Blogs

Everything below are created during different time frames but are added to the site at once on Sep 2, 2019.

I am not a voracious reader. In a sense that I can read any number of random articles/emails, but when it comes to books they have to be 'enough' interesting for me. Also I am not a fast reader and don't race through books. In fact if a book is interesting enough, I can literally be on couple of pages for hours or even days! I savor it and enjoy extending the read. I sleep on it, sometimes even taking the meaning of this phrase quite literally and at heart! 

But some authors have managed to interest me a lot with their powerful, yet genuine thoughts and writing that somewhere aligned with my thoughts (or rather frame of mind) when I read them! Ayn Rand in past and Yuval Noah Harari recently! Both have tackled quite dry subjects well, even with their elaborate, descriptive yet captivating writing!

Though Yuval Noah Harari is a great writer, his idea of 'fiction/myth/story' in his books seems to be taken from the book 'Ishmael' by Daniel Quinn, where he refers to the grand story of earth as we know of, is the story told by 'Takers' of planet earth and not the complete story! This book was written long back in 1992. 

These three writers (though Ayn Rand handles a different topic) are very logical in their reasoning and are great at their knowledge/understanding and writing, yet nobody on earth (among humans) will dare to accept them fully as they kind of shake the basic foundations of 'our living'! That doesn't mean those foundations are ideal/real, but just that nobody knows what it means to discard those. Ayn Rand at least provides some alternative idealistic world view, other two authors don't provide any such new foundation.

In fact, I sometimes feel that the individualistic view Ayn Rand talked about actually quite resembles the way our hunter-gatherers (aka 'Leavers' in Ishmael) lived or other species on this planet still live! (although it may sound counter intuitive if you blindly classify Ayn Rand as just pro-capitalist) 

Hunter-gatherers or other species on earth hardly co-operate on large scale by creating myths/stories! They interact with few others that they think are appropriate 'as and when' they need to to find food and mostly live on by their 'own' abilities! In fact human myths (not just about capitalism, but about collective, even including agriculture) are the major reason why 'other' species on earth are disappearing and humans suddenly are becoming aware of this fact as it may create future imbalance for us. And there it goes! We already started telling a new story 'for ourselves' about environmental imbalance! But as long as the story foundation is told by 'Us' (that is 'created by and for humans') there is hard luck that it will benefit 'Others' and create true balance (or may even avoid a future catastrophe)!

Disclaimer: Don't know why, but I had fun writing this post. Felt like joining the dots of very different/random subjects or solving a puzzle!

Caution: This post may not make sense if you haven't read above authors. So in that case, ignore:)

-- Prerana Kapase 

साड़ी प्रकार सोज्वळ/साधा/सभ्य आणि जीन्स टीशर्ट comparatively असोज्वळ/असभ्य असं categorize करणार्या किंवा तसं नाही केलं तरी मनातून कुठेतरी असाच समज असणार्या महान लोकांवर मला काय बोलावं कळत नाही कधीच ! So I end up pitying either my perspective or their! It just reminds me of the analysis (म्हणजे चीरफाड़) me and my sister have done on this subject a long while ago. We used to call it 'हवेशीर बंगला'! Reason -- सगळी कडून open! Plus to keep it that way for multiple layers of cloth around you especially in hot weather, you need to have material that's very thin. In extreme cold weather, no matter how thick the cloth is, you will feel cold because of the innate faulty design of 'हवेशीर बंगला'! If the material is very thin, you need to always make sure that it doesn't get torn by rough actions. So it's made sure that the person wearing it should always take care and be cautious/restricted/only be attentive to that in addition to huge upfront time lost in wearing it! पोत्यांमधील शर्यतीत असलेल्या पैकी अर्धी अवघड या प्रकारात आहे (अर्धी कारण पोते खालून बंद असते). देवाला वाटूनच गेले असणार आपण दोन पाय देऊन चूक केली, drums types काहीतरी पण चालले असते! लहान मुलांना साड़ी (not stitched ready made one) सुटणे यावर backup plan म्हणुन आतून वेगळाच attire पण घालतात कधी कधी (BTW This can be genuine problem for adults too!) So basically this is a kind of patch work (where most of the work is done by patch) to make a faulty product design somehow work by wearing two attires! 

So the comfort points, convenience points and even the cost points are zero because of the major user unfriendly design compared with simple jeans t shirt! In fact Sari is not actually a dress. It’s just a piece of cloth wrapped around. You don’t have any design thinking behind it! So we decided to end up living in either 'झोपडी' or apartment ;)

Disclaimer: If people feel/advocate about its goodness (including men who often do), they should wear it (again including men). I don't have any problem! I will have problem only when they will expect from others those things either personally or with social/political power/policies!

If I had my own organization/company I would design vacations as follows (for those whose work doesn't depend upon regular vacation days)

One day holiday after every 4 days. And since it will have 6 holidays per month one 3 day holiday adjoining any of these 6 as per your wish!

Advantages --

- One will be able to stay home on every day of week during a month and do their other official work which doesn't happen on weekends.

- You will get more frequent holiday. And short holiday wouldn't make next day painful for some ;)

- You will get a long vacation every month!

