We are heading towards Onam next week. It will be our first Onam in our new home. My wife, Dhanya may not be able to celebrate because someone from her family passed away. Celebrations will be muted.
Work
Work was slow this week. I returned to office physically. I realised the importance of the core muscles was necessary in serving myself tea. I also found some trouble sitting on swivel chairs.
Reading
I continued reading towards the Second Interlude of The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson.
I caught up with a lot of newsletters on Substack, many email subscription newsletters, blogs I was following on my feed readers.
Writing
I setup Zo Computer to send me a lot of prompts. I thought a lot about those but did not get around to writing any of them.
Hiran told me last week that he was re-structuring the notes page on his website around bound notebooks (styled after Twone notebook cover). While you’re there, you can also enjoy browsing his website (like the good old days).
I started writing in Obsidian about how I was thinking about finances.
I put Neelathamara back in storage. I am using Karuthamuthu again. This is a laptop that came pre-installed with Windows 11 that we purchased for my daughter during the Pandemic. I am back on a Windows PC.
I’ve posted many of the things that I watched and wanted to share with you on a link blog on Tumblr.
I wanted to write a daily summary of my day this week. Specifically, because August 8 was BuJo Day. I learnt about Bullet Journal and the practice in September 2015.
This does not mean that I have a neat pile of notebooks from September 2015 till today. I have written and then abandoned Bullet Journals. I have a few partially written Bullet Journals lying around. I have not been consistent in the last two years. I have not written the whole of last week until yesterday.
Since then I have added a pocket 3.5″ x 5.5″ notebook to the writing practice. Both practices have evolved.
I did not read much this week because it was not the first thing that I did. It slipped through the cracks. The only progress I made in reading was in The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings (35%).
I wrote a lot this week for Blaugust 2026 (almost a post per week) including a short story.
2 Aug 2026, Sunday
I was listening to Sharath A Haridasan’s talk on the worship of the various forms of Devis in Kerala. He says that worshipping the Godess (whichever be her form) must be similar to worship of the child to her/his mother. Children do not think about philosophy before calling their mother. They share with their mother both the good and the bad.
He also shared many stories of people’s experiences praying to their Godesses and I have no explanation for why they left me crying.
We met the surgeon who advised the recovery protocol. The hospital visit was completed quite quickly. I returned to work. Dhanya had a busy day managing the two kids’ various assignments. The rain did not help.
05 Aug 2026, Wednesday
I re-discovered Mark Manson on YouTube where he has been creating really long videos and videos of intermediate length. Once you admit to yourself that you are getting old, then this video is really useful.
Dhanya and I spent the evening watching the Malayalam movie Anomie. We followed up by watching The Pirate Explains video of the same.
07 Aug 2026, Friday
I got a notification saying that 08 August was Bullet Journal Day. I visited Hiran’s digital garden again to see if he had changed the way he writes his notebook, and found that he had.
As I browsed through his Notes, I found this line which really resonated with me:
This is why systems emerge through use, you can’t design a system around what you haven’t measured yet.
I spent quite some time reviewing my use of Bullet Journal. I have moved to a two notebook setup. I use the smaller notebook as a rough notebook.
I also got a copy of the first copy of The Hyphen. The book came in a slightly wet envelope that seemed to carry the memories of the Monsoon. I am not so sure that I will hand over this book to the public library, though. It is so well done.
Dhanya and I watched Governor about the 1991 incident of India pledging its gold for assistance from the International Monetary Fund.
I read this in James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter:
Clarity isn’t about knowing what you want to do with your life. It’s about knowing what you want to do this week.
09 Aug 2026, Saturday
I spent the day lazing around. I didn’t do much at all. I was mostly horizontal on this day.
I came across a post about Blaugust 2026 (via Zachary Kai)just before I started writing this post. Belghast, who wrote the Tales of the Aggronaut, started Blaugust in 2014. He passed away this year in July.
A Discord community that runs Blaugust has decided to still go ahead with Blaugust this year despite his passing. Since I wrote a post yesterday, I thought I could keep going through August.
