Weekly Notes 19/2026

My first, full-fledged in-class course at APU ended this week. The final round of assessments is yet to be done. I am in the process of it. Most students have done well. I have done physical workshops, special classes, a bunch of short-term courses, but this was my first in-class, full-fledged course. Traveling to APU and prepping took time. Otherwise, it was fun, and I really enjoyed it.

• I met friends for a quick lunch at Maverick & Farmer Coffee. I have come to love cold brew with tender coconut water as a summer drink. I love cold brew and have been making it at home. I usually drink it without any additions. But Coconut water is a good addition in summer.
• I have caught up on various pending tasks on the personal front, such as renewing insurance and agreements, paying premiums, etc. There are some more on that list, but I have time to close them.
• I went to PT twice this week. I am doing well. Also did a half-yearly blood test. They look good. I didn’t get to play this week. We are planning to play tomorrow, let’s see.
• My 30 Days of DXing is going very slowly. On the positive side, I made a long wire antenna for SWL, and it’s working very well.
• We will be in Thrissur for the next three weeks. Ping me if you are around. I hope to catch Radio Ceylon on my SW Radio from Thrissur. It has not rained in Bengaluru for last couple of days, its gone back to being hot. Thrissur is generally much hotter than Bengaluru. I hope it rains.
• Updated the home installation of Navidrome to the latest version. I am updating my music database with MBIDs (MusicBrainz IDs). Once I do, I will fully integrate it with ListenBrainz and its playlists. The new plugin system on Navidrome is WebAssembly-based and runs inside a WASM sandbox provided by the Extism runtime. There are a couple of interesting plugins for my use cases, such as syncing Daily Playlists from Listenbrainz and getting lyrics. Extism as a technology looks very interesting and useful, especially if you want the user to extend your system.
• All the work related to NMG/2026 is complete. Now just tracking transfers and marking them as complete. This phase usually takes 2 to 4 weeks to complete. The kid who is part of NMG/EDU has completed her B.Com with good marks. Her final semester results are yet to come. She wants to be a CA. This week’s high point was registering her with the Institute of Chartered Accountants so she can start her Intermediate journey. We also got her registered for offline coaching classes at ICAI Bhawan in Bengaluru. I knew nothing about becoming a CA. I am learning so much. It feels like hidden knowledge.
• Martin Fowler has a hybrid of short notes, a link log, and til called fragments. It’s worth subscribing to if you like his blog in general. This MastoReader, a Mastodon thread reader, is a simple but useful tool. There is a ground invasion of Lebanon by Israel; during this time, Apple has removed the names of villages in Lebanon. Tech companies are never to be trusted. Ashley MacIsaac is suing Google for an AI-generated summary. It is a genuine case of harm caused by AI (if you call it AI).  
• I wanted to write a longer post about how India (and, indirectly, us the Indians) has lost its voice internationally on anything that matters to us and the world. For a long time, India had a strong voice that was heard not because of its muscle power but because of its strong ethical take and actions. But today, we are not just silent when it matters to speak; we are also going in the opposite direction. Trying to water down the criticism of Israel during BRICS is one such example. The post needs more time and research. If you have thought about this in any form, ping me.