Category: Experiences

This is the section of the blog where I account my daily experiences and opinions.

Experiences

Deprecation Alert!

Posted on by Samyak

Long time, no see, eh?

Well, just to inform my present set of a couple dozen subscribers, that I’m moving my belongings to a newer blogging platform. 🙂

It’s about time that I leave WordPress for something better fit for my experiments.

In several fields, deprecation is the discouragement of use of some terminology, feature, design, or practice, typically because it has been superseded or is no longer considered efficient or safe, without completely removing it or prohibiting its use.

Wikipedia

In simpler words, it’s about time that I leave WordPress for something that suits my needs better. Something which is simpler, has lesser spam likes and F2F requests, doesn’t look as dated and clunky, and offers me greater flexibility on how my words look like on any screen, any given time of the day.

(Unnecessary bars and junk everywhere; with Sexy Dady liking a post unrelated to their literary genre… 🙄)

Beside all the wrongs, I’ll miss WordPress for the amazing network of writers sharing stuff about their lives, and its remarkable discovery algorithm and SEO. Most importantly, I’ll always remember jumping with joy over the first blog I ever created, spending more time than required on the best theme available. For an introvert of the highest order, the very thought of making a blog and pushing a post seems thrilling beyond words.

I’ve also decided to post a bit more frequently than I usually did. If you are still getting this email and you read things up till here, you may consider subscribing to my new blog via RSS OR following me on Twitter (where I post blog updates among other things). I’m still in the process of getting email subscriptions set up. In short, you have to do absolutely nothing but I’ll always be there to pester you with new blog notifications!

I’m reading more and more, and inevitably writing more and more. Consequently, my writing is (probably) getting better every passing day.

But what can you expect? Oh well, life updates, tech tidbits, and unasked opinions from an engineer/product enthusiast/Indian/yadayada’s perspective. This is a great read on what you might expect from a personal blog. I have something else in the works too, but let’s see if I’m able to bring that project to fruition.

Take care and, of course…

Breathe!

0
Experiences

Why did I choose a Minor in Finance

Posted on by Samyak

I’ve been a noob with handling money.

Above everything, I don’t wanna remain that way.

Summary of the post 🙂

This has been the case since childhood. Losing money in school, getting ditched by cheap salesmen and cunning school seniors, forgetting to return the money and get back lent money in college, and the list goes on…

I had always thought of myself, unable to manage my finances. My apprehension went as far as thinking about marrying someone good with the sorcery of managing money, that too back in high school!

I’ve always been the science guy in school, captivating audiences with my nerdy facts and odd figures (okay, you may replace “captivating” with a derogatory adjective of your choice). It was the same passion for science that made me think of pursuing engineering (because doing research in pure sciences wasn’t good enough in my parents’ opinion). But I’m so glad I did it, engineering made me realize that a broader scope of the study existed. It was hardly never the case that engineers were restricted to their core interests.

Come to an engineering college. You will find almost everyone excelling in fields other than core engineering! Start-ups, music, animation, poetry, photography and so on. After seeing people dabble themselves into so many different fields, I thought I’d try my hands in some of these things too. I’ve been fascinated by robotics, so that’s the first thing I attacked. I realized how important is it to present yourself and your work in front of prospective opportunities, and that compelled me to take up a couple of marketing courses. My interest in robotics also opened a window to the big and scary world of entrepreneurship in the technology space. After reading about the struggles engineers have had while running their own ventures, I gravitated towards project and product management. How customers have certain deeply-etched belief systems and habits made me realize the importance of psychology and politics. How politics is profoundly shaped by the needs and interests of people, which is strongly fueled by the distribution of wealth, made me understand the value of economics. I could see a connection, and it all made sense! 💡

I took up this course in college: ECON F211 (Principles of Economics), which gives a bird’s eye view about the circular flow of money, the basics of supply and demand, why we trade, competitive and monopolistic markets and well as some popular yet obscurely understood terms such as GDP, stocks, bonds, economies of scale, and so on.

I truly loved the course (thanks to Prof Rajan Pandey ✌). This is where the hostility between economics and me calmed down, which was brewed back in class 9 with The Story of Village Palampur (economics was really a depressing subject back then!). This fantastic course made me understand that there’s a lot to learn about people and their motivation, from the science of the flow of money!

