Idle/Random/whatever Thoughts of a Demented/Idle/Whatever Mind

I just quit Google after almost 7½ years. When I had joined Google in 2016 I was exploring to start up with a travel planning, sharing and booking platform. But then when I got the chance to join Google I told myself that I will stay for 3-4 years and learn how Google's culture makes it build products that people love, at scale. Also, their engineering culture was something I had heard a lot about and thought this is my best chance to learn about and implement it in my startup. But then I managed to overstay at Google for various reasons.  There are various posts talking about what is wrong about Google here , here and here . But I wanted to look at its positives and I hope companies adopt it rather than a toxic culture which is brewing everywhere. Here are a few things which stood out for me (in no particular order): 1. Blameless postmortems : Blameless postmortems are a powerful tool for learning from incidents and improving system reliability. The key aspects of it are   a. Foc

 1. Ultrasound becoming Utra small - How MEMS technology has miniaturized ultrasound imaging. It discusses the limitations of traditional ultrasound machines. These machines are bulky and require multiple probes. MEMS technology allows for the creation of a single probe that can image the entire body. This probe is small enough to fit in a lab coat pocket.  The article also details the technical aspects of MEMS transducers. My Take : Any and all technology is bound to get cheap and miniaturized over time with progress in science and technology. Utrasound is something which can be thought of a speaker and a mic in very layman terms. These are bound to get smaller over time and be more effective. But like any other tool, this can be misused and the reason for skewed male/female ratio in India can also be attributed to ultrasound. My worry is if this tech is available more widely and portable, it will further skew the gender ratios in India(and probably a lot of other countries). This pa

1. LocalSend : On its website explains what it is, in a minimalist way with just two lines written there Share files to nearby devices. Free, open-source, cross-platform. This is all this product does My Take : This is an incredible app which works across different platforms. I tried it on Android and Linux and my experience was super boring, which is great. This process there is always a market for simple products which just work. I hope this app becomes like VLC player which is another great open source software which just works across different platforms. 2. Arduino GIGA R1 WiFi : A 3.6kW, Arduino controlled, single-axis tracking, ground mount solar system   My Take : Amazing work and all of it is open source. I guess anyone working to setup solar panels should look into this for better efficiency.  3. Oxygen Production at Europa : NASA's Juno mission has found that the ice-covered Jovian moon generates 1,000 tons of oxygen every 24 hours – enough to keep a million humans b

1. Kitten - The Streaming HTML framework - Kitten is a small, JavaScript-based web framework designed for people who want to build web applications easily. It is designed to be easy to use and fun to work with. Kitten accomplishes this by using plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Additionally, Kitten supports features like WebSockets, htmx, and Alpine.js. A starter tutorial for it is at https://ar.al/2024/03/08/streaming-html/ My Take:   This is a new framework that I find it very interesting, and it's worth keeping an eye on. It introduces some intriguing concepts, including streaming HTML and a JavaScript Database (JSDB). While this approach seems more suited for small web applications rather than web-scale ones, it might not be relevant for large organizations. However, for hobbyists like myself, it presents an exciting opportunity to try something new. I'll definitely be following this closely.   2. Radicle Heartwood Protocol & Stack -  Heartwood is the third ite

1. New Prompt Engineering Technique using Star Trek references : This is a very interesting and pretty long article which goes into how talking about star trek makes LLM spit out better results.  My Take: The idea of using Star Trek references to enhance LLM performance is certainly intriguing. However, it also serves as a stark reminder of just how much we still have to learn about the inner workings of these complex models. While we can observe and utilize their outputs, the actual mechanics behind their decision-making processes remain shrouded in a degree of mystery. This lack of understanding doesn't deter me from seeking new ways to explore and understand LLMs. In fact, this unique approach only strengthens my curiosity and compels me to delve deeper into their capabilities and limitations. Ultimately, uncovering the secrets behind LLM operations could pave the way for even more innovative and effective applications in the future.   2. StreetPass : StreetPass is a browser