Ramanan's Musings

 It is the day after election day and curiously I am disappointed and relieved at the same time. I am disappointed that more than 50% of my fellow Americans decided to vote a convicted felon to the presidency. But I am relieved that it wasn't a close call. I am sure that the country could not have suffered through another insurrection moment like the previous Jan 6th event. For this, I am grateful and very relieved that DJT got a significant majority. Does this mean that I value democracy and that this relief comes from the fact that the democratic ideals were preserved in this victory? Maybe.  As a loyal registered Democrat, I did the dutiful thing and voted for Kamala Harris even though I wasn't entirely convinced she was the right person for the job. I guess I was also guilty of ignoring the warnings about the big shift to the left by the Democrats. It is particularly painful in California where the left-leaning Democrats have taken this to the extreme. Yet, I still gave th...

Yesterday, I bid farewell to the LastPass Password manager with whom I had a long association. A little over 10 years ago, I saw the writing on the wall and realized that I needed help with password management and nervously signed up with this new and up-and-coming password manager called LastPass. To encourage more users, LastPass offered a 5-year deal for $60. I signed up for this deal and was pleasantly surprised by what the tool could do. As it is with a lot of startups, the energy levels are high when starting out and new releases brought new functionality regularly. But that pace dropped off precipitously and in the last few years, they sort of sat on their laurels and the tool became passe and dated.  To compound their problems, a series of hacks last year exposed their basic claim of security for your passwords. Unknown hackers managed to clone several password databases and then using state-of-the-art computers, they managed to crack user master passwords even those that w...

 Again, it has been several years since I have had the time to write another blog post. Life gets in the way. The kids are growing up too fast. Parents are growing old too fast. Different sorts of issues to face as you step through these phases in life. More on that in a later post.  This post is dedicated to the humble men and women scientists of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). Long ridiculed by the Western world for their ambitious goals (see NYT's cartoon picture depicting the Indian scientist as a farmer with a cow knocking on the door of the Elite Space Club).  The immortal words of Sir Winston Churchill , "Never was so much owed by so many to so few" are very apt to describe what ISRO has been able to accomplish. The 1.4 Billion Indians are grateful to the ISRO for this achievement. We (as in most of the Indians settled here in the US) have no right to share the limelight with the men and women engineers of ISRO. These are hard-working, lower-middle-c...

On my daily walks, I listen to audio books - a lot of them thanks to our well-stocked local library. For a long while, i listened to non-fiction, self-help type of books as well as books that teach you stuff like how startups work, or books by Simon Sinek that teach you to question the why, what and how of each task. Of late, due to the recent turmoil between the US and China, the works of Robert Kaplan  has caught my eye although these are hardbound books and not audio books. Anyway, I am meandering ... the reason for this post arose out of a scene from the famous book by Frank Herbert, Dune . BTW, I highly recommend this audio book. Even though I have read the book before, the audio book version has made the book much more magical for me. Now to the point ... in this scene, Paul Atreides walks into a room to find his friend, mentor and sword master, Gurney Halleck,  threatening to kill his mother, the Lady Jessica due to a misunderstanding over who betrayed Leto Atreides...

This is a review of the  New Balance Men's 608 V5 Casual Comfort Cross Trainer https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07B3W9QFH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Bought on: September 26, 2019 Pros: Good stability around the heel area Wide toe-box that limits calluses on toes. The liner lasted longer than most. Walked about 700-800 miles in these shoes. Cons: Once the liner goes flat, the foot tends to push forward and rub against the toe box. The sole doesnt last very long.  My feet are supinated and therefore the outsides of the sole wear out much faster than the rest of the sole and quickly makes the shoe unbalanced - see picture below. See the picture below - the material near the back of the leg came apart due to friction.  Did not last one year.  This is the new shoe I ordered and will be the next one I will review: ASICS Men's Gel-Venture 6 Running Shoe https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MYZ7XWO/...

As is the norm, life throws you a curve ball when you least expect it. We had been making several plans and were about to make a big change in our lives when the COVID-19 contagion struck the world with a bang. Now, several months into this pandemic, it feels like we are making little or no progress at all. All travel is now effectively shut down. Working from home is now an everyday event. Weekdays merge into weekends with no fanfare. There is not much to do. But in a very surprising way, folks including our family have been finding new things to do. A lot of people have jumped into cooking various dishes at home or baking up new treats. Gardening is now very popular as well. For me personally, it has been about walking.  Even before the contagion struck, I had started walking more, listening to good audio books to help me walking further and further. What started as a lunch time activity, is now something I do religiously twice a day. Two hours in the morning and at least an ...