Now, for a financially dumb guy like me, this was like Endura Mass for the frail, like that flashy weight-loss program for the morbidly obese. This was a chance to improve my chances to understand money, businesses and human behaviour, some topics which have been my weaknesses for so long. I wanted to learn everything from the first principles so that I could better understand the high-level happenings as seen in news headlines. This is essentially the reason why I decided to go more of a “formal” way towards learning finance – to strengthen my understanding from the ground up. How money works? What are the various investment vehicles and what are the risks involved with each of them? How can one ensure the biggest bang for the buck? Boring but useful.

I could have done all this without pursuing a Minor. Most probably, true. But if I walk away with a degree certifying what I know (which could open new job prospects), and that pressure of a degree compels me (more on this “pressure” sometime later) to learn something I’d been hating all my life, is a likely an effective move. Some knowledge of the field, I believe, would augment my talent stack as an engineering undergrad. Cherry on the cake? 🍒

One thing that I think students from science backgrounds could be very weak at (like I’ve been) is to understand how important money is and how we can maximize our chances at managing it better. Cal Newport in his bestseller, ‘So Good They Can’t Ignore You,’ goes as far as saying (while quoting Derek Sivers) that money is the “neutral indicator of value” for anything that you want to pursue as a career.

Yeah, so these are my thoughts. Cheesy? Yeah, probably. Fake? I guess not. How will this end? I don’t know. Am I a bit lost? Not gonna lie, but yes, a bit. Aren’t we all are?

But that’s where the fun lies, right?

1
Experiences, Experiments

Half Time: 6 months of 2020

Posted on by Samyak

I’ll start off with some good news – we’re already more than halfway through 2020! Doesn’t that sound good?

Well, to be very frank (only to be pelted stones at my face once this lockdown BS winds down), this year has been pretty good for me, so far, in aggregate. There are not many good things have happened with me, but I managed to fix a lot of things on the way!

In a gist, so far, this year was falling into a really dark place, trying to keep shit together, coming out of the burrow, making new friends, talking to old ones and having some cool achievements on the way.

Sure thing, this year has been a rollercoaster ride so far. And let’s face it; we are not sure when will this ride end. There’s simply no mercy for you, even if feel like puking halfway through. But there are some ideas which stuck with me, sourced from here and there, which have really made this year much more… tolerable…

  1. Life is unfair.
  2. Life is bloody short.
  3. It’s often better to be selfish.
  4. It’s better to just minimize losses, if making profits is impossible.
  5. There are only a few things that require your attention, and there are a hell lot more that crave for it.

Here’s a screenshot of my ongoing list of New Year’s Resolutions (not kidding, I’m still sticking with it!).

(You might want to check out some gawky footnotes in the original post.)

There was a lot of thought put behind this list. I’d sound like a madman but I did put in some solid days of research to plan them in such a way that I realize these resolutions, so that I can put this out into the world and thump my chest like a scrawny version of King Kong. 🦍

It’s not that I’ll manage to do 100% of what I plan to, but I’ll adjust my expectations (or just let them be to feel bad about myself) in accordance to the situation. Also, counting every little achievement on the way makes them feel bigger than they actually are! 😬

Yeah, I’ll keep this one short. Don’t hesitate to give post suggestions on anything you’d like me to cover in detail, from all that mentioned here and that Resolutions post.

Till then, hold tight while I brew up something fresh (and much more interesting) the next month!

💨

0
Experiences

Chernobyl and China

Posted on by Samyak

So, I happened to pick up a TV series after a long time. Not a sitcom, yet something I’ve longed to watch for months. The show: Chernobyl was in talks right after it was aired in 2019. Many of my friends recommended watching it, but I simply procrastinated.

Given the time we’re all mostly free, was there an excuse not to watch it? I started off yesterday, gulping down 3 episodes in quick succession. God knows when was the last time I focussed this hard for 3 hours straight!

The ambience, the cinematography, the characters, the depth of realism about every single thing in the show was so gripping, so chilling, so startling, that you can’t do anything but watch. Intently.

The show starts off with the hero, Prof Valery Legasov, hanging himself, after recording the famous audio cassettes of his commentary on the whole incident. In fact, I got acquainted with Dyatlov’s name before his own. The entire narration, from the first second, arrests you, and leaves you questioning quietly, “What’s next?”

Now, without spoiling much, all I’d say is – watch the goddamn show! But make sure you can stand the graphic content. There’s a lot of it. I have grown up with video games full of blood and gore and still found it hard to go through. All in all, it’s a tough watch, tougher than anything else I’ve ever watched.

