Weekly Notes 15/2024

This week in Kerala: intense heat, movie recommendation “June,” and switch to eco-friendly shaving with Leaf Razor.

For folks not in the know, this is a weekly stream of consciousness zero-agenda “here’s what’s happening” or “here’s what’s interesting” post.


What’s been happening

  • The heat has been quite unbearable lately. It’s only about 35?, but it feels like so much more. It’s a visible sign that climate change is having a real effect, without an AC it’s hard to live in Kerala anymore.
Screenshot
  • Saw and liked the Malayalam movie June. Like the very similarly named Juno (which I loved), it’s a coming of age story of a girl, and it’s quite wonderfully done. Ammu liked it quite a bit and laughed out loud at a few places, paused a bunch to tell me this—exactly this—has happened to her.
  • I bought a Leaf Razor and have been using it to shave for the last couple of weeks or so. It was pretty costly to get it in India, but I shave my head around every 3-4 days now and the costs of disposable razor blades was adding up. It’s actually not as close a shave as the Gillette Fusion blades I was using before, but the difference isn’t that much. I was always thinking of shaving with a straight razor, but the Leaf Razor seems to be the best of both worlds: you can fit a regular stainless steel blade in, but it curves to your head just like the Gillette ones.
  • We started to track expenses in a more structured fashion (in a bid to reduce splurges and start to save for a house), and I made a Google spreadsheet. You can use a QUERY function like this to generate a pivot table based on categories quite easily:
=QUERY(A:F,"SELECT C, SUM(B), F WHERE C != '' GROUP BY C, F ORDER BY SUM(B) DESC LABEL SUM(B) 'Total', F 'NWS'", -1)
These are the column headers
  • Buying the Jeep was one of the best decisions in the last couple of years. It’s really nice to drive and handles like a small car. Here’s mine parked next to another when we recently went out:
  • Bit of a meta find, but the fact that Jetpack (& WordPress.com where this blog is hosted) can now generate excerpts is a perfect fit for generative AI:

Links of the Week

  • I keep coming back to the parable of the wishing tree to explain a bunch of things that happen to me and folks around me. I also feel this is why it’s better to be agnostic rather than an atheist because there’s always grains of wisdom in the bushels of chaff that is religion.
  • I had a Beyond Meat burger last time I was in the US, and now folks seem to be making egg protein replacements. I think it’s only a matter of time before these become more mainstream.
  • Found this nice directory of self hosted apps.

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4 responses

  1. > We started to track expenses in a more structured fashion (in a bid to reduce splurges and start to save for a house), and I made a Google spreadsheet.

    Might I recommend budgeting as well? Budgeting is more likely to yield benefits after you figure out where your expenses are. Check out You Need a Budget, their philosophies on zero/envelope budgeting can be applied without having to subscribe to their app (see https://www.ynab.com/guide/the-ultimate-get-started-guide#chapter-one) and there’s OSS versions of the app https://actualbudget.com/

    (full disclosure I’m a die-hard fan of YNAB and have been using it for close to a decade now).

    1. My brother keeps recommending YNAB to me as well! I usually start off all experiments with a “tool light” approach (just to see if I can stick to it), but will check out YNAB, much thanks!

  2. Too bad June movie is available only on Disney + Hotstar which is not available outside India.

    I use this simple Google Sheet to track my expenses.

    Also appreciate your feedback on Jeep. If I ever move to India, it would be good to have a list of good cars recommended by friends.

    1. > Too bad June movie is available only on Disney + Hotstar which is not available outside India.

      I unashamedly pirate in such cases ?

      > Also appreciate your feedback on Jeep.

      I really like the car (Jeep Compass). It’s probably not the best value for money (it’s a entry-level luxury SUV) or the most practical (not much boot space) but for comfort and long & short drives, it’s great. It drives and parks like a small car which is great in the city but has road presence which is also great for Indian roads.

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