Category: Personal

  • Weekly Notes 26/2026

    Sun, 22 June 2026

    I had fallen off from using my Bullet Journal since I went to Kerala. I had hoped to revive the practice on this day. I couldn’t.

    I have started thinking again about my usage of social media apps. I am increasingly using Instagram more than X or Mastodon. Many of the people I follow on YouTube have also become more active on Instagram. One of the reasons I remain on X is because most of the space ecosystem hangs out there.

    I am also re-evaluating my software licenses and payments made to them.

    Mon, 23 June 2026

    Kunal Shah announced that he was joining WhatsApp as its Global Head on X. The statement specifically says that Meta will not have access to CRED data (which could include firms under it like Kuvera, an investment app).

    This has me worried about software dependencies which I had been thinking about since Sunday.

    Vivek Raju’s comment also on X was interesting. He spotted something:

    A common trend seen among loss-making tech startups is their founders being to looksmaxx around the time profitability kicks in.

    This sounded like a strategy similar to that Chris Camillo mentioned in an episode of MyFirstMillion podcast. Camillo says that he looks at TikTok and social media for signals about companies to invest in given that financial data does not give everyone enough leverage in picking stocks.

    Talking about investments, Saurabh Mukherjea has a video out promoting Marcellus’ Multi-Asset portfolio, in which he suggests a portfolio that invests 20% each in Nifty 50, S&P 500, Debt, Gold, and Cash.

    I also heard a nice talk by author G Madhusoodanan in Malayalam about living a life when we are surrounded by so many crises around us. He has a book called Life in the Time of Polycrisis that comes out in July 2026.

    Tuesday, 24 June 2026

    Suresh Menon talks about the origin story of Kamla ka Hamla which used to air on 93.5 Red FM.

    I wrote a post with the highlights from a talk that Kunal Shah gave at the Groww Investor’s Festival.

    I realised that other blog posts are also pending and hence I started work on the blog post about the return from Palakkad to Pune.

    Thursday, 26 June 2026

    I mostly worked on getting the details into the blog post and focussed on work.

    I am watching a series called Vikram on Duty along with my family. It releases 4 episodes each Friday. Each episode is just 25 minutes long. The crime investigation episode suggests across 3.5 episodes. The last 0.5 of the episode is the start of the next investigation. Vikram gets all the clues and solves crime single-handedly despite having three sidekicks. Some of the episodes involve some funny scenes like catching an international drug kingpin using nothing other than child lock in the vehicle.

    Friday, 27 June 2026

    I started the day with news that Om Malik had died. I have read Om on and off over the years. I really enjoyed reading his long form pieces that were thought provoking and changed the way I looked at the technology world. I really liked Matt and Arun’s writing on his passing.

    We watched and completed Made in India: A Titan Story which talks of the story of the birth of Titan, the watch brand. Dhanya found it quite inspiring.

    Saturday, 27 June 2026

    I finished writing the post about the return journey from Palakkad to Pune and posted it on the blog.

    These are two series that I enjoyed watching on Instagram:

    One talks about a boy learning from and playing chess with his father.

    Another series that I watched was on architect Laurie Baker. I had read his website in 2007 when it was hosted on Geocities.

    She also talks about a slum rehabilitation project that Baker undertook in Thiruvananthapuram.

    I am really enjoying not just reading but watching about these projects.

    I had finished watching Person of Interest on Sunday. I then went ahead and caught up with the episodes of Vikram on Duty. I have caught up with all episodes released on Friday. We then watched the Titan story on Friday night.

    I watched the Tamil movie Karuppu and did not enjoy it.

    I read 7 Steps to Financial Freedom by Maneesh Taneja. It clarified some of the concepts that were not very clear but I found it an okay book.

    The Pineapple Elaichi Book Club that I am a member of announced a read-along of The Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson. I got the Audible copy of the first book The Way of Kings. I will be listening to this on my drives to and from work.

    I still have to figure out how to write these Weekly Notes.

  • Weekly Notes 25/2026

    I have nothing to report this week. The upcoming week is exciting, though.

