Author: Chaitanya

• February 1, 2021

  Auckland Anniversary Day

  In 2010 I first land­ed in Auck­land and instant­ly fell in love with the city. So much that I applied for per­ma­nent res­i­den­cy right in that first week. Like any wor­thy endeav­ors, some effort, some uncer­tain­ty, a bit of dra­ma, and a lot of luck helped me real­ize my dream. In the end, it all worked out in my… Read more

• January 3, 2021

  Books I read in 2020

  Here is the list of books I read in 2020, lift­ed from the Todoist Read project. Books with ♥️ are insight­ful reads that I’d like to revis­it. Read more

• October 8, 2020

  I voted today!

  I vot­ed today! This is my fourth time vot­ing in this coun­try since 2011. Hav­ing vot­ed once in 2009 in a third-world coun­try amidst lot of unwar­rant­ed dra­ma and has­sle, I decid­ed not to vote in sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion again. But just after a year, in 2010, I got lucky and extri­cat­ed myself from that cor­rupt­ed envi­ron­ment. I have since enjoyed… Read more

• October 7, 2020

  Lockdown update: back to freedom after 56.5 days

  I’m so glad that we as New Zealan­ders could con­tain the sec­ond wave of Covid-19 in 56.5 days since the last out­break. Auck­land will join the rest of New Zealand at Alert Lev­el 1 at 11:59pm today (Wednes­day, 7 Octo­ber). While that’s great news, this time I am cau­tious­ly opti­mistic. There is still COVID-19 in New Zealand; as… Read more

• September 23, 2020

  Definition of Expert

  Found and liked this def­i­n­i­tion of expert in James Clear’s newslet­ter. The physi­cist Niels Bohr on what it takes to be an expert: “An expert is a per­son who has found out by painful expe­ri­ence all the mis­takes that one can make in a very nar­row field.” The old­est source I could find was “Dr. Edward Teller’s Mag­nif­i­cent… Read more

• August 12, 2020

  Lockdown returns

  Last night I woke up to this emer­gency alert: Auck­land returned to lock­down alert lev­el 3 since this noon: 12 noon on Wednes­day 12 August. The rest of New Zealand moved to alert lev­el 2. I was shocked because last night I went to sleep plan­ning to make the most of today, which I took off from work for… Read more

• July 21, 2020

  Any­time you see a com­mit­tee of more than ten, it isn’t the real com­mit­tee. There’s a sub­com­mit­tee some­where mak­ing the deci­sions. Pg. 37, What I learned los­ing a mil­lion dol­lars I think this is very true in many set­tings. Read more

• June 24, 2020

  37

  Sev­en days ago I turned thir­ty-sev­en. I took the day off in lieu for work­ing the pre­vi­ous Sat­ur­day. My wife took off from her work too. My wife and son sur­prised me with a cou­ple of gifts, one of which is my favourite organ­ic dark choco­late from a local co-op. Giv­en the cur­rent world events, I did not feel… Read more

• June 23, 2020

  HEY, email spy!

  I am not sur­prised by this, but it feels weird to real­ize actu­al­ly get­ting spied! I am sure there will be many more instances of spy­ing and it feels nor­mal over time, but here’s the first one for the record. Read more

• June 23, 2020

  I real­ize in the tweet sent from my pre­vi­ous post I sound­ed like I sent a pre-pop­u­lat­ed tweet some ser­vices encour­age you to share right after sign­ing up for them. 😬 That tweet isn’t some­thing HEY pop­u­lat­ed or nudged me to send. I should have writ­ten a per­son­able cus­tom mes­sage to go along with my pre­vi­ous post. Nev­er­the­less, I am excit­ed about sign­ing… Read more