Steven Deobald

Premise Six months ago, a friend of mine, with whom I work on the nonprofit Pariyatti mobile app, sent me this blog post by Vijay Khanna: From Idea to App in 7 Hours.

I’m already a big fan of Boring Technology, but that term normally applies (and, within McKinley’s 2015 essay, certainly applies) only to tools for software development and not to apps and services.

If you’ve been following the local-first scene over the past few years, you already know a good definition for the term “local-first” is hard to pin down.

It’s been half a decade since I updated my personal reading list.

After 13 years of entrepreneurship, running businesses like Nilenso (India’s first worker-owned tech company) and Endatabas (earth’s first immutable SQL database), I’m looking for full-time employment.

I recently made two new friends: Abhinav Omprakash and Dawn Walker.

Commercial Open Source Software (COSS) is an only-loosely-agreed-upon term for businesses built upon selling open source products.

I am carrying a bucket of human waste.

Driving down the #9 highway in Southeast Saskatchewan yesterday, I giggled in surprise when I noticed a small piece of Internet lodged in a canola field.

The computer is a curious gadget.

The following is a personal list of books and essays I would like to read, in priority order.

Can I interest you in a nutrition label?

The inevitable advent of जादूगरों का गाँव.

The 2019 Canadian federal election is over.

Two weeks ago, a friend struck up a conversation with me about his meditation practice.

How often do we experience real silence?

Yesterday we visited Chennai’s Theosophical Society.

When I moved to Bangalore six years ago, I had no interest in India’s garbage management problem.

For those of us who grew up in the 1990s (Gen-Y-ers?

tl;dr: Yes, it does.

In 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Yuval Noah Harari repeatedly emphasizes the need for society to apply critical thinking to the future of software, algorithms, and artificial intelligence.

Disclaimer and Full Disclosure: I began writing this article in July, during my last week at nilenso.

“I only have two goals for my kids,” Paige announced calmly as she set her chai down.

We started siggu.org with the very rough intention of answering one question: Why meditate?

If you are not already familiar with nilenso, I apologize.

PMS.

Riding a bicycle in Bangalore is surprisingly easy.

This past week, nilenso interviewed a German fellow for a software development position.

Tom Hall asked me once how nilenso decided salaries when we have no bonuses.

This is a brief idea I remembered while cleaning up some old files.

I’ve recently returned to Canada for a month to visit family.

He squinted through a pair of wrap-around sunglasses, the kind one often expects to see on the crowning end of a wheelchair with wings of lenses spread wide and soaring across a sea of wrinkles – or drool, if the sea had previously suffered a stroke.

I recently returned to work from my second 10-day Vipassana course.

I recently wrote about how thankful I am, after a decade in software, to work for an employer which inherently understands my values and the values of all my colleagues.

I recently suffered the most severe injuries of my life — I experienced a retinal tear and detachment which led to multiple surgeries.

A description of a doctrine without words is not a doctrine without words.

One of the benefits of working for a startup like C42 Engineering (where I help build rubymonk.com — the name is a coincidence) is the broad range of experiences available, both in and out of the office.

The curiosity of my coworkers at ThoughtWorks often leads to a number of healthy and interesting debates, which often occur in the pub, on internal mailing lists, and anywhere in-between.

The other day I was listening to assorted tracks in my reading room while enjoying a glass of scotch and puttering away in the codebase of my current project.

The Theory Moving to a new country often involves adjusting to a new currency.

Some lessons I learned before reading this article Rohan showed me today (ironically filed under GTD): Get rid of your car.

One of the roadblocks to the Tightpinkproduct is The Gap.

I saw Thoughtless Acts a while back and it immediately reminded me of an idea Drew and I came up with years ago.

Mike (seen here fondling beef) had a blog post about accidentally formatting the wrong partition and losing all his data.

I went for a long walk in the rain.

Do you remember the last time you were in the physical presence of an expert?