Sri Kailash

Record and Reflect on Audio Memories

2021-12-03T00:00:00+00:00

Hello there!

‘Record and Reflect on Audio Memories’ is a fully private application to record and reflect on audio memories. You can tag your memories with activities(for example: Road trip, Exciting emotion, Sad emotion, Dinner, …) and people you’re with. It offers powerful filtering and insights on memories.

Think you can filter out and shuffle listen through all your memories while you were on road trips with specific friends and also get insights on those memories.

Riding the waves

2021-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve put down some one liner thoughts for different scenarios, hope they can serve as food for thought. I plan to keep updating them as I “grow” and tag them with relevant art(paintings, speeches, talks, interviews, …) :P

Legacy

Things built over time can have good lessons to offer. Example: Growth vs preservation

Bo Burnham about long term work

Toolkit

When solving problems make sure you have proper toolkit.

Judgement

Considerate judgement needs investment.

Spectrum

Qualities(Example: Trustworthiness, introversion, ..) can be a spectrum instead of being just 1/0.

Confidence

Confidence can be situational.

Ringo Starr talks about being nervous before performing

Validation

It can be helpful to check if validation is being sought at the right place.

Change

Change can be scary, it can help to understand the impact.

Anxiety

Anxiety comes from feeling out of control. While it cannot be completely eliminated, being aware of where it’s coming by asking ourselves why, can make us feel slightly better. Anxiety can help us explore new possibilities and make us grow as a person.

Problems

Seemingly small problems can be big, given the situation.

Fear

Fear does actually help us in so many aspects.

Emotional downtimes

Downtime may not be as bad when you zoom out of the situation.

Popularity

Popularity may not always imply resourcefulness. It’s important to understand the purpose that’s being served.

Control

It can help to understand how much control we have over situations we are dwelling upon.

Simplicity

Seemingly simple, functioning systems can be harder to build and easier to operate.

Effort

Putting in conscious effort into something almost never goes wasted.

Criticism

Negative criticism, although hurts at the instant can also be used as a fuel.

Haters

It’s important to realise not everyone has your best interests but being reminded of purpose you’ve set for yourself in the past can help.

Dreams

Use them to keep you moving!

Exceptions

When analyzing a scenario making sure it’s not an exception/one-off can be helpful.

Time

Time can answer a few questions.

Evolution

Systems evolve with time. Almost none started as the same version.

Fitting in

Fitting in can be easier if a common ground can be established.

Loneliness

We often think we are the only one experiencing a certain scenario which makes us more lonely.

Groups

Common goal can tie groups together.

Actions

Actions can pretty much always have more impact than words.

Accuracy

Sometimes, going an extra mile for more accuracy may not be needed.

Experience

Diverse experiences can lead to better outcomes.

Communication

Most communication can be non verbal.

Oppression games

It doesn’t always have to be a zero sum game.

Result

Journey has a lot more to offer than the end result.

Quality

It can help to also understand quality while analyzing for quantity.

Understanding

Being aware of how much we don’t understand a concept/situation can humble us while learning.

Influence

It’s important to be aware of influence that’s being laid upon.

Cognitive Dissonance

2021-05-21T00:00:00+00:00

Believing something because not doing so is uncomfortable. Such an interesting concept if you think about it!!

A social app we created

2021-01-10T00:00:00+00:00

Hello there, hope you are having a great start of the year 2021!
Before I start with the app details I will tell you how we came up with the idea.

After graduation, I had moved to Amsterdam for my first job and thankfully I have a friend Arihant there that took off some of the social burden(aka making new friends) that comes with moving.

For my second job, I moved to Berlin without knowing anyone in the city. I tried going to meetups but I couldn’t make any connections due to topics of discussion being too broad(COVID-19 lockdown only making things worse).

To my relief, my high school friend Gautham also moved to Berlin a month later from Zurich and he has had similar experiences too.

This experience(or… hey, “life” in general :p) has taught us a lot. Especially the importance of social life and how it really affects your mental health. It is easy to be trapped in a feeling of not being social if you have special interests and narrow minded focus. But interests themselves can restore much needed community and sense of purpose by enabling selective socialising.

