Parallel Spirals

Standing on the shores of space-time…

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  • Weekly Notes 13/2025

    Web browsing

    I left you in the last Weekly Notes with suggestions for two websites to go and visit. I don’t mind repeating the suggestion here:

    I kept following that thread the rest of the week. I started selecting to View Source again. When listening to Craig Mod on The Tim Ferriss Show, I went to his website. I loved some of his in-line comments in the source code.

    Image: Screenshot of source of craigmod.com.

    I guess this is what Code is Poetry meant which used to be written in the top of WordPress admin page.

    This was what browsing the web was about, in my opinion. That is how I want to browse the web again.

    The World of Wikipedia Userpages

    There is also a hidden world of Wikipedia user pages that is not widely known. Other than to Wikipedia editors or contributors. I used to consistently contribute to Wikipedia a decade and a half back and I used to love visiting these user pages.

    I used to love reading L Shyamal’s ornithological investigations on his blog, Catching Flies. I have still subscribed to his blog on RSS feeds. When I got some of his recent updates, I visited his Wikipedia userpage. I loved reading this, there, about the reason for his contributions to Wikipedia:

    The Western Ghats of Karnataka. Blink and this area may have already been destroyed, with ever-widening roads, street-lighting, power-lines, dams, and habitations following well-established and misguided notions of development that are entrenched in the minds of most people. These are the wild spaces that inspire much of my contribution to Wikipedia, a land that supports life and hosts enough wonders to engage everyone, physically and mentally, now and in the future. Incidentally, within this view live floral and faunal elements that represent more than a million potential Wikipedia entries. Converted (or “developed”) into a boring human settlement, it would not produce a single notable person.

    Personal Updates

    My post-surgery recovery is coming along well. The guy who dresses my wounds thinks it would take another 2 weeks for the wound to heal completely. That would put it at a date around the Malayalam New Year of Vishu, around 14 April.

    Many of my family members’ doctors visits were on hold because of my recovery. Those were covered in the last few days.

    Reading

    1. Your Content is No Good Anymore, vadakkus.com

    How AI has changed the way children do homework. Even ones supported by their parents. It is getting to a place where we first get the answer from AI. There is no effort to search. But, as the blog post says, the reward is for the output and not the effort.

    2. Book review of Jonathan Warner’s book More Than Words: How to think about writing in the age of AI, Tom Johnson

    Tom Johnson is a technical writer. He reflects on the roles of humans in writing generally and technical writing in particular, in the age of AI.

    3. When profit trumps principles, Tracy Durnell

    This is what we have come to call a link blog post. It has a set of good quotes that bear repetition here.

    To me, enshittification means that a person who lacks taste was put in a position of power.

    Enshittification as a matter of taste, Dave Rupert

    She writes:

    Scale above all else is the philosophy that both buries us in endless genAI slop and locks customers in to enshittified platforms… and taste is in tension with scale.

    This is something that Craig Mod talks about in his twin interviews with Tim Ferriss.

    It is not just that people making AI slop are spamming the internet, it’s that the intended “audience” of AI slop is social media and search algorithms, not human beings.

    AI Slop Is a Brute Force Attack on the Algorithms That Control Reality, Jason Koebler

    Writing

    Work related writing proceeded at a good pace this week.

    I continued the effort of writing on LinkedIn every Tuesday about technical writing. I wrote about DITA.

    I wrote about my incomplete thinking on note making on this blog.

    I am trying to write using Emacs over the next month or so. I am not that into programming – that’s the reason I use WordPress and Blot and not hosting it on a static website (like I tried to with Hugo).

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  • My Note Making Workflow

    I was wondering during lunch about how I can improve my note making workflow. This thought arose because I have also been thinking about improving my task capturing workflow at work.

    I was introduced to the difference between note taking and note making in a post by Anne-Laure Le Cunff. Note taking is about integrating the knowledge in your matrix and hopefully improving your life.

    I have focussed on note taking so far because I had a hard time getting that under control. My approach changed when I read Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity. The first principle in Slow Productivity is Do Fewer Things. Accordingly, I reduced the amount of content that I read.

    I wrote here earlier about how I wanted to reduce this consumption by considering how I consume social media posts. I wrote here about how I reduced that even further to the blogs that I read. I wanted to slowly repair my damaged attention span that allowed me to take a lot of notes but not make many notes.

    Late last year, I purchased the same pocket notebook that Hiran suggests in how he uses a bullet journal and using his idea of numbering the bullet instead of the pages and using an index. I was able to take more notes in the pocket notebook.

    But, I also like keeping the A5 sized Bullet Journal since I like to write a lot by hand. I started spending more time copying things over from the pocket notebook to the Bullet Journal.

