Sajal Choudhary - Shelf

Drive to Survive

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Started watching on Netflix.

The Sixth Extinction

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Started reading.

The Book of Kubernetes

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Reading now.

The Selfish Gene

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Started reading.

Drive to Survive

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

The Thinking Machine

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

I picked it up because it seemed interesting. I guess I wanted to know more about Nvidia and Hwang.

The book is structured like how these books about charismatic founders usually are - but in interviewing the many people who did (and do) the work to make Nvidia what it is - it just went on to show, it’s not a single person doing the work, it’s the whole team.

Nvidia got lucky (if you can call it luck) with spearheading and being a monopoly in parallel computing. There was a long time of them doing it without any obvious benefits. But then AI happened, and Nvidia became a 3 Trillion company.

It is a fun read. I like books like these, with some view into how these massive corporations work.

Apex

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

The movie is based in Australia. There are plenty of familiar tropes.

I found myself losing interest but finished it nonetheless.

Ladies First

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

This movie showed up as #1 on Netflix and I was looking for something to watch. So I watched it.

It is a good movie.

I have been thinking about gender roles and politics thanks to a book talk I gave recently about Children of Time.

This movie takes the view that if roles were reversed women will behave the way men do and then runs with it.

That’s a less interesting approach I think, but philosophy aside, I enjoyed it. It is fun.

Glory

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

I had thought this would be a limited series, but no, they ended it in a cliffhanger.

I liked it. The story follows two brothers on a quest for vengeance, as they find out who killed their sister.

I liked the premise and the setting. The characters felt believable, though the number of times the characters were in peril and somehow managed to escape was a bit unbelievable.

I caught the lead doing the Netflix wants shows/movies to explain what is going on, a few times. So that was funny.

The Anthropologists

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

How do you decide if a book is (or has been) a life changing book?
For me, if a book changes how I look at life or gives me a new way of doing some thing, then I call it life-changing. The thing that it enables me to differently has to be something that matters to me.

This book is a life-changing book for me. Which is a bit weird because I did not pick this book thinking it would.

I picked this book, because I had just finished reading [[202604261903 Children of Strife|Children of Strife]], and wanted to read something light and breezy - a romantic story. I searched on the library and this one seemed interesting - a story about an immigrant couple in a big city and their quest to find a home.

I don’t know if this was fiction or just a biography or a diary.

The book has 100+ short chapters, each talking about a thing. There are multiple sub-plots and strands that run through the entire book, but each chapter contains a single story in it.

The writing is gorgeous. The way the language flows and sounds.

And above all, it seemed so relatable to me. So many things that I feel or have felt over the past five years since I moved to Helsinki. Like the constant feeling of not being there for our parents, like feeling like foreigners here, like wanting to be friends with the locals.

We follow Ayse, who is a freelance documentarian, and the thing that she wants to capture is the beauty of every day life. To do that she visits the park and talks to people every day. Some of these interviews are interspersed throughout the book. She, her husband, Manu and their friend Ravi form a unit.

The story evolves slowly, and patiently. There are no high-stakes here. Just life.

It reminded me a bit of [[202409201237 A Prayer for the Crown-Shy|A Prayer for the Crown-Shy]] and how it was similarly low-stake.

The reason why I called it life-changing is because it showed me that writing about life does not have to be boring or written as if we are documenting something.

Stories are everywhere. Stories are the point. I don’t need to say I went there, saw this, did this, then that. It can be more.

The Great Mental Models

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Started reading.

Ghost of Yotei

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Started playing.

Shift

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

I just finished reading Shift and I want to write about how it made me feel.

I read the last 60 or so pages in one day - today. The rest of it, over the past month. It is a long book. It took time to read. I could not find time over the weekend. Otherwise, I had been slowly reading it, one lunch break at a time.

This is the second book in the Silo series. It describes the reason behind the Silos. Why they exist. It gives a voice to the villains.

We follow Donald, a man out of place across time (three distinct phases) as he tries to get to the truth of this world and how it was formed. In each phase, there are different characters we follow telling the story of the silo. Also, we know who Solo was, his back story. How he came to become Solo. I enjoyed those parts.

I don’t think I enjoyed it as much as the first book though - the main reason being that I took time to finish it. I think. But this sets up the final book pretty nicely. I am excited to follow it through the end.

Also, like Silo, at the end there is a nice essay by Hugh. I enjoyed reading it as well.

Notes

He was back to aboveground days, back when stirring and waking were two separate things. Mornings when he gained consciousness in the shower or behind the wheel on his way into work, long after he had begun to move. The mind lagged behind the body; it swam through the dust kicked up by numb and shuffling feet.

Cat’s Cradle

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

What can I say about Kurt Vonnegut? What can I say about Cat's Cradle?

The first book I read by Kurt Vonnegut was Timequake. I was new to reading then, and was asking around for things to read. A friend I knew then suggested I read Kurt, among others. And so I did.

This is the second book I've read by Mr. Vonnegut. Though I thought I had read Slaughterhouse Five. I haven't or I can't remember having read it.

Cat's Cradle was hilarious. Each chapter, each line was hilarious, dark at times, but humorous. The plot seems nonsensical at times, but logical. Each action leads to the next - as we follow and unnamed writer who becomes the president of a nation - but in Vonnegut fashion, it does not matter.

I loved the ending of the book - a perfect round circle, a perfect to tie all things off.

One added bonus in the audiobook edition of Cat's Cradle was that there was an interview with Mr. Vonnegut at the very end of the book. It was like icing on a cake.

Things My Grandmother Said

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

I picked this up because it showed up as recently added in the e-library. I liked the cover and it was a Indian author. Next I saw that it was a poetry collection and I could finish it between waiting for Cat's Cradle to be available.

It is a nice collection of poems. Amit writes poems about the strong women in his life. The two poems about things his grandmother said were my favourites. The last poem in the book - about us being like poems - was memorable as well.

It is a wonderful collection of poems. It does not demand too much. It is a easy recommendation.

Children of Strife

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

This is the fourth book in the Children of Time series. That answers the why of this book. I have loved each book in the Children of Time series. I have loved the narration by Mel Hudson for all the books in the series. The madness of Avrana Kern particularly shines through for me.

I had hopes and expectations from this book. I had thought the machine found in the end of Children of Ruin would play a bigger part in this book. That has how this series has evolved since the first book.

We go back to the old earth though, and find a pantheon of gods to mould a world in their image. A world to share their madness. We find another desperate group of people aboard an arc ship. We finally also have members of the spider-human-shrimp-nord thrown into this very potent mix, which leads to another awesome climax.

I found myself struggling to catch a hold of the story in the beginning. I was not sure what was happening. Eventually, I got hooked. Though I never really cared for these characters enough.

This was also the first book in this series, when I knew how it would end, before it ended. There was a particular moment when I knew where the gods would go.

I have felt that Children of Time series has always been about things more than the plot of the books. The first book for example, felt like a commentary on gender dynamics in our world, through it's portrayal of spider society.

This book seems to be a result of all the billionaires we have in our world. The way they act, the grandiosity of their behaviour.

I like my author's to add their politics to the books they write about. I like my books to be about something more than just the plot. There are those who disagree. Fine.

If you enjoy sci-fi, you would enjoy this book. If you've read Children of Time, this book is a must-read.

Wool

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

I first came across Hugh Howey, when someone in the writing community on Reddit, linked to his excellent collection of essays on the topic. I loved reading that. And so, the next thing I did was figure out what books he had written. The silo series popped out to me. And so I ordered the first book at the library. I picked it up - a glorious hardcover. I started reading it. And then, for some reason I could not continue - maybe I got a car and started commuting to work like that. I do not remember. The point is I could not read Wool then. Oh, I wish I had!

Wool is the first book in the Silo series. It talks of a world where humanity is reduced to living underground in silos. The book is grounded, a bit like Game of Thrones - where bad things can happen to characters you're rooting. There is a memorable list of characters from Mechanical and elsewhere. There are twists in almost each act of the book.

After reading the notes by Hugh at the very end, I figured out why. He wrote the first section of the book after losing his dog. He wanted to write a sad story then. So he did. He self-published it, and it took off.

People demanded more, so he wrote more, forming the book as it exists today in the novel form.

I absolutely loved reading it and hope you do too.

Outlive

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

I started reading this book after reading its review on Book Freak. It seemed interesting. The notes seemed interesting. So I searched for it in the e-library. I had just finished reading Pillars of Creation so I had space in my life for an audiobook and this was an audiobook, so I picked it up.

There are the four horsemen of slow death - Heart disease, Cancer, Neurodegenerative disease and Type 2 diabetes. The book goes over their causes, and possible ways to delay them. Mostly through exercise, nutrition, sleep and taking care of your mental health.

The byline of the book is - the science and art of longevity. The art part of it comes in the final section of the third and final part of the book. When Peter talks about his own mental health challenges. He becomes a patient then. He talks about trauma, and how it can cause us to behave as adults.

I don’t say it lightly - this book changed my life. There is one other book which I can say did the same. Back when I was in college, I had read M. Scott Peck’s - The Road Less Travelled. And for a long while it was the book I wanted to gift to everyone. This book feels similar.

Just read it.

Pillars of Creation

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

I don’t remember now why I picked this book. Perhaps because the cover looked awesome. Or I had received a recommendation somewhere. Or because I am always on the lookout for new science books to read.

Pillars of creation is about astrophysics, cosmology and finding the answer to the question of how did the universe come into being. It details the history of the JWST, the years it took to actually launch, the people involved, the science involved. It was plagued with constant delays and overshot its budget a bunch of times.

JWST is awesome, the sunshield on it blocks sunlight and reduces temperature for the sensor unit so that it can detect even fainter objects in infrared range.

I remember when it had actually launched in 2021. There were so many single point of failures. One thing going wrong would have put the entire project at risk, reduced its lifetime and so on. But they did it. The scientists and engineers managed to get it to Lagrange point (L2), unfurl its primary lenses, unfurl the solar shield, and get it working.

If you enjoy reading science books, you will enjoy reading this. I surely did.

I Deliver Parcels in Beijing

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

I don't remember where I had received the recommendation to read this book. Maybe I should start making a note of these things now. Anyway, I knew this book was recommended to me when I saw it in the e-library. I usually add a book to favourites, and then pick the first one in the list. For this, I just added it to my holds section straigtaway.

This book is about a courier in Beijing (think a Zomato/Swiggy person in India). It is about that. What he sees and not, how the companies treat him, how he treats his customers and so on. It may not feel interesting, but it was riveting to me. Not in the way a thriller is, but the mundanity of the experience allowed some deeper meaning to come out of it.

I found a few similarities between how I myself approach work at some times. Thought Anyan is a little too pessimistic and conflict-avoiding person. But I don't want to judge him. He is who he is. This is their experience. That has value.

Have you played Death Stranding? That game is about delivering parcels in a post-apocalyptic barren wasteland. If you enjoyed it, you will enjoy this book. You may enjoy it either way. So go give it a read.

Notes

I had no interest in falling out with my partner and bargaining with him at every turn. But neither did I want to work with someone who was going to take advantage. Imagine finishing later than a colleague every day yet earning less than them—of course I was going to feel irritated and dissatisfied, and at some point, I would stop really caring about the job. There is a reason that deep-sea fish are blind, and animals in the desert tolerant of thirst—a big part of who I am is determined by my environment and not my nature.

At that point I had already started to notice how my work situation was changing me, little by little, making me irritable, prone to anger, unconcerned by my responsibilities. I felt no longer capable of meeting the expectations I had of myself, and I didn’t really want to try to, either.

How they eventually resolved the issue, I never asked. They probably dragged in another unfortunate soul as a backup. I couldn’t have cared less. After my period of leave, I went straight back to my own team without consulting anyone. No one made it into a problem, though, so I got away with it. It turned out that people only bullied those who seemed weak and were afraid of anyone who stood up for themselves.

Why were the managers at the new company better - willing to listen, took an interest?

S Company, being the bellwether of the industry, enjoyed a surplus of human resources and very advantageous labor-management dynamics. The low-level administrators in the company—whose domain was reality and not the utopia of corporate social responsibility its claims suggested—used the company’s enviable position to enforce more thorough appraisals. The result was that Director L and Manager Z’s sense of entitlement made it difficult for me to meet their standards. Pinjun Express, meanwhile, didn’t have the same weight in the labor market that big players like Meituan, Ele.me, S Company, and JD.com used to push staff around. So, the management assumed a humbler manner with regards to its employees. Or, put another way, us workers could speak up more, were actually listened to, and the work atmosphere was freer, all of this without us having to forgo the salary paid by S Company.

Once I had eliminated every other possibility, confirming the parcel had been stolen, I felt all my will to finish the day’s work drain from me. It was like I’d been flattened by a train, and I couldn’t find it in myself to get back up. I have no memory of what happened next, or what I did for the rest of the day. For all I can remember, I stood glued to the spot, in a daze, but I must have gone to the next neighbourhood at some point, then the next one, going through the motions, until I finished my deliveries.

We have all had days like this.

