Weekly Notes 21/2025

It was mostly kids and me at home this week. Managing full-time work, kids, and housework by myself was tough. Four kids (okay, one human toddler, a parent, and two pets) are a handful, even when you have regular support. But thanks to a friend and a sibling who live close by, I could manage. “Live closer to your friends; they will make your life better”.

• The weather has been good in Bengaluru. It’s been raining (pre-monsoon rains – clouds, big GIF) almost daily. Apparently, Monsoons have come early, like nearly a week to ten days early. I have still not seen a year where Monsson was predicted correctly. There is a lot to do in that regard.
• I had not taken the Political Compass survey in a long time. So, I took it this week and logged it for future reference. TLDR: My political views have not changed much since 2009, when I first took the survey.
• Most hospitals are horrible in India. I know many of my NRI friends fly down to India for affordable and decent treatment, but let’s not confuse that with good service. They are subpar regarding quality of care, communication, and accountability—even in so-called A+++ (top-tier) hospitals. You must have someone inside, a doctor or a specialist, basically an influential person, for the hospital to provide good QoS and communication. Without that, you’re just another file on a desk. Everyone I know who’s had a smooth healthcare experience had that advantage. You can’t just walk into an A+++ grade hospital, choose the best option, and expect top-notch care. It doesn’t work that way here. These places are often unprofessional, disorganized, apathetic, and, for lack of a better word—money-minting machines. And I’m talking about the best hospitals here; forget about others.
• Rema aunty was at the hospital for an optional QoL surgery. But then she had to return because of an allergy to medication from the theater !?! But it almost took a week for her to recover. BTW hence I was managing myself.
• Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve said this more than once—“Let me try and fail.” It came up when people hesitated, thinking they had failed and I would fail anyway. But to me, not trying feels worse than failing. Also, variables might have changed from the last time to this time.
• Thanks to hot packs, daily exercises, and one solid physiotherapy session, it’s been a good week. The therapist went on vacation afterward, but even that single session helped. More sessions are planned for next week
• I update ZimWiki and there have been small but significant updates. Search has become so much better; now it’s based on SQLite FTS5. One could easily build an add-on for the vector search. That will make it very useful, especially to me, who has thousands of pages and work notes. In the meantime, since everything is a text file in ZimWiki, you can sync the folder with OpenWeb UI (Workspace > Knowledge > Sync Directory) and use it as a knowledge base
• So Mozilla has put AI chats in the browser, in the side tab bar. Currently, it has a limited choice of cloud services if you plan to use your Open WebUI. Then go to about:config and edit browser.ml.chat.provider to give your OpenWebUI frontend URL and not API endpoint. BTW, ChatGPT can speak Kannada now.
• I am test-driving LibreWolf, a custom version of Firefox focused on privacy, security, and freedom. I was mainly using Firefox and a bit of Chrome. I was looking for a third browser that allows me to control almost all aspects of browsing. LibreWolf came close. I will let you know how the test drive goes.
• I watched Conclave; I liked it. I think the ending was a bit obvious and simplified—otherwise, it’s not a bad movie to watch.