Weekly Notes 25/2025
I continue to do Physiotherapy. It has helped a lot. Thanks to all the friends who recommended, encouraged, and gave me leads for Physiotherapy. One of the things that I believe helped me in my recovery is the Memory Foam Contour Cervical Pillow with Coolgel from My Armor. I know it’s a mouthful, but it’s all true. I always had problems with picking up a pillow. They are either too soft or too hard or too thin or too thick, but this is one time I have got it correct; I am happy. You can squeeze it and carry it in a suitcase if you like, so it’s not travel-unfriendly.
I think compared to other cities in India, Bangalore has many small parks and children’s parks. But still not enough. On most weekday evenings and weekends, they will be full, which says something about the need for free public spaces. In this picture, you see one of those days when the park is relatively free.
- This week, I had an initial conversation with my Yoga instructor about restarting the practice. We plan to restart next month.
- It was challenging to find a dataset on Major Stampede Events in India, so I began creating one. It required a lot of reading that left me feeling sad and angry at the same time. It’s still a work in progress, as many events are not reported well in the media, making it difficult to verify and tabulate. But in a few months, it will be in a decent state to publish. Please send me references or links to such events. This dataset is similar to Non Virus Deaths dataset created during COVID-19.
- The one thing that could completely ruin WhatsApp is here — Meta says users will now start seeing ads in parts of the app. It’s time to add me on your XMPP or Jabber thej@chat.thejeshgn.com.
- Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse—here we are. Global media is once again banging the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” drum. Hopefully, this time, people will see through it, unlike the Bush era. Even within this loud crowd, there are some sane voices.
- The best part of teaching or doing workshops at IITM is the opportunity to meet people in their early twenties from various backgrounds. I am glad that I got to spend more time during this Paradox in extended and serious conversations with them. I find most of them more hopeful and accepting than many of us middle-aged Indian men (40 to 60 years old). I realize, as I return to my regular life that there is a lot to learn from them. I am hopeful about the future even though I think we are going through a dark period in our lives.
- I am developing a simple semantic search engine for Kannada text and exploring the use of embedding models. I conducted a preliminary comparison of the available models.
- I plan to attend IndieWebClub meetup on Sunday. If you’re around, say hello. BTW, blr.today is an aggregator of events in Bengaluru by Nemo. It reminds me of EventsBangalore, but it’s much better executed.