I was seeing the work with new eyes. This wasn’t just about the changes in habit, time, and place. I think it was more being able to approach it with a perspective not permitted to me until then because of the anxiety and stress created by the job—a perspective that was free from direction and purpose. I no longer thought of myself as a parcel-delivery robot that works for thirty yuan an hour and becomes angry and defeated at the first sign I might not meet my delivery quota.

About being kinder and gentler with yourself.

I believe the store really was rewarding me for my work, not only paying for my social security because it had to. I also see that I deserved it. In fact, I speak highly of myself often in this book, with an easy conscience, without awkwardness. I’m just not that kid anymore, always seeking to prove myself, taking hits on purpose so people don’t think I’m being somehow duplicitous. I eventually realized that trying to get everyone to like me was a blind and futile impulse. We all project ourselves onto others—but know there’s no way you can ever convince anyone of your own sincerity. Better still, there is no need to even try with anyone who is sincere themselves.

The moral of this story: When disgruntled, the lowly among us only have each other to pick on, because going after the powerful will only cost us in the end. And if that’s too much, there are always animals.

The unwritten part is where the enormity and weight of a story should reside; and the art of storytelling is in expressing with as few words and images as possible limitless thought and feeling.

As soon as personal interests are involved, relationships between people become much more complicated. Both the sous-chefs were very careful about how they answered our questions, purposefully giving only the bare minimum of details, never more than we absolutely needed to know. By contrast, my security guard colleagues hadn’t hesitated to show me how the escalator worked. Since there was zero skill involved, they didn’t risk being replaced by me once I knew how to do their job.

But, supposing work is something we are compelled to do, a concession of our personal will, then the other parts of life—those that remain true to our desires, that we choose to pursue, in whatever form they take—might be called freedom.

All That We See or Seem

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

The first I had read of Ken Liu was the three-body problem series. He was the translator for the first and the third books in the series. And I had enjoyed both of these books. So, when this book showed up in the e-library I had marked it in my favourites list. That list is how I pick up the next book to read.

This book takes place in the near-future, with AI models living in tensor banks and online. Julia Z is the protagonist - a quintessential hacker, who gets pulled into a tale of murder and mystery. That tale is something you should experience on your own.

The things that spoke to me were the various descriptions of how things might turn out in this AI-field world we are all stepping into. This book hence feels timely (It was released in 2025). I enjoyed all of those parts, and it felt like that would be the equilibrium we are kind of barreling toward. I also enjoyed the reveal of the business that the antagonist was engaged in. For most of the book, it felt like he was a normal super villain. But when you find out what he actually does - it also felt like a product of the times we might be living in, in line with the rest of the book - a kind of near-future realism to it all.

I enjoyed reading it.

This and That

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

I had picked this book up, because I wanted to read more poetry. The same reason why I subscribed to Poetry Foundation’s Poem of the day.

I loved reading this book. The musings of a hermit, living alone in the mountains, asking for alms.

Notes

Falling petals
and those left on the branch will soon be
falling petals.

For 2 days straight,
hard at work,
gazing on
far-off clouds.

When you left,
you said you’d return—
all day consumed
with thoughts of you.

Awake or in dreams,
no one
looks for it,
but old age comes.

The common life
means suffering, but
how desolate
to live alone.

In-breath/out
in the same way
every day cares
never end

Cold breeze deep grove
the sound of the crowd like cicadas
in a shrine known to me alon
desire snuffed out like a flame

Poems? No way
when you see that my
poems aren’t poems,
then we can talk poetry.

I shaved my head and became a monk.
I’ve lived here for years like Buddha.
But everywhere people bring paper and brush
and beg me to write them a poem.

The Intelligent Investor

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

This book has been on my to read list for a long time, ever since I saw Becoming Warren Buffett and saw Mr. Buffett recommending this book.

I had purchased this book on Kindle, but could never get to it. I could finish it this time perhaps because I had reserved it at the library, though in all fairness, I think I will have to re-read it, in order to make notes and get something useful out of it.

The book is technical, and goes over the same principles I believe in and follow - which perhaps comes from people who have read this book and follow it. So, there was not much newness in this book for me.

I would recommend you read it though.

Wanderlust

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Started reading.

Notes on Being a Man

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Started reading.

The Linux Command Line

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Started Reading.

How Linux Works

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Started reading.

Sita

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

The thing that I always struggle with when it comes to Ramayana is the Uttar Kand - Sita’s banishment from Ayodhya.

A part of the reason is obvious - they love each other so deeply the how is this happening? It is so tragic.

The other aspect is perhaps how this section has been portrayed in media. Or my memory of it in any case. That Sita is sad, that it is an ordeal.

I felt a little bit better about it while reading Sita. There was no dread in this part. There was instead a feeling of freedom. Sita was free from all the wants and responsibilities of being a queen. She chose to love Ram still, as did Ram - putting a gold statue of Sita during the Ashwamedh yagya instead of remarrying.

It did not feel like the end of the world. I could understand it now. Perhaps because I have grown up a bit now.

The story felt more emotional than Mahabharata/Jaya, the book I had read before this.

I was emotional during this entire section - when Ram ordered Laxman to abandon Sita, when Ram talks about his years without Sita, and so on.

I loved reading this.

Notes

‘Every human creates his own imagined version of the world, and of himself. Every human is therefore Brahma, creator of his own aham. Aham Brahmasmi, I am Brahma. Tat tvam asi, so are you. We knot our imagination with fear to create aham. Tapasya and yagna are two tools that can help us unknot the mind, outgrow fear and discover atma, our true self.’

Brahmins were transmitters of knowledge in Vedic times, hence killing them was the greatest of crimes.

The rest of Vena’s body turns into Nishada, founder of the tribal communities who live in the forest, content with subsistence farming and animal husbandry, and who do not have personal property. The narrative draws attention to the difference between tribal and non-tribal societies, and makes us wonder what constitutes civilization. Tribal societies tend to focus on survival and maintenance of the social rhythm of the collective in harmony with nature while non-tribal societies tend to allow disruption of the old order and constantly seek something new either in terms of intellectual or material development often at the cost of nature.

Interesting thought for the book.

Vasishtha told the boys, ‘Before your wife came into your life, you were a student with no claim over property. After your wife leaves your life, you must become a hermit, with no claim over property. Only as long as she is by your side do you have claims over wealth. Without her, you cannot perform yagna; you must only perform tapasya.’

‘Would you rather the tigress starve and die? Who will feed her cubs then? You? This is how nature functions: there are eaters and the eaten. The tiger does not resent the deer that gets away. The doe does not resent the tiger that captures her fawn. They are following their instincts. Plants and animals live; humans need to judge, for we need to feel good about ourselves. That is why we create stories, full of heroes and villains, victims and martyrs,’ said Ram.

Dharma is often assumed to be a set of universal moral and ethical laws. Such universal laws do not exist but are imagined by all humans in every society because humans want them to exist. What exists is universal natural law, where the fit survive using strength and cunning. Social law with its notions of what is right and fair keeps changing with time, with place, with context and with the people involved. The beneficiaries of social law are convinced their laws are fair and right. But those who do not benefit from the same laws reject them and spark revolutions.

During the coronation, Anjana asked her son, Hanuman, ‘You are so strong. You leapt over the sea, defeated Surasa and Simhika, set Lanka aflame, carried a mountain from the north to the south, overpowered Mahiravana. Surely you could have defeated Ravana on your own. There was no real need to build the bridge to Lanka and make all the vanaras fight the rakshasas. So why didn’t you?’

Hanuman replied, ‘Because Ram did not ask me to. This is his story, not mine.’

Sita, seated on Ram’s lap, smiled on hearing this, for she clearly saw how Hanuman saw the world. Most people seek to be the sun around which the world revolves. Very few are willing to be the moon, allowing others to be the sun, despite having full knowledge that they can outshine everyone else. Ram’s brothers served him to uphold the integrity of the royal clan. She too was bound by wifely obligations. But only Hanuman did so out of pure love. That is why Ram held him closest.

The idea that all narratives are incomplete and so no one must be arrogant about their creation is a common theme in Indian stories.

The traditional belief is that whatever Ramayana we know is incomplete. Of the millions of Ramayana narrations available, Shiva narrates the story in a hundred thousand verses, Hanuman narrates 60,000 of these, Valmiki narrates 24,000 and all other poets narrate fewer than that.

The Science of Storytelling

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

The thesis of this book is that good stories are character driven. They tell about a character changing and answering the primary question - who are they.

Plot happens. As do the other things. The stories that stay are the stories that deal with a change in character - who goes from some sort of imbalance in their nature to one where they are more balanced.

I borrowed this book from the library after reading the description. Because I have been reading about plot and the technical aspects of writing, I had thought this book would be similar. It wasn’t.

It basically takes research done by psychologists and compares it to the ways stories have been written for thousands of years.

I especially liked the part about how we live in a hallucinated world created by our brains with our organs acting as fact-checking things.

I enjoyed reading it.

Jaya

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

Vijaya is material victory while Jaya is winning over oneself, the true victory.

There is a bibliophile group in TCS. I had joined it some time back, but did not really participate in its events.

I got a call recently to present in a talk after I had posted a review. I agreed and then joined the next session to find out what goes into taking a session.

That session was about dons and villains. And somehow the conversation veered toward Mahabharata and this book - Jaya.

I picked it up after that. And finished it in record time.

The story of the Mahabharata is known to me. I have watched and loved the show on Star. This was a retelling of the Mahabharata, with a few interesting tidbits that I did not know about. Those are added in the notes below.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and perhaps because I knew the story already I did not have to take as much time.

Notes

the story of Shakuni

Bhishma locked Suvala and his sons in a dungeon. Every day, only a fistful of rice was given to them. Suvala told his sons, ‘Bhishma knows it is adharma to kill family. So he has found a way to kill us without breaking the code of dharma. He feeds us every day but the quantity of food is so less that we are bound to starve and die. There is nothing we can do about it, for it is adharma to ask for more food. And it is adharma to run away from the daughter’s house when food is still being served.’

As the days passed, things got worse. The brothers of Gandhari began fighting over the food being served. A starving and suffering Suvala came up with an idea, ‘Let only one of us eat: the most intelligent one among us. Let only he survive and remember this great wrong done to us by Bhishma. Let him live to take vengeance.’

Shakuni, the youngest, was the chosen one and alone he ate the food being served while the rest of his family starved before his eyes.

Before dying, Suvala struck Shakuni’s foot with a staff and cracked his ankle. ‘Now you shall limp every time you walk. And every time you limp, remember the crime of the Kauravas against your family. Never forgive them.’

Suvala had noticed Shakuni’s fondness for the game of dice. He told his son, with his dying breath, ‘When I die, take my finger bones and turn them into dice. They will be filled with my rage and will turn whichever way you want them to. That way you will always win the game of dice.’

Shortly thereafter, Suvala and his sons died. Shakuni survived and he lived in Hastina-puri along with the Kauravas under the care of Bhishma. He pretended to be the friend of the Kauravas, but all the while he plotted the downfall of Bhishma’s household just as Bhishma had destroyed his own.

Who is a Brahman?

‘He is not the son of a Brahman as most people believe. He is one who by mastering his senses and by disciplining his mind has attained Brahma-vidya, knowledge of the eternal, infinite and boundless soul. This makes him content and gentle and generous, for he is one with the truth.’

System Collapse

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

I felt a little lost reading this book. This is the seventh book in the Murderbot diaries. I had a similar feeling reading this book as the last book - Fugitive Telemetry. I was reading it after a while. And network effect was a standalone book, not in the time line order. So it had felt weird because of that.

This one felt weird because it continues the story from Network Effect and I did not remember it properly. I guess this is why I have a tendency to not start a series till it is finished. The reason why I have not watched Stranger Things yet.

Maybe I should have just re-read Network Effect, but the other books in this series have been standalone. That is in fact something I enjoy about this series. Whatever. My enjoyment was a bit diminished hence.

It was still an enjoyable read.

This book follows on from the events in Network Effect, with Murderbot and his batch of humans trying to save a bunch of human settlers from ending up as slaves with BE group. It was a fun read, as these Murderbot books usually are.

Zen in the Art of Writing

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

This is a beautiful book, just the prose of it. It is beautifully written. The namesake essay - zen in the art of writing, talks about the work of writing. The act of sitting and typing words out, so that it becomes normal, something that gets out of the way, that becomes part of nature. And then you can write.

This idea comes from the book Zen in the art of archery. A book I’ve added to my reading list.

I loved reading the book. The first two chapters were pretty good. That’s when Mr. Bradbury talked about writing 1000 words per day. And also about how to feed and keep your muse. I loved those essays.

There is a principle I have about books I want to keep. By keep I mean in a physical sense, on a bookshelf. When I started reading, I did not care about it. I had a home, and in that home I had a bookshelf.

Things are not so certain right now. I am trying to build a home. After which would come a bookshelf. I don’t want to accumulate things I may have to abandon.

The principle I have is this - I will only keep books I know I will re-read. Books that speak to me, on some level. Books which inspire me. Books that are short (maybe).

