Welcome to my personal homepage, as the header suggests, this is really just a culmination of various aspects of my life, some things I am proud of, others not as much. It’s a blog, WIP, and an uncultivated digital garden of snippets, interesting links, pictures, things that have inspired me, hobbies, projects, key moments, travel, work, and nostalgic lists of material, and immaterial things that have made me who I am.
The UX of Lego Interface Panels …
After posting about the $100 million checkbox … I have been wondering about other really bad interface choices which have made it out into the world (and subsequently were the culprits of disaster). This is a nice article from the Interaction Magic team show casing the UX design of Lego Interface Panels, and some examples of (real world) bad patterns.
The UX of LEGO Interface PanelsLEGO interface panels are beautiful, iconic, and great for learning interface design basics. I bought 52 of them from BrickLink to explore the design, layout and organisation of complex interfaces.
1 (simple) dataset. 100 visualizations.
1 dataset. 100 visualizations.One simple dataset. 100 visual translations.
Travel: Bay Area
Not quite according to plan due to an Atmospheric River, which added some weather challenges, but had a great work trip with some personal elements added in for fun.
I am getting pretty good at assembling my bike in a Hertz rental garage.
The SAP San Ramon Office is not a terrible place to work for the week. Thanksgiving Pot Luck, Diwali and a trip to the Apple Campus made it extra special.
“The least you can do …”
During a recent Diwali event at SAP, a speaker shared an intriguing story about Lucila Takjerad, an Algerian who was fortunate enough to be the recipient of someone’s help, and later graduated from Harvard. Below is the speech she gave at her commencement.
Lucila Takjerad
“The Least You Can Do”
Lucila Takjerad
English Graduate Commencement Speech
May 20th, 2019
The Least You Can Do
As Harvard graduates, you will be asked to go into the world and do the most you
can do. I am here to ask you to do the least.
I was born in Algeria. Every Friday, my sister and I had our weekly shower at the
public baths. We didn’t have running water at home. On winter nights, we cuddled against the cold because our heat was cut off. And, on some days, we hid our hunger in order not to worry our parents.
When I was seven years old, my country plunged into a bloody civil war. Every night, I prayed to God that tomorrow, there would not be an empty seat at our dinner table.
2024 – 70.3 Ironman – North Carolina
3 years of doing 70.3 IM NC. Such a fun race in one of my favorite coastal towns of Wilmington/Wrightsville beach. Overall, a great race. 6th this year compared to 5th from last year, but due to the fast swim current, I improved my swim 8 minutes. On the bike I had a major rookie mistake and forgot to load my nutrition bottle on the bike, which meant stopping at the first aid station and loading up as much as I could carry, giving up some time, but also really important. There my bike was 2 minutes slower than 2023. On the run, I was right around the same as previous years with a 1:28. The 5th place finisher was over 2 minutes ahead of me, so I needed quite a considerable improvement to catch up to them.
True or false?
Dependency breeds animosity …
Chat … GPT
From all our interactions, what is one thing you can tell about myself, that I may not already know about myself?
ChatGPT said:
One thing I notice about you is your passion for creating tools and apps that make life more efficient and enjoyable, whether for work or personal interests. You’re deeply engaged in improving processes, building apps that solve practical problems for people—from tracking sewer installations to celebrating colleagues’ milestones. You also balance this focus on productivity with personal connections, like attending friends’ weddings or sharing thoughtful moments with family. This mix of efficiency and meaningful relationships seems to drive much of what you do. It shows a unique blend of technical skill and empathy. Does this resonate with you?
The quiet art of attention
Source: https://billwear.github.io/art-of-attention.html
There comes a moment in life, often in the quietest of hours, when one realizes that the world will continue on its wayward course, indifferent to our desires or frustrations. And it is then, perhaps, that a subtle truth begins to emerge: the only thing we truly possess, the only thing we might, with enough care, exert some mastery over, is our mind. It is not a realization of resignation, but rather of liberation. For if the mind can be ordered, if it can be made still in the midst of this restless life, then we have already discovered the key to a deeper kind of freedom.
But how does one begin? It is not with grand declarations or bold, sweeping changes. That would miss the point entirely. Rather, it is with a gentle attention to the present, a deliberate shift in the way we move through the world. We begin by paying attention to what our mind does—its wanderings, its anxieties, its compulsions. It is a garden untended, overgrown with concerns that may not even be our own. And the first step is simply to watch, to observe how the mind moves, without judgment, without rush.
Looking back: Swimming Technique
Sometimes it fun to zoom out, and take a look back to where my swim journey started. Here is a Reddit post asking for some advice on how to improve my technique. Since posting this, I have swum about 400 miles over the past 2 years, and got my comfortable pace down to ~ 1:30 min/100 yards.
Hi All,
I started swimming more frequently last year preparing for a half distance triathlon (Augusta, GA, USA), and have another race planned for October this year (Beach to Battleship, NC, USA). I am looking for some form/suggestions/ideas/advice based on the videos I have included below.
While speed is important, with the race being 1.2 miles / 2000 yards / 1.9km, its not the most important aspect (maybe I am wrong?).
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