VirtuosoVidit Turns 20!

This blog just completed 20 years of active writing. Over time my writing has shifted to my professional blog more often, and this is in general a scratchpad of ideas and thoughts and anything not technology. I will write a more detailed VirtuosoVidit at 20 blog post sometime in the future. But I did a "What all I've been doing for the last 19 years" post last year, so you can read that for now.

Here's what the earliest available archive of my blog looks like.

Movie Review: Swades (2004)

There’s a moment in Swades, where after a power-cut during a festival, the villagers exclaim that the celebrations looked more beautiful without the electricity. It perfectly captures the mindset so many people get frustrated about in India. Broken Roads? “What can we do?”, People dying of COVID? “It was god’s wish!”. Worse than a broken system is the lack of will to change it, worse yet the inability to acknowledge it’s broken.

It also perfectly encapsulates Swades. Which at the heart of it, talks about reform on a local level. In this case a village, that must let go of the casteism to educate its kids, and wake up to the urgent need of better basic necessities. It takes an outsider for them to acknowledge that these issues exist in the first place.

But Swades doesn’t just stop there. It champions individual action, and confronts the brain drain, asking those who emigrated to the US, to use the privilege of their education to improve the lives of those at home.

Nobel thoughts, but Gowariker’s solutions like in Lagaan (2001) are often simplistic and often gloss over the repercussions of challenging age old maladies like caste in a village full of those who benefit from it. The reality doesn’t play like the Utopian town of Charanpur depicted here. The approach is largely naive, and an end that teeters on the verge of melodrama.

But Swades works because Shah Rukh Khan delivers a career best by a mile. The guy is the beating heart and soul of the film, his screen presence alone encapsulates the viewer.

Swades is a solid watch, despite its flaws. A 3.5/5 and an extra half star for spelling AND pronouncing Bhargava (pronounced Bh-(aar)-gov) correctly.

Rating: ★★★★☆ (worth watching)

Why I hate the word "perfection"

Over the last one year, I have experienced so many variations of "perfectionism" as an attitude that I am quite literally traumatised by it.

From Product Managers, who think every silly edge case that comes to their mind must be fixed before they sign off a work, to bystanders who look at a graphic and go "it's not good enough" until it excites them to look at it, or recruiters who wouldn't consider you, until your work is completely out of whack exceptionally great and spotlessly perfect.

Perfect Circles. Perfect Squares. Perfect Grids. Perfect Grammar. Perfectly Normal. I am tired of this shit. People get mad at Starbucks barristas who spell their name wrong!?! I still laugh about and remiss the days when sometimes they'd call me "Redit" or "Vivid". Life doesn't have to be that mechanical that we forget what human error looks like.

Nature is not perfect. It's imperfect. Like a Persian Rug, hand made and valuable for its imperfections. We must embrace the world's imperfections and learn to live with them. This is what makes us human and not robots.

Silver Dust

Discovered this while walking the other day. It's a silver Dust plant.

Mezze and Moore's Batata Harra is impeccable

Batata Harra may have Lebanese origins but it reminded me of my childhood days in Delhi where you'd get potatoes on a stick. This is just those potatoes but with a mediterranean flair. Comes with a side of Pita.




Location: Mezze and Moore, SF

The notion of Counter Tools

Attended a lecture by my professor Kyle Steinfeld last Friday. And was impressed by his notion of Counter-Tools. I loved the idea that today's tools are not neutral, not unbiased (I'd argue even the tools of the yore aren't that, something as simple as a can-opener can be exclusionary to left-handers); So if they aren't going to be neutral, then they must embody certain qualities so as to augment human creativity and intellect. That premise is ripe for research. What are the principles I want my tools to embody? I want them to be invisible. i.e. not occupy my attention. And that begins with moving away from the notion that only the visual sense must be engaged when using a computer tool.

I am waiting for the video of the lecture to drop. But hopefully I can share sketch notes for it soon.

Dil To Pagal Hai is a great watch!?!

I just saw a movie I first saw when I was 3 (we watched it thrice in theatres, then countless times on TV, it's a comfort watch as you can tell). Saw it after ~4 years now, and it was a surprisingly good watch.

Why is it good? I loved how much of a departure it was from the traditional 90s bollywood. The female leads are given strong characters, facing real challenges (in so far as a romantic movie can provide) with clear agency. The male leads are respectful and sensible. There's a maturity with which conflicts are handled.

The movie also handles the friends to lovers arc respectfully. A friend is a friend, and doesn't have to be more than that. Somehow, Bollywood in the 90s and early 2000s could not grasp this concept. To them male and female friendships always festered into something more. Doesn't have to be in real life, and I am glad to see a mainstream movie in 90s tackle that respectfully.

Yes, the dialogue feel a bit cringe today, and some of the notions around marriage are archaic, but it's a reflection of the time and era we lived in back then. To me, a 28 year old movie that stands the test of time is a great movie. Dil To Pagal Hai is one of those rare ones. Definitely worth a watch.