The books I have on my bookshelf now are -

On writing
What I talk about when I talk about running
Steal like an artist
Show your work
Keep going
Light on the yogasutras of Patanjali
A year of mornings

I think I will add this book to my bookshelf next.

Notes

He talks about writing a thousand words each day since he was twelve.

Make a list of things that speak to you. Things that you want to write about. Things hidden in your subconscious. Aligns, a little bit with the exercise from Bird by bird, about writing stories from your childhood.

Feed your muse.

Read a poem a day
Read essays - learn about the smells, sights and tastes people may feel in different places
Read stories and novels - things you want to read and don’t.

As writers our job is to create tension, and the release that tension - build tension toward violence and then release that violence, for example.

We are teachps, being filled all the time. The trick is in how to flip ourselves and let the good stuff flow.

Building Microservices

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Started reading.

A City on Mars

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

When I picked the book, I was expecting this book to read a bit like a sci-fi book, perhaps like Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red/Green/Blue Mars series. I had expected the book to detail how a society may form on Mars, what technology could make it happen and so on.

I don’t know why I had that expectation.

This is a much more sobering read, shining a light on the current state of the field, and why wait and go big will be a better approach to take.

This book also seems like an excellent resource in case I want to write a sci-fi book with space travel elements in it at some point. The Weinersmiths have done the research. I could reference it.

The book takes you, the reader, through all the challenges in planning a long term future in space. The book is funny. The book is entertaining, though there were sections where I was mentally checked out.

The book talks about the different challenges - biological, physical, law related, and psychological to setting up a base in space - the moon, on mars, and maybe some moons which are absolutely shit.

Our best bet maybe lava tubes on the moon.

It was an entertaining read, though it put a damper on space travel and exploration for me.

Notes

Based on the current data, carefully selected personnel don’t seem to have any mental health issues. Astronauts though tend to lie.

Fugitive Telemetry

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

Fugitive telemetry is the sixth book in the Murderbot series. It’s not the sixth book in the timeline order, so it was a bit jarring to read.

It is a standalone murder mystery. Perhaps because I was reading it after some time - I had finished the fifth book in July of 2025, or because it was not the next book in the series, I did not enjoy it as much.

This book follows Murderbot on preservation station as they try to solve a murder. It is a novella - which is something I enjoy about these books. I enjoyed the twist at the end. The whodunnit of it all. Otherwise I would have rated it as not-for-me.

The ending elevated it though. I may have enjoyed it more had I been reading it in July.

Die With Zero

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

Like Bird by bird, I started reading this book thanks to this post on Gina Trapani’s blog. That’s the beauty of books and blogs and sharing things that books teach us. It may inspire the reader to pick up the book as well.

This felt like a book which could have been a blog post, or a long essay. I could have felt that way also because it took me longer than expected to finish this book. I had other things to do - books I liked more, work, and so on.

The core idea of the book is this - we must prioritise net fulfilment over net worth. Instead of continuing to work, we must decide how much money is enough, and then stop earning and start spending it.

See, our health declines as we age. There are lots of things that we want to do. Some of them we may not be able to do as we age - skiing, scuba-diving and so on.

Why wait? Do the things now. Some ideas that were a bit of a shock were the ideas around giving money away now - to charities, to our kids perhaps.

Overall enjoyed reading the book. It gave me a new way to look at personal finance and how to optimise for experiences instead of accumulating more money.

Notes

Living as if your life were infinite is the opposite of taking the long view: It’s terribly shortsighted.

Although we all have at least the potential to make more money in the future, we can never go back and recapture time that is now gone. So it makes no sense to let opportunities pass us by for fear of squandering our money. Squandering our lives should be a much greater worry.

Annuities are insurance against longevity risk, that is, you living longer than your savings. You are paid a fixed amount of money after you retire till the day you die.

If you’re really putting your kids first, as you claim you are, don’t wait until you’re dead to show your generosity. (I like to say that dead people can’t give money away—they can’t do anything.) Putting your kids first means you give to them much earlier, and you make a deliberate plan to make sure that what you have for your children reaches them when it will make the most impact. A real plan for dying with zero includes the kids, if you have kids. That way, you’ve already separated out their money (which becomes untouchable by you) from your money, which is what you must spend down to zero.

I was thinking about this recently. We had thought we would have a fund for Savya where we would put a certain amount each month. Savya will get it when he will be old enough. The second thought was this - this will be Savya’s money, not our investment. That gave me a pause. If we live here in Finland, we don’t have to save for higher education. It will be free for him, when he grows up. So then what’s the point. Reading this book, has made me reconsider these feelings and thought. Why wait till I die to leave him something. Why not give him this at the start of his career for example, when he needs it most.

Once you have enough money to take care of your family’s basic needs, then by going to work to earn more money, you might actually be depleting your kids’ inheritance because you are spending less time with them! And the richer you already are, the more likely this is to be true.

So you can be generous only when you’re alive, when you have actual choices and their consequences: That’s when you can choose whether to give your money or your time to one thing or another. If you give generously when you’re alive, then I can consider you selfless. If you’re dead, you just don’t have that choice. So by definition, you cannot be generous when you’re dead.

On paying money to earn back time:

If you pay to get out of doing tasks you don’t enjoy, you are simultaneously reducing the number of negative life experiences and increasing the number of positive life experiences (for which you now have more time). How can that not make you happier with your life?

That is what I mean when I say that we die many deaths in the course of our lives: The teenager in you dies, the college student in you dies, the single unattached you dies, the version of you that’s a parent of an infant dies, and so on. Once each of these mini-deaths occurs, there’s no going back.

We all face some version of this question whenever we consider a major purchase. Of course, the dollar amounts differ from person to person, often by orders of magnitude, but the core question is the same for all of us: What’s the best way to spend our money for maximum enjoyment and in order to generate maximum memories?

Bird by Bird

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

I picked this book from a quote on Note to Self by Gina Trapani.

I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die.

The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.

— Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird, one of my favorite books about writing.

I read this and thought, someone’s favourite book on writing is a good bet on it being a good book on writing. And so I bought it on Kindle, and started reading.

The book has four sections which talk about the different parts of being a writer - writing, mind, help and getting published. There is a last fifth section too, but it’s one chapter, the last chapter.

I enjoyed reading this. Maybe not as much as Stephen King’s On writing. But I had read that one a long time ago and we tend to fondly remember long off things.

There were a lot of useful ideas and things to do in the novel - like writing about your childhood, writing in smaller chunks, and writing being the main thing - not the fame, getting published, etc.

Some notes follow.

Notes

From the first chapter, two lessons -

Work in manageable smaller chunks
Write the first shitty draft, improve it over the second, third drafts

I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.

Writing is about hypnotizing yourself into believing in yourself, getting some work done, then unhypnotizing yourself and going over the material coldly.

On the importance of making notes.

And I’d stand there trying to see it, the way you try to remember a dream, where you squint and it’s right there on the tip of your psychic tongue but you can’t get it back. The image is gone. That is one of the worst feelings I can think of, to have had a wonderful moment or insight or vision or phrase, to know you had it, and then to lose it. So now I use index cards.

You don’t want to spend your time around people who make you hold your breath. You can’t fill up when you’re holding your breath. And writing is about filling up, filling up when you are empty, letting images and ideas and smells run down like water—just as writing is also about dealing with the emptiness. The emptiness destroys enough writers without the help of some friend or spouse.

I think that most of your characters believe, as children believe, that if the truth were known, they would be seen as good people. Truth seems to want expression. Unacknowledged truth saps your energy and keeps you and your characters wired and delusional. But when you open the closet door and let what was inside out, you can get a rush of liberation and even joy.

On giving.

The other is to think of the writers who have given a book to me, and then to write a book back to them. This gift they have given us, which we pass on to those around us, was fashioned out of their lives. You wouldn’t be a writer if reading hadn’t enriched your soul more than other pursuits. So write a book back to V. S. Naipaul or Margaret Atwood or Wendell Berry or whoever it is who most made you want to write, whose work you most love to read. Make it as good as you can. It is one of the greatest feelings known to humans, the feeling of being the host, of hosting people, of being the person to whom they come for food and drink and company. This is what the writer has to offer.

Dune

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

I tried to remember why I picked up Dune, when I did. Dune is of course one of the best books written in the sci-fi genre. I had come across this title many times in the past. This, and Hyperion. Which is another series I need to read at some point. So why did I pick this book?

I think it was the movies. I had started to watch it on HBO at some point, without finishing the movie. And I was interested in what I had seen then. Enough to know what the story was. I belong to the camp of books are always better.

I had just finished 'The Final Architecture' series and was looking for a similar book, a space opera of sorts. This fit like a glove.

Have you read Dune?

It is a long book. I had other things to read, and this was on Audible, so there was no time pressure.

I kept putting it off. Not because I wanted to, but because I could. That's something.

Dune is a space opera. We follow Paul of House Atreides, who accept stewardship of Arrakis, and then pay for it. There was a sense of inevitability to so much of this part. I kept imagining Oscar Issac as the Duke Leto. He felt like a perfect pick in the movie.

There is politics - so much of politics in this movie, the different fiefs wanting to be the ones controlling everything. So much plotting, scheming, back-stabbing. So much fun.

I loved the audio narration of the book. There were different people reading different parts, but there was a main narrator reading the narrator parts and other parts, with subtle changes to his voice.

I enjoyed it when compared to the Audible version of the mysterious affair at styles which read like a TV show.

I loved the sounds of a storm on a desert.

Many Lives Many Masters

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Prerna had suggested I read this book. No that’s not correct.

She had mentioned she had read and loved these books. Then asked if I had read these books - I had said no. And that had been that. She had then ordered this book for my father on his birthday.

While holidaying in India, I found this book in the drawer, half read by my father. So I picked it up, took a picture of the pages my father had read it to (to put the bookmark at the correct place after I was done), and started reading it.

This is a small book. Nothing spectacular about the cover, the object that is this book.

But the subject was interesting. It presents as fact that reincarnations happen, that the soul is indestructible, that we are sent here on earth (or rather choose to come here on earth) to learn lessons, that there are souls in a higher plane that guide us.

All of these are Hindu concepts. These are things that I know about, but don’t believe in. Prerna does though. She had told me often that your mother has already taken birth somewhere. She is not gone.

I appreciated the gesture but.

I like reading books like this. Books that challenge my worldview. Though the book at times felt like the author writing about the stories the patient says based on the point they wanted to make.

It was not engaging in that way. I wanted to say this is fiction. But that may be mind rebelling, making sure I mark this as fiction as un-real.

A compelling read this.

Notes

"People of the religious orders have come closer than any of us have because they've taken these vows of chastity and obedience. They've given up so much without asking for anything in return. The rest of us continue to ask for rewards—rewards and justifications for our behavior ... when there are no rewards, rewards that we want. The reward is in doing, but doing without expecting anything ... doing unselfishly.

Lords of Uncreation

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

There is a bitter-sweet feeling I have now as I have finished this book.

You feel that way when you finish a series. Till this point of course I knew I could spend more time with Solace, Idris, Ollie, Chris and the others. Not any more.

I loved it.

The great end of the architects and their masters. There was only one way Idris could have ended. And I had that feeling since perhaps the middle of the book.

Solace was my favourite character. Ollie was fun. The whole she inheriting the title of the book and the razer was so awesome.

Such fun characters. Such great universe.

Elements of Fiction Writing - Scene & Structure

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

what does a reader want

Story must begin with a significant change
A story question that they worry about
An answer to this question at the end
Anything that does not deal with the story question is boring

cause and effect

Order: stimulus - internalisation - response
Stimulus is external
Response similarly has to be external
Every stimulus has to have a response and vice versa
There is an internalisation step as well in between, which can be explained if needed

how to write a scene

Order: Goal-conflict-disaster
A scene starts with a stated goal, aligned with the bigger goal of what I want to do
Then there’s opposition or conflict
And finally, a no. Or minor yes. If the lead gets what they want. They are happy and that’s that.
1. No is the least interesting.
2. Yes, but is better
3. No, but is the worst for the lead. And best for interest

a sequel comes after a scene

After the disaster of a scene comes the sequel. It gives space to the reader. As there is usually contemplation.
Order- reaction-thought-decision-action
If there is no time after disaster for a sequel, we have to think if we can recall how the lead felt at a future time

how to control pace of a story

Scenes are read faster
Sequels are read slower
If the story feels slow, shorten the sequels, increase a the scene length and vice versa if it feels too fast
It is more likely to have slower pacing as a beginner. Namely, having less number of scenes, being poetic or philosophical, etc.

planning a story

Initial plan must be in the form of scene1-sequel1-scene2-sequel2 and so on.
However, when writing the actual story, there can be differences. Like,

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished reading.

To Be Taught If Fortunate

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

This one was structured in an atypical way, in which, when I finished I could point out and say this is the idea that the author had when writing it, the theme, the central thought. And it came at the very end.

Starter Villain

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

I loved reading this one as well. It was a hoot. A truly outrageous story, if there ever was any.