Now, why am I writing all this?

At the time I am writing this, the scenario around us is altogether different from anything we’ve ever seen. So much so that I’m able to relate to some things which are being shown to the situation nowadays. “History repeats itself!” I say to myself.

Just as the Soviet Union tried hard to conceal all details regarding the specifics of what happened (till date), China has done the same. Communist governments, eh?

It also reminded us of the way the very scientists who put in their heart and soul into this very work all their lives are thrown out of picture when they are needed the most, leaving the power of decision-making and influencing to the hands of ill-informed ministers and bureaucrats, and wind up once they realise the situation is out of their hands. But it’s too late already!

It tells us to take care of the irreplaceable resources we have: intellectual humans, who can think (and that’s the most crucial thing in a panic-stricken situation) and provide unforeseen insights into problems. It also reiterates the fact that even if the economy can fall and revive, human life is limited. We cannot bring the dead to life, irrespective of the truckloads of cash we try to exchange it with.

It also makes us cringe to the core, about the ego-quenching decisions governments make to hide their flaws from the world. To be so consumed in the intoxication of nationalism, that they forget that they have countries and people around them as well. They forget that humanity comes first – that if you make citizens of two neighbouring nations stand next to each other, you cannot make out who’s from which side of the border.

A fun activity while you are still getting bored of being bored at home – watch the series and put China instead of USSR and amaze yourself.

And yeah, another thing. Aren’t we much, much, much better today? Just think about it. We as humans are not dealing with a vast, new, uninformed crisis for the first time in history. It’s about time to throw some of our less important desires out of the window and think about struggle – isn’t it an organised struggle that makes us so human?

Till then,

Stay safe.

0
Experiences

Quarantine survival kit

Posted on by Samyak

You have only got once in a lifetime opportunity to stay at home, lying in front of the TV to save the world. Don’t screw this up!

-Some WhatsApp story

Hey!

Hope you are doing well.

Do I even need to tell you how bleeped up we are at this point in time? Have you ever seen something that motivated such mass action, let alone in your lives, but in your history books? So much so, that governments around the globe are pleading to people on their knees, to avoid going out and stay at home. Hell, they even cancelled F1! (Breaking news: Virtual Grand Prix!)

Well, it’s happening – all before our very eyes. We can have stories for a tragic novel set in a corona-stricken Venice! Just imagine telling your kids (rather emphatically) about how these times were like!

Even though there’s not a vaccine available so far, there’s a lot which can be done to contain it. Social distancing – I know this is the umpteenth time you are coming across this term today, but really, that’s our only hope right now!

But some things are easier said than done – and this is one of them. While you may feel suffocated inside your own home, there’s nothing much you can do. But once we habituate ourselves to the silence, things should get better, and you’ll make it through – you will find something or the other to while away your time. And that would suck too, well, at least a bit, if you waste it away entirely.

Learning from my past mistakes, I decided to make some use of this time. And guess what? Things have been going great so far! So, here’s a list of things I have been doing, probably you can try something out:

  1. Exercising – To avoid making this year’s fitness resolutions harder to achieve, I am trying to stay in shape. While it may seem comfortable not to do anything but slouch on the couch watching Netflix, the body feels bad when the things are over. Needless to say, it also makes you look bad. I have also made a running group on WhatsApp with a cool name with friends, where we share our running stats of the day!
  2. Reading – I was lagging behind my reading goals for this year. So, it was a golden opportunity to catch up on some reading.
  3. Writing – I got off track during my midsem examinations. Got off schedule this week too, I’m a lazy bum, after all. But there are things queued up and ready to come in some time!
  4. Resting – I felt pretty worked up for the past couple of months. Need to get into a schedule and give this mind a reboot. Other than wandering about YouTube, I am also watching random episodes of Tom and Jerry for probably the thousandth time.
  5. Other cool stuff – I’m currently going through The Nature of Code. It basically involves making simple physics simulations on Processing. Wanted to do this for a long time. Keeping in mind my mistakes of the past, I am also pushing all my work to GitHub. I also deleted my Instagram account.

Here’s a bunch of cool resources which could help you get in the groove. It contains this list of companies that have made some of their services free of cost. Though their motive is understandable, for now, it’s a win-win for all of us!