So, me and Gautham came up with an app idea to form exclusive online communities. Users can create communities(think online groups) with hashtags and can vouch each other for up to 3 different hashtags. Now communities are discoverable by users based on that social graph making sure right communities are found by right users.
For instance, Gautham vouched me for swimming, programming and travelling. Now communities that are exclusive to programmers are discoverable for me to join.

That’s for userflow. I would love to hear stories about making new friends or finding a new interest through Leet. Among other things, this has taught me how much it takes to move a product to the finish line.

Kudos to Gautham for all the amazing designs, definitely a work of art :). Happy to have worked with him after years and apparently he is much better at this than chemistry titrations :p. Big thanks to Awni for all the flutter code and everyone that helped with initial feedback. I took care of the backend.

I will share the apk if you would like to give it a try. We are still on refining the application, any feedback is welcome!

A few interesting things I’ve read/watched

2020-12-21T00:00:00+00:00

I am greatly inspired by Paul Graham’s essays[1] and adapted his idea to share content that would be helpful to readers. I will write down here about new things i discovered and things i wish someone had told me.

Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind

How happy is the blameless vestel’s lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned.
-Alexander Pope

The moral roots of Liberals and Conservatives

I like that this talk is very analytical. His insight on role religion plays in shaping society and POV on Grand Canyon vs older civilizations is really interesting.

Some possible career goals

This post has really changed the way i look at work and career. Definitely recommend giving it a read and checking out her other posts.

Inspirational Writing Advice From Charlie Kaufman

This is by far the best speech I’ve listened to. I wish I could really meet him at a party he described.

Confessions of a recovering micromanager

This talk made me realise how small details can radically change the experience.

Peter Thiel on Aspergers

Thanks to Peter Thiel and Susan Cain for shedding some light on the issue many people(me all the time during early 20s) face. Also being in engineering gave me opportunity to meet co-workers and bosses that are more on the side Peter Thiel mentions in the video.
On a similar note, I read through this book: Gifted, geeks, aspies and other aliens in this world
Such an extensive reserch from Andreas Hofer. Very well done and wish I had a school teacher like him!
Article that’s very well done about emotional intelligence, it has certainly gotten better for me with age! Striving to find a balance is a major takeaway for me.

Why monkeys(and humans) are wired for fairness

Questioning how much we give up just because we are treated unfair is a great insight from this talk.

Why lakes and rivers should have the same rights as humans

I really like this talk because it draws our attention to something that’s often overlooked
She clearly explains the reason behind major hindu traditions of praying rivers
I have first-hand experience with reforms river Godavari brings to the city I’m from

The transformative power of classical music

Always been a big fan of music. This talk is very moving just like music itself is!

The design of everyday things

There are very few books that can influence your perspective and this is one for me. A helpful insight I gathered from this book is to not always blame myself if I can’t figure out how to use things. Also, I learned all the details designers have to take into consideration when building products. It talks about how it’s not always(never) users fault but it’s a design fault. It also talks a lot about designing for failure and what things to consider during design to make a successful product It also mentioned about different cultures viewing timelines differently. For us future is forward and for some cultures future is behind and past is forward(which is mapped to us being able to see what’s infront of us and not at the back)
. It also taught me that having an approximate knowledge is enough for a few things rather than aiming for accuracy. On a similar note, I also read Hooked which explains what makes users hook to something(habit/app/idea). It has a 4 step(trigger, action, reward, investment) framework to building apps/products that has potential to get users hooked. It talks about habits(something that’s done without much thought). Then it goes deep into each of the steps
Trigger: Can be internal/external and this is what makes users open the app
Action: What actions user has to perform to satisfy their trigger
Reward: Because humans are motivated by reward. What does the app offer
Investment: Users will be ready to invest for reward in the future

The transformative power of classical music

I remember reading about Walden in school(9th grade), good to revisit it now(reminder of growing up, haha). I think getting exposed to diverse perspectives broadens ones thinking and also serves as a toolkit to analyse problems.I really liked the Emerson part in the write up. It’s only practical to understand, what works for one doesn’t necessarily have to work for everyone else.

