Dheepak's blog

After completing the college we scattered across the geography, looking after our career path. We no longer able to connect with each other as like earlier. There were some commitments, duties to discharge and the distance grows between the friends, even phone calls reduced. But one weekend we gathered. There were visible discomfort among us. These are all irrelevant but one single quote from one of the guy, lets call him K.

The annual awkwardness is around the corner. The birthday is here. I was not celebrating birthdays since by 10th grade. I couldn’t recall the reason it could probably to avoid the spotlight. However with passing years I find more reason not to celebrate it in the conventional way.

What’s the “conventional” celebrations?

1. Cake Cutting
2. Throwing party to your dear ones
3. Getting content with the spotlight

What’s wrong with that - a list?

Fake wishes thanks to social apps

Before the advent of Social apps, the birthdays used to be very personal. Only the people who really remembers my birthdays wishes me. Thanks to the reminder from the apps and social wishing it just compels us to wish the birthday. The wishes evolved into a chore.

One thing I admire about Obsidian is its Graph view. I was imagining how it will look like if we make a similar graph view with the blogposts, its categories, and tags.

The similar graph is available in the Logseq as well. I was going through the Logseq’s repos to understand how the graph was built. It was using clojure which is beyond my knowledge.

Yesterday I was talking to my friend about ways to accumulate tuition fees for kids. He suggested going with Chit funds, as they promise 12% returns. I was shocked to hear it from him. We have known each other for over a decade now. Through countless discussions on personal finance, we concluded long back that protecting money is as important as accumulating it. Chit funds are notorious in our society. During my schooldays, chit fund scams were all over the news every other week.

For those unfamiliar, Aadhaar is a universal identity card (or not). It is a biometric-based 12-digit unique number, more or less covers the entire Indian population.

Aadhaar translates to foundation or root. The Aadhaar number is essential for maintaining access to a bank account or a Demat account, mobile connection, and more. The number follows you like a shadow till death. Heck, the number won’t even leave you after death. You would need it at cremation center, then for the death certificate and for transferring your estate as well.

Finally, it’s completed. The visualization is live now - visuals → ipl2025.

The learning from this activity is quite a long list.

1. Visualization is easier compared to data collection & preparation.
2. UI is scarier than the backend stuff like terminal or notebooks.
3. Prototyping is very much important, especially for the hobby project.
4. Iterative improvement is greater than aiming for a polished shiny thing.
5. Presentation is key

1. Visualization is easier compared to data collection & preparation.

If you look at the chart it’s a combination of

What I’m going to discuss here is a theme that’s recurring all through my life. I ran into some trouble and I lose my sleep for few days, but at an unexpected situation I talk about it to someone and voila there comes a solution. Much worse, the concerned people who I thought I’m harming doesn’t even take it as a big deal.

Overthinking leads to no where

When I start simulating the impact of some of my actions, I delve into the extremes, a negative extreme. This at times saves me from potentially embarrassing situations. However, many times I indulge in self harm through overthinking.

I’ve been reading the blogs for some years now. I came across the annual reviews on the FreeFinCal site; it’s a shame I couldn’t recall the exact year. My guess would be somewhere between 2018 and 2020.

During the pandemic, I started subscribing to the Substacks. I noticed almost everyone who is regularly writing is reviewing the annual performance. And I always wanted to write one for myself. The birthdays, New Year’s Eves, and financial year-end—all of them provided a chance to write. All these days were an opportunity to sit down and look back at what has happened.

Data visualization is one field that has kept me captivated for some time now. The graphics published in sites like FT, Reuters, or NYT made me wonder why I don’t spend time on the skill.

The good volume and variety of data that is available is available all the time. Share market—daily; IPL—yearly. I find each of the cricket matches, no matter if they are Test, ODI, or T20, generates so much data. I tried once with the ODI World Cup; it’s not at all a good one. It’s been a couple of years, and I’m planning to visualize this IPL. My preferred tool is D3JS, and even with that, I’m limited to a few shapes.

Few years ago, I was working in a Chennai, 500 KM away from Coimbatore, where my family resides. The usual trip between the cities is on long weekends, so does the large crowd settled in Singara Chennai. With a huge crowd looking to travel back on long weekends, reserving a seat was not easiest thing to do. I booked my ticket a week back and in relaxed manner went to boarding point. While checking the ticket I noticed the booking was for previous day. There was no way to travel back on that day.