It's amazing to see how we are biased about our own background, state/phase in life (and ignore others a bit by ignoring the fact that different people are in different phases and we all go through many of these phases, just not at the same time)!

When we are a majority, we care about ending reservation and promoting meritocracy.

When we are a minority, we care about equal rights.

When we are an immigrant, we care about immigration.

When we are local we care about how great local culture is.

When we are an individual contributor, we care about how difficult it is to implement and perform.

When we are a people manager, we care about how difficult it is to manage people.

When we are a professional, we care about professional success.

When we are a teacher/engineer/doctor etc, we care about teachers/engineers/doctors.

When we own a business, we care about capitalism.

When we are poor, we care about communism/socialism.

When we are rich, we care about top 1%.

When we are a teenager, we care about how right we are.

When we are a parent, we care about motherhood/fatherhood.

When we are a senior citizen, we care about the problems of old age.

When we are sick, we care about being healthy.

Only when we are a kid, we care about nothing! (Or may be politicians too in a different -- non-innocent way, now that I think of it!) 

Customer service is the key to shareholder profit. Peace of mind is key to customer service. Trust, convenience/ease of use, consistency, being economical, ability to resolve the issues/find solutions quickly, handling unique circumstances well are all keys to peace of mind of customer. It's hard to achieve all these in initial stages. But it's far more difficult to maintain the high level of customer service in scaled up organizations. Most organizations either grow arrogant, laid back, inflexible or culprit of mismanagement/dysfunction/lack of touch to ground realities.

Marketing is good as long as you have solid, real, useful product as well to back it up with. Marketing may also work without a good product once or twice. But excessive marketing without a solid product is like anti-marketing and self harming and never lasts long enough!

Customer service which focuses on quality, speed and respect with which customer issues are solved is 10x times better than marketing strategies which try to focus on pushing own agenda/not asked for products! (Latter is even anti-customer when done in excess even after refusal and without doing former as it is truly annoying to customer)

Being yes person is good, though it makes some people take you for granted/misuse you, thins out your resources like time and energy, fills you with other people's agenda and leaves you with dissatisfaction. Saying yes to the things you really want to say no is bad both for yourself and to others. Instead plain No (without excuses/reasons. After all, nobody but you can understand your reasons better) is better in such cases which leaves you with more time for yourself and lot of peace of mind. This is prioritizing yourself over others for your well-being (No, It is not harming others, in fact quite opposite) Being your own best friend, support (financial and emotional), inspiration and source of happiness! Anyone willing to accompany you with this mindset are most welcome!

But though saying No is in your control, how No is received is a bit of societal norm. Societies in which No is said without guilt and received without grudges are much better for all!

There is a fine line between --

Passion and radicalism/extremism/anxiety

Tiredness and sickness

Hard work and burnout

Taking a break and giving up

Creativity and laziness

Optimism and ignorance

Trust and naivety

Joy/fun and addiction

Neatness and ocd

Talking and blabbering

Independence and loneliness

Communication and meetings

Clarity and stubbornness

Motivation/Inspiration and forceful expectation

Being right and sounding convincing

Being good for goodness sake and being good for 'some'thing

Expectation from yourself and expectation from others

I guess all latter things are extreme versions of former milder/better versions. Wisdom is in knowing the lines better and the times when we cross those for ourselves and others.

Why finding the meaning of life (as belief/in unscientific way) is such a meaningless quest and all so called larger than life eternal meanings of life are nothing but fictions created by people!

Excerpt in a book by Yuval Noah Harari (This is quite profound unlike what is sounds like, better understood with some background in book though) --

"A wise old man was asked what he learned about the meaning of life?

'Well', he answered, 'I've learned that I am here on earth in order to help other people. What I still haven't figured out is why the other people are here'."

According to author, many things in world which we assume to be the ultimate truths are really fictions created by humans -- Like all religions (and rituals), commonly understood concept of God, nations, corporations and even money! Personally, I would accept money myth more than anything else. I have lived without these at some point in my life, but out of those money seemed most near to real!

Human quest for meaning often ends in sacrifices!

Excerpts --

"If you want to make people really believe in some fiction, entice them to make a sacrifice on its behalf. Once you suffer for a story, it is usually enough to convince you that the story is real.

When you inflict suffering on yourself in the name of some story, it gives you a choice: ‘Either the story is true, or I am a gullible fool.’ When you inflict suffering on others, you are also given a choice: ‘Either the story is true, or I am a cruel villain.’ And just as we don’t want to admit we are fools, we also don’t want to admit we are villains, so we prefer to believe that the story is true." 

-- Yuval Noah Harari! 

In a true sense, meditation and creation (or production) are opposite things. Meditation involves observing and accepting things as they are and doing minimum things to change the reality while basic motivation behind creation is not accepting things as they are. It involves changing present, inventing new stuff and creating a new reality for ourselves and the world!

I'm happy that the new digital revolution has brought back human activities to those of hunter-gatherer era. How? -- The main activities of humans during hunter-gatherer era were finding/hunting for food and resting watching the nature! The same is more or less true in digital era with the exception of watching to devices! Time framed jobs and too many activities to fit in a day are the product of agriculture and industrial revolution and not natural to humans!

