Image credit: Akshat patni - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Directing Your Friction: A Lesson in Design Thinking from 11th Century Sculptors

My friend Veer recently shared an interesting story. He spoke of the old Jain temples, like those at Mount Abu, renowned for their impossibly intricate marble carvings. The …

I Talk to My Bank Statements.

Last week, my Chartered Accountant sent me a query over WhatsApp while I was driving: "Can you send me a list of all high-value transactions from last year for me to verify?"

Normally, a request like this would annoy me. I'm a sucker for …

Why the command line will still be here in 2075.

Have you ever wondered why, in an age of slick GUIs and AI-powered interfaces, the command line is still here?

It has been around since 1971. If you apply the Lindy Effect—the idea that the future life expectancy of …

The Unix Philosophy Isn't Just for Code. It's a Blueprint for a Less Chaotic Life.

The Unix Way

We are drowning in digital chaos. Our lives are run by stand-alone apps: a to-do list that doesn’t talk to our calendar, a notes app that doesn’t sync with our …

Redefining Desktop Time

The Liberating Constraint

Let's begin with a thought experiment. Imagine you are placed under a single, artificial constraint: on any given day, you are only allowed to work at your primary desktop or laptop for four 15-minute windows. That's one total hour of "desk time," broken into …

You Don't Need Another App

At work, we live by systems. We operate within the structured worlds of CRMs, Asana backlogs and periodic reviews . We're systems-rich. We also strive to make our customers systems-rich.

But the moment we step out of the office, we become systems-poor. Our personal and creative …

This post is a journey of abstractions. These abstractions stand on the shoulders of a few command line utilities that combine well. If you are the kind of programmer who dwells in command line terminals for much of your waking hours, read on. Your productivity is about to get booster …