James Ramya Rajan J

I loved this post from Ashley Willis-McNamara, on writing about on the internet. As she rightly guessed, I was nodding along as I read it. There are so many parts that resonated with me. I have changed too. I used to be prolific on Facebook, then Instagram and then Twitter. But along the way, life happened, things changed. I switched to Fediverse and finally decided to setup a home at jrr.digial, running on Micro.Blog.

For a while, I was active, then I have just been reading but not writing. But Ashley has convinced me to write again. Glad to have reminders like this once in a while. Thank you Ashley!

I don’t know exactly when that changed. There wasn’t one big moment, just a slow fade. Something dimmed. I started second-guessing myself more. Started holding back more.

ashley.dev

And if you’re reading this and nodding along, just know: you’re not alone. You don’t have to write every day. You don’t have to have the hottest take. You don’t have to prove anything. You just have to be real. That’s enough.

I’m starting here. And if you’re trying to find your way back to something too, I hope you’ll start with me. 🩷

ashley.dev

What a way to put things in perspective. Funny and damn incisive!

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The Atlantic has shared the details of the signal chat messages. While the leak is highly sloppy and silly, I think it could happen to anyone. The conversation though is a faux pas diplomatically, to me it sounds like a good discussion on the reasons and expected outcomes. That is much of a surprise to me, than anything else!

www.theatlantic.com/politics/…

While the actions themselves may be shocking, it is this pattern that The Guardian points out that is worrying. It is not new. Elon has been doing this Twitter for a while, but the scale at which he operates now is what is concerning.

He could have done what he wanted, without this engagement on Twitter, but he chose to do it!

The 18F episode fits a common pattern of how Musk appears to ingest and amplify misinformation online. It is also a window into the influence of rightwing media and activists on Musk as he attacks and disbands parts of the government he believes don’t fit with his ideological worldview.

theguardian.com

Last weekend, a bunch of women officers from the Embassy of India in Cairo joined us in our weekly hike of Wadi Degla. Lots of fun conversations and chats along the way. Here is all of them after the hike.

Hardly a month passed by, #OhBoy came back from school a week ago with another tooth that fell off during lunch.

After my Merrel Glove gave in, I have been on the lookout for another barefoot walking/running shoe. Finally narrowed in on Xero HFS II and got it last month. I am absolutely enjoying them.

Last week got to do a 10k run at Wadi Degla that was organised by Ultra Ibex.

I stopped running more than a decade ago due to lower back pain. And then the disc tear in 2022 happened. With a lot of rehab and support from the coaches at The Quad, I have been slowly building up strength. I am really pleased at this milestone. As the famous poem goes, miles to go before I sleep…

That minds that decided to add ASMR to the title of this video is what I would call vileness. That it was done through the official account of a government, just makes it uncouth too. But I guess we are past that threshold now.

Oh, I do understand that some find joy in the misery of people who they consider as “others”. But terming is as ASMR, related to something positive and soothing is just sinking to a new low.

In this video, the Trump White House invites us to relax to the clinking of handcuffs, the rattling of chains, and other sounds of immigrants being shackled like criminals and placed on flights out of the country.

kottke.org

Having said that, I feel such things will keep coming, so that we take the eye off something else they are slipping in through the day!

🥾Hiking at Wadi Degla Protected Reserve 📍

Well since the movement from Kuala Lumpur to Cairo, we have been looking for hiking spots here. And except for the Wadi Degla the city has no other place to offer. Wadi Degla is a limestone valley which seems to have formed from water flowing — whether river or sea is unclear, as people have different stories.

As you can see from the photos below the landscape is the exact opposite of what we had in Malaysia. But it has its own charm. You are exposed to the elements — wind and sun. On a winter morning, the cold air is bone chilling. But it also makes the sun bearable. The walk in the valley makes you humble in the vastness of the landscape visible in front of you. It is a form of meditation.

We intend to make the most of this space (also it is the only one 😋) and make it a weekly routine to explore new trails here.

So well put by Ezra, but I doubt the ones in power will let the tide turn against them so easily. I so want to believe Ezra and hope!

www.youtube.com/watch

In this post of Sam Altman, the cynical me can only see that the 3 key takeaways seem to be a cover to seed FUD for the upcoming unpopular changes that he seems to be hinting at.

While we never want to be reckless and there will likely be some major decisions and limitations related to AGI safety that will be unpopular, directionally, as we get closer to achieving AGI, we believe that trending more towards individual empowerment is important; the other likely path we can see is AI being used by authoritarian governments to control their population through mass surveillance and loss of autonomy.

blog.samaltman.com

While I find the 3 observations he makes very mundane, particularly coming from a person like him, I find this analogy of AI agents to transistors a very nice framework to think about things coming in our future.