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Notes

Everything is natural in origin, but if you turn it into something that nature can no longer recycle, then you've removed it from that realm entirely.

Me and mine believe the further you distance yourself from the realities of what it means to be an animal in this world, the more you risk severing your connection to it.

Beautiful. Made me cry.

Mosscap reached out its hand. With an aching gentle-ness, it lay its fingers on the animal's dying body. Its, eyes became focused, and it bowed its head closer.
"It's all right," Mosscap murmured, its metallic voice thick with respect and sorrow. "I know. It's not fair. But it's all right. It'll be over soon."
Mx. Avery stared at Mosscap, their gaze as conflicted as Dex felt. They hesitated for a moment, then put their hand on Mosscap's shoulder as they, too, watched the fish's movements begin to slow. Dex did the same, a silent prayer to Bosh running through them. All three sat still, and together, they held vigil as something that had never existed before and never would again ceased its struggling and came to an end.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

The book that started me on the Becky Chambers’ binge.

Creativity Inc

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Notes

In management decisions are made mostly with good intent, which trigger other decisions. It is not so simple to solve problems that arise from these decisions. There is the problem that you want to solve and then there are other adjacent issues.

When you’re a leader, it is difficult to sense the issues. Because for you, for example the meeting is inclusive. For those on the periphery it might not be so.

It isn’t enough to have good ideas, you need buy-in from the people who would be doing the work.

The responsibility for finding and fixing problems should be with everyone. Everyone should be encouraged to spot and report problems. There is also a joy that comes when you know you fixed something. A pride in your work. Pioneered by Deming and Toyota. Re: the assembly line.

When downsides exist with good, people often don’t complain, for fear of being labelled complainers. This kind of thing, if left unaddressed could lead to destruction.

People should talk to each other directly and later let the manager know. This is more efficient than going through proper channels.

People are more important than ideas. Ideas come from people. It is not just about individual brilliance, how the team works together is key. A mediocre team can destroy a good idea. A good team will either replace or make better a mediocre idea.

Candor is a better term than honesty. We can not be honest all the time. There are times when we have to hold our tongue. There is nothing wrong with that. But unchecked lack of candor can be destructive.
It needs to be instituted that candor is appreciated. Needed? Wanted?
There is fear - of asking a stupid question - being ridiculed, of repercussions. It needs to be tackled. Again and again.
The crucial factor around this, around having a group where people speak with candor, give feedback etc is lack of power. This is not my way or highway. The feedback is not binding.

You are not your idea. So when getting feedback, we should not get defensive. Kind of like strong beliefs held loosely.

Candor is only valuable if the person on the other end is willing to listen.

In a meeting/environment such as this, when you’re looking for feedback. There can be two ways of looking at it: additive or competitive. Additive is the approach that one must follow. That everybody contributes something, even if that idea does not work eventually. It is not a debate to be won or lost.

A good note/feedback is specific. It says what is wrong, what does not work. It is offered at a timely moment, when something can be done about it. It does not make any demands. As an example there can be a proposed solution.

If you are doing something new, you will fail. When doing something new, if you keep thinking everything before doing that thing, you will not do anything. Better to fail fast and early.
It is not enough to choose a path. You must walk on it. There will be things that you could not have foreseen. You need to walk the path. To correct paths of need be. But without walking how would you know.

If you’re a leader, then the misstep of the team is your misstep as well. Keep it in mind. You can’t be a good leader of all you do is complain about others.

Improving the process, making it cheaper, better, easier to produce is a worthy aspiration, but it is not the goal. The goal is to make good stuff. Or, at work the goal is not to save the SLA. The goal is to do good work, to solve user issues. If we are doing that, then the SLA will take care of itself.

change

We cling as long as possible to a safe position till the next safe position becomes available.
We might have developed processes that work and then because they worked we stuck to them. Eventually it’s very difficult to know whether what we are stuck to is helping or holding us back from improving.

Ways to work around this is saying not going to do anything but what if…

randomness

Randomness is a big part of life. Randomness/Luck. Things happen. Some things don’t happen. We might attribute causality and patterns to things that happened, but we can’t to things that didn’t happen. Like during that trip with my friends where we just left a place and then had weather hit. Things like that.
We should have consistent processes/systems for all problems: big or small. Errors happen. There is little point in assigning blame. We must improve systems. Like that time Brijesh deleted all the users in that domain. The correct response to that was to fix the script, so that it returned max 5 users per query and so on.

hidden things

In a complex environment, it is difficult to know everything.

There are things that I am not good at, not trained in.
There are things that people won’t tell me because of my position.
And then, there are people actually working on the thing who would have insights that I would not have.
It is important in scenarios like that to always recognise this. Alternative views are additive. That’s all. If someone says something that we did not know, we should not become defensive. Things are additive.
This is related to also Confirmation bias. Where in we just ignore things that don’t agree with our mental models. Sounds like AI. Maybe an idea for a story there.
There might also be times when something is kept from us, we are not invited to a meeting and then we think that there is a threat to our position, our self. Where none might have been intended.

mechanisms

Dailies - daily connects. Work in progress. It’s ok. Open feedbacks.
Research trips - go out, see what you’re trying to describe. Attention to detail matters. Adjacent to describe something mundane in full detail.
The power of limits - it’s good to have boundaries. But micromanaging everything is not the way. Within the boundaries, there should be scope for flexibility.
Integrating technology and art - art challenges technology. Technology inspires art.
Short experiments - things which if fail are ok. Better in fact. That allow exploration.
Learning to see - we all have biases. Our internal models. We can learn ways to ignore them. Like while drawing a chair draw the empty spaces.
Postmortems - important to do this after a project is finished. Why?
1. consolidate learning which happened during the project.
2. Teach others who weren’t there
3. Don’t let resentments fester - things that were said in the heat of the moment. Discuss now.
4. Force reflection
5. Pay it forward - lessons for the next project
Continuous learning - it is important to have the openness and curiosity we have as children and protect it. In the face of the world. The judgement of the world.

Similar to the same thing about when doing something new. That it is unknown. And so we all have models on how to deal with that situation. As an example consider that you are walking through a tunnel. During the middle it is pitch black. But you must have trust and keep on moving.

Unleashing creativity requires that we loosen the controls, accept risk, trust our colleagues, work to clear the path for them, and pay attention to anything that creates fear. Doing all these things won't necessarily make the job of managing a creative culture easier. But ease isn't the goal; excellence is.

Project Hail Mary

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

I absolutely loved reading this book.

This book is crafted so well. Every chapter leads to the next cone so seamlessly. Every chapter ends on a cliffhanger of sorts. You have to keep reading.

Little Brother

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished reading.

Blade Runner

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Notes

Empathy, he once had decided, must be limited to herbivores or anyhow omnivores who could depart from a meat diet. Because, ultimately, the emphatic gift blurred the boundaries between hunter and victim, between the successful and the defeated.

Redshirts

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished reading.

Born to Run

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Notes

the only way to truly conquer something, as every great philosopher and geneticist will tell you, is to love it.

“You don’t stop running because you get old,” said the Demon. “You get old because you stop running.”

The way to activate your fat-burning furnace is by staying below your aerobic threshold—your hard-breathing point—during your endurance runs.

Have salad as a breakfast.

Chiang, Ted - Exhalation

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished reading.

After Steve

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished reading.

The Unicorn Project

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished reading.

The Phoenix Project

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished reading.

The Ministry for the Future

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

A very realistic take on the world we might be stepping into and a way out for us.

The Practice

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Notes

The reason there are so many quotes here is because all of these are already at that level where you cannot add anything to this.

Trust yourself

Process saves us from the poverty of our intentions .

What is art?

"Art is what we call it when we’re able to create something new that changes someone"

“Here we go again" is an easy way to lull yourself into victimhood, a place where the work is no longer up to you .

If we condition ourselves to work without flow , it’s more likely to arrive .

Flow is a symptom of the work we’re doing , not the cause of it .

only after we do the difficult work does it become our calling . Only after we trust the process does it become our passion . “ Do what you love ” is for amateurs . “ Love what you do ” is the mantra for professionals .

outcomes are the results of process . Good processes , repeated over time , lead to good outcomes more often than lazy processes do .

A good decision is based on what we know of the options and the odds . A good outcome happens or it doesn’t : it is a consequence of the odds , not the hidden answer .

The guarantee requires industrial sameness , recipes that have been tested , and most of all , the fungible labor of the disrespected laborer . If anyone can do it , then we’ll just hire anyone .

Yes , you’re an imposter . But you’re an imposter acting in service of generosity , seeking to make things better . When we embrace imposter syndrome instead of working to make it disappear , we choose the productive way forward .

The practice doesn’t care when you decide to become an artist . What simply matters is that you decide .

Persistent and consistent effort over time can yield results .

We develop trust over time . Our interactions lead to expectations , and those expectations , repeated and supported , turn into trust .

Better to set aside judging yourself until after you’ve committed to the practice and done the work .

Generous

The world conspires to hold us back , but it can’t do that without our permission.

manipulation : if the people you’re interacting with discover what you already know , will they be glad that they did what you asked them to ?

Nostalgia for a future that hasn’t happened yet is a modern affliction . We spend our days imagining that tomorrow might not be what we’re hoping for , filled with regret about what might have been . We see what’s possible , we know that we have a chance to make things better — and yet we hesitate .

The easiest way to go through life is to let life go through you . Give in to the prevailing winds and go along to get along . This requires very little effort because you’re not working with intent — at least not your own intent . You’re getting by . Doing your best . Perhaps even just doing your job .

Problems have solutions . That’s what makes them problems . A problem without a solution isn’t a problem , it’s simply a situation .

First , you can embrace the fact that you can , in fact , trust the process and repeat the practice often enough to get unstuck . Second , you can focus on the few , not everyone . And third , you can bring intention to your work , making every step along the way count .

Responding or reacting to incoming asks becomes the narration of your days , instead of the generous work of making your own contribution .

Inbox zero is a virtuous habit , though an exhausting one . Like all forms of responsiveness , it favors the short term over the long , the urgent over the important . And it comes with a juicy deniability , a way to spend an hour or two without having to own too much .

“ It’s not for you ” is the unspoken possible companion to “ Here , I made this . ”

The first thing is making exactly what you want , for you . And the second thing is making something for those you seek to connect and change . Pursuing either is fine . Pursuing both is a recipe for unhappiness , because what you’re actually doing is insisting that other people want what you want and see what you see .

The practice demands that we seek to make an impact on someone , not on everyone .

When we get really attached to how others will react to our work , we stop focusing on our work and begin to focus on controlling the outcome instead .

The Professional

Any idea withheld is an idea taken away. It’s selfish to hold back when there’s a chance you have something to offer.

For some of us, though, on the hook is the best place to be. It’s on you. It’s on me. Our choice, our turn, our responsibility.
This is our practice.
The missing element, for so many, is our lack of trust. We feel that we somehow can’t trust ourselves enough to take this on, because it’s too fraught, too difficult, too risky …
Everything that matters is something we’ve chosen to do.
Everything that matters is a skill and an attitude.
Everything that matters is something we can learn.
The practice is choice plus skill plus attitude. We can learn it and we can do it again.
We don’t ship the work because we’re creative. We’re creative because we ship the work.

At least once you’ve said or done something insightful, generous, and original. At least once you’ve solved a problem or given someone a hand by shining a light. The practice simply asks you to do it more than once, to do it often enough that it becomes your practice.

A professional is not simply a happy amateur who got paid.

Intent

Who are you trying to change?
What change are you trying to make?
How will you know if it worked?

you should only care about the opinions of those who are actually open to engaging with one. Someone, not everyone.

Intentional action demands a really good reason. Find a who, make an assertion, and execute your work to deliver on that promise.
You can’t find a good reason until you know what you’re trying to accomplish.

The “what’s-it-for” recursion lets you choose to go to work, efficiently working toward a goal, whenever you decide it’s important enough to ask the question. And it permits us to be open to useful feedback.

If we’re going to act with intention and empathy, our path is clear. The work is to make change happen. If we don’t ship the work, no change will happen. If we ship the wrong work to the wrong people, no change will happen.
Your audience doesn’t want your authentic voice. They want your consistent voice.

Skill and attitude. Enjoying things that others don't. Finding joy in the mundane? Finding joy in the process?
Isn't it?
The act of sitting for half an hour a day trying to think of things. Of worlds. About the art. Writing and rewriting.
First drafts are shit.
Just read any of my stories for that matter. They are all meandering.

Turning Pro

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Summary:
Another short book by Mr. Pressfield.
Short, but impactful.
Turning pro requires discipline. Above everything. The discipline to sit down at a place, at a fixed time, and simply do the work.

Notes:

"When we turn pro, we give up a life with which we may have become extremely comfortable. We give up a self that we have come to identify with and to call our own. We may have to give up friends, lovers, even spouses."

"When we were amateurs, our life was about drama, about denial and about distraction. Our days were simultaneously full to the bursting point and achingly, heartbreakingly empty."

"A practice has a space and that space is sacred."

