Category: Personal

  • I wanted to share this Instagram post from the_blueboat. This is about a 3 hour journey between the districts of Kottayam an Alapuzha through the Vembanad Lake.

    The first service is at 6:45 am, that the_blueboat recommends for a comfortable ride through hidden villages not usually covered by houseboats and shikaras. The service is run by the Kerala Government’s State Water Transport Department.

  • Helical stepwell of Walur, near Parbhani. Quite a wonder of geometry and constructional precision. Designed in the shape of a spiral galaxy (possibly by observing Andromeda?). Perhaps even a perennial source of water and weather study.

  • An Instagram post on the transformation of Muthoot group headquarters at MG Road, Kochi.

    I hope more companies consider the move from Aluminium Composite Panels (ACP) to Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete (GFRC). I had to look up the acronym GFRC because they never explained that in the video.

  • Week 42/2025

    I underwent another surgery in the first week of October 2025. 2025 seems to be really bad for me health-wise. I hope something good comes of it. I am still recovering from it.

    I have had a lot of time to process as well during this period of illness, as is often the case.

    I started sharing my content on the blog again. I would earlier share this content on various cozy web groups (WhatsApp groups, mostly). I think I will start to post here to get better at tracking what I consume.

    I got on Arattai to know what all the buzz is about. Sai Rahul Poruri had written an interesting article arguing that moving from WhatsApp to Arattai was just about jumping from one walled garden to another. This helped me to get to use Prav again. I am looking for people I can speak to on the XMPP protocol.

    I expressed that I wanted to start writing about space again. That is my first love. Just reposting things on X and other social media platforms just doesn’t cut it anymore.

    Not too much to share this week. But 42 is an important number and should not be missed. Hence, this short senseless note.

  • YouTube – Life Explained in 15 minutes

    There are many such videos online which mainly remix online gyan using AI. This may also have been scripted using one. But, I found the order in which it was said and its tone useful to me. Hence, sharing.

    I think this video has collected the 20% I find necessary to live the 80% of my life.

  • We started off with the New Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV,). Then, there was Lunar Module Launch Vehicle. Then, NGLV was named Soorya. There is confusion about whether the NGLV and LMLV are different vehicles or the same vehicle. ISRO keeps changing nomenclature. This is the latest avatar of LMLV according to Anshuman.

    This is a version with 3 stages, 99.77 m height and 6.5 m diameter. This looks like a version they are developing of NGLV for lunar missions. Just like LVM3 and HLVM3 and hence interchangibly used.

  • Neil Borate shared a summary of the changes in EPFO. Video on X.

  • It is so much fun to read accounts of how blogs which started in the 2000s grew all through the next twenty years. Especially, when they opened doors in formal institutions a decade later for many of us. Read this.

  • Weekly Notes 29/2025

    Reading

    • The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga (17%)
    • The 6:20 Man by David Baldicci (28%)
    • A New Horizons First for Interstellar Navigation by Paul Gilster
      • “Mariner 4 used Canopus, a bright star in the constellation Carina, as an attitude reference, its star tracker camera locking onto the star after its Sun sensor had locked onto the Sun. This was the first time a star had been used to provide second axis stabilization, its brightness (second brightest star in the sky) and its position well off the ecliptic making it an ideal referent.”
      • “…we’ve also just had a first in terms of autonomous navigation through the work of the New Horizons team. Without using radio tracking from Earth, the spacecraft has determined its distance and direction by examining images of star fields and the observed parallax effects. Wonderfully, the two stars that the team chose for this calculation were Wolf 359 and Proxima Centauri, two nearby red dwarfs of considerable interest.”
    • If You Like Public Broadcasting, Be Customers, Not Just Consumers by Doc Searls

    What I am Watching?

    Mukherjea suggests investing 50% in Indian stock market and 50% in the US market for the equity portion of your portfolio which I found interesting.

    New songs dropped from Agam this week.

    Dharmesh Shah mentions many interesting technical notes on ChatGPT.

    Thinking of buying a new car. So, started listening to this on financial rules for buying a new car.

    My son watches this and has caught on many Malayalam words from this one. He has also picked up counting in Malayalam from 1 to 10, saying left and right in Malayalam etc.

  • This is a Public Service Announcement.

    If you use the Airtel Thanks app in India, it is offering free Perplexity Pro for one year. It is available for prepaid and postpaid mobile and broadband customers.