In memoriam of the year that won't exist anymore. <!--more-->
Quality of life improvements (feel free to steal)
- Writing more—enabled by this low-friction-to-post platform (writefreely).
- Coffee brewing as a hobby for fun and mindfulness. You may substitute this with anything culinary.
- Picking up Masala Lab and learning some Indian cooking fundamentals. It's not a perfect book, but it's the only one of its kind for Indian cooking.
- Working on outwardly meaningful things.
Books I have read
Bold indicates books that I liked.
- I Am A Strange Loop (must read!)
- Thinking in Systems (must read!)
- Masala Lab
- The Scout Mindset
- Remote (meh)
The first two books are not only some of the best books I've read this year, they are some of the best books I've read ever.
Books I have partially read or skimmed
I often abandon books I am reading for various reasons (enclosed in parentheses). Bold is books I liked.
- A Pattern Language (read most of it) (must read!)
- Julia Evans' Zines collection (skimmed. I use it as a reference sometimes, it's good)
- The Art of Computer Programming (read a chapter, will continue reading)
- Release It! (read a couple of chapters, on hold)
- Designing Data-Intensive Applications (I often read bits and pieces, on and off)
- Practical Object Oriented Design with Ruby (got what I wanted out of it)
- Test Driven Development (got what I wanted out of it)
- Extreme Programming Explained (book wasn't great, skimmed)
- The Lean Startup (suspended, couldn't hold my attention at the time)
- Here's the Pitch (skimmed, wasn't a good book)
Podcasts I have enjoyed
- Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend, particularly episodes where he talks to comics. It's spontaneous, funny, and gives a peek into the artistry that goes behind being funny.
- Specific episode recommendations: Steve Martin and Martin Short, any episode with Dana Carvey in it.
- 99% Invisible continues to deliver.
- There are many good ones, but the one about curb cuts was particularly memorable.
- The Inner Landscape of Beauty
Cities I have gone to
- Kozhikode
- Pune
- Goa
- Chennai
Best restaurants I have been to this year
- Paragon, Kozhikode
- Burma Burma, Bangalore
- Suzie's, Assagao
- The Black Sheep Bistro, Panaji
- Murugan Idly Shop, T Nagar, Chennai
Music I have liked
Haven't listened to a lot of music this year.
- Ooh Rap I Ya — George Clanton
- Scaring the Hoes — JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown
- Drukqs — Aphex Twin
- Since I Left You — The Avalanches
- Yo La Tengo (some songs)
Good articles I have read
- Some examples of people quickly accomplishing ambitious things together.
- The crossover project
- Spreadsheets and small software
- I don't know how to solve prompt injection
- Roy Fielding's Misappropriated REST Dissertation
- Will AI Become the New McKinsey?
- The Treason of Images
- What's the point of tech conferences?
Internet places I liked
It is extremely rare for me to actively like anything on the internet these days. All the good stuff usually exists outside the computer-networked world. These are some exceptions.