India Has A Three-Body Problem
Feb 01, 2019
When I moved to Bangalore six years ago, I had no interest in India’s garbage management problem. I moved here to build a software company, not to muck about with garbage bins. But every time I would fly between the subcontinent and the Americas, I would find relief on my home continent and exhaustion on my continent of immigration. Living in a giant garbage heap is mentally taxing. Every moment spent outdoors is either an angsty mental rundown of how I might help, complete with acute feelings of powerlessness, or searching for someone to blame (my brain’s lazy personal favourite is a generic and completely unhelpful “the middle class”).
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How To Disconnect
Jan 16, 2019
For those of us who grew up in the 1990s (Gen-Y-ers? Pre-Millennials?), the sound of connecting was
Pshhhkkkkkkrrrrkakingkakingkakingtshchchchchchchchcchdingding*ding
and there was a certain romance to the ritual of Getting On The Internet. At least, there is a certain romance now, looking back. Now that we live in the era which precedes the era of ubiquitous computing, with all our nerdy fantasies fulfilled, the internet is everywhere and the ritual is our lives.
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Does Smoking Marijuana Harm Your Meditation Practice?
Jan 11, 2019
tl;dr: Yes, it does.
A friend with very little drug experience recently asked me if smoking (or eating) marijuana would harm her nascent meditation practice. She had a few follow-up questions, one of which was “have you ever written about this?” which caused me to turn our conversation into this essay.
First off, on the broad topic of drugs and meditation, I have written about my experiences and categorized the options once before in Drugs, Meditation, Warnings.
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Steve Yegge, You Are Half Right (Part Two: Software Ethics)
Jan 01, 2019
In 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Yuval Noah Harari repeatedly emphasizes the need for society to apply critical thinking to the future of software, algorithms, and artificial intelligence. Harari is one of the more forward-thinking philosophers when it comes to disruptive technology and 21 Lessons lucidly collects the requirements for our species' future: our new tools must sustainably respect future arcs of aggregate data use and they must do so globally.
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Steve Yegge, You Are Half Right (Part One: An Ethical Void)
Dec 25, 2018
Disclaimer and Full Disclosure: I began writing this article in July, during my last week at nilenso. Go-Jek is a client of nilenso’s. My views represent neither company.
I just re-read Steve Yegge’s “Why I left Google to join Grab” article. My heart is pumping. I’m excited. Just not in the way he intended.
You may have forgotten about Yegge’s article between the beginning and end of 2018 so feel free to go back and refresh your memory.
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The Toxic Notification Bubble
Dec 23, 2018
“I only have two goals for my kids,” Paige announced calmly as she set her chai down. “One, I don’t want them to be assholes; they shouldn’t mistreat anybody; they should be nice people. And two, I don’t want them to become substance abusers.”
It is natural for people our age to worry about drug addiction in the upcoming generation. During the 80s, our impressionable childhood years we were filled with a multitude of tax-funded warnings.
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What is Siggu.org?
Dec 21, 2018
We started siggu.org with the very rough intention of answering one question: Why meditate? We have multiple axes across which we will write in an attempt to answer this question: neuroscience, infrastructure, policy, and health — among others.
Siggu itself is a Pali word. It means horseradish. There is nothing particularly special about a horseradish. It is a strong taste, one that most people grow into with time. The taste changes with the age of the horseradish and planting it demands multiple growing seasons before the first harvest.
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Finances in an Employee-Owned Technology Co-operative
May 23, 2018
If you are not already familiar with nilenso, I apologize. This article may not make any sense to you. Requested as an opinion piece in reply to an internal email on salaries, it hinges on a lot of context.
You may find that context interesting.
YourStory: India’s first software co-operative Huh? A Software Cooperative? — an introduction How to Co-op: Salaries and Reviews “I have cramps." — introducing our menstrual leave policy nilenso policies — democratic corporate benefits nilenso reviews — how do we evaluate one another?
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Menstrual Leave: 'I Have Cramps'
May 01, 2016
PMS. I still can’t remember first learning about Pre-Menstrual Symptoms as a child. I don’t remember the specific event, but the understanding conveyed. I imagine it went something like this: “My Mom was really grouchy this morning.” - “Oh, she probably has PMS.” - “Is that a disease?” - “Nah, it’s something that happens to Moms once a month. They get really grouchy and you should just leave them alone.”
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How To Bicycle Commute in Bangalore
Feb 01, 2016
Riding a bicycle in Bangalore is surprisingly easy. Bicycles are nimble and the traffic is slow. The roads are… good enough. The weather is perfect. The pollution is an issue but not riding a bicycle only exacerbates that situation. Here are my recommendations for making riding a bike in Bangalore something between tolerable and enjoyable.
Required: Good Brakes Traffic in Bangalore isn’t just slow — it’s choppy. Millions of people driving cars on roads that can’t support them mean traffic is as stop-and-go as a choked suburban freeway parking lot in America.
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