  • Weekly Notes 24/2026

    It’s been 20 years since I registered on WordPress.com.

    7 June 2026 Sunday

    I decided to change the way that I write Weekly Notes into these daily paragraphs inspired by reading this. I wrote the Weekly Notes 23/2026 in this format. Let’s see how long I can keep up. Friends came over to see our home.

    8 June 2026 Monday

    Kids were both unwell. We asked the friends who had come over on the day before if they were OK. It helped us to narrow down what could have caused the issue. I Googled 6 7 and learnt about a neat little trick that Google does. I found out Shubha Mudgal has a Substack.

    9 June 2026 Tuesday

    My wife celebrated her birthday. We had a small cake cutting ceremony in the evening. We had an intimate event.

    10 June 2026 Wednesday

    I learnt that Malayalam actor Salim Kumar had passed away. Read this article on his life on X among other tributes. I also read a blog post about the evolution of Marathi. Nidheesh M K wrote about how a video posted on YouTube ripped one year of his hardwork. I also read about face fatigue written by Shephali Bhatt.

    I learnt about the original jugaad.

    11 June 2026 Thursday

    A nice look at @zenrainman’s garden and water management system.

    12 June 2026 Friday

    I went for the periodical medical test sponsored by my workplace. I also made my way through the ശ്രീ ലളിതോപാഖ്യാനം (Sri Lalithopvakhyanam) as told by Sharath A Haridasan.

    13 June 2026 Saturday

    The US Government blocked access to Fable 5 citing national security. Companies and people that were planning their businesses around the access to AI are worried. There still seem to be hackathons in India that support Claude and OpenAI. I don’t understand this. Isn’t it better to contribute to open source foundational models rather than closed foundational models?

    SpaceX IPO went live. Elon Musk became a trillionaire and Gwynne Shotwell became a billionaire.

    I agree with Sandhya Ramesh when she says that the space for humanity era is gone.

    But, true for many other things.

    Many people have pointed to the writing of Shankar Sharma. This video summarizes many of his writings about stock market in India.

    He makes some very interesting arguments – innovation falls as the country gets rich off the stock markets, Indian retail investors are giving exits to foreign equity investors (and so, the money is not getting re-invested in India), retail investors must not be so active in the stock market, and foreign investor exits must not be as easy as it is presently.

  • Met Thejesh

    I sent an email to Thejesh when I realised that both of us would be in Kerala at the same time, though in different nearby districts.

    After breakfast at 24h Coffee House outside Hotel Indraprastha. Image: Thejesh GN

    We decided to meet at the Palakkad Fort and have breakfast at the restaurant of the Indraprastha Hotel thereafter. He said he would come with family. I only got my wife along.

    I think I first read Thejesh’s blog when he was writing his many Open Source projects and writings. My Weekly Notes were inspired by his Weekly Notes.

    I thought our conversation would be around this. But, our conversation centered around family, travel, work, micro-grants, and history.

    He spoke of how the Weekly Notes helped in conversations with family and friends. They got updates from his Weekly Notes. But, his wife was frustrated because when she would give an update, their family and friends would have read about it already on the blog.

    We could not go inside the Fort as it was a little too early. We walked to the circular coffee shop outside Hotel Indraprastha and had breakfast.

    Both my wife and I enjoyed the company and the conversation. We also got a mention in one of the aforementioned Weekly Notes.

  • Weekly Notes 23/2026

    My weekly notes have been very weak. I have not been able to keep up with the practice in the last few weeks. My last weekly note was Week 15.

    Sunday 31 May

    We drove back from Palakkad. We started from Palakkad at 5:40 AM in the morning and reached our hotel room in Hubballi in time for dinner. We enjoyed the evening in Chitradurga – it was windy, overcast, and there were windmills. I learnt that hotels makes the kids stay free but does not provide them with a bed for them.

    Tea-break at Chitradurga. Image: Pradeep Mohandas

    Monday 01 June

    We continued our drive from Hubbali and into Maharashtra. We reached home in the evening for a late tea. My arms and legs were paining and hence, we only ate food and went to sleep.