A NASA astronaut's lesson on fear, confidence and preparing for spaceflight

It’s very inspiring to see Megan talking passionately about her career. Being helpless causes people to be more anxious about problems is a good insight I got from this talk. Explains why my mom gets more anxious when I travel than me.

50 ideas that changed my life - David Perell's blog

Super insightful!

Links:

Paul Graham’s essays

Analysis of my dad’s work

2020-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

My dad makes gold ornaments, I remember getting ready on Sunday mornings as a kid to go with my dad to deliver customers orders. I’ve spent years after that detached from his business because of being busy at school. Finally, I am happy to be able to relate to his work as a software engineer.

This father’s day I’ve spent some time analyzing his business, hope you like reading it!

How it all started?

My dad was learning the skill from his uncle. There was good learning curve for a while, however, he didn’t see enough growth potential financially, so he decided to start on his own. When i asked him what gave him enough confidence that he will acquire customers, he said his focus was on delivering good results for a few customers intially so they become loyal and return. He also said that his low living costs made the move easier. He mentioned he had a friend who was already in business and was willing to outsource to trusted third parties which kept him busy during the initial stages.

He very passionately said that it’s a great feeling to see customers starting with small orders and then growing financially to make big orders.

Now, let’s jump into how the customer journey looks like.

Requirements gathering:

Requirements are usually around design, weight, durability and less service charges. Designs can be downloaded from the web or design catalogues or pictures of similar orders(in most cases).

work debt(in any form):

Since tech debt is a big thing, I asked him if they have similar problems, Apparently, value of hours spent is far less than material costs, so it is easier to get the original material(or metal in this case) back and re-do it.

Experimentation:

He said he personally tries to keep things simple and not experiment but it is common for people to experiment as cost of experimentation is pretty low.(material value can always be retrieved)

Designs:

There are jewellery designers that upload in the internet, but it is mostly one customer wanting to get something others have.(FOMO aka market standards :P)

What is work usually like:

He said it varies based on the order, I will try to summarize steps for above picture

Gold biscuit is cut into pieces
It is melted and turned to a sheet
Then it’s cut into required shape and drilling is done for stones
Stones are fit
Then it’s polished

Testing:

He said testing happens at every stage for durability and it is important to catch issues in early phases of the product.

Peak seasons:

He said that marriage seasons and sravana masam are peak seasons and he usually works longer during those and shorter normally.

Competition:

He said these are the factors that help stand-out

Customer engagement
Faster delivery
Quality and durability

Migrations:

He said almost 70% of the orders are migrations.(Changing one ornament to another) Apparently, they can’t escape migrations either.

Cost of failures:

Pretty low as material can be extracted and can be re-done. He said worst case scenario is that he doesn’t make any money on the order.

Future of work and views on automation:

He said that it has changed a lot since he started but he doesn’t see it going fully automatic.

What does he have to say about gold obsession?

He is obviously happy about it(Why wouldn’t he be? :P) and said he would rather be obsessed about something that has financial value.

He said it makes customers happy to have ornaments and that’s good enough metric.

Conclusion:

Hope you had fun reading it, pretty sure you can find someone you know that would love to talk about their work and you can make them see it in a way they haven’t before. Writing this made me learn things about my dad that I wouldn’t have known otherwise.

I also hope this article makes him realise his work is as challenging as an office job that he always thought he wanted to do.My mom also wants a mention but i will probably write a different one about her cooking :P

Learning how to learn

2020-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Things that help learning better.

Focus on the core thing that you are looking to learn. This can be answered by approaching material with questions.
Have a strategy to measure your progress in learning.
Do not over-learn. Check how much you can retrieve if you have to explain this to someone else.
Look at real world applications or contrasting cases of what you are learning.
Make sure to spend good amount of time on things not related. I recognize that reading fiction made me better with memory.
Make sure you have proper foundation for things that you’re planning to learn. You can grasp tougher things only when you are strong with fundamentals.

Japan trip!

2019-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

This was when were walking on streets of Kyoto during a carnival. He politely moved to the left, for me to capture the chariot. Then he gently smiled when he realised he is the one my camera is focussing on.