Rating: ★★★★☆ (Highly recommend)
More about the movie: Dil To Pagal Hai (Letterboxd)

Fake Apps

Something I've discovered recently is that it's really important to prototype things quickly, and one of my favourite ways to prototype is to make fake apps, What are fake apps? They're a fun way to create interactive mock-ups that don't incorporate real data but show only key interactions.

Did this for a project today, but also did it for LooKUp over the summer. Fun process.

On Apple abandoning Vision Air plans for a "Smart Glass" alternative

Always felt that the Vision Pro's strategy of emulating the real world through cameras was going to be short lived.

It's surprising that Apple ever thought that cameras would be small enough to fit in a sunglasses form factor faster than displays in prescription lenses will gain resolution.


Goes back to the biggest design paradigm of our time. Do we want to build software that emulates the physical world, or do you want to build something that augments it.

Raindrops on a Corvette

Love how this pic turned out. In general, red sports cars look cool.

Disney World has great vegan ice cream

Great Vegan Ice Cream, and the cookies were vegan too. I thoroughly enjoyed the dessert!

I was "That Guy" at the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor

More Disney World stories soon. Visited the place with my best friend, and had a blast there; but one of the funniest parts was when I saw the Monster's Inc. laugh floor bit. The stand up comedy bit hosted by a projected Mike Wazowski relies of jokes sent by the audience but also relies on crowd play. One part is being "that guy", it's a silly bit where they make jokes on you, and unlike other crowd bits, you get no chance to defend yourself. It's also very funny to see yourself show up on screen at very unexpected moments. I was in splits by the time the bit ended.

My friend didn't take pictures. But my evidence is this sticker! :D


BTW I did neither of these things, I was wearing a normal black T-shirt, was very happy to be there, and was not sitting in the front. I was just there.

Camera is not an app: it's a memory capture tool

I've been wondering how the "Camera" should no longer be an app. Like Camera is a technology, and sure you can do the traditional thing of taking pictures, but by no means is that the only function of that technology on a personal computing device.

To begin with, it's a great cognitive offloading tool. It's the tool you use to take save receipts, books to read, food you've eaten, things you've done. Sometimes even medical readings if you're tracking them over time.

Photos are visual memory. The timeline acts as a tool for eidetic memory, or photo-recall; but mixing that with photos I take for Photography has interesting side-effects. The photos app is fundamentally not a note-taking app, so it's not smart enough to serve as one and thus curtails the technology's ability to serve as the center piece of computing that it is.

I think the next killer camera app is not one that helps you take better pictures, but one that combines taking pictures with it being a photographic memory.

Sunset view of the Golden Gate from Berkeley Marina

Captured this from the passenger seat while being driven down the Berkeley Marina back to SF. Such a good view, such good vibes.

What do Prototypes Prototype?

I was reading this paper on Prototyping, titled "What do Prototypes Prototype" and found the whole scenario to be really interesting.

Prototypes are such an interesting space. Ofcourse you can't build the thing at once, or else it'd be a fully functioning product at that point. So it must be something that's in-progress, but how does one show that. and when to "fake" something vs when to show something as real is such a pertinent question.

To me one of the best advice I've received is, everything should be fake except for the thing you're testing the prototype for. That should be real. So then it really becomes the question of "What answers we need from a demonstration", and then that informs what is prototyped.

Wish I knew this before.

BTW, this also hits at the problem of making first, or doing research first. If you look at it in one way, prototypes are ideas put out of the brain in tangible form. Making a prototype should be non-negotiable when showing something to people. Understand a problem space, yes. But don't do research without a prototype, would be my advice.

Fun with Particle Effects

Ported my SwiftUI particle animations to the web and the effect is pretty fun, I must say. May just release a tool to create particle effects out of it.

The beginnings of a generalized preference framework.

Why do we like what we like? What forms our preferences, dislikes, or any number of emotions we attach to tangible and intangible things. This is the heart of the question I want to ask for the next few months.

Reading suggestions welcome.

Ba***ds of Bollywood is so much fun!

Will probably write a proper review at some point, but Ba***ds of bollywood is just so much fun! I think Aryan Khan's hit it out of the park with the show. Clever dialogue, well etched out characters and a star-cast (not just the cameos) that shines through and through. Watch out for Anya Singh, and Raghav Juyal; along with Arshad Warsi's delightful cameo.

This is excellent comedy that's well done. I binged watched it in two sittings, that's how good the show is.

Throwback: Me making Pasta

One of the things I had more time to make is Pasta. It's one of the trickier dishes to make, but it's just as fun as baking Pizza.

Productivity Crash

I have been extremely productive for the last 3 weeks. Getting a lot done really quickly. But somehow my productivity just crashed Wednesday evening. And hasn't been back up since. I don't want to work for a while, I can. Being productive is weird. Somedays I am deeply motivated, others I just want to sit and watch movies.