"When we convene day upon day in the same space at the same time, a powerful energy builds up around us. This is the energy of our intention, of our dedication, of our commitment."

"Our intention as artists is to get better, to go deeper, to work closer and closer to the bone."

"Our role on tough - nut days is to maintain our composure and keep chipping away. We're pros. We're not amateurs. We have patience. We can handle adversity."

"Our work is a practice. One bad day is nothing to us. Ten bad days are nothing."

This Is Marketing

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished reading.

Eyes of the Void

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

The second book in the final architecture series.

Not as good as the first one. But I could not stop listening to it all the times I could listen to it.

All of it felt like a long-winded way to find out the secret, but in the end it wasn’t that much of a secret. I guess those we will know in the last book in the series.

Stories of Your Life and Others

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

I was inspired to pick this up after watching Arrival.

The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

This was a wonderful if a little scary book. It details the current theories on how the world might end. Which is not as sad/apocalyptic as it sounds.

The ways are these:

The Big Crunch
The Heat Death
The Big Rip
The Vacuum Decay
The Bounce

How to Win Friends and Influence People

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

The book became boring by the time I was done with the first two sections. It felt too preachy and a bit dated.

Which is not to say I agree with the things that were said. I have picked most of these things in life. Some during training as part of my first job. Maybe my teacher had read this book herself. But that was when I had been told to give feedback in a proper way - first tell the positive things and then the negatives. Or things others could improve. I was miffed then, of course. I was the one noting down points in my notebook, making effort. I got the point later.

This was one of the points mentioned in the book.

If I had time, and I haven't had the time yet, I think there were a core set of properties, things, that were being repeated across different sections. Be kind. Be nice. Genuinely nice. Do not criticise. I made a ton of highlights though. Not a note though.

I will. Or I may already have. All I need to is update it.

Notes

Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous because it wounds a person’s precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment.

Give honest and sincere appreciation.

Do you think Mrs. Anderson received any response from that letter? Eleven of the twelve banks invited her to be interviewed, and she had a choice of which bank’s offer to accept. Why? Mrs. Anderson did not state what she wanted, but wrote in the letter how she could help them, and focused on their wants, not her own.

After the letter she had sent out to the banks. Gives me an idea about how to frame the cover letter. Instead of framing it as who I am and what I want, it should say how I can help them. It should be about me figuring out what they want and then saying this is how you can get it. I love the first line of this- My 10 years of experience will be of interest to you.

This seems like a key thing in selling things as well. People want to buy stuff, not be sold something.

Be genuinely interested in other people. A good way to make friends.

Smile - it’s a good way to make a first impression.

Remember a person’s name.

I have heard this advice a few times. I am bad at it though. Reading about it reminded me how Soli took time to see how my name was pronounced while the rest of my team did not care. Even after correction they still pronounce it wrong.

I remember how it made me feel.

Be a good listener and encourage others to speak, which shouldn’t be too difficult as every one is interested in themselves. This goes with the principle above of being genuinely interested in other people.

Find out what someone else likes or is interested in and then talk about it.

This seems a bit scammy, but is it really? Being prepared in advance is a good idea. Goes well with being interested in other people and listening to them.

Opera tenor Jan Pearce, after he was married nearly fifty years, once said: “My wife and I made a pact a long time ago, and we’ve kept it no matter how angry we’ve grown with each other. When one yells, the other should listen — because when two people yell, there is no communication, just noise and bad vibrations.”

Something I need to do.

Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”

When we are right, let’s try to win people gently and tactfully to our way of thinking, and when we are wrong—and that will be surprisingly often, if we are honest with ourselves—let’s admit our mistakes quickly and with enthusiasm. Not only will that technique produce astonishing results; but, believe it or not, it is a lot more fun, under the circumstances, than trying to defend oneself.

Let the other person do the talking.

No one likes to feel that he or she is being sold something or told to do a thing. We much prefer to feel that we are buying of our own accord or acting on our own ideas. We like to be consulted about our wishes, our wants, and our thoughts.

Try to see things from the other’s point of view.

It seemed that, as in so many families, mother and dad’s chief form of communication with the children was yelling at them. And, as in so many cases, the children became a little worse rather than better after each such session — and so did the parents. There seemed to be no end in sight for this problem.

Talk about changing people. If you and I inspire the people with whom we come into contact to a realisation of the hidden treasures they possess, we can do far more than change people. We can literally transform them.

Things Become Other Things

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Started reading

Network Effect

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Book 1 - All systems red
Book 2 - Artificial Condition
Book 3 - Rogue Protocol
Book 4 - Exit Strategy
Book 5 - Network Effect

This is the fifth book in Martha Wells' The Murderbot Diaries series, and the first full length novel.

Given my record with this series, this should have been the not-so-great book, but it was.

The thing that I had loved about the series so far was that the books were small length, like A Psalm for the Wild-Built. I guess I prefer novella length books, given the time I have now.

Exit Strategy

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Book 1 - All systems red
Book 2 - Artificial Condition
Book 3 - Rogue Protocol
Book 4 - Exit Strategy
Book 5 - Network Effect

This is the fourth book in Martha Wells' The Murderbot Diaries series.

Enjoyed reading it.

What Technology Wants

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Notes and Quotes

So how do you detect autonomy? Well, we might say that an entity is autonomous if it displays any of these traits: self-repair, self-defense, self-maintenance (securing energy, disposing of waste), self-control of goals, self-improvement. The common element in all these characteristics is of course the emergence, at some level, of a self. In the technium we don't have any examples of a system that displays all these traits-but we have plenty of examples that display some of them. Autonomous airplane drones can self-steer and stay aloft for hours. But they don't repair themselves. Communication networks can repair themselves. But they don't reproduce themselves. We have self-reproducing computer viruses, but they don't improve themselves.

Seemingly simple inventions like the clock had profound social con-sequences. The clock divided an unbroken stream of time into measurable units, and once it had a face, time became a tyrant, ordering our lives.

Technology is our extended body, or rather extended body of our ideas.

Language is the final transformation in the natural world and the first step in the manufactured world.

For the past 30 years the conventional wisdom has been that once a person achieves a minimal standard of living, more money does not bring more happiness. If you live below a certain income threshold, increased money makes a difference, but after that, it doesn't buy happi-ness. That was the conclusion of a now-classic study by Richard Easterlin in 1974. However, recent research from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania shows that worldwide, affluence brings increased satisfaction. Higher income earners are happier. Citizens in higher-earning countries tend to be more satisfied on average.

My interpretation of this newest research-which also matches our intuitive impressions-is that what money brings is increased choices, rather than merely increased stuff (although more stuff comes with the territory). We don't find happiness in more gadgets and experiences. We do find happiness in having some control of our time and work, a chance for real leisure, in the escape from the uncertainties of war, poverty, and corruption, and in a chance to pursue individual freedoms-all of which come with increased affluence.

Every city starts as a slum. If it’s suitable for growth it develops from there, becoming a town, with concentric circles of slums at its boundaries. Every citizen hates newcomers.

This is how all technology works, it starts as a prototype, then through continuous iteration it becomes great.

The reason people move from villages to cities is for a better future for their children.

Simultaneous independent innovation is the norm in nature. Example the eye. This is convergent evolution.

It is caused by two factors:

Negative constrains of geometry and physics.
Positive constraints of genes and metabolic pathways, which coalesce in a few repossession possibilities.

Curiously, this freely chosen aspect of ourselves is what other people remember about us. How we handle life's cascade of real choices within the larger cages of our birth and background is what makes us who we are. It is what people talk about when we are gone. Not the given but choices we made.

When we unleash inanimate objects from their shackles of hereditary inertness and give them particles of choice, we give them freedom to make mistakes. We can think of each new crumb of artificial sentience as a new way to make mistakes. To do stupid things. To make errors. In other words, technology teaches us how to make innovative kinds of mistakes we could not make before. In fact, asking ourselves how humanity might make entirely new kinds of mistakes is probably the best metric we have for discovering new possibilities of choice and freedom.

When Google (or one of its descendants) is able to understand ordinary spoken questions and is living in a layer of our clothing, we will quickly absorb this tool into our minds. We will depend on it, and it will depend on us-both to continue to exist and to continue getting smarter, because the more people use it the smarter it gets.

How can technology make a person better? Only in this way: by providing each person with chances. A chance to excel at the unique mixture of talents he or she was born with, a chance to encounter new ideas and new minds, a chance to be different from his or her parents, a chance to create something his or her own.

Peace is summoned all over the world because it births increasing opportunities and, unlike a finite game, contains infinite potential.

The Story Grid

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Review

I was mostly ambivalent about reading this book. I liked the concept of it, and the chapter lengths. I was interested in reading it and understanding the craft better. I was ambivalent because these were things I had read about elsewhere, and I was not creating any notes. Not notes which are basically quotes that I put the end of this book-note. But rather notes that are evergreen.

That changed when I was travelling from Helsinki to Mumbai. I picked up this book after having watched Sinners and Jurassic World. And I began reading about the foolscrap story grid, etc. It happened when Shawn talked about constructing a story, about the maths behind it. That motivated me to write - How to craft a story.

I wrote most of that note while I was on the airplane. I could not complete the note. I was excited to find out how I could think about the rest of the 35 chapters, but that did not really come.

What I was hoping for was a guide on how to write that first draft. I got parts of it, but the story grid is mostly a tool to edit. I think. A tool to see if the story works.

Maybe I need to figure it out for myself. Whatever works for me. I like the idea of having a list of manageable things to do, a list of scenes to write. I want the orchestrator me, to tell the writer me, hey go write this scene. 1000-2000 words is manageable for me.

That is after all, all the time I get.

Anyway. Enjoyed this book. This will be a good tool to use.

Notes

That’s what the controlling idea/theme is all about. Taking a value that we all rely on to live peacefully day to day, challenging its stolidity and then paying it off with its confirmation or its vulnerability.

Resolutions and turning them masterfully so that they are unexpected, yet on reflection obvious, is what takes a very good Story from entertaining to memorable.

Jenkins 2 up and Running

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Started reading.

Shards of Earth

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

I loved Shards of Earth.

This is the first book in the final architecture series. I picked it up over the expanse series.

This is a space opera of gigantic proportions. There are a ton of mysteries still left, but most of the promises Adrian made were paid off by the end of the book.

I love the Parthenon. I loved the characters - solace the most. I loved the book so much so that even though I had bought it on Audible I continued reading it over anything else.

I am looking forward to the next book.

Ernest Hemingway on Writing

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

This is not a book in a traditional sense. This is not Ernest Hemingway writing about the craft.

This is a collection of his letters and quotes from elsewhere, around the clusters which naturally formed.

There is a weirdness to reading things that way. There were a few things which felt dated, from a bygone era. There were many other things which felt true now, even after so many years.

It’s a short book 81 pages. Good to read if the subject interests you.

Quotes

I believe that basically you write for two people: yourself to try to make it absolutely perfect; or if not that, then wonderful. Then you write for who you love, whether she can read or write or not, and whether she is alive or dead.

Write for one person. I have read this advice from multiple sources. But good to know Hemingway felt the same.

Up in that room, I decided that I would write one story about each thing that I knew about. I was trying to do this all the time I was writing, and it was good and severe discipline.

This is also good advice. Write one story about something you’ve gone through. One thing. How many things have I gone through?

It is better to produce half as much, get plenty of exercise, and not go crazy than to speed up so that your head is hardly normal.

A holistic advice to having a writer’s life.

It’s hard enough to write—and writing prose is a full-time job, and all the best of it is done in your subconscious, and when that is full of business, reviews, opinions, etc., you don’t get a damned thing.

Helsinki by Sauna

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

A short guide to saunas in Helsinki.

Walden

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Started reading.

Keep Going

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

So many things to take as lessons from this book, the third and final Kleon book on creative work.

This one has advice for how to keep doing the work - in good times and bad. There are a ton of good advices, from making lists to going on walks, from making gifts to playing like children.

This will be another book that I will re-read time and again.

Quotes

It is easy to assume that if only you could trade your ordinary life for a new one, all your creative problems would be solved. If only you could quit your day job, move to a hip city, rent the perfect studio, and fall in with the right gang of brilliant misfits! Then you'd really have it made.

All this is, of course, wishful thinking. You do not need to have an extraordinary life to make extraordinary work.

Everything you need to make extraordinary art can be found in your everyday lite.

Show Your Work

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

The second book in the Austin Kleon do the work series (not an official series).

This one is short as well. This one is inspiring too.

This book talks about showing your work - answering some questions about how to build a presence.

This book like Steal like an artist is written simply. The illustrations/poems are beautiful. And I love the thing that is this book. This is a soft copy not a hardcover. There is no hard cover for this book. I prefer hard covers (not for all the books though - I prefer the softcover of a year of mornings).

Quotes

Don't say you don't have enough time. We're all busy, but we all get 24 hours a day. People often ask me, "How do you find the time for all this?" And I answer, "I look for it." You find time the same place you find spare change: in the nooks and crannies. You find it in the cracks between the big stuff-your commute, your lunch break, the few hours after your kids go to bed. You might have to miss an episode of your favorite TV show, you might have to miss an hour of sleep, but you can find the time if you look for it. I like to work while the world is sleeping, and share while the world is at work.