26 July 2026
This was a day after a week of Jantar Mantar protests, India’s Minister of Education, Dharmendra Pradhan had resigned. Gen Z which had been vilified had led protests in their own way and had got the kudos of many people. It had also made Instagram the platform for protests and for the place to consume news.
I always feel queasy about hosting content on these social media apps and building your business around this. But, it seems to be working for a few of these folks.
I ended the day watching two wonderful episodes of Shut Up Ya Kunal where he interviews Ramchandra Guha and Jerry Pinto.
I also got a call from the Hospital saying that my follow-up appointment had been postponed to Wednesday. This would continue for two more days.
27 July 2026
Former ISRO Chairman Madhavan Nair spoke to Chethan Kumar of Times of India about scientists working in important scientific projects at ISRO leaving to work in the private sector.
This old interview reminded me of my old web surfing days. D V Sridharan used to write on a website called Good News India before working on this project called pointReturn which he talks about in the video. I remembered this after reading a Weekly Note by Abhinav Sarkar. He had a photo of a windmill atop the note that reminded me of the windmill Sridharan had put up at pointReturn.
I was so surprised that I could connect a blog post I saw on this day to a post that I read in 2007 or 2008. I used to type in the url manually and visit the website.
I went through the websites of Cory Doctrow, Derek Sivers, Dave Winer, Doc Searls, and many others over the next few days. Google Reader broke that habit and ever since I have depended on some form of a RSS reader to read blogs.
28 July 2026
I got another call from the Hospital postponing my surgeon’s appointment to Thursday.
I loved watching all the psychological tricks in customer service and advertising discussed in this episode with Rory Sutherland.
One of the videos that resonated a lot and that the YouTube algorithm surfaced this video was made after the CAA-NRC protests six years ago.
I watched this video of William Darlymple at Kerala Literature Festival 2026 where he released the Malayalam version of his book, The Golden Road and also presented many of his points that are expanded on in the book.
29 July 2026
I discovered the work of Dominic Hart, an Australian YouTuber from his videos on using a pocket notebook. But, two videos I loved watching are on his building a shed in his parents’ backyard and his moving into an office space in the city.
I watched a nice interview with Kunal Kamra, which talked about how his family members reacted to his various controversies and run-ins with the police.
This video is a nice introduction to the concept of social arbitrage investing. They use only social media signals (mostly TikTok and Instagram) to make investment decisions. I think it works in American markets because they depend on the efficiency of stock markets to weed out fundamental and technical issues. He says he is bullish about future investment in Amazon.
30 July 2026
The discourse around the 20 July 2026 protests at Jantar Mantar began to turn with people blaming Gen Z for using unparliamentary language against the Prime Minister and various organs of the ruling dispensation finding protestors who had used such language and getting them to apologise on camera. Nothing much has changed for the apologisers despite the apology.
Two of my favourite YouTubers, Ali Abdaal and Matt D’Avella did a mutual interview podcast. They spoke about their respective YouTube journeys, parenthood, and the differing paths they both took after launching YouTube courses.
31 July 2026
I went to the Hospital despite the Doctor not planning to turn up and got my stitches removed. I have to follow-up with the Surgeon on Tuesday (4 August) for care instructions.
In the evening I had almost reached Part Two of the Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. The long waiting time at the Hospital was great to catch up on a lot of this reading. I signed up for Brandon Sanderson’s newsletter. I was impressed about how he transparently talks about the books he is writing and the progress he has made in each book.
Cory Doctrow also does this. I had picked up his book to read as well.
I have listened to Arz Kiya Hai as a background music for different Instagram and YouTube short videos but watched the original video for the first time on this day.
Bridges in Pune were going underwater as water was released from Khadakwasla Dam. As I said on X and on Mastodon, Pune must build bridges that raise themselves up when the flood waters in the Mutha rise.
I spent the rest of the day asleep and did not work.
01 August 2026
I was considering how I write my posts here.
I would usually write posts like this on my link blog that I keep on Tumblr. I usually just post links on Tumblr and then give context for myself using the tags. In the post that I wrote on this blog, I ended up giving context. Tumblr is great for this. It is also a great place to expand on text, if you think that is necessary.
