Weekly Notes 18/2025

We follow a zero-screen policy for Uma. That means we don’t watch anything when she’s awake. It’s reduced my phone and TV time, which is good. Thankfully, she’s not too interested in work computers.

But keeping toddlers away from phones is hard. Everyone has one, and you can’t control others. The moment she gets a chance, she’s drawn to a phone—and most people happily show her something :(

No screens also means we have to keep her engaged all the time. That’s tough, especially on days when we’re exhausted or sick. If you are a parent, how do you do it? Send some tips.

• The pain is varying every day. On Saturday, it was low. On Sunday, it was almost zero. I worked on Monday and Tuesday. It was slightly back on Wednesday, so I reduced work again. Now it’s been okay.
• Hence, all the work is going slow, including NMG. Results will be announced on the 7th. I am almost done with it. I need a few days to consolidate my thoughts and filter things.
• My new computer is here, it’s a ThinkPad T14s 6 Gen (AMD). It has Ubuntu 24.04 LTS with Wayland. I am generally happy, except for a few things that would work with X11, namely Autokey, Peek, and Ksnip, doesn’t work. Thankfully, I could get Ulauncher to work. I am happy to have some horsepower.
• I have already eaten more mangoes than the whole summer last year. We have just entered May, and mangoes will be in the market till July. I love mangoes; it’s one of my favorite fruits.
• Bengaluru weather has been decent this week. It’s not as hot as I expected, thanks to summer showers.
• I watched Nodidavaru Enanatre, a good movie; I liked it. It doesn’t hide the fact that it’s been heavily influenced by Into the Wild. I can sit through bad English, Hindi, or Telugu films. Bad Tamil or Malayalam ones are harder, but I might still watch them. But even an above-average Kannada movie feels unwatchable to me. My expectations are too high—I sometimes feel bad for Kannada filmmakers.
• I also watched FireFly. Its quite experimental, but I loved it
• I bought IndiaFOSS/2025 tickets; It’s on 19th September. I am also helping to put together a FOSS in Open Data DevRoom with Nemo and others. Ping me if you’re interested. I’ll share more details once I have them.
• I will also be at IITM for Paradox/2025 in June, from the 5th to the 8th. I plan to work remotely, meet folks, and enjoy the festivities. Again, if you are going to be there, ping me.
• I have weekly-noters Dougbel Shaw and Tom on my blogring now. The more Weekly Notes I read, the more I am finding. I love it.
• If you plan to share the LLM API keys and budgets with a team, try LiteLLM proxy. You can use it to call LLM APIs using the OpenAI format, generate keys, and keep tabs on a budget in one centralized dashboard. We used it last time at the IITM/Paradox hackathon; it worked well. Also, it’s always good to write code against one interface. I mentioned it briefly in WN-12/2025. But I have started to use it with my team now, so I am repeating it.
• How much ever you avoid, there will be one irritating right-wing hater around you. I usually ignore them and steer clear. But sometimes, it’s unavoidable. In one such moment, I said, “If you don’t like secular India, you’re free to move to a religion-based country.” They were stunned—I guess they thought “leave the country” was only their line. Sometimes, very rarely, I like being a troll of trolls. We are in this mess because we allowed them to occupy safe spaces, including and especially on the web. Someone once said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” It’s true, and we are all responsible.

Note: I forgot to click publish on time :) so its late by few minutes.