Projection and updates of nested data structure encoded as Map<String, Object> made elegant via Optics - not a big deal unless one needs to do that in Java. But FunctionalJava’s optics APIs saved my day again. The fact that FunctionalJava is so underused in the enterprise, which still lives in Java-land, is mind-boggling to me. I don’t work in Java anymore but demoing the power of lawful optics via FunctionalJava library was interesting.

It’s not evil to go out or open windows coz it might save your life. And other uncomfortable facts long ignored/chastised by gods of WHO/CDC.

Why Did It Take So Long to Accept the Facts About Covid?

“Digital India” empowering people 🙏😂

Coronavirus | Digital divide curbs vaccine access in rural Telangana - The Hindu

48% vote share is real kick in the ass. It is 5% more than what AITC got it 2019. While the fanatics lost 2% from what they got in 2019. Does that mean people now are getting woke ? Naah

I approve these strategies work against the current Covid wave/surge/avalanche/tsunami in India

https://www.thehindu.com/society/satire-beating-the-coronavirus/article34391063.ece

If having Covid is like being in front of a shotgun in the hand of a novice - a hit or a miss, then post-Covid is slow-poison - there is no escaping from the pain

When your own govt. hack around established laws to curtail sovereignty of states & establish blatant dictatorial fervor, especially in this challenging period, one tend to think “what’s the point” anyway

Riding roughshod over State governments

So world’s foremost social media company ditched being social to work, leading the way, kudos to them. Will others follow the suit, I am still skeptical being in this shit-show for long. Folks will come up with new shit to deny / as workaround.

Twitter Will Allow Employees To Work At Home Forever

What’s better than beginning your day working from home with bunch of happy fishes.

Courtesy - my 3 year old

Watched Death of Stalin, such a poignant movie especially nowadays when circumstances have thrown that last bit of rationality out of window leaving fear & fear-mongerers all around.

I followed the steps in this superb guide to setup Matrix & Jitsi from scratch to rather do it in NixOS and here is my own rundown of the same

Declarative, Decentralised, and Secure communication via Matrix, Jitsi, & NixOS

I am sure this would be useful for our Ministry of Health & Family Welfare as well

COVID-19 schema for CDC hospital reporting

While WFH I get enough time to do real interesting things - I learnt how not easy it is to OCR Bengali (my mother tongue) & learn internals about the lang itself as well

Constraints in Developing a Complete Bengali Optical Character Recognition System

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.08384.pdf

Definitive essay for anyone working/going to work from home, especially important for those working from office in Indian service industry now being mandated to work from home.

BEWARE - contents inside might trigger some folks

http://cosmicweenie.com/work.pdf

People WFH first time & managed by someone who all these years was against WFH - beware of “always working coz nothing else to do expectation syndrome”. Disconnect, don’t take calls & enjoy life, once your working day/shift is over.

This evening’s “social banging” screwed whatever social distancing happened throughout the day; made the chain more stronger. A nation of morons.

Resolution #n : Improve skills on Optics ✅ Get Optics By Example by @chrislpenner

It took 10 years for ACM to recognize, FB & friends got it much earlier though, but current Enterprise & associated folks still feels that #Haskell is not ready for them or for mainstream or for anything related to so-called “real”, “micro-services based”, “highly performant” and “cloud native” software !

Simon Marlow, Simon Peyton Jones, and Satnam Singh win Most Influential ICFP Paper Award

Some more pragmatic resolutions- be smart to avoid any political discourse at workplace or public space (i.e. in parks, in shared rides, in kid’s school with other parents), improve stock market skills not to loose out on the giddiness of cronies 😉

With free reign will come more snooping & brain-washing, so few next 5+ year resolutions - own & encrypt most data, go cash-more, block propaganda mediums i.e. get rid of WhatsApp, avoid twitter bhakts, & block sold-out news media

5 year’s teaser ends, real show begins now #shutupslave 🤫

Every time I cast my vote, especially for Lok Sabha, I feel an impeccable sense of accomplishment & ardour. #GoVoteIndia

If you have trusted types then…

Google Chrome Team’s new API to help prevent Cross-Site Scripting - Trusted Types

Serverless Computing: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back is a remarkable assessment of the current “serverless computing” state of affairs or the lack of it. Moreover, it has some interesting research ideas/references towards the broader vision of “truly programmable & dynamic cloud computing”.

