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4 lines to rule them all

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Heres a visual representation of what your life looks like if you live above the statistical benchmark to the age of 80. Each square here represents one week at an average of 53 weeks per year To some this might seem morbid, but I find it fascinating, humbling. You see a box I see milestones; birth of a child. The passing of a loved one. Graduation. The first paycheck. Marriage. Happiness and sadness and everything in between all rolled into 4 lines connected together. I like to fill in each week as it passes, it serves the following purpose - acts as a reminder on how far I have to go, so I contemplate and reflect on mistakes to learn from them - helps in keeping my self aligned to my values and stick to my smaller seemingly mundane habits that will only benefit me in the long run (like staying active/ keeping relationships) - keeps me grounded on how much I do not know - a constant reminder on not to take small things too seriously as it will all eventually come to an end - lastl...
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State of being

Too young to get bitter Too old to retaliate like before
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25 minutes

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And its noon here in my corner of the world. Well, not exactly, but it will be in 25 minutes. This seems to be a pure coincidence, as I muster the courage to keep tapping away at these plastic buttons, wondering how many microplastic have made their way into my bloodstream, while I sit in front of the window watching pseudo intellectuals smoke cigarettes and talk in faux english accents about how they have flights to New York in 2 days and how their love hate relationship with Pakistan absolutely tortures them.  These people are so far removed from the actual burdens of the common man in Pakistan that it is both sad and hilarious. Yet it is these people that run the country, while not even living in the country. How strange is that?  I really feel this is one of the few places in the world that can boast this kind of synergy.  The interesting thing is that their conversations consist primarily of these things:  1. How burdened they are living their luxurious lives 2....
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Bi-pedal on M.M Alam

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On this hot summer day, I'm staring out the window - the sun pounding down on the pavement - and watching cars pass by and humans walking along To imagine that one day, maybe 25-30 years from now, seeing bi-pedal machines walking by, while looking out the same window, will be as normal as seeing those cars - is a humbling yet exciting prospect Todays musing are inspired by R1-Omni, a ML Model that can detect emotions I did a superficial reading of it, but why stuff like this is exciting on some level is because we humans seem to be building operating systems to power robots and machines to operate like - humans. Everything I see and read these days in tech, makes me more and more convinced that one of the frontiers of human technological advancement as it relates to extending human capabilities, is the desire to recreate the human itself My belief in this is primarily since I am an optimist that the world is moving towards an abundance of wealth. We might, might not, see it in our ...
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Cultural Subtleties and how they manifest in language and leisure

Im forced today to ponder over the differences between how, in my opinion, culture can find itself manifesting in the language and leisure of a people A recent documentary called "The Thinking Game", which follows Demmis Hassabis, the CEO of Deep Mind, made me think about all the thoughts that are flowing through me right now  The documentary, to tell you a little about it, maps out feedback, or rather positive-feedback based reinforcement learning and how it is changing the landscape of what humans once thought was possible. Its an interesting approach to the frontier of AGI or Artificial general intelligence.  But thats not the topic of my musings - on this very hot evening of June in my home city of Lahore.  No. The topic on my mind is what the RL algorithms in the documentary were being trained to play - Games.  Today I am thinking about the difference in games and how they manifest and what they tell us about culture and people and how they seem like precursors ...
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I took a cell from Andromeda

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Here is a picture of the inside of a human cell. We have this thanks to Radiology, nuclear magnetic resonance and cryoelectron microscopy Here is a picture of the andromeda galaxy  I could spend days, weeks, maybe months. Just contemplating these images. Maybe I should. Maybe we all should. Maybe then the world would be a little more peaceful.
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Coming to terms with the nature of the abode

Sadness - Grief - Ungratefulness -Victimhood - The counter to all is Joy. Internal Joy. Regardless of situation A lot of these feelings that arise in daily life primarily seem to be a manifestation of the expectations we have in our lives, from the people around us, from our own life, from the world and from nature.  These days I have begun to think cherish walking in the park. Begin to cherish being around nature, to dip my feet in the earth and to smell the moisture in the air.  The darkness of the coast and tides lashing on the shores is strangely inviting.  There was a point in time when it seemed like the uncertainty of water over my head would be something that I would find painful. Now the thought of ice cold water in my lungs and over my head, the darkness and and depth of the ocean seems a welcoming prospect. And maybe that is an indication of the neural rewiring I have tried to achieve for so long. Though I still have a ways to go. Things are changing internally...
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