Tumblr is owned by Automattic, the company that runs WordPress.com. I wanted to reduce the points of failure and try another blogging service, like micro.blog.
I have not decided yet but it is something on my mind this week.
A day after the historic launch of Vikram 1. Questions remained related to the mission that have not all been fully answered yet.
Tuesday 21 July
I went to the hospital for a post-surgery check-up. Recovery looks good. Follow-up on 27th.
Thursday 23 July
I decided to get back to reading. I picked up My Journey to Devi by Priyanka Dalal. It was a short less-than-100-pages read that I completed on the same day.
I then picked up The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson which is a book club read-along later in the day. I am way behind on where I should be in reading progress but I will catch up. I am reading this now.
Saturday 25 July
I wanted to read the blog of Derek Sivers. I went to his blog and read his posts from the first half of 2026. I then went on to read the blog of Dave Winer.
I then moved ahead to the blog of Cory Doctrow. This reminded me that I had read his book, Red Team Blues. I then went to his website, Craphound to see the books he had written since. I found that he has written a book called The Lost Cause. I purchased that book to read next.
The Society for Technical Communications (STC) India chapter held the World TechComm Day 2026 celebrations simultaneously in Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Mumbai on 6 June 2026.
I went to the venue with Rakesh ettan in his car, Hatchi. We reached on time and met up with some former colleagues. One of my former colleagues was also presenting.
Building a Strategic AI Roadmap
The first session that I liked was on Building a Strategic Artificial Intelligence (AI) Roadmap for Technical Communication by Snehal Yerawadekar of Philips. The talk was about implementing AI in a technical communications team within a highly regulated sector – medical devices.
Snehal began by talking about why AI matters in technical writing. She says that product and content complexity, faster release cycles, localization demands, and higher customer expectations. AI enables TechComm teams to meet this demand.
She continues that an AI strategy must provide business value (align the AI strategy with the business unit strategy), focus on the key aspects (turn the priorities in the business unit into measurable outcomes), keeping with the trend (anticipate and adapt to the latest trends and review organizational policies and change existing business models to advance the TechComm team), and Collaboration.
She then spoke about having an AI ready team (with an AI mindset), manage processes with Management, and leveraging technology by using solutions that align with the strategy. She then went ahead about how she used these principles to implement an AI strategy in Philips and the future projects that they are working on.
Shifting Style Guides to AI Skills
The second talk I want to talk about is Editing at AI Speed: Shifting Style Guides to AI Skills by Amruta Hungund at Salesforce.
She begins by saying that human is at the center at Salesforce. It is AI + human. She says that all the style guides that technical writers so adore must be rethought of as a rules engine for AI.
She says there are two types of checks one does against a style guide. One is deterministic checks (which are yes/no rules) like spell check, grammar rules, punctuation rules, mandatory format requirements etc., AI can fix these easily without needing a human in the loop. For probabilistic checks, like context and meaning, nuanced tone adjustments, logic flow and arguments, etc., it is better to have humans in the loop.
She says that the Rules Engine does not need conversational essays on brand philosophy, basic grammar remediation, sometimes rules etc. She suggests that rules must have a list of negative constraints, versioning, product names, voice and tone, sentence simplification, etc.
The style guide must then be optimized for the use as an AI rules engine. This means having conditions like “max_words_per_sentence”: 25 instead of “Avoid overly long sentences to ensure readability and clear flow.” After optimizing the style guide, she suggests using Google Gems (or your stand-in for skills). She defines a Gem as an addition of a prompt to a rules engine.
She also suggests using a Gem to collect data from the style guide to optimize the Gem.
She asked what was the job of human in the loop – governance, conflict resolution, and understanding the larger context.
She suggested a podcast towards the end of her talk – The Culture of Writing podcast. Episode 30, in particular. But, it is a Salesforce channel podcast.
Quiz
I was part of a team that won a quiz. Mugdha (who took my interview at my present workplace), Rakesh, and I were in the team.
We wrote answers in the first round on a piece of a paper as a team. After we submitted the paper, we ended up as one of four teams that was part of an oral round which we topped after breaking a tie-breaker.