Living in interstices. I had Read a story once about this. About a writer who wrote in interstices - in the time it took for a person to take a lift and visit him. It’s the key, I think.

Brancusi practiced what I call The Vampire Test. It's a simple way to know who you should let in and out of your life. If, after hanging out with someone you feel worn out and depleted, that person is a vampire. If, after hanging out with someone you still feel full of energy, that person is not a vampire. Of course, The Vampire Test works on many things in our lives, not just people—you can apply it to jobs, hobbies, places, etc.

Prerna coined this term for me first - energy vampire, she would call certain people that. That they sucked all energy from me. Of course, it’s not so simple to kick these people out of our lives.

Steal Like an Artist

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

It’s a small book, full of inspiring stuff. This is the second time I have read this book. The first time, I had read it on Kindle. Sometime last year, I had purchased all three Kleon books.

Since then, they had adorned the bookshelf. Yesterday, I picked it up and started reading it a little. Then put it down - I have two books I am reading right now. I did not have the time.

Today, I made time.

I had come up after doing sauna. I was not feeling super relaxed though. The weekend was two days of - I should start writing now.

I did not.

And so I picked this up. To get inspired perhaps.
I will finish the other two books by Mr. Kleon as well. Books I had not read yet. So, first time experiencing those.

I think. And I could be wrong here - but I think once every year, before or while writing my book, I would be reading these books.

Also, I love the thing this book is, this hardcover. I love actual books. I am planning to buy and bring a few books from India. I will start filling up my library now.

Quotes

Travel makes the world look new, and when the world looks new, our brains work harder.

I feel the same way, though I was coming at it from the opposite direction when I wrote, why walk the same route everyday.

The Art of Spending Money

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

I have thoughts about this book and the things discussed in this book. There are no notes though.

This will be another book I will purchase and keep it on my bookshelf. Another book I would re-read.

Mr Housel does not advise you to buy stocks or invest in real estate or anything. Like the psychology of money, this is a book about principles.

Most of the advice in this book are things I am doing, things I believe in. Things like spending on things, trying different things, not letting money define me and so on.

I highly recommend reading it.

Empire of AI

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

This book chronicles the rise of OpenAI and its eventual decline - the exodus, Sam Altman and the rest.

There were a few details about Sam Altman’s ouster that I had not read about earlier. It does not paint Sam Altman in a good light. I have never liked him. Perhaps because of that, I have gone to Claude. Anyway, this book details a fair bit of his toxic traits and behaviours.

The book discussed the dark shady underbelly of the AI industry, the people sitting in the global south doing the annotations on videos and so on. I knew about those things. So they were not surprising. It was hard reading through these parts. Tells you how well these AI companies have painted the public discourse.

While reading the parts about the environmental impact of these massive DCs, I wanted to shout - you don’t get tech. We need this infra. But do we? Can we not build more efficient smaller task-specific models?

It’s a good read.

Two Nights in Lisbon

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

I enjoyed reading this book thoroughly. What drew me to this book was Stephen King's blurb on the cover or rather the about page - 'There’s no such thing as a book you can’t put down, but this one was close.'

I was looking for an ebook to read, and this one was available, so I picked it. This is not how I usually pick books but I think it's good to have a wide funnel and a tight filter. Pick anything, finish whatever works for you (This idea is not mine, the credit goes to Morgan Housel).

Two nights in Lisbon is a well-crafted 400 page novel with plenty of twists and turns, even toward the end. That's the beauty of well-crafted work. You know only what the writer tells you and the beauty of this thing is that a good story can keep you guessing till the very end.

Two nights in Lisbon follows Ariel Pryce has her husband is kidnapped on a vacation in Lisbon and she has to arrange extortion that she does not have. There is plenty more to the story.

I like this type of story. You do not have pages upon pages of description about Lisbon - what you get instead is a line here, a line there - enough to make you feel you're there.

I loved reading it.

Quotes

But feelings don’t need to be fair to be genuine.

On Tennis

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

I picked this book up because I had heard the name ‘David Foster Wallace’, so many times on the podcast - ‘On writing’.

I am not particularly interested in Tennis. Where I’m from people are interested in and played cricket, primarily. As did I. Growing up, I got into table tennis. And then, later on, purely as a spectator - football.

When I started the book, I felt a certain disconnect - perhaps in the way the first essay was written. I had just finished Every day I read, which has simpler language. Or maybe David used to have a flowery writing style then.

Anyway. I moved on from that first essay and the rest went like a cool breeze. I enjoyed reading about David’s experiences at different tournaments. It felt like I was there. And I guess that’s David’s superpower.

One effect of the book is that I downloaded Tennis Clash to play some tennis of my own.

This Is How You Lose the Time War

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

I did not like this book as much as I had hoped I would. This book was highly recommended - winner of so many awards and so on.

Maybe it was because of the narration. I heard this book. And the narrator’s voice felt unnatural at times. Not the letters. The letters were delicious.

I don’t know why. I can’t point a finger and say this is what I disliked. The romance and the emotions should have spoken to me. But it did not.

Your mileage may vary.

Every Day I Read

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

This was a short and sweet book of 53 essays on why one should read books.

I read this in the e-library app - an ebook. I read it instead of the usual (for these days) heard it.

I enjoyed it. Unlike my typical stance these days where I do not collect quotes from books - I prefer to make notes instead - I collected quotes here.

It was an easy book to read too.

There were plenty of book recommendations, I added a few to my reading list, a few were already there.

While reading the book you realise how much Hwang loves reading books and it’s infectious.

Time to go home and read a little more before going to bed. What a perfect end to a great day.

When Nathalie says that she’s OK and that she’s handling things well, I can believe that it’s genuine. One day, I’ll be able to say, ‘I’m fine,’ and be truly fine.

According to his theories, happiness is achieved through virtuous activity and the development of one’s potential. For example, someone who wants to be a pianist will only be happy when they finally achieve their goal.

Someone (me) who wants to be a writer, will only be happy when they achieve their goal.
His is Aristotle here.

We see what others choose to show us. We see the curls in their hair, but not the tangles in their hearts. I’m in pain, but others are hurting too. I pretend to be fine; others are also hiding their pain. That’s how we fall for the illusion that others aren’t suffering as much as we are. We only see our own pain; we magnify our own sense of injustice.

Children of Memory

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

I loved this book.

I have multiple books I’m reading at any given time. Different formats mean, I am reading them at different times. Audiobooks - while driving or walking alone, e-books whenever I get time through out the day.

I use the e-library service of Helmet to read these books. I am also subscribed to Audible so I get one book per month. These have been the children of time series books since I started. Since I own these books, I don’t have an incentive to continue reading it, if I also have a audiobook available from the library. The library books are available for 14 days max. So there’s a time limit to those.

At least, that was the case with Children of ruin. Not so much with this one.

I borrowed This is how you lose the time war around the same time as I got this one. But I just could not put this book down!

Children of memory read like a horror book at times, this was a great mystery! A great mystery that felt like a time travel epic. I just had no clue what was happening. I had to know what was happening.

I was no way near what I thought was happening and what was actually happening, though it felt a bit of a let down when it was revealed what it was.

Adrian wrapped up the story nicely after that though.

The great trick of Children of Time has been repeated twice now - like the fast and the furious movies, where the villain from one movie becomes the hero in the next one. It feels like something similar is happening here.

We are at the very end though. The next book is that last one. I will miss it when it’s over.

Continuous Delivery

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Started reading

Enshittification

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Most of the ideas in the book were not new to me. I have been reading Cory and Pluralistic since quite some time now.

Most of the ideas in this book, were first essays on his blog. It was fun listening to the enshittificatory tendencies of big tech.

It was also fun catching myself trying to defend Apple.

I don’t have to agree with everything the book says though. So that’s OK.

I do not agree with a lot of stuff Apple does, for example, the App Store policies, and right to repair. But I am on Apple’s side on the iMessage-Beeper debacle.

Apple does not owe it to anyone to give away services for free. Hosting the service costs money. They can give it away for free for their customers. Not for everyone else.

Also RCS is shit.

A good read though, maybe more so for the normies in our lives.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

I don’t remember now, why I picked this book. Maybe it was the description.

NOW AN LA TIMES BESTSELLER

AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

The first book in the five million-copy bestselling magical realism series

I did not know what to expect from the book.

The book is a great what if - what if you could travel back in time? Of course there are rules - you can’t change the present, you can stay till the coffee goes cold, and so on.

At its core though, these are stories of people dealing through loss, through love, and so on.

It started simple enough, a woman dealing with heart break. Mid way through though, I can across the husband-wife story. Somehow, it spoke to me. It made me almost cry. I guess these things are personal. What spoke to me, may not speak to you.

My expectations from the book increased at this point. I did not find the same depth in the rest of the book. As I said, it’s a personal thing. Your mileage may vary.

When the Moon Hits Your Eye

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

This was a weird book. A book about the moon turning to cheese would be weird. And after reading the acknowledgement, I found that John considers this as a loosely formed third and final book in the trilogy comprising of The Kaiju preservation society and Starter Villain.

Starter Villain coincidently was the last Scalzi book I had read. I had loved that book. It was crisp, with one thing leading to the other. The tick-tock of cause and effect in full flow.

This book did not have that.

I guess I was interested in knowing the how or why of the moon turning to cheese. But John usually does not write these idea driven books. John’s books are fun.

The book starts slow, with the moon turning to cheese and then describes different people and character dealing with it.

It did not seem coherent to me. The stories were fun, some more so than others. I felt good about the brother story and the story of the writer toward the end, but it did not feel like something was happening. We were just looking at the thing from different perspectives.

I liked, but I guess I was expecting to love it.

Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Notes

Just what it says in the title. 20 poems and a song of despair.
The twentieth poem was what hit me in the gut.

The Practice of Cloud System Administration

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

started reading

Slow Productivity

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Notes

It is difficult to measure productivity in a knowledge worker context, hence we often equate busy work - replying to emails, chats, etc as a proxy for actual work. Which is not good as it leaves no time for actual deep work.

The thesis of this book is these three things-

What I liked about the book as it drew to a close were the writer stories. Which is not what I was expecting when I started reading this book.

I love reading about writing and writing about writing.

The final chapter about obsessing over quality seemed like it would be the most important one, but I got the least amount of actionable insights from it.

Which means -

I am either doing quality work already.
Or, there is limited scope to this type of work in what I am doing.

Anything You Want

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

This is a short book.

It felt like reading a collection of Derek Sivers’ post, which it kind of is.

The chapters are short succinct and dense. There were a few ideas that stood out to me - the hell yeah or no idea, the idea of obsessing over customer happiness and the idea that not everything needs to be massive.

Same as Ever

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

I loved the book. Like the psychology of money, this book is structured as a series of short essays on very slightly connected topics.

The thesis of this book is that there are a bunch of things that do not change through time. We should know what these things are, and try to live our life based on this knowledge.

I made a bunch of notes thanks to this book - so it was a great hit by that measurement.

A few things were a little surprising, but this book, like the Devops Finland meetup I was in yesterday, made me realise the value of knowing and linking diverse things. Reading more. Writing more.

Children of Ruin

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

The second book in the children of time series. Not as good as the first one.

It read like a horror novel at certain times, which was not unexpected and fun, so damn fun.

I thought, when I started reading this book, that it would be about the octopus and the spiders, instead it was about something else.

That discovery was fun too.

I liked how this book was structured as well.

And once again, I enjoyed the narration. In the first book, the narrator brought the craziness of Kern to fore. Here no one was crazy, but it was a good narration nonetheless.

The Life of Chuck

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

The life of chuck is a beautiful little book - just two and a half hours of audio.

It is told in three parts in reverse order. Each part built around a theme. Each part telling a beautiful, poignant, and a little sad story. Each part ending in hope.

The last/first part spoke to me - the kids relationship with his grandparents. She taught him his dancing. And that one other thing which shaped his life.

The audio narration was great too. The parts where the narrator talked about the dancing was so full of joy and happiness.

This book reminded me why I love Stephen King!

Time Management for System Administrators

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

I enjoyed this book.

There are certain things described in this book that I was doing already. Then there were things I started doing while/after I read about it.

I wrote a few notes inspired by this book. They include concepts from this book and things I do in my job already.

Some of the things mentioned in the book (mostly the how-tos) have aged, but the principles mentioned in the book still hold true. I think you can take the concepts and skim through the implementation details.

We have better tools now, use them.

I especially loved the epilogue.

The most common injustice that I see every day is the way corporations steal our lives away from our families. We wake up one day to find that our children have grown up hardly knowing us, or that our significant others are leaving because they hardly see us. “How did the time pass so quickly?”, we wonder to ourselves.

Use the free time to spend more time with your families, leave work after the stipulated hours, kiss your partner, play with your kids, talk to your parents.

