun provided a dollop of sunshine. Luckily on this Sunday, locals prevailed, so the place was not chockablock with brusque photo shoots. Hunting for a restroom is always challenging, but we lucked out in Macys....

Cybercrime is up, up and away. However, our systems to deal with it remain antiquated and wishy washy at best. A good example is our old staple of banking system - the check book. The entire finance and banking system has check as a dying vestigial organ in the modern mobile world we live in. So, how you may be wondering is this actually a problem? Three simple pieces of information can help us understand the fraud:...

The quintessential american dream of a white fenced single family home is alive, well and thriving in Silicon Valley. The melting pot of incoming immigrants buy into the dream, and crave to conform to the luxurious life style painted by the media and their social circle (no doubt influenced by facebook, twitter, nextdoor, ..). However, California and Silicon Valley welcome immigrants, but not construction. Housing is in perennial shortage. The infamous NIMBY rules strong (bad), and coupled with environment protection measures (good) severely limits capitalism’s capability to meet the demand....

Hosting costs are dramatically down. Companies not only offer free hosting, but also offer free publishing workflows. The only tangible costs remaining are domain name purchases and renewals. Setup Buy domain name: I purchased desilifeintech.com from namecheap for ~$7/ year. Choose a hosting provider: I liked using Cloudflare’s Pages, as it provides a free tier. For this to work, I had to switch my domain registrar (namecheap’s) nameservers to be Cloudflare’s nameservers....