Disclaimer: I'm myself not sure if this post is sarcastic ;) May be in a bit!

It is increasingly proved that AI can be better at jobs that require intuitions about other 'people' than human brain. Does that mean we will get rid of managerial positions in near future?

More importantly does that mean if we had better/near to perfect AI earlier than human imperfections, our life would have been much better today and in fact we would have already solved some insolvable mysteries of today? It's very interesting that any performance is measured only in relation to the existing stuff and hardly in terms of absent/could have been things! The least we could do at each step is always choose the best to reduce the probability of any better 'could have been' outcome!

First statement is based on following --

Human intuitions are basically complex pattern matching algorithms albeit a lot biased, buggy, operating on small data at a time and based on heuristics!

AI which is similar to brain processing huge data, experiences, proofs, reasons, co-relations etc than just plain intuitions based on relatively smaller amount of data.

As Yuval Noah Harari has rightly said –

If AI could program philosophical problems, first time in history you would be able to sue philosophers for their theories, because first time in history there will be direct causal link between their theories and real life events as results!

As Richard Feynman has said – There is a difference in knowing something and knowing the name of something!

(In my philosophical opinion, this is similar to difference between first person experience and third person experience. No matter how empathetic you claim yourself to be third person experiences are never same as first person experiences! But for this post I will stick to software.)

On these lines I felt many things in software interviews useless and have never asked/judged others based on these/such questions! Like what are different design patterns or software processes! As if there are a fixed number and predefined only design patterns/processes (one can very well google predefined ones when needed) and knowing those doesn't tell anything about a person whether (s)he has delivered/has ability to deliver good software! Isn't any design/process which produces robust, quality, flexible, defect free, usable software using minimal resources a good design or a good process? What if such thing doesn't have a standard name? And why put every software/problem through some standard designs/processes?

Sometimes somewhere between waterfall, agile, scrum, kanban blah blah common sense is lost! These are created by and for people who do not want to work productively/in innovative way and still get paid equally. They are either fundamentally innocent to recognize flaws in these or are way too smart to promote these even after recognizing those. Somewhere between bad and worse, good is lost!

Technology specific questions are even more irrelevant as technology change is happening almost daily these days! Problems with having/expecting say 10 or more years of experience in particular technology these days are:

1. These technologies might not be existing those many years before.

2. These technologies might as well be on the verge of extinction and no longer useful in future!

I agree experience matters, but unless it is qualified (in terms of if it's genuine/involves lot of individual effort etc and not just quantified), one needs a better way to assess ability on a pretty basic level!

In such change/google search era one might go back to really computer science basic concepts (even programming questions are weird as no one writes code on white board without search in stipulated time like exam in real production), general intelligence, individual contribution in past experience if it's there for long term hiring! Because if you've done these things, it's like learning a bicycle. No matter which technology/how much gap you will be able to attain the balance quick enough and deliver quality anywhere! 

Interestingly many people who talk about emotional intelligence have narcissist tendencies themselves! They want other people to be emotionally intelligent towards them while conveniently forgetting they need to be the same! They do have fixed stereotypical vision of emotion (which they find right) and forget that whatever is emotional for them may not be emotional for others and vice versa!

It's like never trust a person who keeps on saying 'trust me' or 'let me help you'! Real trustworthy people actually act in the helpful way!

I have a theory. 

We all know that old age is more emotionally painful/traumatic because of two reasons (in addition to getting physically old) -- 

1. You are retired from professional work that (or rather only that) you are doing almost for the whole life and it's sudden change from being too busy to too much time.

2. You suddenly become alone as everyone else gets busy with their stuff!

In theory both of these can be avoided if -- 

You rather retire (not a vacation, but letting it go) frequently (couple of I mean) throughout your life and get used to it. You will also get used to solitude you get by doing so and rather will get refreshed with the break and could/should be able to come back twice the energy. Such break will also enable you to pursue other stuff which you keep/postpone for old age! That way one will never feel old age as a drastic change but a continuation!!!

Prioritizing is not a rocket science! You just need to remember these types of people very well --

1. Those who put/leave you in tough times

2. Those who are with you in tough times

3. Those who help you to bring you out of tough times

4. Those who remember you/expect your help in their tough times and forget you in your trough times

5. Those who have different intentions/talks than their own actions

And yes, this does (or rather should) change with time and experiences! Nothing is constant…

One can keep on arguing about the ill effects of technology, but one thing is sure. There are much more advantages of basic internet with right search/information than disadvantages. I think internet has provided access of information/knowledge to people who are not able to connect with and get help from other people directly (for various reasons like unavailability/inability) This was the reason why in past people who were from well connected (in terms of family/friends/network etc) background were able to advance faster/farther in terms of knowledge and actions based on knowledge. But internet has removed this knowledge dependency on others. Selfie is another example of removing dependency (though it's not actually knowledge dependency). I don't think social media has that much positive impact on lives of people. It's kind of in a weird position of trying to create a online network for connection, but also caught in more ill effects than necessary positive/helpful change!

