cyber(b)space notes

I've been nurturing, but not really articulating, a pet theory about the material impacts on a person that come from living abroad.

The Idea A while back, I'm not sure when, I had the idea that maybe it would be interesting if you could use an image to encrypt some text.[1] I tucked the idea a way and didn't think about it very much.

In order to understand the feeling of the first days of monsoon in Mumbai, you have to understand all the days that came before.

I don't remember which face I saw the first time.

The flight into the Kingdom of Bhutan from Kolkata, India is brief, only a little more than an hour between lift off and the lurching shriek of rubber hitting tarmac.

Bad Guests On a recent weekend my family and I traveled to Delhi and Agra.

One of the most consequential periods of my recent adult life was the Mapbox Workers Union campaign.

Rarely are you able to see your home country with the eyes of a stranger.

In high school and college I learned that, in a classroom structure with deadlines and tests, I am quite bad at physics.

In 2019, I had the opportunity to see Ted Chiang speak at the vaunted Politics & Prose during the book tour for Exhalation.

Ruminations I recently remarked to a friend that traveling abroad after the advent of the smartphone feels like studying biology after the advent of microplastics.

A couple weekends ago, my family popped over to Dubai for a long weekend.

In the critically acclaimed, but somewhat uneven, movie The Brutalist there is a visually striking scene where two of the main characters visit a marble quarry in Italy.

Ages ago, in 2008, I took a series of planes from Chicago, Illinois to Paris, France.

This week I learned that my good friend and close confidant, Myron, has celebrated his first full monsoon season by contracting a fungal skin infection.

This is just a brief note to share that I have recently added a new RSS feed to the website.

I've been focused on some other work recently.

We did a bit of domestic travel during the month of April.

This is bit of a follow-up to a previous note.

Something I've done since back before my undergraduate days is to reserve a small portion of my notebooks to act as a commonplace book.

Part 1: Toward a Heliocentric Infrastructure I'm going to be direct here at the start.

This is a follow-up to a previous post.

I went to the movie theater in India for the first time last month.

Earlier this week I soft launched a "bookshelf" on this website.

I tend to see my native country most clearly when I am away from it, but sometimes I need a little bit of help.

This week I finally took the time to go on a guided tour of Sanjay Gandhi National Park, the large national park that sits down on top of Mumbai.

In his second collection of short stories, Ted Chiang included a novella called "The Lifecycle of Software Objects".

EDITOR'S NOTE: because the U.S.

You may be asking yourself the question, "What is the point of this navel-gazing post?

On the Work I've alluded to this in a few other posts & the main page of my website, but it bears stating explicitly: one of my main focuses for the next year(ish) is to publish my writing.

My library card back in D.C. hasn't expired yet.

I have been frustrated with having to pay Digital Ocean $5.30 every month just because I wanted to show what books I was reading on my site's home page.

Something I learned this past week, that I had no prior awareness of, is that alcohol sales are prohibited in the state of Maharashtra for 48 hours in the lead up to the state assembly elections.

When I was living in D.C.

Today I find that I can't help but obsess over the linguistic journey and phonic mutation that this corporate branding represents: For the uninitiated, Pret a Manger is a British fast food chain.

Every morning that I wake up in India, Mumbai becomes a little bit more familiar and it becomes a little bit harder to remember what initially felt strange.

I've been adhering to some loose mental rules whenever I change or add anything to this website, and I think it's worthwhile to write them down here for posterity.

I've been sick with a wicked sore throat since last week and finally confirmed that it is strep throat.

I've been updating this blog more regularly because of my recent move to India.

The web app I've been using to track my reading — Oku — hasn't solved the problem of book covers for a given edition.

Prior to coming to Mumbai, I happened to read James C.

Travel posts on my blog now have maps at the top.

Our first night in Mumbai, I was surprised to find massive snails scooting around on the pavement outside our apartment.

I've been in India for a little over a week.

I've been dragging my feet on writing about my new city for a little bit.

For the first time in a while, my development machine is not one provided by my work.

sic transit iter We arrived in Mumbai shortly after Indian Independence Day.

I'm going to ask you to be hopeful about the end of the world.

I'm starting to feel nostalgic about the routines in my life, which is weird.

Strange Cravings Whenever I'm about to leave the U.S. for an extended period of time, I find myself craving things I know I will not have access to while I'm away.