The Quick Python Book

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Started reading

The Secret of Secrets

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

I have read all the books in the Robert Langston series of books. I had not enjoyed any, as much as I enjoyed this one.

In my reading and writing, I prefer the writer gets to the point quickly. I do not like heavy descriptions of things. All Dan Brown books in this series have had that. Descriptions of things - architectures, paintings, cities, and so on.

I do not know if there was less of that in this book, or, I have grown now - both in age and experiences lived.

But I enjoyed that, in this book.

This is a long book. It did not feel long at all, there was always something happening in the pages.

The reason I say this is that I had borrowed this book from the library. And you can borrow audiobooks for two weeks max. It is not possible to extend the loan. So I had to put reading this on hold, till I got the next credit from Audible.

I purchased it yesterday and finished the book today.

Data Analysis With Python and Pyspark

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Started reading

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

This was my first Agatha Christie novel, believe it or not. My sister used to love reading Agatha Christie. I somehow never got into reading her. I was a Asimov guy.

Audiobooks are usually read to you, as if you paid someone to read the book to you. This was not that. This felt like you were listening to the audio of a movie, or a play, more like a play. There was a background score and multiple actors playing their parts - including the excellent Peter Dinklage as Poirot.

The story, the mystery itself was OK. I have watched so many mysteries at this point that this felt recognisable. I recognised the elements, the characters, they felt similar. Perhaps the things I have watched have all been inspired by Poirot and Agatha's other books. It's me who is late to the party.

I was a little alarmed by the stage play nature of the book, but by the end, I came around to it. I do want my books to be read by a single person though.

Nexus

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

I have read all of Yuval’s books till this date. I had been wanting to read this book for a long time.

I had visited a friend a couple of months back and had seen Nexus on their bookshelf. I had decided then, that with the first credit I get from Audible I would buy this book.

And so I did.

I would have preferred to read this book in print, but it’s better to have heard this, then not to have read it at all.

The book talks about information systems - how they have developed through the ages, the difference between autocratic and democratic information systems - centralised vs distributed, and a possible future with AI as a majority participant in the human information systems and some possible repercussions of these changes.

I got a few ideas from this book, those would be linked to this note as I publish those out on this site.

Range

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Children of Time

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

I loved reading Children of Time.

It is a wonderful epic chronicling the journey of two groups of species - both children of mankind - as they look for a place to live in this world.

The book builds up, slowly toward a great big war, chronicling the journey of the generals in the war, till you get there - at the end. And then the great ending. I remember thinking toward the end, how would peace come? I did not want the spiders or the humans to lose. But it seemed inevitable that one would. Toward the end I thought surely the humans would crash their ship into the planet. Because the humans were losing, but what a great ending.

I feel - just like with Becky Chambers’ To Be Taught If Fortunate - the climax was the idea for the book. The main idea. The what if question.

And it comes at the very end, in the last few chapters. And it is such a light bulb moment. The reveal gives so much joy.

In Children of Time, the female is the stronger of the sexes for the spiders, which is how it is for other species too, in nature.

There were many sections where Adrian has written about the interaction of these women in their society - with how males are treated in the same way we treat women in our society. The way we have treated women through the ages. The fights they have had to endure.

I do not know if Adrian meant to say that in our society, if women had power, they would behave the same way as men have.

But I think that misses the point. There have been many skits and movies about this topic. A mirror world scenario - where men are shown going through the same scenario women go through. It has shock value - sure. But even that is an unjust and unequal world.

Equality matters. Treating others with respect, kindness and love. That matters. This tribalism - us vs them mentality has to have a limit. We need to grow out of it.

Rogue Protocol

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Book 1 - All systems red
Book 2 - Artificial Condition
Book 3 - Rogue Protocol
Book 4 - Exit Strategy
Book 5 - Network Effect

This is the third book in Martha Wells' The Murderbot Diaries series.

Murderbot is back! Yearning for his conversations with ART from Artificial Condition, alas what he has to contend with here is a dumb transport bot, and a toy bot. There is a nice satisfying arc and end to that relationship though.

There are more dumb humans to save. More villainous plots to be thwarted. All in all an average day in the office for our beloved murderbot.

I did not like this one as much as Artificial Condition. I liked it better than All systems red. The first half of the book was OK. The next was better after the characters were all in place.

I am looking forward to the next book in the series, given my history with the series.

1,3 - OK.
2 - Great.

Artificial Condition

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Book 1 - All systems red
Book 2 - Artificial Condition
Book 3 - Rogue Protocol
Book 4 - Exit Strategy
Book 5 - Network Effect

This is the second book in Martha Wells' The Murderbot Diaries series.

This book follows the titular Murderbot, who after the events of the first book decided to go out and figure out the mysteries of their past.

In this journey they are joined by ART, a research transport bot, and a few fellow humans, but the relationship and dynamics with ART are what defines this book. It is a classic trope, done so well here.

I enjoyed this book more than All systems red. It did not feel like anything was happening in that book. The reveal did not feel like a reveal. There were no stakes. It was a fun read.

I did not feel that way in this book. I cared about the characters. I could follow the story. I cared for the stakes.

All Systems Red

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Book 1 - All systems red
Book 2 - Artificial Condition
Book 3 - Rogue Protocol
Book 4 - Exit Strategy
Book 5 - Network Effect

This is the first book in the Murderbot series. And a nice change of pace from Death's End by Cixin Liu which was the last fiction book I read.

It is short.
It is funny.

I have discovered audio books recently. This is the second book I’ve read by hearing it on Audible. The first was Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. And in my very limited experience with audiobooks, I feel fiction is better suited to the format. With non-fiction, I tend to take notes and that is hard with audiobooks.

Abundance How We Build a Better Future

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

This book did not turn out to be how I had imagined it would be. Maybe by looking at the title, maybe by looking at the cover, I was hoping for it to be a description of a future world achieved by technology, a future of abundance, of steps humanity might take to get there. Perhaps, I was hoping for a non-fiction version of Kim Stanley Robinson's -The Ministry For The Future.

Instead, this book was a study of American politics, about liberalism, about how inventions occur, about how inventions are just the beginning, about how execution is what turns inventions into successful things society can use.

This book is also about political moments, and how they are independent of which party one actually belongs to. This book advocates for a future of abundance instead of scarcity, for building things swiftly, for inventing technologies needed to further the green movement and build a future that does not destroy humanity.

It left me feeling hopeful. We need more of this in this world. We need good things and hope for a better future.

Death's End

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Enjoyed reading it.

The Dark Forest

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

This is the second book in Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem. I had read the first one back in February. Since then, I embarked on a couple of long books - Kevin Kelly's What Technology Wants and this one. I am yet to finish What Technology Wants. I renewed my loan of that book many times, returned it, and then loaned it again. I will finish it soon though.

I borrowed this book in March, but started reading it on 6th April. For one reason or the other, I was not going to the office this month, so my reading time was really non-existent. I could not hence read this book as I would have in case I was going to office regularly.

Instead, I thought I would extend it's loan. I could not. And so over the past three days, I read this 500 page book.

The book felt a little confusing at the beginning. I wondered about how much words matter as a writer while talking about Murakami, Haruki - Men Without Women.

The other thing I want to talk about is the fact that this is a translated book. Mukarami writes in Japanese. When the book gets translated, is it a Murakami book or is it Philip Gabriel's (the translator) book. How much of craft is lost in translation?
Are stories all that matter? Is the idea all that matters? What about the execution?

I was wondering about this as I started reading this book. The three-body problem is written (translated?) by Ken Liu, this book is translated by Joel Martinsen. When I started reading it, I felt I preferred Ken Liu's translation better. But maybe it was because the story was messy at that time, with too many characters getting introduced.

That problem disappeared as I continued reading. As I got used to the characters.

The Dark Forest provides an answer to the Fermi Paradox. It is a simple answer which lies at the core of this book.

The Dark Forest continues on from the three-body problem where sophons have put a stop to any new advancements in physics, which means humanity is stuck with the knowledge it has and instead has to figure out a way to defeat tri-solaris with that limit.

The sophons can see and record everything so the world comes up with the wallfacers, four people who must come up with a way to beat tri-solaris. They have all the resources of the world at their behest, to come up with a solution. Their work must be carried out in secret, so as to ensure the tri-solarans don't get to know about humanity's actual defence.

There is a lot that happens in this book from here. I would not spoil any of it. I had an inkling of what the solution would be. But the way it was written gave me pause.

The universe may very well be a dark forest.

The Three-Body Problem

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

How does one review a book?

I had been wanting to read the three-body problem since long. I just was not able to get my hands on it, at the library. I got it on 27th Jan, but I was reading Murakami then. I was also reading 'The seven basic plots' in parallel. But that is not a book you read in parallel. And it is a seven hundred page book. I realised then, that some books are better read digitally, on the Kindle for example.

I started reading the three-body problem on 11th Feb and finished it today.

I loved this book.

That seems like a running theme for all the reviews I publish here. That is to be expected. Any book that I do eventually finish will be because I loved reading it. Otherwise, I would not finish it. There are a few such books in my Inbox folder.

That brings me back to my original question. How does one review a book? How much of the plot do you reveal? Do you talk about the characters?

And do I do any of that?

I have not done that by now.

What I do instead is talk about the book, not as a review, mind you, but rather just some things I thought of while reading it, or after reading it. Like with the Murakami book, I talked about the physical thing that the book was.

These are notes to me, in a way. And I am happy with that.

Anyway.

Three-body problem is about a few things.

Its about a woman hurt by cruelty, by the murder of her father.

Its also about imagining how life would be on a planet being tossed about in a company of three stars.

It is an excellent, expansive sort of science-fiction. I also enjoyed reading Liu Cixin's notes at the end. Science-fiction is stories about science, and they belong to the world. This is how science gets to the world.

The protagonist seems to be just there, because the plot needs him to be there. I did not find him interesting. The inspector Da Shi was a far more interesting character to me. As was Ye, the scientist who makes the first contact with the tri-solans.

I knew about the story because I had watched Netflix's 3-body problem before reading this novel. I preferred reading the novel.

I read a paperback. The cover was suitably sci-fi.

I am looking forward to reading the next one.

Men Without Women

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Few things about the thing that is this book

I finished reading (re-reading?) 'Men without women' today. Before I talk about the book, I want to talk about the object that this book is, the thing I held in my hands.

I have read hardcovers before, most of the books I've read these past few months have been nothing but hardcovers. I love hardcovers. I have written about the design of this book, the interiors. I love the cover as well.

In this age of minimalism, and defaults, of things being simpler, we have lost appreciation for things built, and crafted with heart and passion. I want to appreciate that.

The other thing I want to talk about is the fact that this is a translated book. Mukarami writes in Japanese. When the book gets translated, is it a Murakami book or is it Philip Gabriel's (the translator) book. How much of craft is lost in translation?

Are stories all that matter? Is the idea all that matters? What about the execution?

Words matter. Don't they?

About the stories

This is a typical Murakami book. If you've read Murakami before, you know what that entails. If you haven't, go read some. There are some fantastical elements in Murakami's stories, but they are told in such a grounded fashion.

This is a collection of seven stories. The strangeness in the stories ratchets up as we go on.

Drive my car is about a man who has lost his wife to illness, and how he deals with that loss.

Yesterday is where the book gets its cover from, the moon of ice. Its about Kitaru wanting his girlfriend to date the narrator.

An Independent Organ is about a doctor who falls in love with a woman, who loves another man. The doctor loses all will to live. This is story that made me want to talk to more people more often.

I remembered SCHEHERAZADE from the first time I had read this book. Scheherazade tells fantastical stories to Habara, about being madly in love with a boy when she was young. Habara is afraid he might not see her again.

Kino is perhaps the most out there story. About a man who opens a bar when he ends his marriage.

Samsa in love is a sucker punch to the gut. It's sad, deeply, profoundly so. But in that depth of sadness, there's hope and love.

Men without women is the other book I remembered from my first read. It is philosophical, about a man who gets a call at night, that a person he loved for about two years, had killed herself.

The Galaxy and the Ground Within

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

This is the final book in the wayfarer series, after Record of a spaceborn few. Becky continues to explore new characters in this universe. The common thread this time is Captain Pei, the Aeuluon Ashby loves from The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. Pei is joined by Oulu, a Laru mother and their child Tupo, Roveg an exiled artist who wants to go back to his family, and Speaker, an Akarak, about whom no one knows much, and hence fears a little.

They meet on a barren planet, at a rest stop while on their journey elsewhere.

The theme of this book was about choice. About not doing something, just because. About not bowing down to expectations that an entire species might have of you.

There are other themes too, but this is the central theme of this book.

I enjoyed the book like the other Becky Chambers books I’ve read. And I’ve read them all at this point. It is funny, and emotional. It is again, a low stakes book in the sci-fi kind of way. But it is again a great examination of the human condition, even though none of the species are humans.

I feel a little sad too. This is the last of the Becky Chambers books I’ll read.

Record of a Spaceborn Few

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

This is the third book in the Wayfarer series. Becky continues to explore further people and stories in this universe. This time concentrating on the Fleet, the descendants of the first humans who left a dying planet.