Normally Home cooking, Street food, Restaurants, Online food delivery are different "Options" for getting your food! India seems to be the only country where ALL the options are overcrowded both with providers and consumers! Sometimes, we might even wonder how online delivery even works given that within a block there are at least 10-15 food joints! I get the population size, still this much? (Also not to forget, many restaurants or even street food options are expensive enough) Is it that we are using all the options at once and increasing our consumption? :P

Many languages have different words to depict respect (I don't know why!). Like in marathi there are completely different forms of words (Tu Vs Tumhi etc) to address someone. I always wondered why it's not ok to call any person on earth with his/her singular (aekeri) first name only without any pre/post fixes (like 'ji', 'dada', 'rao', 'tai', 'mam/sir' etc) in any language. I have a very genuine reason for it. Let's assume you are meeting a stranger. Even if you know the language well, there are many steps you need to do in mind in order to address the person properly --

1. Guess the age, status etc things of the person from looks.

2. Remind yourself of your age/status etc

3. Compare the two versions.

4. Find appropriate pre/post fixes from your knowledge base and apply it.

And even if you do all these things correctly it would still look weird if you (or other person) don't look same as that of your (or their) age :)

Why the hell! :) English is the best easy language imo! (having seen kids finding it very natural to say "Ae ajoba" than "aho ajoba"!)

Barring few rare ones live music programs/orchestras in Pune feel so unauthentic these days. 80% of the sound comes from the background track getting played with lip syncing and other sound enhancement techniques of instruments. Not that I don't like them as I do love music and original songs and with these techniques they do sound more like original (It would be real something creepy to play the tracks and not sound like original ones!) I guess dance programs are much more authentic as they can't really 'fake' (or get support of) it until we have simulated/VR robots dancing in front of us!

Also there is a different kind of fun watching Indian audience attending such programs. If it's not ticketed people are so much concerned about grabbing a good seat that too for the whole gang they bring along as if they are going to do a group activity there which is different from the main purpose that is – watching the show! Yes, they do many group activities there too like continuous chatting, eating, getting out, getting in, waiving for late comers etc! (So much restlessness! And then we take pride in meditation being invented as Indian culture to live in present moment!) And the whole focus gets away from watching the show getting deeply involved to watching the people around;) (There are times when I go for just that purpose too, but not always!) Poor talented artists!

Unconscious bias is a real thing, whether it's school, profession or society. It can be only avoided with conscious efforts and ways!

Indian schools in past being mostly exam based, these biases might be lower but only during schooling not profession or society! (Although they bring out other drawbacks) That's the reason we find equal success rates of girls (rather more) during schooling! May be we are seeing it all wrong – exams aren't wrong ways, it's the ways (with unconscious bias) of society, professions and we are trying to change exams too to make them biased to match norms of the society!

Many big data heuristic based algorithms which boast on being automated impartial algorithms are actually manual too! It all depends upon the biases of the person who codes those or biases forced upon him/her if (s)he is unbiased!

Pure science may be bias free. Applied science most certainly is not! Application is the first and foremost bias!

In India we always are more interested/passionate (in a judgmental way) and also feel more responsible for personal choices of others as Individual like food, clothes, language, other educational and personal choices etc etc. (i.e. anything which is sort of unasked help for individual or any individual behavior which doesn't affect others negatively) However when it comes to rules/norms of society like traffic rules, trashing roads etc (or even when is comes to explicitly asked help by individual or any behavior which affects others negatively) we feel least responsible! This I feel is exactly opposite in US and this is why I call Individualism is better practiced in US than India while we still have lot of mob mentality which is only increasing with time!

There are many benefits if you travel solo and for work/education than as a tourist in group because as a former you get out of your comfort zone and inculcate local culture in a much better way! Traveling as a tourist in group has its own place too. It's more relaxing and fun. Traveling solo for work may not be that fun (for some people) or even relaxing, but it definitely enriches you! Also as a tourist group you tend to take your culture elsewhere as opposed to being in receptive mode for local culture!

Most healthy things are less expensive and unhealthy ones more expensive.

Most healthy foods are not a lot tasty but most unhealthy foods are.

Most healthy (good) people are less pretentious and most unhealthy (toxic) people are lot more pretentious.

Most healthy things are not that fun to do but most unhealthy things bank upon the fun angle!

It's difficult to be wise. Nature makes it pretty easy for you to choose healthy over unhealthy. We make it otherwise.

Interesting book! Confusing as hell.. (I guess I picked contradictions from author ;)) Well, only thing I feel after reading this is -- 'It's such a wonderful thing to watch a football game' ;)! No, it doesn't mean it's bad or I didn't understand it. It's just sad, dark and depressing at times! For some reason, I feel this is nothing but elaborate scientific/logical/emotional reasoning for a simple thing as a wandering/confused mind (which we all know is full of contradictions and opposing views). Why complicate it? I'm of the opinion that it's easier to complicate things but lot more difficult to simplify those. Hence I purposefully try to avoid/ignore things that complicate simple things! Too much extreme thoughts, analysis, comparisons, rationalizations, moralization, only philosophy, confusion are never a good idea to live a happy life! 

