These days there is a lot of interest in orbital data centers or data centers in space. Data centers are needed to both store and process data. As we are incorporating more and more digital products into our lives, we need to store massive amounts of data. We also need to process the data to…
[Review] A Cup of Zen
A Cup of Zen: 21 Short Stories to Calm the Mind, Stop Overthinking, and Find Inner Peace – Includes Reflections for Beginners by Kai Tsukimi My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is a short book comprising 21 Zen stories. The stories are thought provoking. The author has included reflections and action items after each…
Being an Authentic Blogger
GenAI has made writing and editing content very easy. One can use ChatGPT or Claude to write a blog post or improve one. On one end, one can use these tools to check basic grammatical and spelling mistakes. On the other end, one can use these tools to drastically alter the content and style. One…
Using GenAI for Effective Learning
While I was a student of Aerospace Engineering, I was doing a project under Prof Rao. I was given a research paper on simulating tsunami waves. The paper was quite complicated, involving a lot of higher mathematics. I was able to comprehend it with the help of Google Search. I felt somewhat proud of my…
TokenMaxxing and Goodhart’s Law
Management requires measuring effectiveness and efficiency. To measure efficiency, we need some metrics. Metrics are used to demonstrate if an initiative is succeeding or failing. Metrics are also used to measure how one person is performing against another. Metrics make comparisons data driven and objective. The first challenge is finding the right set of metrics. …
Supply chain risks with plugin ecosystems
Batteries included vs Plugin based systems A good platform is often batteries included. It has support for most of the frequent use cases for its users out of the box. But there are many systems which only support a robust but shallow core. It depends upon an ecosystem of third party plugins or libraries to…
[Review] Life’s Amazing Secrets
Life’s Amazing Secrets: How to Find Balance and Purpose in Your Life by Gaur Gopal Das My rating: 4 of 5 stars The book is a self-help work that presents principles for living a fulfilling life. The author, a monk from ISKCON, incorporates spiritual ideas throughout the book. However, these principles are universal in nature…
Indian Aerospace Startups
When I completed my BTech in aerospace engineering, there were very few options in the aerospace domain. ISRO had a great reputation, but it was hiring people with masters degrees. General Electric also considered people with masters degrees. GE was doing good work from its Bengaluru center. There were few CAD/CAM companies e.g. Fluent, Geometric…
[Review] Land of the Seven Rivers
Land of the Seven Rivers: A Brief History of India’s Geography by Sanjeev Sanyal My rating: 4 of 5 stars The book’s title is somewhat misleading. The land of seven rivers does not represent India. It is a part of north western India. Also this book is not about the history of India’s geography but…
The Best of Times, The Worst of Times
Charles Dickens opens A Tale of Two Cities with one of the most quoted passages in literature: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was…