After a closed and common orbit which was written from the POV of two characters, this one is from the POV of 4-5 characters from the fleet. That made it a little harder to follow, in the beginning. And even, a little bit through the middle.

We follow Tessa, Ashby's sister who chose to stay behind while Ashby left the fleet. Kip a young lad who is struggling to fit and wants to leave the fleet. Sawyer an outsider who wants to make the fleet his home. Eyas who is doing what she always wanted to do, but is dissatisfied. And finally, Isabel, an archivist, who is hosting a Harmagian, and explaining to them the ways of the fleet.

The book was funny, entertaining, moving, like all Becky books are. There is a theme to how she writes and what she writes about. Themes of not knowing what to want, about growing up, about just existing.

One more thing about these novels is the inclusivity with which Becky writes. Mostly with how pronouns are used. I think that's important and good.

All of those themes were touched upon. I enjoyed this book very much.

Poems to Fall in Love With

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

This is an excellent collection of poetry on love with wonderful art by Chris Riddell. Some poems, specifically ‘If you are an ancient Egyptian pharaoh by Hera Lindsay Bird’ became more than their words thanks to Chris’s work.

Some like ‘Wedding thoughts : All I know about love by Neil Gaiman’ spoke to me. It felt like I had written those lines. Or thought those feelings.

Some like ‘The taste of a biscuit by A. F. Harrold’ hit me like a ton of bricks. And I sat there book in hand for a minute, then two, then three … unable to continue.

Some like ‘Love after Love by Derek Walcott’ had such brilliant art. Where I loved the art much much more than the words.

That’s what poetry does. That why it’s different. It makes you feel things, as does all art. But it does it in the least amount of words. It makes you feel things you wish you had said. It makes you hear the things you could not have said, but new you wanted to.

This collection has plenty of those. And more.

A Closed and Common Orbit

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

I finished reading the second book in the Wayfarer series - A Closed and Common Orbit. The book follows the events in The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. It does not however include the characters of the long way.

We follow the AI Lovelace/Sidra as she gets on with life in a new body (the kit) outside of the ship she was supposed to reside on. Pepper, the tech from long way helps Lovelace along her journey, in figuring out her place in the world.

We also follow Pepper/Jane as she escapes the hellscape that was her home-planet.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the novel. I am on a bit of a Becky Chambers reading spree, starting with A Psalm for the Wild-Built. This novel does not disappoint either.

This is not a typical space opera, the universe is ending type of sci-fi novel. The stakes are lower. You care what happens, of course. It's fun. I enjoyed reading a novel where the AIs are not all trying to kill all the humans around.

It is only toward the very end where Becky (through Sidra) goes on a bit of a monologue, explaining the theme of the book. The want for purpose, which all sentients have, which Sidra also has, but not. Not really.

Excellent Advice for Living

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

This is an excellent gift for someone.

This is a very short book with some wonderful ideas or advices. I finished it in a day.

Some quotes from the book.

Expand your mind by thinking with your feet on a walk or with your hand in a notebook. Think outside your brain.

Be more generous than necessary. No one on their deathbed has ever
regretted giving too much away. There is no point to being
the richest person in the cemetery.

Everyone’s time is finite and shrinking. The highest leverage you can get with your money is to buy someone else’s time. Hire and outsource when you can.

The Psychology of Money

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Black Box Thinking: The Surprising Truth About Success

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

I learnt about this book on #484 of the Tim Ferris show, with Daniel Ek, the CEO of Spotify.

This book talks about failures, how we treat them citing examples from industries ranging from aviation, healthcare, coding, cycling teams. It talks about the psychology behind our attitudes to failure, and how we view it. It talks about how failures serve as the core building block for both marginal and evolutionary successes.

It talks about the techniques used by some of the most innovative people and industries in the world. It also talks about the dangers of failing to learn from our mistakes.

Highlights:

"We create vague goals, so that nobody can point the finger when we don’t achieve them."

"We all have a sophisticated ability to delete failures from memory"

"Self - justification , allied to a wider cultural allergy to failure, morphs into an almost insurmountable barrier to progress."

"When people don’t interrogate errors, they sometimes don’t even know they have made one (even if they suspect they may have)."

"Learning from mistakes is not a drain on resources; it is the most effective way of safeguarding resources – and lives."

Learning from mistakes can be done under two conditions, or environments:

Under practice conditions, when the aim is to learn from mistakes, push the boundaries.
Under real world conditions, when the tendency is there to avoid mistakes.

"When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether."

Why is it so hard to learn from mistakes even in face of evidence to the contrary?
Because all of us think of ourselves as rational and intelligent. And when evidence comes up which shows that the view we held was wrong, we have two options:

To pause and accept that we were wrong. The issue with this approach is that it is threatening. It forces us to acknowledge we might be wrong about things on which we have staked a great deal.
The second option is to simply deny the evidence. We reframe the evidence, filter it, say it did not happen.

This cognitive dissonance also becomes important in cases where we have made an effort to be a part of a group for example. Even if the group is bad, we would feel motivated to ignore everything, apply cognitive filters. Because our ego is involved. Similar example would be when you purchase a gadget, a costly gadget and it fails. You cannot say that it was a bad gadget. You purchased it. Your ego is staked on the decision.

"The pattern is rarely uncovered unless subjects are willing to make mistakes – that is, to test numbers that violate their belief. Instead most people get stuck in a narrow and wrong hypothesis, as often happens in real life, such that their only way out is to make a mistake that turns out not to be a mistake after all. Sometimes, committing errors is not just the fastest way to the correct answer; it’s the only way."

This is an example of confirmation bias in action. Confirmation bias basically states:

We find it much easier to retain facts that conform to what we believe in.
Which, of course has its pitfalls.

Trying to falsify our hypothesis leads to finding the correct hypothesis quicker.
This is why confirmation bias is dangerous. It is easy to form an early hypothesis and then continue finding additional data to conform to that hypothesis. However if approached more critically, it is far easier to know if this theory can be falsified or not.
The higher people are up the hierarchy, the more profound the affects of cognitive dissonance. The harder it gets to admit mistake.

"Memory is a system dispersed throughout the brain, and is subject to all sorts of biases. Memories are suggestible. We often assemble fragments of entirely different experiences and weave them together into what seems like a coherent whole. With each recollection, we engage in editing."

"Cumulative selection works, then, if there is some form of ‘memory’: i.e. if the results of one selection test are fed into the next, and into the next, and so on. This process is so powerful that, in the natural world, it confers what has been called ‘the illusion of design’: animals that look as if they were designed by a vast intelligence when they were, in fact, created by a blind process."

Cumulative selection/evolutionary priniciple talks about trials and errors, and learning from the errors and improving the system.

"If we view the world as simple, we are going to expect to understand it without the need for testing and learning. The narrative fallacy, in effect, biases us towards top-down rather than bottom-up. We are going to trust our hunches, our existing knowledge, and the stories that we tell ourselves about the problems we face, rather than testing our assumptions, seeing their flaws, and learning."

Narrative fallacy means that in practical situations we would consider error/failure to not be an inevitable result of the gap between our understanding of it, and the actual complexity of the system. A reality in which an error/failure is a fairly normal act. Instead, if there is no complexity then the ego gets involved, and confirmation bias comes into the picture, and then it becomes very difficult to accept errors/failures.

In coding, and as I think about it, in writing as well, this top-down approach of planning everything and not leaving anything to trials and feedbacks can make one not do anything.

As an example, I want to put poems on the web. Now instead of just doing that, I decided that I need a website, which would require me to learn all sorts of backend and front-end technologies. And so, I end up doing nothing.

In case of a coder, she decides that the system would perform better, if she designs a new language. That takes four years, and she ends up putting out nothing.

The ideal approach has to be a hybrid of planning everything before hand, and stopping yourself from not doing any writing because you are too busy planning.

"Success is not just dependent on before-the-event reasoning, it is also about after-the-trigger adaptation."

The desire for perfectionism rests upon two fallacies:

A miscalculation that you can create the perfect thing, sitting at home.
Fear of failure. Basically pre-empting the closed loop.So worried about messing up that you do not enter the arena.

"Closed loops are often perpetuated by people covering up mistakes. They are also kept in place when people spin their mistakes, rather than confronting them head on. But there is a third way that closed loops are sustained over time: through skewed interpretation."

This whole evolutionary method of thinking about success would not be successful without a proper control test, i.e. a RCT or Random Control Trial. What this entails, basically is to test against a control set, for which no change happens, i.e. they are not give a dose of a vaccine, or a visit to a new website, etc. Because there can be many reasons for success, outside of the change(s) we made.

"'marginal gains,’ he said. ‘The approach comes from the idea that if you break down a big goal into small parts, and then improve on each of them, you will deliver a huge increase when you put them all together.’"
"Marginal gains is not about making small changes and hoping they fly. Rather, it is about breaking down a big problem into small parts in order to rigorously establish what works and what doesn’t. Ultimately the approach emerges from a basic property of empirical evidence: to find out if something is working, you must isolate its effect."
"Creativity not guided by a feedback mechanism is little more than white noise. Success is a complex interplay between creativity and measurement, the two operating together, the two sides of the optimisation loop."

Marginal gains talks about gaining a local maxima by dividing a big thing into smaller portions and keep on improving those smaller portions. These small improvements when combined, result in a bigger postive change. The issue with this approach, basically, is that there very well can be an even bigger maxima, which lies in the vicinity of this local maxima, but we can't reach that using marginal gains. What we need is a big leap, a jump of faith.

Creative process starts with a problem. A failure. Something that does not work. And then comes the response to the broken thing, the problem.

"Imagination is not fragile. It feeds off flaws, difficulties and problems."

This is true while writing. While writing, critiquing, or thinking in terms of plausability, usually leads to more and better ideas.

"Contradictory information jars, in much the same way that error jars. It encourages us to engage in a new way."
"Creativity is just connecting things."

In most cases, creativity is joining two things which exist across different domains, and make something new.

These epiphanies happen in two sorts of environments:

When we are switching off. We have to take a step back for the associative state to emerge.
When we are being sparked by the dissent of others, i.e. when we have to respond to challenges and critiques.

Epiphany is basically the start of the creative process. Once you get epiphany, you have to use the marignal gains priniciples to make the idea work.

"We have to engage with the complexity of the world if we are to learn from it; we have to resist the hardwired tendency to blame instantly, and look deeper into the factors surrounding error if we are going to figure out what really happened and thus create a culture based upon openness and honesty rather than defensiveness and back-covering."

The people working on the ground, have important data to share in case of any failures. However, if an opaque culture exists in the company then blaming other for failures becomes the easy way out. Blaming others for failures, and taking credit for work others have done. Both scenarios are bad.

Most people think this is what accountability looks like. A disproportionate response to failure. It is supposed to scare the blamed people straight. But, it does not.

"Trying to increase discipline and accountability in the absence of a just culture has precisely the opposite effect. It destroys morale, increases defensiveness and drives vital information deep underground."

People with a growth mindset are more likely to look at failure as an opportunity to learn and get better. Because for them their capabilities are a mixture of talent and practice. And errors are an inherent part of practice.

Techniques to improve:
In a pre-mortem technique, at the off-set the leader tells the group that the project is dead. Now tell us why it has died. Similar to Ali's video where he talks about a goal, and also lists out the reasons why he might not be able to complete the goal.
This approach does not kill the project, but rather strengthens it.

The Stand

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Ender's Game

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Fahrenheit 451

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Forward the Foundation

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Foundation's Edge

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Foundation and Earth

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

To Kill a Mockingbird

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Foundation and Empire

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Second Foundation

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

V for Vendetta

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Foundation

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Childhood’s End

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The Sagan Diary

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The End of All Things

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The Human Division

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Zoe's Tale

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The Last Colony

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The Ghost Brigades

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Old Man's War

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

2001: A Space Odyssey

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The Road Less Travelled

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

And the Mountains Echoed

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Inferno

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection From the Living Dead

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The Oath of the Vayuputras

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The Secret of the Nagas

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The Immortals of Meluha

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Myth = Mithya: A Handbook of Hindu Mythology

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Mindset: How You Can Fulfil Your Potential

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Timequake

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Prelude to Foundation

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Animal Farm

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Robots and Empire

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

The best novel in the robot series, if not better then at least equivalent to I, Robot(though calling I, Robot a novel might not be correct)
It has forced me to continue into the galactic empire series before starting off with the Foundation series so, yeah, it was pretty cool!

The Robots of Dawn

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The Naked Sun

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The Prodigal Daughter

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Kane & Abel

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The Caves of Steel

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

I, Robot

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The Fountainhead

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Tuesdays With Morrie

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Almost made me cry!

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

1984

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

One, Two, Three...Infinity: Facts and Speculations of Science

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

A Brief History of Time

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The Chancellor Manuscript

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The Godfather

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

One word: Awesome!

Digital Fortress

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The Lost Symbol

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

Deception Point

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The Da Vinci Code

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading

The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary)

Finished Reading