05 Dec 2022
When I started working at my first job after completing the college, one of the perks was getting uninterrupted access to the internet and email. 20 years ago internet access at home was not very common in India. We often visited ‘internet cafes’ to eletronically connect to the world by paying 10 Rs/hr.
The ‘free’ supply of internet connectivity opened world of enterntainment opportunities for us. We used email to share jokes, and memes.
One day I received a cartoon in my Inbox where a big tiger and mischievous looking kid were making some philosophical comment about life. I hadn’t seen these cartoon characters before. Growing up I either read cartoons in Marathi newspapers or in the Marathi comics books. This cartoon was very different than what I was used to. I loved that cartoon and found its name.
Calvin and Hobbes turned out to become one of my favorite cartoons ever.
Over the next few months I hunted for these cartoons all over internet. And at one point of time I had almost 3000+ cartoons from most of the strips downloaded on my computer. But what I found surprising was how little we knew of it’s creator Bill Watterson.
I recently finished listening to an audiobook about Bill Watterson. Bill Watterson is media-shy. Other than his famous commencement speech and some information on Wikipedia, its difficult to learn more about this talented cartoonist. Nevin Martell’s Looking for Calvin and Hobbes is a wonderful, entertaning and informative book about Bill Watterson’s creativity, and philosophy towards work and life.
Martell interviews Watterson’s friends, ex colleagues from syndicate, peers and whoever was influenced by the talented cartoonist for this book. The book uncovers Watterson’s early years as a struggling cartoonist as well as his journey to become one of the most influential cartoonists. It brings forward Watterson’s views on syndication, commercialization and licensing of art. It discusses Watterson’s creative process and also his own inspirations. I enjoyed reading the book and highly recommend it to other Calvin and Hobbes fans.
06 Jul 2022
Absurd Trolley Problems is an interesting exercise. When I started at level 1 my goal was to keep the number the deaths caused by my decisions as low as possible. But at every other level this rule of thumb wasn’t useful e.g. Killing 5 elderly people to save a baby seemed moral to me.
The one question threw me off was this.
Due to a construction error, a trolley is stuck in an eternal loop. If you pull the lever the trolley will explode, and if you don’t the trolley and it’s passengers will go in circles for eternity. What do you do?
Apparantly 50% people who played, still preferred to pull the lever (potentially) instantly killing them. What would be the justification for that?
The other ones I kept thinking about after closing the game were
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50% chance of killing 2 people or a 10% chance of killing 10 people
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Killing 5 people now or 5 people in the future
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Killing 1 cat or 5 lobsters
It’s also a little bit creepy that I unintentionally followed Three Laws of Robotics to make my decisions.
23 Jun 2022
Today will go down in the history as a remarkable day. Approximately after 8 odd years I finished playing Clash of Clans. Upgrading that last brick of wall was a bittersweet moment.
I’m not much of a gamer. I do not own PlayStations, Wiis or such gadgets. I would rather read a book or watch a suspenseful movie than chase pixel upgrades on a tiny phone screen. But I still got hooked. Supercell (and it’s ilk) has figured out human psychology. They leverage ‘Sunk Cost Fallacy’ very well. And you have to be EXTREMELY mindful.
Unlocking new defenses and troops across 14 different townhall upgrades, leveling up armies, grinding heroes, pets, and walls is all in the past now. It was tiring, frustrating and fun at the same time. Climbing up those trophies and reaching legend level felt magically fullfilling. Here’s a funny anecdote - at the peak of my enthusiasm for this game, I timed rest-room breaks on long road trips so I could have an army ready to get a couple of attacks in.
Reflecting on my journey, I think I enjoyed playing Clash a lot due to excellent camaraderie in my team. While we were playing anonymously, we had deep trust in players. We respected team decisions. Followed through the plans when participating in wars. Built our upgrade and war strategy using modern tools like skitch and google docs. Over communicated using discord to make sure nothing falls through the cracks. But we never forgot to play casually to enjoy the spirit of the game. As I got busy with work and family, I gave up playing for a couple of years. I came back to finish what I had originally started in 2014. It felt unending journey. Well, it’s a wrap now!
Thanks for a good time Clash! While I will miss you, I am NOT looking forward to playing it anymore!
19 Feb 2022
I haven’t posted in a while. At the end of last year I changed my job and joined Amazon in their Driver Experience team. We also moved to Austin. After we moved to Austin, we got an apartment with a smart lock. Our old apartment in Columbus had a more traditional mechanical lock. This smart lock came with a companion app on the phone. It uses bluetooth (and potentially WiFi) to transmit the information. Apart from using the phone, I can set up a secure PIN and use the touchpad to lock and unlock the door. Other than the basic lock/unlock functionality, it comes with more bells and whistles where I can grant access to a guest, for a specific duration.
Even though it has been working well for a couple of months now, I am not very comfortable with something using Wi-Fi, bluetooth and remote servers in the cloud protecting my family and property. Underlying software will have bugs. There are some servers needing to be patched and kept up to date, APIs breaking contracts, someone hacking into the system. Losing power/battery or any technical glitch on the hardware itself can lock us outside or inside of the apartment or worse the door doesn’t lock.
The minor convenience of not having to carry with an extra key is not worth it. Unfortunately there is no option of using a more traditional lock.
For common areas like swimming pool or play area in the apartment complex, this type of lock probably makes sense. But using it for an actual apartment makes little sense.
06 Oct 2021
This is an interesting week for Facebook. I quit using Facebook about 8 years ago and never signed up for Instagram. I did not see any value in these services. And looking at the recent revelations by the whistleblower, I am glad that I am not on these platforms. But I (have to) use WhatsApp to stay connected with my family and friends. There is no alternative. There is strong social pressure in India that requires the use of WhatsApp. My parents use it. Our extended families are hooked to WhatsApp. All my friends are on WhatsApp. Even if I dislike Facebook’s business practices, WhatsApp is a necessary evil. When these systems went down, I was expecting minor inconvenience due to the unavailability of WhatsApp.
But Facebook’s downtime irritated me even so. What happened was mildly interesting. Vaidehi is due for her set of first Flu shots. She needs to take 2 shots, separated by 30 days. During her last wellness visit, her pediatrician indicated that the Flu vaccines would be available in the first week of October. Vaidehi’s regular visit is in the first week of November. I thought it would be a good idea to plan her first shot in early October so she could take the second shot at her regular wellness visit in November.
Her pediatrician’s office depends on Facebook to inform the vaccine schedule. It’s convenient to check their Facebook page to see if vaccines are available and what are the visit times. The alternative is to call the office and stay on hold for 15-20 minutes. As the pandemic has caused nationwide shortages in healthcare, especially nursing care, these appointment slots fill up fast. Due to this, I wanted to get in front of the line to schedule the appointment as soon as it was available. But Facebook was down, and we couldn’t get the information in time.
Anyway, it was not a big deal. I was able to get an appointment by following up over the phone. But it kept me wondering about the situation we are in. A single company has so much control over how the information could be disseminated. The promise of the internet was to make it easy to exchange the information. But if a mistake in the DNS configuration for one company’s servers brings the internet to halt, something has gone very wrong.