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Writing

Essays from someone who builds things

Mostly about how technology changes the way we build and work.

Working4 min read

The career roadmap I never followed

Students keep asking me what they should learn. I never had an answer at 19, and I'm not sure I have one now. What I do have is a different question.

Thinking5 min read

Painting an owl (or why "creating" matters)

Try creating something with your hands, without distractions. It might unblock you and show you a completely different side of things.

Working7 min read

Education in the Age of LLMs: Stop Grading the Robot's Homework

Tonight's homework can be written by a machine in seconds. We can keep pretending otherwise, or we can start checking whether the student actually understands it.

Thinking6 min read

The new frugality: maximizing life, not minimizing spending

Our parents saved for a rainy day, and we put the umbrella on EMI. Despite having been on both sides of the argument, I am still not sure who is right.

Thinking5 min read

Evaluating Subscription Models in the New Age of Internet

Two years after release, Netflix edited a scene out of '13 Reasons Why' for everyone, everywhere. Instead of owning our media, we now rent access to someone else's edit button.

Thinking7 min read

The server slot theory of sleep

Everything's a subscription now. I have a theory that sleep is too, and that going to bed at 3 AM puts you on the free tier with ads.

Building6 min read

From Chaos to Cosmos: Fixing a SaaS Architecture That Spawned EC2 Instances Like Rabbits

A client's SaaS spun up a new EC2 instance for every customer, and the fix was mostly deleting things. This is what we changed, and why the boring architecture usually wins.

Working6 min read

Re-evaluating the Evaluation Process

Annual reviews are board exams with paychecks. Everyone dreads them, yet everyone keeps running them, and I think it is time we tried something else.

Thinking5 min read

Systems Need Change Every Few Cycles

When a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure. Every system eventually gets gamed, and I am starting to think the answer is to change it before it rots.

Thinking5 min read

Systems of Governance

If a king overrules me, it is tyranny, and if a majority overrules me, it is democracy. I have been thinking about the difference, with some help from Dune, and I do not have a neat answer.

Working5 min read

Startup Culture: The Silicon Valley Sitcom

Every founder thinks they're in 'The Social Network'. Most of us are in a low-budget remake of 'The Office'. I'd know, I'm in the cast.

Thinking5 min read

Reddit, Please Don't Go So Meta

What made Reddit special was what you had to say, regardless of who you were. Every new profile feature nudges it a little closer to Facebook, and I would like it to stop.

Thinking5 min read

Terraforming by Hans Zimmer

I came up with a way to terraform Mars using Bitcoin mining. People liked it. That should have been the first warning sign.

Thinking4 min read

The cost of getting dressed up

I tried to work out what it costs me, per outing, to leave the house looking presentable. The number was small, which is exactly why it is sneaky.

Thinking4 min read

Uneducated Access to Unlimited Knowledge

We gave everyone a megaphone before anyone learned what is worth saying. Since I am holding one too, this is partly a note to myself.

Thinking5 min read

Why you should unplug from technology once a week

After I bricked my phone messing with a custom kernel, the panic lasted about ten minutes. What came after was relief, and a habit I have been trying to keep ever since.

Working4 min read

Asynchronous Communication and Peace of Mind

Most messages do not need an answer right away. Deciding when you reply might be the cheapest way to get some peace of mind.

Thinking4 min read

Education System Needs to Teach Skepticism

School taught us that if it is printed, it is true. Then we all got smartphones and joined family WhatsApp groups, and I suspect those two things are related.

Working5 min read

Inhe Chhapne ka Shauq Hai: The Copy-Paste Curriculum

We spend fifteen years teaching kids to copy neatly, and then we are shocked when they copy. A rant about practical files, dictated notes, and a Raftaar song.

Thinking5 min read

The power of an old-fashioned notebook and pen in the digital age

Even though I spend all day on a keyboard, I still pick a cheap notebook when I actually need to think. I do not fully know why it works, but I have some guesses.

Working4 min read

Choice: Knowledge Vs Grades

Somewhere along the way we started valuing the marksheet more than the thing it was supposed to measure, and I fell for it too.

Thinking2 min read

Hello Readers! I'm writing a blog

If you are reading this post, chances are that you have already visited my website. This post is meta - it's about this blog.