Weekly Notes 36/2025

Everyone was down with viral this week. It started with Appa catching a virus in the Namma Metro, and then it spread to Uma. Then it was Anju and me. It was severe for a couple of days, and now I am recovering. I think generally virals take three to four days regardless of what you do. It also leaves you tired with a cold and a cough. The rest of the week was spent catching up on pending tasks. I tried to target the important ones and complete as many as I could, but there’s still so much work pending. Sickness also meant that I couldn’t work out. Next week will be crazy.

• I met friends for a game of bowling. I was a little worried about my shoulders; I didn’t want to stress them. But thankfully, there was nothing to worry about. Shoulders did well. I don’t think I have bowled much in the last decade; once upon a time, it was an activity I did every weekend with friends. I enjoyed it this time too, and I think I did well. I also met Yeswanth over the weekend at a cafe after a long time. We forgot to take picture. I need to remember to take pictures with people.
• I have not been running in a long time. I made up my mind and registered for the Bengaluru Midnight Marathon 2025 in December. I think I have enough time to train.
• Here is the searchable table of elector deletions across Bihar’s Assembly Constituencies. Explore and come to your own conclusions, or better, ask your own questions.   
• My Playlists on ListenBrainz have become decent with  Road Trip Across the World and Road Trip Across Karnataka. I can use them now. One limitation of maintaining playlists on ListenBrain is that you can’t add a song to a playlist if it lacks metadata on MusicBrainz. This has led me to add and edit Kannada songs on MusicBrainz. I haven’t tried syncing the playlists to YouTube Music or other services. It seems possible, though I have not tried it yet. I will try that next.
• Happy Onam, Eid Milad, and Teachers Day to everyone.
• I have started using the age, or rather rage encryption tool, for all encryption requirements, especially backups. I love how simple it is to use and how unixy it is.
• I often tell followers of political leaders, ‘Don’t decide who your friends or enemies are based on your leaders.’ Make your own choices. Because their choice can change at any time for no real reason, and you will be left stuck. The same applies to countries; they are, after all, led by political leaders, no? Now tell me if you are Indian, who is your friend or enemy, China, the USA, or Russia? Come to your own conclusions. Personally, I think the people of the two largest democracies/republics should be friends. But I also understand why Nehru chose Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).
• There is a lot of talk about E20. On the surface, it looks good, but you really get to know the details once you dig deeper. First of all, most petrol vehicles today are not ready for it, and it’s going to destroy them. Even the manufacturers are talking about the cars made after April 2025 being E20-ready. Consider the pollution caused by discarding these vehicles. If supporting a farmer economy is the goal, then why are we growing so much sugarcane? It requires a large amount of water and land, making it environmentally unfriendly. Not that sugar is good for health in general. If the goal is to save money, I don’t see that. I don’t fuel prices decreasing, and especially since mileage is also decreasing with E20, it’s a double dhamaka. Even the press note clarifying these things doesn’t answer any questions. If you have real scientific studies done in India, send me links. I would like to read them. In the meantime, maybe it’s time to go solar and EV, before they make a law that won’t let you generate your own power.