Overall
We loved the tea and snacks at the venue. This was my first networking event as a technical writer and felt that it was quite well organized and I enjoyed the quality of people and conversations we had. I didn’t take any photographs. Will add them if I get them with due credits. 🙂
I didn’t do a good job with keeping a daily note this week.
Manuel Moreale who runs a People and Blogs series had an interview with a blogger, Andy Baio whose answers really resonated with me.
He says, “I wanted a place of my own online, somewhere to experiment and write about weird corners of internet culture, online community, and copyright, as well as a sandbox for new experimental projects of my own.“
And further: “My frequency of posting has waned over the years, first cannibalized by social media and then by larger life and work stuff. I’ve recently found myself drawn back to it, posting more regularly, trying to wake those atrophied writing muscles. Even if I’ve slowed down, it’s hard to ever imagine stopping entirely.“
This could easily be me explaining my blog post writing statistics to you.
I find that people are writing on their own websites again, even if not as a blog per se. I think they want to put out their version of things themselves.
As Baio writes, “The ability to directly reach the people who care most about your work, outside of the capricious nature of social media algorithms, is essential.“
I want to invest some time in re-acquainting myself with the Bullet Journal method.
It has been raining endlessly through the weekend. It has been gloomy and there has been some water logging in the areas where I live.
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 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.
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.
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.
The Logan’s clutch plate gave up in one of the many trips we took while visiting relatives in Kerala. We gave the vehicle to the garage to get it fixed and were told that the car would not be ready in time for our return on Saturday.
This meant that we started our return on Sunday, 31 May 2026.
We started early in the morning and made our way to Coimbatore. Google Maps pointed us to a road in parallel to L&T Bypass in Coimbatore and we followed that path. Rakesh ettan also confirmed that they were suggested the same route yesterday (30 May).
We made the breakfast stop at Sree Sarvana Bhavan at 8:30 AM. We’ve stopped here each time we have passed through and have had good food here.
We had to make more frequent refuelling stops as my fuel gauge was not giving the correct picture. The fuel tank would be full and the gauge would show that it is not. I refuelled every 300 km or so.
Rakesh ettan told us that they had a huge traffic going into Bengaluru at the Atibele toll. Hence, we decided to have an early lunch when we reach Atibele and do not want to be stuck hungry in the Bengaluru traffic.
We stopped for lunch at Srinidhi Vaibhav, a little before the toll gate. There was a police vehicle outside the restaurant but the huge contingent was only taking an early lunch break as well.
We had nearly empty roads through Electronics City as we made our way to NICE road to bypass the city and go towards Tumkur. There were many by-passes as work was in progress on the Highway.
We made more time in the evening. We were discussing in the car about where to take our stop. I wanted to stop in Hubli again but at the different location other than Hotel Naveen. Rakesh ettan had stopped at the Fortune Park Airport Hotel. We decided to stop at the same spot.
We stopped at a nice stop called Naivedyam Family Restaurant at Madakaripura and got a few nice pics from outside the restaurant.
We reached the Fortune Park Airport Hotel at 9 PM. We had called the hotel earlier when we reached Naivedyam. They had told us that the stay for the kids was free. However, when we reached the hotel they charged more for the extra bed that they would need to sleep in than the cost of the room. Do they expect the kids to sleep on the floor?
I left the point as we were tired after a long drive and paid up. We liked the dinner at night which was a buffet style. There was work in progress in the hotel and so the gym, the swimming pool, and the spa were closed. Hence, we started at 7 am in the morning.
Google Maps pointed us to a way that took us out to the Highway directly and we were riding in under-construction highway roads which we usually skip when we go to Hotel Naveen.
We stopped at Hotel Udipi Vaibhav for breakfast around 8 am. We enjoyed the food and had great service there.
We stopped at Atithi Family Restaurant for an early lunch a little after half past midday, after we crossed over into Maharashtra. We got to fill our stomachs but the food wasn’t the greatest.
We reached home a little before 5 PM on Monday. I think the fact that it was a Monday hit us only after we reached home. We missed the early evening traffic of office-goers returning home.
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.
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.
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.
