I may have figured out how to go forward in life
https://blog.learnlearn.in/2021/09/power-is-useful.html

A dense discussion about leadership

https://blog.learnlearn.in/2021/10/on-leadership.html

Do you find it hard to choose sides (or not to choose sides)? This article is for you.

https://blog.learnlearn.in/2021/10/how-to-live-with-opposition.html

There is no way to overthink shaving, right? Or is there?

https://blog.learnlearn.in/2021/10/why-i-shaved-beard.html

Does contributing to freedom respecting software projects require a laptop?

https://asd.learnlearn.in/free-software-with-android/

I said I want to be replaceable. What?

https://blog.learnlearn.in/2021/10/be-irreplaceable-workers-and.html

Here's me reading this nice paper about power

https://youtu.be/R7obceUfuBg

Found a new useful thing

https://blog.learnlearn.in/2021/11/asking-for-help.html

Just a tiny explanation which I owe nobody.
https://blog.learnlearn.in/2021/11/why-i-am-back-on-whatsapp.html

Some thoughts on why things are the way they are and what to do about them
https://mbbshacker.blogspot.com/2022/02/scraping-bottom-of-pyramid-in-indian.html

I have an obsession.
When I find a new interesting blog post or an interesting person's blog, I have to stop and read *all* the posts in that blog. From the very first, till the very last.

But it's so difficult to do that in the browser. So I did what every programmer does...

I searched the internet for a tool that does this. There were some, but none worked for me. So I did what every programmer does next...

I built a tool.

github.com/asdofindia/blogspot-to-ebook/

It starts from a post and keeps going to the "Older post" till it runs out of older posts.
Then, it takes all these posts and makes an epub book out of them.

Funnily enough, I used an epub generating library first which I didn't like. So I did what every programmer does...

I read the EPUB 30 specs and built an epub generating library. Right now it is embedded within the book generating code. I'll probably extract this into an npm module after some polishing.

The tool works only for blogspot as of now. Should add wordpress next.

Reading blogs; brb

I embraced pragmatism a while ago because I was tired of ideologically purist non-sense that achieved no real change.

But then I struggled a lot to find direction. How does one make decisions in pragmatism? What principles can guide us?

Also, how do we avoid turning evil?

That latter thing was my bigger concern. What if I become something that I set out to replace?

I think in some sense both these dilemmas are connected. They both question the fundamental idea of the approach. Will pragmatism really bring change? Or is it counter-productive?

I think I've found out a way to reconcile all these.

Am I being a profound bullshitter? I don't know.

But the answer I found is deceptively simple and I've written it down here: https://blog.learnlearn.in/2022/03/finding-direction-when-being-pragmatic.html

Have you heard people saying "better use of technology" will solve "problem X" without specifying what technology or how exactly it will solve the problem?

I call those people "tech-bhakts".

What they (probably) understand is how technology works.
What they do not understand?

How humans work.

They fail to see what the problems of human beings are.

They fail to account for the human factor in their techno-centered solution.

In their theories of change, the human comes last - as a beneficiary of impact.

They start with technology no matter what.

I write about why we need to decommission such theories of change in https://mbbshacker.blogspot.com/2022/03/decommissioning-technology-centered.html

Tiny personal programs are the most fun. It is so difficult to talk about each individually. But who doesn't read a listicle?

https://asd.learnlearn.in/tiny-personal-programs/

"Prav is a social project to get a lot of people to invest small amounts to run an interoperable messaging service that will respect users’ freedom and privacy."

Sounds pretty stupid, right?

https://asd.learnlearn.in/prav-project/

Sunday morning read on intangible software in health system

https://youtu.be/mjjQ4bWIImw

The First Feminist in My Life

https://blog.learnlearn.in/2022/05/the-first-feminist-in-my-life.html

iHEAR TransCare team released a draft competencies for trans-affirmative health provision. I'm reading it in this video: https://youtu.be/a-UeKdfGlQw

This is a commons handbook in the commons

https://feminist-software.gitlab.io/commons-handbook/

Just some random FizzBuzz approaches

https://asd.learnlearn.in/fizzbuzz/

Frappe is a popular, open-source, low-code web framework from India. It works like magic. But I don't like magic. So I looked at the source code.

https://asd.learnlearn.in/exploring-frappe/