Though it's admirable that one can write a whole novel of it! Rather I'm happy that I read this with kind of distantness as possible without getting too much involved in it! (Or may be I developed this attitude while reading) Still certain good excerpts from this are:

– These were technologists themselves. They sat down to do a job and performed it like chimpanzees. The biggest clue behind their bad job was their expressions which were hard to explain -- Good natured, friendly, easygoing.. And uninvolved! They were like spectators. It was like they somehow wandered in and somebody 'gave' them the job to do! There was no identification with the job!

– A photograph can show physical image in which time is static and a mirror can show a physical image in which time is dynamic!

– It looked as though the time spans of scientific truths are an inverse function of intensity of scientific effort!

– You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.

– Workability of the machine is the objectification of peace of mind. If the machine produces tranquility it is right. If it disturbs you, it's wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed!

– Quality is a characteristic of thought and statement that is recognized by a nonthinking process. Because definitions are a product of rigid, formal thinking, quality cannot be defined.

– If the problem of technological hopelessness is caused by absence of care, both by technologists and anti-technologists; and if care and Quality are external and internal aspects of the same thing, then it follows logically that what really causes technological hopelessness is absence of the perception of Quality in technology by both technologists and anti-technologists.

– If you have a high evaluation of yourself then your ability to recognize new facts is weakened. Your ego isolates you from the Quality reality. You're bound to be very discouraged very soon if you've derived your gumption from ego rather than Quality.

– Quality isn't a substance. Neither is it a method. It's outside of both.

– One finds that in the Judeo-Christian culture in which the Old Testament ``Word'' had an intrinsic sacredness of its own, men are willing to sacrifice and live by and die for words. In this culture, a court of law can ask a witness to tell ``the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God,'' and expect the truth to be told. But one can transport this court to India, as did the British, with no real success on the matter of perjury because the Indian mythos is different and this sacredness of words is not felt in the same way.

– My personal feeling is that this is how any further improvement of the world will be done: by individuals making Quality decisions and that's all. God, I don't want to have any more enthusiasm for big programs full of social planning for big masses of people that leave individual Quality out.

– A good student seeks knowledge fairly and impartially.

– We always condemn most in others, he thought, that which we most fear in ourselves.

Given a chance (imaginary!), I would have loved to live in (that is worked in) 70s in Silicon Valley. For some unknown reason, I have a fascination of that era (both time and place) which was mostly electronics-mechanical dominated tech world (Intel, HP) with the beginning of PC! (Although I'm a software person and not much of hardware person)Though having lived and worked in the silicon valley in later times, I don't think I'm that much fascinated by the social media/technology world that silicon valley is today than it was by then!

Mandarin tones! -- Speech recognition would be interesting! It will be instead more like melody recognition!

Among all other challenges in speech recognition and millions of variations, one also will be how to recognize speech of a person who doesn't know the language well. Humans 'somehow' (may be depending on context) manage to understand it!

Most of the people believe in stories first and then do all the things that support their stories in order to support those further instead of other way -- that is doing things and then forming the opinions from experiences! This is the precise reason why intellectuals are more accused than masses by many politicians/collectivists as they question their basic stories itself! Even social media applies same former tactics that masses do unconsciously-- It assumes that you like/believe in the links you click (beforehand! The click is just an indication that you read something not whether you like/approve it) and keeps showing you more of similar stuff! 

Most people do many things in groups because they get easily bored with themselves! And many of them are also in denial to accept that. You can't solve a problem which you deny in first place! I don't consider working in groups as a problem (that's needed), but not being able to work individually at all is definitely one (as that's needed too).

I would say that the willingness to put your cent percent in anything you do without any hidden agendas is the key behind not getting bored with yourself and also behind true happiness! Only when you put your cent percent in something, you can avoid "should have/could have" kind of regretful feelings and can logically and mentally have a closure on something irrespective of the results and move on to new things.

There are people who will show that they listen to you and in the end will do whatever their mind with preconceived notion says even if that's wrong and you try to prove it by lot of valid logic and reasoning! That is ones who listen but with closed mind/already made up mind which in my opinion is as good as not listening. It feels like wasting time and energy! Both your and their! Instead, if they have already made up their mind which they know they are not going to change, they should just go ahead and state it upfront! One would respect that much more!

People who spread hate/jealousy/superiority have zero power as long as people don't think, act in groups! Any group – may it be a group of two, family, friends, community or nation – anything (yes, and religions, castes blah blah if such things exist!) I guess Individualism is the key here! Thinking and acting individually on individual events separately. The reason why many western countries have been peaceful in past, not today as we see rising mob mentality there too because of social media, immigration, globalization etc! I guess Ayn Rand was profound in her thoughts regarding Individualism! People are only courageous enough in groups (Not necessarily always for good, there is an equal probability that a group can do harmful things) There is a common misconception that Individualism means lack of collaboration. In fact it is more/higher order collaboration with others which is absent in within group collaboration along with self reliance and proper respect for others!

Mandatory code reviews as a process unless done by right people makes no sense. I have seen it being used as a tool to block others or convey in some weird way superiority while forgetting the real purpose of code reviews! Good tools and people in control of fools is always destructive!

