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2024

2024 12 01

Started Advent of Code 2024. The first problem was not too bad. This time using just python and not experimenting with other languages. I think for the rest of the month this will keep me busy. I also plan to visit my mom over the winter holidays. It isn't exactly holidays, but I things will be slow at work and I should be able to work from home. Also I think I am far more productive in hotter climates than in Korea. Sub-zero temperatures make me ultra lazy. When the sun goes down at 5pm and it is super dark, it seems like the day is over.

Working out at home is also a pain during winter. I prefer running outside, but that is not possible these days. So I look forward to running when I visit my mom.

2024 11 24

Manufacturing in India is pretty hard. The access to a makerspace is pretty limited. Recently the Telengana government announced a makerspace in the state. I am not sure how good it is, but it is a good start. Having access to a prototyping lab is a game changer.

While setting up Tenx Farm we had to make a lot of things from scratch. We would get the raw materials like sheet plywood, aluminium, galvanised steel, etc. and then we would cut them, drill them, weld them etc. It was a fun learning experience. But making things for the farm had the luxury of being able to make mistakes and a high tolerance for errors in design. We would often do what in India is called "jugaad" to make things work.

But when it comes to manufacturing products for a B2C market, the tolerance for errors is much lower. And the cost of making a mistake is much higher. So we need to be much more careful with our design.

These days I think a lot about getting into the manufacturing space. I want my next startup to be making some physical product. I am kind of sure on the idea: a product that makes it easier to grow plants in the outdoor garden of a villa. The product should take care of the water and fertiliser needs of the plants. It should be able to sense the moisture of the soil and the moisture and temperature of the air and then decide how much water and fertiliser to give to the plant. It should also be able to alert the owner if it detects that the plant is not doing well.

I believe growing food will get more local and with the suburbs expanding like they are and the villa culture catching on in metros, there should be a market for such a product.

2024 10 09

Back in India to take care of many things. It is also going to be about an year since my dad passed away. There are many rituals that need to be taken care of. So it is going to be a busy month.

2024 07 07

I have been terrible at keeping this blog alive. But then again, I don't want to add pressure on me to write something everyday. I already have a huge list of things to get done by end of 2024.

Recently, I have first hand experienced what happens when you over-hire people in an org. To justify their head count, people start making everything complex and a blackbox. People start using statements like "we have to check if it is good", "I don't think it is working" etc. Nothing irritates me more than when people use vague statements. I always ask them, to their annoyment "what do you mean by good?", "why do you think it is not working?".

Nothing drains me more than a big team.

2024 03 24

I started playing Chess when I was 6 years old. I didn't start on the board. I am not sure I would have persisted playing chess had I started playing over the board.

My first experience with chess was on a computer. Back in early 1990s, my dad got a DOS based computer. It had four games on it: Prince of Persia, Dave, Gorilla (a game for two players to throw banana over some sky scrappers that deeply got me interested in geometry) and then Chess.

Since there weren't many choices to play on the computer, but there was a deep desire to be on the computer, I ended up playing Chess a lot.

I never learned Chess formally and hated theory until high school. From 9th grade to 12th grade I almost played Chess regularly over the board with a bunch of intellectual friends discussing random math/science/philosophy topics. It was a regular affair. Everyday after school I would bike down 5km to go to my friend's place which was by the sea, play an hour or 2 of beach football, then go up his apartment's terrace and play chess and discuss math/physics etc.

The friend whose place we played at used to go for chess classes. The other friend was a nerd who strongly believes in training and learning. I was the lazy one. I neither took classes, nor did I bother putting in the hard work of research and studying openings. I resorted more to trash talking and making my opponents feel they missed something and cause them to make unforced errors in their meticulous play which I would then go on to exploit.

As my strategy/theory was weak, I preferred to exchange off all the pieces and bring it end game. And I was pretty strong in end games. So even without training, without practice my scores against my friends were pretty good.

In college I got into Go. I played Go a lot. first with friends. When finding people who could spare 2-3 hours to play a game got tough, I started playing against the computer. One can't trash talk to a computer. I had to really think strategy. This is when I got deeply interested in theory and later when I got back to Chess (during the chess.com and lichess.org boom), I focused a lot on theory. My openings were solid. My end games were top notch. But I started to platue. I would play likes 10-15 games a day and yet my chess never improved.

So I have finally stopped playing games and now I focus on just solving chess puzzles. When I get a few minutes free time I just play survival or 5 minute puzzle rush on Chess Cup. I know even chess.com and lichess.org has puzzles, but then I get distracted and play games or tournaments or some other things on them. Chess Cup keeps it simple.

Right now my highest puzzle run in 36. It is not bad. I usually come up in top 10-15 in daily rankings. I want to continue this for at least a few months, till I consistently hit 40+ scores in the puzzle rushes.