    I did this because my 7 y.o. daughter would raid my empty notebook stack to repurpose it for her own use. The casualty rate of the empty notebooks was quite high.

    At the other end my 2 y.o would pick up the pocket notebook I would be using and treat it as he liked. He would tear it, rip it apart, or colour in it, depending on his mood.

    I found myself repeating the same things when I looked at my notes. I seem to be going through the same stuff or reading authors who seem to be saying the same thing.

    This the process I am now considering as a result of asking the question (refer to the sketchnote at the bottom right for the question), How can I improve workflows for capturing? [An earlier version of this read as, “This is the process I am now considering:”, updated 27 March 2025, 2308 hrs]

    • Write down the note in the physical A5 Bullet Journal or Pocket Notebook.
      • This includes some highlights from books, blog posts, or articles that I read on Readwise’s Reader.
      • This includes some screenshots or notes I take on Google Keep. This is usually when I listen to videos, podcasts or audiobooks.
    • I am thinking of writing these notes at a certain frequency to Roam Research. The highlights from Readwise’s Reader sync with Roam Research.
    • I am thinking of then exporting these notes to my laptop where I am considering the option between Emacs or Obsidian.
    • Since these are text notes, mostly, I hope to back them up to offline storage.

    This is not the end of the story. It has already been 3 months. So, the idea behind this post is to help you catch up with what’s happened so far.

    The next part will drop when I finish thinking and implement the system outlined here.

    Update 1: 31 Mar 2025

    Saurabh hopped on a call with me. He suggested using the Eisenhower matrix to determine importance of the notes and then blocking out time on the calendar to grapple with the note.

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  • My Experiments with ChatGPT and Claude

    I spent January 2025 reflecting on what jobs Artificial Intelligence (AI) would eliminate. It was at this time that news was circulating about astrology apps were doing extremely well while the situation elsewhere seemed bleak.

    These apps had astrologers chatting or talking to you in exchange of money on a per minute basis. The famous astrologers seem to be charging in the region of more than INR 10,000 for 3 readings. The rate increased as the astrologer gained fame.

    I asked ChatGPT to create my Vedic astrology birth chart. It created one that seemed to match the ones created using online birth chart calculators. When I tried it later, it could not generate a chart as a python module that it depended on had failed. It seems to be working again now.

    When the birth chart creator failed, I used the online software to get planetary positions at the time of my birth and fed it into ChatGPT. I then went ahead and asked it questions like people usually ask an astrologer (or how I assumed people usually do).

    It did read the chart and the text incorrectly sometimes and I had to point out the mistake and asked it to revise. ChatGPT’s predictions seemed reasonable with some to very little overlap with my own experience (as was expected).

    After a gap in February owing to my surgery, I tried again this past week while I was recovering. I had two long conversations with ChatGPT based on two prompts I had asked.

    I copied the responses into a text file and made two files from the two prompts.

    I was hearing many things about Claude and wanted to try that out as well, as a note making tool. So, I fed it the two text files and asked it to compare the two documents and provide me the difference between the two documents.

    It guessed correctly that the first document was general in nature and provided large life guidelines. The second document was more specific with timelines and answers to specific situational questions.

    I then asked it to summarize and provide the top three highlights and the summary of the predictions and suggestions provided in the documents. It did a reasonable but not a thorough job of it.

    These were both done on free versions of these models.

    I learnt some interesting things about astrology and its practice during this experiment. North Indians seem to be using astrology to predict career paths, relationship styles, health possibilities etc. South Indians but specifically in Kerala, people seem to be using astrology to solve particular issues in their life as they arise.

    Getting back to ChatGPT and Claude, I liked the ChatGPT use case better.

    I still want to do what Claude does myself. I think and write together. If Claude makes a note out of a wall of text, it has not really helped me understand the nuances of that text. That is where human effort still needs to be applied.

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  • Enshittification as a matter of taste by Dave Rupert (via Tracy Durnell):

    To me, enshittification means that a person who lacks taste was put in a position of power.

    Enshittification is a word introduced by Cory Doctrow.

  • Weekly Notes 12/2025

    I have had a lot of time on my hands since I’ve stayed away from social media websites this week. Most of that time has been spent writing for work.

    I did not do much other reading or writing. I have nothing more to report for this Weekly Notes.

    Take 2: I am writing this at 2240 hrs on 24 March 2025.

    I read the post I wrote above and was not very proud of it. It does a poor job of reflecting how my last week was. I only thought it prudent to fix it, for the historical record.

    Goals have been demonized. They have been confused with or are replaced by resolutions, systems, processes, intentions etc. I returned to goal setting again this week. I set goals with my wife for this quarter.