Additionally code review changes have some valid downsides -- First, code review changes are suggested mostly looking locally at the code and by people who are not able to spend enough time as that of the person who has developed it which can break some test case. Unfortunately I have also seen that at times these are done by people who have not delivered/worked on any released product themselves, which makes it even worse. Second, people fail to understand that the code review change is a code change. One needs to repeat all the tests including integration/regression tests. [Sometimes not worth effort-wise and time-wise considering the value addition by suggested changes] Third and most important, if you have hired right people you should need minimum code reviews and rather should expect more personal accountability. I fail to understand who is responsible if the code breaks after the code review changes suggested/forced? [I have seen this happening many a times]

That time when you try to use two fingers on old photographs (hard copy) and get irritated that they don't zoom!

Similar helplessness as when you try to search something in a hard copy book or try to find out time looking at right corner of the book only to get a page number!

I have a theory, personal one! (May not be scientific) -- You dream more when you have low hemoglobin levels! Or may be your hemoglobin levels become low because you think/dream even in your sleep! But I guess I support former one better. And I'm not talking about daydreaming! (I guess that happens more with full energy/HB levels)

May be our brain gets confused in sleep with less blood supply and causes random neurons to fire as a reflex action to auto-correct the situation which causes dreams!

Dream 1

What's with dreams and lizards? I saw a lizard in dream today. Unh- unh not the regular one, a 'flying' one !!!!! (But without wings and same appearance) That too not flying in 'airplane' (like) mode, but in a 'rocket' (like) mode with upside head and moving horizontally !!! (Science ची एकूणात बोंबच आहे स्वप्नात !!!) And I thought I had seen everything ! Sure, I get weirdest ever dreams, thankfully I don't remember 99% of them. This one woke me up completely with terror to scribble this down in the middle of the night! 

Dream 2

I was in a lead role and creator of couple of very very interesting (I wish I could remember the plots but I don't) Hollywood horror/thriller movies (sequels), in my deep dreams today :) I woke up when actual horror things in those movies start to happen in my real life in dreams! To be exact last thing that happened before my dream broke -- There is a gathering of people who are wishing and telling that they loved those movies and thrilled with a very new type of scary movies and that's exactly certain scary thing from movies start happening from a person present there! That's when I woke up with terror! Waited a while, remembering exactly what happened and started writing this post at 3:40 am.

Really? I do watch many movies in general but I don't watch horror movies (not because they are scary, but when my brain is fully awake I find them boring/unreal/real life people more scary). Then where does my brain pick up these ideas from?

If we can measure levels/value of creative ideas/work, are those creative enough? How is one idea/piece of work more creative than other? It can be more useful, quicker in implementation, adding more value etc etc which are measurable factors! Wondering how creativity assessments are done!

For Artificial Intelligence to completely emulate human brain/way of thinking, our way of thinking must inherently be objective way of thinking which could be represented in 0s and 1s! Even if we assume neurons and chemical reactions in brain do act objectively, it still remains a mystery that in spite of these, most of us are really bad at thinking objectively!

Or may be a very complex objectivity eventually leads to subjectivity! (and then there is no concept of subjectivity if we know what that complex formula is!) That's my objective deduction with real brain!

Many people are unhappy/miserable in their current jobs and still continue making others miserable (knowingly or unknowingly) too – You need to ask yourself two questions, that's all

1. Do you like the field of work?

2. Do you like the people you work with?

If you like the field of work and don't like the people you work with, you can still maintain passion for the field in other ways which doesn't involve same/similar people. If you don't like the field itself technically (excluding people factor) then you have a much bigger problem and it's better to figure it out earlier than later! After all you spend at least one third of your life’s time at your job. It better be spent well with cent percent involvement!(at least not in regretful way)

Once you have these answers, trade off these with your monetary requirements/needs. Hurray !!! That simple;) (not really, but not impossible)

There are often many instances when you experience lack of civic sense in Indian mobs. When I think on this a bit deeply, I find that this is also result of lack of good design and process thinking. When this gets applied on almost 1.3 billion people, it definitely multiplies this civic sense perception (Although there is some truth to basic lack of civic sense as well, but that's true for Indians in any country). Take for example roads/infrastructure/buildings/Side shops etc. In India, most often I see those are not well thought/designed/planned(for future/weather and other conditions) and built, they are just built (to solve a problem at hand by some Jugad! In software terms in scrum fashion :)) Behaviors like vehicles running through random corners/opposite direction/on sidewalks etc are present because those can be done (infra-structurally and law-wise) and seem convenient (at least immediately, again immediate jugad way of problem solving) Of course, people can always take advantage of loopholes if they decide to, but if good (less stressful/convenient) alternative is provided they will also use it. Foreign products are pretty good examples of this. Most of their consumers are Indians, but there are so less India born product companies!