This is an awesome children’s book that I got for my daughter on Christmas but it’s pretty much relevant to us adults in today’s times.

G.Sampath of the_hindu is current R.K.Laxman of prose. This article today is equally humorous & poignant view of current India.

Three weddings and a dhokla

Poignant perspective on the decline of Indian mainstream media in this month’s Caravan. It’s difficult to curtail Govt. coercion but easy to cut big conglomerates / advertisers by directly asking the consumer to pay for the value. It’s tough but it’s transparent, ethical, & only way for long term survival.

The Byline is Dead

On account of the Indian currency situation being in tatters, I only have 2 avenues for my year-end “thank you & go on” donations - #NixOS Foundation & #Haskell Org.

Had a really good time last evening at local Blr Haskell Meetup. Went after a long time and it’s inspiring to see a thriving Haskell community. Shout out to @puffnfresh @hk_hooda

I sigh at those startup founders who propagandise quitting social media just coz they can’t control their impulses. How do they expect people (esp. the VCs) to trust them running a business ! #douchebags

As my micro blogs contain more than one link the automatic cross-posting to Twitter goes haywire. But it’s a trade off I can live with.

I’ve griped in the past [3,4] but this unnecessary grudge cycle against RSS comes back. Brent Simmons’ [2] latest explanation [1] is another good reminder - leave RSS alone!

[1] http://inessential.com/2018/09/17/oh_god_not_this_again

[2] https://micro.blog/brentsimmons

[3] https://twitter.com/kaychaks/status/980797708314148865

[4] https://kaushikc.org/linked/heil-rss.html

A decent rant by Nikita (creator of the font Fira Code) on the apalling state of the art with modern softwares. There is a bit of trivialization but overall a required call for action.

Software disenchantment

Pretty accurate modern version of 7 deadly sins via THErealDVORAK in the recent No Agenda newsletter, the best podcast in the universe.

Rarely I agree to Guardian’s views but this one on US Open Ladies Final drama is spot on

But none of that excuses what Williams did in the Arthur Ashe Stadium on Saturday night – which was to manipulate sentiment to her advantage,

To all those newborns of today, you got yourself a nice birth date: 09 - 09 - 18 🤓

Google wants to kill the URL and Wired is complicit in their propaganda by writing this stupid article. I’ve lost most hope from Google where engineering managers say dumb things like

People have a really hard time understanding URLs

but Wired also have this gem of a loose statement (without any evidence)

If you’re having a tough time thinking of what could possibly be used in place of URLs, you’re not alone. Academics have considered options over the years, but the problem doesn’t have an easy answer.

Brett Victor & Alan Kay’s Dynamicland is exciting but lacked implementation details. Oman Rizwan, one of the resident researchers there, via his awesome account of making a new library there called Geokit has provided interesting insides into Dynamicland & RealTalk – the programming system behind all the coolness. Notes from Dynamicland: Geokit

I’ve been meaning to study Domain Theory for the things I am researching on lately at work. And then I saw this tweet from julesh

The bible of domain theory, by Samson Abramsky and Achim Jung https://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axj/pub/papers/handy1.pdf

Matt Parsons’ conversion of Rust’s type level trickery to Haskell brings out the elegance of Haskell syntax & sophistication of it’s type system

Stealing Where From Rust

This post’s workflow : iOS workflow app action -> git commands via working copy app -> circle CI build script -> rss generated -> micro.blog

This post’s workflow : automator service with selected text -> git push to github repo -> circle CI build script -> rss generated in master branch -> micro.blog

Currently reading The Universal Computer: The Road from Leibniz to Turing by Martin D. Davis 📚

Let’s start…