    Read/Listened/Watched

    Some interesting ideas from this video –

    • India thinks inputs based. China thinks outputs based.
    • Work life balance happens when you have a sense of control over your time.
    • Every January, ask yourself, if you were to be laid off this year, what will you do?
    • Important to channelise your anger in the correct direction when you are laid off.
    • Burnout happens when you lack control or when you are not aware of what role your contribution plays in the bigger picture.

    Some of the lessons learned from this video (these are his final suggestions):

    • Find a sleep schedule that fits your life. Get enough sleep.
    • Move your body every week.
      • Keeps you active.
      • Increases your heart rate
    • Find a productivity system that works and actually stick with it.
    • Practice embracing the flinch.
    • Delete social media from your phone and laptop for 30 days.
      • watch closely how your behavior changes
    • Learn your Baseline caloric intake.
      • Know your macronutrient breakdown
      • He suggested using the myfitnesspal app.
    • Be more intentional with how you spend your time, the things you bring into your life and people you surround yourself with.
    • Stop choosing the default path. Build a life that is uniquely yours.
    • Treat life as one big experiment.
      • Learn about who you are
      • Learn more about the person you want to become.

    Truth be Told has a good post about the two modes of functioning of the brain and the six modes of rest.

    Utsav Mamoria has a great long read about how to live an intellectual life. He uses fantasy as a great storytelling tool to illustrate his point.

    I realized that I love going and visiting websites in their url. Here are two websites that I enjoyed visiting:

    1. Tracy Durnell
    2. Sacha Chua
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  • I keep reading Cory Doctrow’s blog post about making technology policy. 

    The job of government experts isn’t just to research the correct answers. Even more important is experts’ role in evaluating conflicting claims from interested parties. When administrative agencies make new rules, they have to collect public comments and counter-comments. The best agencies also hold hearings, and the very best go on “listening tours” where they invite the broad public to weigh in (the FTC has done an awful lot of these during Lina Khan’s tenure, to its benefit, and it shows).

  • If you look closely, you'll notice the real ones have smaller circles, louder love, stronger integrity, deeper presence, and greater peace.

  • One of the reasons that I like reading Om Malik’s blog is because he puts into words what we feel in our guts, in terms of a trend that you see crystalizing but can’t yet put into words:

    This is just like how I felt when I experienced Google for the first time—even before it had made it to the market. After that first meeting with Google’s co-founders, established search engines like Yahoo, Lycos, and AltaVista suddenly felt antiquated.

    This shift matters more than you might think. Even the browser, that faithful window into the internet for the past three decades, is starting to feel like a relic. We’re moving from a document-centric web to something more fluid, where information flows naturally through conversation rather than being bound by pages or URLs.

    The atomization of information is unfolding rapidly. Artificial intelligence doesn’t just search; it synthesizes, contextualizes, and presents information in a user’s preferred format.

  • Utsav Mamoria has a great long read about how to live an intellectual life. He uses fantasy as a great storytelling tool to illustrate his point.

  • A challenge of blog questions

    Thejesh tagged me in a challenge of blog questions. I enjoyed reading his replies and I have never been tagged in such a challenge.

    Why did you start blogging in the first place?

    I started blogging because I was tired of crafting websites from HTML and I was not good with CSS. I loved the fact that I could choose a background and start writing. The focus moved from making to writing.

    There were times that I missed the making and tried to go back to it. There were times when the ghost of designing got into me and I would spend hours crafting my website. But, I felt that writing is where I should focus my energies on writing.

    What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it? Have you blogged on other platforms before?

    The blog is presently hosted on WordPress. I think the reason is the same as the one above. I loved twiddling the controls behind the scenes of various blogging platforms. I realized, like above, that I should focus my energies on writing. So, I decided to stick to WordPress.

    I have hosted my blog posts on Blogger, LiveJournal, Tumblr, Posterous, Vox, Roller, Ghost, Blot, and finally on WordPress.

    How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that’s part of your blog?

    I write my posts on two platforms. Most of the posts that you read here are on WordPress’ native Gutenberg editor or Visual editor.

    I write some of my posts using WordLand. I am using this tool to write the posts in my Status Updates category.

    When do you feel most inspired to write?

    Whenever I am not sleeping. I don’t think I can survive without writing.

    Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?

    I usually only read once more after I complete writing. I let my thoughts simmer before I write the draft.

    What’s your favorite post on your blog?

    Some of my posts that I love are about things I do with my daughter (1,2) or ones about note making or Indian Philosophy.

    Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?

    I am twiddling with the controls in the WordPress admin panel all the time. This is based on curiosity and not on anything as sophisticated as a plan. Making a blogroll is an area of interest.

    Who’s next?

    I want to tag these people not because they would take part in a challenge like this but because I would love to hear about how they write and think about the art of blogging.

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