(Note that I am not promoting any of the products in any manner. Not this time, at least!)

  • This is a limited offer. Codeacademy is offering its Pro membership to the first 10000 students who avail this offer. Codeacademy is a renowned platform to learn the basics of a variety of coding languages.
  • PluralSight is a coding platform with special emphasis on skill development for professionals. Nevertheless, I love its user interface. The service is FREE for the month of April! All you have to do is make a free account and reap the benefits.
  • Audible Stories – A collection of audiobooks for children and teens. It contains some fine classics too. You don’t even need an account to access these!
  • Scribd – A collection of books, audiobooks, PDF documents, music sheets and Snapshots (a collection of concise book summaries). I particularly like this because their accessible library is much bigger than audible at this point. They have kept a 30-day free trial on their services for this month.
  • Headspace‘s Weathering the Storm collection of guided meditations. They have also made their services free for students and school staff in the US, UK, Canada and Australia.
  • Adobe is giving 2-month access to Creative Cloud. Here’s a little article which shows you how to do it, just in case you’re interested.
  • Since MOOC platforms such as Coursera, edX have made a lot of their content free and accessible to a broad audience, you can head over to Class Central and choose your favourites among thousands of courses on dozens of MOOC platforms.
  • It’s a good time to learn a new language. There are dozens of high-quality, free apps such as Duolingo, Drops, Babbel and Beelinguapp which make learning fun and effective. Even though I have heard a lot about the other three, I have only tried learning French on Duolingo, so far. C’est tres bien!

Here’s a small list of interesting sources of information about the outbreak, which can give us a bird’s eye view on the situation and also things we should do at this point (and why):

  • Bill Gates has been actively involved with COVID-19 response by specifically pumping in $100M through his foundation. They recently conducted an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit, which is summarized here, in his blog. He answers several important-yet-unanswered questions which are lingering in the minds of many. (For those of you who don’t know, Bill said in his 2015 TED Talk that we were unprepared for a pandemic and that could cause worldwide distress, something which is happening right now!)
  • This article by Elemental can help you distinguish between the seasonal flu and Covid-19.
  • Kurzgesagt’s video on how coronavirus spreads and what can we do about it. They are widely known for their amazing illustrations and reliable sourcing of information.
  • An interesting (yet insightful) video by Mark Rober, who shows how easily germs (in our case, the virus) spread, and also how important it is to wash hands.
  • Imperial College London’s course on Coursera about the science behind the disease; this is a tad formal as compared to the ones mentioned above.

I’d be very grateful if you can tell me some other services/resources which could help people with their current, strangely-closeted lives. It’s a crucial time, and we need to hold back our temptations and act with caution. There’s so much on this list already that you won’t need anything else to do if you populate your day well enough. And yeah, there’s always the option to fall back to your bed and get some shut-eye!

So, here we go. This was an attempt to collect useful stuff, and it did take a lot of time to research and document. I’ll try to keep this space as up-to-date as possible. We have some 10 days before getting back to college and sure, we can do a whole lot before going back.

Till then,

Wash your hands!

2
Experiences

Interesting content #1

Posted on by Samyak

So, mid-semester exams just got over. I am finally a free bird – not for too long, though. But I’ll prefer to enjoy the freedom while it lasts.

I hurried back home as soon as I was done with the last exam. Hurried back like a fish flutters to go back to its water. I was so, so suffocated.

I want to get back on things now. Have a lot of things on my platter. At the same time, some rest, mental and spiritual, is required.

My first day was spent watching a wholesome lot of YouTube videos. The best part is – this comes after a week of restraint, thanks to the busy midsem times! I recalled that YouTube has really given me so much to think about. It’s hard to imagine how would life be like without watching all the wholesome stuff it has offered me over the years!

To my amusement, I was exposed to 5 new high-quality videos today itself. Here are the YouTube links for the same.