    Tuesday 02 June

    I returned to work. It was nice to catch up with colleagues. Some colleagues were still away on their own summer vacations. In the evening, we realised that we still had to put in new practices for us in the new home.

    Wednesday 03 June

    Saurabh and friends had come over to Pune to meet Aarya and me. His PoV of the visit is here. I had very interesting conversations here .

    Friday 05 June

    The kids got the first chance to decorate the walls with their own colour. We had expected this would happen but not so early after their return.

    Saturday 06 June

    Rakesh ettan and I went for the STC India’s celebrations of World TechComm Day. We were in the team that won the first prize in a quiz competition. Our wives and kids got to spend this time together.

    I got the scooter back from its pre-Monsoon checks. I changed out the wipers on the car and had it ready for the Monsoon as well.

  • David Epstein on Constraints 

    Brett McKay does a good interview that gives you a clear idea of you want to decide if you want to buy a book or not. 

    David Epstein was on The Art of Manliness Podcast on the 1117th episode of the podcast.

    He talks of the power of constraints by contrasting two companies – General Magic Company, where there were no constraints and Pixar, where there were many.

  • WordLand again?

    WordLand has improved a lot since I posted here earlier.

    I am on vacation in Kerala and that is the reason for my pin-drop silence here. 

    I hope WordLand helps me post again.

  • Weekly Notes 15/2026

    If you create a Wikipedia page, you’ll see many red links. Red links represent topics that should have pages but are not created yet. Nowadays, Wikipedia mainly links to existing pages, and there are not many red links.

    This week’s Weekly Notes will have a lot of red links today but will get filled in as the week goes by.

    We completed three Ashtavinayaks in the circuit after Siddhivinayak, that I had written about last here. These were Ballaleshwar, Varadavinayak, and Chintamani. We have now completed 5 out of the 8 temples that makeup the Ashtavinayak circuit.

    Cover of the book, India and the Second Space Age. Courtesy: The Hindu

    I contributed one chapter to an ebook that was put together by The Hindu, called India and the Second Space Age. If you are a digital subscriber to The Hindu, you get this and many such wonderful ebooks for free. You can also buy it from them here or from Amazon.

    I donated a bunch of books to the public library in Pune. These were fiction and non-fiction books that were read by my family members including my son.

    Major news from this week include NASA’s Artemis II mission around the Moon generated some interest and not a lot. People were definitely worried about the war in West Asia. ISRO also did the Integrated Air Drop Test. India achieved an important milestone with the criticality of the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR).

    I asked, “How often can I write blog posts?” on social media. No one answered. So, I asked Gemini. Gemini said a post a week was professional and a post a day may make it look like you’re desperate for attention.

    Most blogs I follow have a lumpy posting schedule. Many posts around the time when they travel or when things happen and then several days of silence.

    As time has passed, I also notice this silence in their social media presence. I guess life happens during these periods of social media silence.

    I hope to write about these in the upcoming week while also celebrating Vishu, our New Year’s.

  • Weekly Notes 14/2026

    Many, many drafts have been sent to thrash before this one got published. Many incomplete unsent drafts of Weekly Notes of previous weeks. I do hope this one gets published.

    At work, I was completing a work project that turned out to be not so urgent. I kept the pace through this week so that my part of the work is complete.

    My 3.5 y.o. son started going to school for Nursery in a school bus. Like anxious parents, we went behind the school bus in a two-wheeler. He cried when he got into the bus but settled down after a while. We went on the second day as well.

    My daughter’s final exams are on. After this, she will move to the same school as my son.

    I did consume a lot of media, but I’ve put all of those on my link blog at pradeep.space.

  • Weekly Notes 08/2026

    The week started at a low. I read this blog post by Arun which picked me up. This is the second in a four-part blog post about his family trip to Kanazawa in Japan. I would call it a photoblog. The descriptions below the image are not about the image but the camera sittings he used to take the picture.

    I was trying to do a project at work but did not get around to doing it till the end of this week. I got a lot of work done, though.

    Rest of the week was consumed by recovering from the cold and cough last week and the intrigues surrounding my daughter and her friends.