I guess for Indians -- 25% of energy/time is spent in commute (which is vicious circle and in India commute is lot more stressful than that with same time in other countries), 15% on social media, 10% on work related emails, 20% on mechanical work, 10% on lunch/related stuff, 20% on 'supposedly' work related meetings (mostly unproductive) and 20% in handling bureaucracy, hierarchy, egos, status quos and other useless things. I know it's exceeding 100% but when I went back o recheck numbers, they seemed right and then I realized that this indicates that most often people are overworked without right focus/outcomes. Where is the time for real innovation in all this? (and of course our education system doesn't teach it!) Innovation/simplicity isn't a freebie and simplicity doesn’t mean being traditional/nationalistic as well (For e.g. traditional attire like Sari isn’t simplistic at all and has worst or no design!). Real innovation does require resources in terms of time and money.

There are many articles these days about AI, Computers and Consciousness. Sometimes I look at all this in totally different way as:

What we refer to as consciousness is all things which we don’t know about/or know less about. The normal way of thinking is that we don’t know much about consciousness! Here I am putting it other-way! Now lets consider computer algorithms. Not everyone knows in details exactly how they work. In fact these days, with so much distributed nature of algorithms and their implementation, not even any single person can tell exactly end-to-end happenings. In that way Computers are already more conscious than humans if we consider Consciousness as things we don’t have clarity about! In a similar way that some people have more deeper understanding in computer algorithms, some humans may have deeper understanding of real Consciousness as well!

They say -- "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

Evolution makes me feel it should be other way, consider humans and other animals! Humans have progressed (not necessarily in a good way, so can be also called as regressed as well) dramatically fast being more social than any other animals, however other animals have done far better and ecologically considering long term evolution!

Are we taught this incorrectly? Just wondering!

If one supports an idea/policy/person a bit and sees many posts opposing that, one becomes even more supportive of it! Similarly if one opposes an idea/policy/person a bit and sees many posts supporting that, one opposes it even more!

Is social media responsible for creating extremism? (Along with anxiety/stress/depression that arises from endless comparison with others and wanting to have/do everything others have/do)

Were people more rational individual thinkers before social media?

Just wandering thoughts and data analysis without software! (I mean just using brain/with gut feeling)

[P.S. This is going to confuse personalized context based feeds algorithms a hell lot, especially self improving algorithms or do they confuse us ;) OK.. I should stop now!]

When you have footpath it should be meant for pedestrians and pedestrians only. Not for trees, post boxes, lamp poles, random electric wires, small shops, parked vehicles, people driving on it from behind you (in completely wrong direction, nor that it matters) and turning and looking at you arrogantly or with the expression "are you deaf" when you intentionally try to ignore their honking! (my first response is "what the hell you think of yourself" and second bit calmer response is "I wish") Isn't it too much expectation about the rare places we have footpath! Oh, and they need to be walk-ably clean! (Utter ignorance on part of pet owners!)

[Disclaimer: I understand the real physical limitations, but everything can be considered as an excuse or an opportunity to find better alternatives depending on how you look at it]

These days I wonder how many people will keep on doing what they are doing if they are told following --

- You will not get any fame in terms of social media (likes/followers/clicks) or real social/family life. 

- You should not post anything what you're working on.

- You will not get any power over others to make/affect decisions for them even if you think those are selfless and good for them.

- You will be free by yourself and will also get paid fairly.

Things to ponder! If money is an addiction/evil thing, what are these other things?

One needs to have a clarity on what makes them happy and then do that thing not as a ‘favor to others' or ‘for others' but as a thing 'for their own sake'! (Given that it doesn't harm some others/keeping in mind basic civic sense or rights of others) It is equally possible that the same thing doesn't make others happy! Why force your own choices onto others? Most often things are not 'for others' per se! They are for self-interest in some form either money, power, fame, respect, social status, fun/satisfaction, security, connection etc. Something is favor only if it doesn't return any of these or a person receiving return is not interested in these! While ‘for others’ concept brings out chains of expectations and unhappiness, ‘for self’ brings out peace!

90% of the social problems/wrong attitudes towards others are created because people operate in blind mobs based on various things and ideologies and are quick enough to label/judge 'others'. And then when those problems take ugly form or start affecting themselves same people try to solve those problems by creating yet other social service groups motivating people for change in their attitudes :) What's the point? (Except personal benefits)

In software terms, this is similar to giving credits to people who try to solve maximum number of issues (count) without looking at the root cause of issues of why and how they occurred in the first place and whether could have been avoided. I know from software experience that people do intentionally create problems as well/don't solve root cause just to make sure that their defect/issue solving rate looks good or they have some work to do! (You will understand this if you have carefully analysed any software defect tracking systems in past and you know the development side of issues)

For years, information was relayed in the form of one way communication in form of books, articles etc. Then came social media, group chats where information is exchanged in multiple directions. Former communication has implicit assumption of checks in place to make sure original information is valid, however it's not fast to relay neither is easy for people to remember it/act on it. The latter communication type is kind of gossip protocol. Here no-one ensures correctness of information, however it's dispatched with tremendous speed and has tremendous ability to manipulate people (that is people remember this kind of information better). This is the secret of why world seems to be/is in mess today with fake information/news because although the information is fake, the effect it has on world is quite real and no one can escape that effect! Seems scary!

