Angadh's meditations
In 1962. There — that answers the clickbaity title right away. NASA had viable designs for rotating wheel space stations that could have given astronauts artificial gravity. Then, the Apollo program effectively killed them. While NASA’s lunar focus delivered the historic moonshot, it dismantled a promising engineering effort at Langley...
Background I am typically loath to offer general advice (e.g., how to wake up early) and, fortunately for others, it doesn’t happen too often. Instead, I prefer offering specific advice that is actionable (e.g., here is a basic checklist to get X done). Offering advice on the latter requires process...
The month-long Inkhaven residency has come to a close; I do not know if I am a better writer at the end of it, but I have more public evidence to prove that I am a writer. I’m glad that it’s over because I was struggling to keep up with...
Yesterday, I made a passing comment about being an outsider to my coffeemateA person, not the brand. who proceeded to ask me how it felt to be an outsider. While my comment stemmed from our ongoing conversations about matters of international research careers and cultures—our identities are rooted in constant...
Yesterday, I was in the parking lot with Morgan, sharing the experience of my twenty-fifth ride. There are only 3 other cars parked with us right now; the other 197 are out on duty. The five of us are on a brief break awaiting cleaning by the humans that will...
Yesterday, I was lunching in Edinburgh when I got word that a piece I authored for Works in Progress (WiP) was finally published. Today, I am in bed—continuing to fight my jet lag at 4 a.m.—trying to think of what to write so I can meet yet-another-Inkhaven-target1. Since I don’t...
One of the most common reasons for creating technology is to do what humans do, but faster, better, and cheaper (or a combination of these). But there are very few technologies that deliver on this canon within Silicon Valley software circles as completely as one stand-out candidate: The Dating App....
I get irritated at things. In fact, I can get very irritated at most things in life, like physical infrastructure, software user interfaces, but also people, to name a few. Of course, these skew to the more emotional side but there are also physical irritations, such as of the skin...
This is a memoir-style essay where I trace, to the best my memory can, my early years around the internet and computing. It combines five serialised posts for Inkhaven, which you can also read here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Finale. My dad, Appa, bought his...
This is the final piece written for Inkhaven in my Montage series. If you are starting here, and would rather read one long-form piece, then go to Memoirs of a Long-time Luddite. If you’d rather read it as a set of serialised posts, then start with ✅(Inkhaven Post) Montage 1....