In some ways, AI may turn out to be like the transistor economically—a big scientific discovery that scales well and that seeps into almost every corner of the economy. We don’t think much about transistors, or transistor companies, and the gains are very widely distributed. But we do expect our computers, TVs, cars, toys, and more to perform miracles.

blog.samaltman.com

An exciting demo from the Apple Machine Learning team on a companion tabletop lamp robot. As much AI developments has been exciting in the part weeks, this demo brings about a lot of joy to me!

https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/elegnt-expressive-functional-movement

In the commentary of John Gruber on the renaming of Gulf of Mexico for US map users, I really like the below quoted line. What an envious club to be a part of!

There are three countries in the world that don’t use the metric system as their official units of measure: the United States, Liberia, and Myanmar. I expect there will be fewer — namely, one — who go along with calling it the “Gulf of America”.

daringfireball.net

Feels like yesterday when #OhBoy was teething and he would be itching to gnaw at things. And now he had first teeth fall off. They grow up so fast!

Lovely to see cleaning and keeping places clean deeply embedded in the culture of Japan!

PS: I know there is a lot of feel grief about Japanese culture, but that should not stop us from celebrating where they are good at.

📺 The Rookie, Netflix ★★★★

When we moved to Cairo and were in the processing of settling down and we would want to wind down with some TV series that would take our brain off the crazy days we were having. That is when I came across The Rookie. We love Nathan Fillion from the days of Castle and so we started with the pilot episode.

And soon we got hooked on to it and soon we became fans of the show. The writing was sharp, the woman characters has a strong personality, the show had a good moral compass and the jokes were 🤌🏽.

Soon Netflix let us know that they have the show only till Dec 31st. We didn’t want to let go of what we had and binge on all the episodes we could lay our hands on. After years, we were back to binge watching 2-3 episodes a day! The cold winters in Cairo helped too in us cozing up in the TV room!

And do we finished 5 seasons in a record time. The last we watched a TV series in such a record speed was for Spooks.

📚 Project Hail Mary ★★★★

Finished reading: Project Hail Mary: A Novel by Weir, Andy 📚

It has been a while since I last read a full book. I have been dropping books mid-way mostly or have kept them pending for years now. 🙈

In that sense, this happened pretty quickly. Apart from the wonderful storyline it was mostly because it was loaned from a library. The added pressure definitely helped. Hope this turns out to a reading streak. 🤞🏼

An very level headed take on the WPEngine and Matt Mullenweg controversy. I am also a little disappointed with Matt and where this is headed, but this post is a good reminder that we are all human and mistakes are a part of us. Mistakes alone should not define us. I too hope Matt does better on this issue and in the future!

I support the mad king manton.org

The beautiful sunset we got to experience from Al Azhar park in #Cairo, #Egypt

We had our first feel of the rain showers in #Cairo yesterday and there was a rainbow too!

Of the local Egyptian dishes we have tried so far, we love their flat bread Aish Baladi, stewed fava beans Ful Medames and Hawashi.

Hawashi is pita bread stuffed with minced meat and grilled or pan fried. The meat was juicy and tasted just yum. The Tahini they served was the perfect dipping sauce!

Finally after being here in Egypt for 3 weeks, we got some breathing time this weekend to go around sightseeing in Cairo. And what better way to start than a boat ride on the Nile.

We went to the eastern bank of the Nile and entered the promenade called Mamsha Ahl Misr 📍. There was an entry fee of EGP 20. The walkway was very well maintained and it was a pleasure to be walking along the river that was majestically flowing through the city.

The promenade is fully of cafes and restaurants, all of them having a stunning view of the river. We had our evening coffee before heading for the boats.

The boat rides cost differently not just based on the type, but from which place you take it from. We took a sharing boat ride, which was fun except for the loud music. The locals on the boat where enjoying it, so we guess it is a thing here.

And thus starts our exploration of Egypt!

It is almost a week since we landed in Cairo. The journey here was made memorable thanks to Emirates. They totally pampered #OhBoy with toys, activity books, Polaroid shots and special meals etc. Also this was his first flight with in-flight entertainment. He was beyond thrilled.

This was our first view of Cairo. A total contrast to what we have been used to in KL. This is not a complaint by any means, just an observation. #OhBoy was quick to provide his approval!

We have a temporary accommodation in one of the downtown areas and the chaos on the streets is both beautiful and overwhelming. I guess the city will slowly grow on us. As of now, we are mostly silently observing it and hopefully soon we will contribute to some of this chaos :)

There is a thin (sometimes thick) layer of dust on every building, tree or anything outside. Beneath it everyday life moves on with so much gusto! A great metaphor for life. It will take a while for me to get used to the dust, coming from Malaysia. But I cannot wait to become a part of Cairo and Cairo to become a part of us!

As we get ready to leave Hyderabad, it’s time to reminisce the good food we had here.

Hyderabad is usually known for its Biryani. However over the last few years the craze for Mandi has surpassed it. I had earlier tried out Mandi with a friend at Mandi@36 📍. This time we all went together as a family. Everyone from kids to adults enjoyed it.

We also went to the very old school Minerva coffee shop 📍 for both breakfast and evening snacks, and enjoyed both the outings.

All these were of course punctuated with the street side Punnugulu, Mirchi bajji and Sweet Lime juice.