  • Should I wait until I’m smarter to read difficult novels?
    A very insightful video by one of the most charismatic YouTube book reviewers I’ve come across. For those who are into reading literature, I’d highly recommend his channel!
  • Nike: Find Your Greatness
    This is their 2012 ad campaign and easily one of my favourites. The cinematography, the narration, the models, everything is just so spot on. For some reason, I came close to welling up.
  • Why new diseases keep appearing in China
    Warning: Fish-market-level graphic content. View with discretion. Probably you know the answer. Understanding how and where this virus comes from will help us take care of us. Spread the word and prevent mishaps like these from happening. A slightly disgusting, but important watch.
  • Unfolding the first trifold phone
    But I love to see that China is still on the edge of innovation (they have been this way for thousands of years! Tea, silk, paper; hello?). I am so much pumped up about foldable phones and the potential they hold. Just imagine one of these in your hands, and then in the hands of everyone around you. We are probably not very far away from seeing this!
  • Shooting a Video with a World War 1 Lens (100 years old)
    This got my thoughts running. The lens has seen so much. Mathieu also takes us to Vienna’s Central Cemetery, the biggest in the world. Heavy stuff. A lot of subtleties to take in.

If they are anything of some value to you, maybe do this on a regular basis? I love to share such content with my friends. If you like it, I can share and discuss a lot more, across a variety of media (podcasts, blogs, etc.). Like I said, there’s a lot on my platter!

Till then,

Breathe!

0
Experiences

Clearing off my reading list

Posted on by Samyak

The air was cold. The ambience, quiet. You could hear the footsteps of people walking down the street, even determine the number of people walking together. The figure didn’t exceed three.

Christmas is not celebrated with much rigour here. People take this opportunity to relax – wrapped in their beds, either sleeping or using their phones, or maybe watching one of those Christmas movies which makes them feel warm and fuzzy in the comfort of their blankets, all of which makes them appreciate the holiday season for the hibernation period it is supposed to be.

My mind, however, was in altogether a different tone. If the net heat of the world was a zero-sum commodity, my brain would have had a monopoly. “HOLD ON, KID! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING THERE?” As if someone roared beside me.

The voice roared again. “DO YOU EVEN REALISE WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? DO YOU EVEN REALISE THE TOTAL WORTH OF THIS COLLECTION? DO YOU EVEN REALISE HOW STUPID WOULD IT BE TO DELETE A BOOK AND DOWNLOAD IT AGAIN? DO YOU EVEN…”

I chuckled. This was not the first time it had happened. Whenever I deleted a photo from my phone, whenever I ran the occasional scans to clean my phone up, this voice whispered. It sounded annoying but friendly. As if someone was trying to help you.

But it actually didn’t.

I realised this when I stumbled upon this idea of ‘paradox of choice’. The more choices we have, the more time we’d spend choosing, the lesser time we have living with our choice. It makes sense that way. But wouldn’t you like it if your nearest ice-cream parlour gave you more flavours to choose from?

That’s where I got wrong. I mistook the residue of books that I had (as I am courageous enough to call them now) as important. But I realised, if I hadn’t started reading, all of these books, no matter how expensive, how great they were, would have been immaterial to me.

I ‘started’ some 20 books in the last (and first) 6 months, of which, there were barely 4-5 books that I managed to read in full. I went through the first 20 pages, sometimes as much as 150, when a sudden change in schedule messed things up for me. I failed and never got back on the book. This had become a rather frustrating habit.

And it was not the question of enjoyment. I enjoy almost every other book I pick up. I left with grace the books I didn’t enjoy, for the time being. Leaving the books I especially enjoyed, though, filled me with amazingly deep guilt.

It had become a bad habit, and I had to get my way through this somehow.

I am really seeing the upcoming year as a new year, much newer than usual. It’s 2020, after all. Start of a new decade, end of a rollercoaster one. A new decade, beginning with a leap year. That happens once in 20 years! Added to that would be the onset of adult life for us, we will all be here, leaving our childhood behind. Do you realise the gravity of that? Remember the time you left your homes (if you did), and came to a place you’re unaware of, away from the comfort of your homes? You have heard things about the place before, but you haven’t experienced things so far.

I have been dead serious about changing this year. I am ready to pull off any radical decisions that I need to make in this regard. I believe what I do this year will set a course for the following few years, which can be the most impactful years of my life!

Okay, I think I made myself clear on the novelty factor, so…

As a ceremonial way to giving a fresh start, I decided to clear off all the e-books I had on my phone. I don’t usually read paperbacks due to, well, issues. We’ll talk about it later.

I selected each of the 23 books I had, one by one, keeping in mind that I was probably seeing them for the last time, trying to recall as much of the content I could remember. I gulped hard. Horror-stricken, I tapped on the bin shaped icon at the top right corner.

And boom! The phone, the mind, cleared off dues, digital and psychological.

The college dues still remain, though!

0