Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

  • The world in which we live now is perfect summary of dynamics of modern western world. The rise of technofeudalism, purchasing power parity difference in military spending, people worrying about economic stagnation when almost everyone is rich and these xenophobic people reluctantly wanting immigrants to do their dishes while voting against immigration highlights the hypocrisy of western society.

  • Building a custom base station is a cool project. I don’t have full duplex SDR yet. But LimeSDR seems like a good SDR. With OsmoBTS running along with sim900a module i should be able to get the IMSI number of a SIM and then add a config to osmo for POC 2G network.

  • Had a interesting conversation with founder of Alpen Labs, and here is what really struck with me. If you can pan out everything in your startup then you are already late. The amount of unknowns should always be more than knowns for a good startup.

  • Douglas Adams says “The quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead”. Most advices people give are advice to their own self.

  • Why be a contrarian , for most of the things, assume yourself to be average or below average so average opinion of humanity will be better and less biased than your own judgement. If you can reason using object level and meta level cues then you might find the better contrarian alternative than what humanity currently provides for you. There are group of people for who are able to improve humanity knowledge base like Newton and Watt, who can improve life not just for them but for whole of society. Being a contrarian is taking what average viewpoint is and judging it with your own meta and object level cues. This also means being willing to make cynical claims, disagree with high status, and sacrifice careers is also being a contrarian. Rejecting the social media ban by planning the events on social media to protest against the corruption is also contrarian.

  • That’s just 4 things. The tweet reads

    My 3yo said she wanted to be an astronaut, and I said she had to study hard, go to college, learn a lot of science, and take a physical fitness test, and she shrugged and said, “That’s just 4 things.” So she’s basically a nonchalant motivational speaker

  • The right to be wrong provides three aspects on why being right all the time doesn’t matter. Defining what right feels like a stretch but it’s simply a state where evidence points out to be correct. Here is what the blog says

    • It’s a path to learn things: A person who has better meta and object cues than you is guaranteed to make a right choice than you, but still if you don’t put yourself in a situation to make a decision then you will not learn and there will always be a situational disadvantage for you

    • You will always have a right to opinion. You get counter arguments for your bad arguments, not a bullet. Having a right to keep a wrong opinion is fundamental

    • Of all the branch space of choices, you are eventually destined to converge to what you manifest and work for. If the world model for you is probabilistic .i.e you form your opinions then update the initial hypothesis once new truth/facts lands on you. Having a initial choice is all that matters and opens up a branch of new possibilities which proves that you have the right to be wrong.

      …at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half knowledge._

      verisimilitude is similarity to truth, like AI has some verisimilitude to it, like a actor choosing to wait and think has verisimilitude. Penetralium is something that’s deep inside you. Like the center of you. The core part of something .

  • Perth is open audio watermarking tool used by one of the TTS(Text to Speech) to identify if the speech was generated with it or not. This has led to me believing that these VCs who funded for AI slop will fund the next wave of tools capable of catching slop. what good is the ragebait when there is no human to bait.

  • “Strive to be a cog” - Tweet link. I have my own philosophy for the cogs. I imagine society as a evolving big machine which adds in new parts due to sum of human innovation. I take new humans as metal from smelting ores, ready to be casted. The base cast shape is provided to most of us. Analogically, anybody is able to do low skilled works like washing dishes, cleaning rooms etc. Some of metal, due to luck on where they are smelted are naturally privileged and are provided with opportunities for multiple complex shapes and a good treatment process. But some of the cogs if they don’t have the cast and if they want to fit in a new system they have to go through the hard process of forging. Einstein was casted and treated for a new part of human machine and he had to forge himself to become one of the crucial pieces. So, he is celebrated. But smelting them, casting them, filling his position while he was forging himself required other cogs to keep running.

Hence my modification to this tweet is: “Strive to be a forged cog, if luck decides the ore and your cast then your virtue lies in the forge that defies the very shape you were meant to be”

Generous without hesitation

Among many reasons to be successful, i found another compelling one. Success to me is about having enough security and resilience to act generously without fear of possibilities of trouble and loss. Around 7 PM, I was at the Gwarko intersection on my bike. The traffic was slow and suddenly i was approached by a random stranger. He wanted a ride till Ekantakuna. Midway during the ride, the car on the front was stopped by Police. Then it hit me.. if that guy had some contraband with him and if police were to stop us and frisk him then i would be in trouble. Another thought was that he could take out my purse easily without me noticing. At the end, he was just a stranger in a hurry. However, at that moment i thought to myself, if i were successful enough, even if situation had played out differently, it would just be a minor inconvenience. Success to me means being able to keep helping, even if sometimes I am lied to or taken advantage of. It is having enough resources to handle the worst case scenario for all the good intents i have.

Singapore Visit

  • I visited Singapore around March - April . Some of the fun never before my life things that i did
    • stayed at Sentosa Island at Oasia Resort then on Pullman
    • took a yacht and swam in the sea
    • played futsal at ark in funan at 7th floor
    • went to Marina Bay at 57th floor
    • Tried Durian
    • Went to universal studios
    • Went to Singapore Zoo and marine zoo
    • Went to best malls around Singapore like Suntec, IMM, Bugis, VivoCity, SimLim, Marina Square
    • Went to casino for the first time and played on slot machine on Marina Bay sands
    • Some of the best foods i tasted : Nasi Lemak, Wagyu, Lobster and so many of them i don’t even remember now.

Besides all the fun, this trip was absolutely perspective shifting. I am writing in parts before i reach the gestalt.

  • Those skyscrapers were living proof that human ingenuity was truly limitless. I had to stop and think about my own potential and the metric i had been measuring myself with.
  • I also saw peek side of consumerism. if Materialistic gain could satiate my being, i think Singapore can offer the best of it. I got to experience the best of culinary, visited most of the malls and saw outlets of almost every brands.
  • Never before had i visited club. My first visit and turns out it was for gay people.
  • Had interesting conversation with one of the co worker brother. He was trying to understand his dynamics at where i work. The team had now gone global, our founding engineer had just left; These chain of events had made him realize his replaceability. It also unbolted my repressed thoughts regarding my future there. I see lots of potential within myself but haven’t truly immersed myself to one thing till date. That is what he ultimately made me realize.