P.S. Though I feel that this trend will soon reverse as more and more people (at least among intellectuals) are finding books, informative sites/articles better than memes, forwards, random groups etc

I have a fear! This is about technology, but not in the usual sense of technology taking over us. A bit different. Our generation (born after 70s) has created enormous code and systems that will need to be maintained. What if future generations by and large are not interested in coding per se and are interested more in something different field altogether? (I do see such large group as well!) Will our ecosystem collapse and have an apocalypse? As we know technology has already reduced the diversification of work types, here it’s one more level inside. Everyone may end up in having to do coding! Is this really a good thing? Doesn’t our brain require diversity in activities?

I would not have imagined/feared this few years back, but as they say when you step away from something/some group you can see a larger picture or the downsides of the group. Realistically, even people who have done coding many years want to change/alter after a while, so current generation will not be sufficient or last for ever! I can see people already promoting coding for kids/youngsters etc. Is this the real reason? We should at least build robots capable of running the current system without human intervention :)

I do believe that the technical interviews do bring in a very good talent, especially during the entry level jobs, I really do. But the same does not apply for positions (even with similar responsibility) for experienced hires. This has a very simple reason. The technical interviews are exam types, while after few years you are not used to it and also don’t remember everything/are not required to. This can be checked very well by the fact that if the same/similar technical interviews are conducted for already employed people within own organization, I am pretty sure they will not do good as well. Apart from this, technical interviews are sometimes a nice way to get some free ideas from candidates in form of coding or otherwise. I remember people asking for ideas for enhancements to their products which is nice to assess creativity but not so nice when they actually take those ideas for free, implement those and sell it to customers!

We all know empathy means putting ourselves into other person’s shoes. On these lines I find it funny to think what really happens when both people involved are empathetic towards each other? Does that effectively mean putting our own shoes back? :)

Everyone is trying to compete with others, I'm trying to compete with myself

Everyone is trying to be seen, I'm trying to disappear for a while

Everyone is trying to reach somewhere, I'm just trying to enjoy the journey or even be idle at times

Everyone is seeking more, I'm seeking less but truthful/meaningful

Everyone is trying to learn something new, I’m also trying to unlearn somethings

Everyone is damn sure about most of the things they believe in, I'm just getting less and less sure about the things I know.

Everyone seems to be searching for happiness, I just feel happy

You can buy training. You can't buy skill.

You can buy degree. You can't buy education.

You can buy travels. You can’t buy experiences.

You can buy/copy ideas. You can't buy ability to generate those.

You can buy position/status. You can't buy respect.

You can buy knowledge. You can't buy wisdom.

1st level myth-Money lasts

2nd level myth-People last more than money

Truth-Nothing lasts forever

Random thought -- I guess schools/colleges have curriculum that's wrong for age (or may be for STEM students)

What if they have --

- Mostly Arts (Drawing, Dance, Theater, Singing, Other creative art forms for making stuff), Languages and whatever math, science is necessary for these till 6th grade

- Mostly STEM education, Vocational skill development for next 8-10 years [whatever arts (creativity) you need to understand these should have been taken care of previously]

- Mostly Social sciences after age 20 (History, Geography, Economics, Political science) when you actually can understand these better and need these:) [whatever basic math, science, arts you need to understand these should have been already taken care of previously]

Motivation behind this -- I don't remember social science studied in primary/high school (also not sure about its relevancy today) and I have a feeling that in primary one would enjoy and remember art works the most. And about middle years, you are anyways screwed here, so why not math, science ;) [Disclaimer: I really like these subjects, but this is not about me. The general observation is people are afraid of math, science!]

When the internet is down you suddenly seem to get more time to finish more pages from a single book as opposed to reading random articles on net. Also all of a sudden you at least realize that your house is messy and you should probably clean it! (Whether that happens in reality is a different story ;)) And of course you get lot of time to stare out of the window instead of staring at the screen window! Above all you feel like you don't exist yet get some nice peacefulness (except on few occasions where you can't do important things)

When the net comes back you suddenly feel alive and also get to write such posts ;)

The image we have about a person we met in past is time specific, static and personal, whether we hate, love or respect it. 

Over the time the person changes and most importantly we change too. It is illogical to assume/expect the same person if we happen to meet the person in past again, especially if we are meeting after a long gap and are unaware of his/her experiences. It's not worth to cling on to the same past image we once had. All we can do is meet a person as we are meeting a stranger and reset our timelines at that point! 

Change is the only constant…

While the world is moving at an exponential pace with technology thoughts come in our minds --

With use of machines humans became physically weak.

Now with intelligent machines humans are fast racing towards cognitive weakness!

Thus we are left with weaker bodies and weaker brains and lot of free time!

And so machines takeover human race! Simple enough! Not sure if we have already passed the stage of putting on the breaks if at all they do exist!

If innovation means incremental changes to products that are already successful in market and invention means completely new/breakthrough products then there should be more predictability in innovation. 

But innovation has different meanings and most importantly different rate in different fields. So not always incremental changes are considered as innovation. Many a times completely new/breakthrough products are considered as innovation in which case predictability is harder. Also even if one is doing incremental changes with all right predictability model, there is always a risk that someone else comes up with something new altogether which makes even the incremental innovation irrelevant! I guess incremental changes are like fixed income investments while new breakthroughs are like stock market investments :) Both have varied amounts of innovation and predictability!