1973

It was August 2008. We headed off from Mumbai to Bangalore after much anticipation - your friend Richard, who I had never met, lived there in a small flat in the first floor of a converted house. We spent a couple of days in Bangalore, including one very memorable night of clubbing where we got really drunk on Tequila (or was it Vodka? we were young and broke so I don't remember!) and you passed out on the stairs to the flat, with Richard and I trying to get you up for like 2 hours before you recovered enough to cooperate. Think we managed to get you up precisely two steps in those 2 hours.

Anyway.

We decided we need to go someplace and explore.

This was back in the days when there was no travel apps (and my aging n-gage was still almost cutting edge for being able to do email and chat in its browser!) - so the only way to travel was to go to a bus stand, inquire and head over.

We decided (did Richard recommend it?) to go to Coorg.

It was an overnight bus ride. I fully charged my phone. It had a battery life of 8 hours when fully charged if I didn't use the screen at all - which could be extended to 8 hours 25 minutes if I only listened to one song on repeat. A full 25 minutes more than Nokia themselves claimed - beat that!

And so I picked one song.

It's now 2026. I still remember that bus ride like it was yesterday - middle of the bus (most comfort!), left side (probably cos the right wasn't available - the best views are usually on the right!). You had the window seat, and I had the aisle. And after listening to that song on loop for 8 hours (I stopped the song before the battery fully died!) I can still say, 18 years later:

I would call you up every Saturday night
And we'd both stay out 'til the morning light
And we sang "Here we go again."
And though time goes by
I will always be in a club with you in 1973

ps: Even if you don't remember, I would love to remind you: your favourite song for that trip was "Hey there Delilah". And your Sony w800i had a much better battery life than my n-gage, so that's the song we listened to for the rest of the journey!

The Sun Rising

Saturday morning: I woke up at 8:45am after a less than restful night's sleep, as I was feeling "weird" - I went to bed feeling a weird taste at the back of my throat and a stomach that felt unsettled, but not actual indigestion. As with most Saturdays, I battled with the thought of skipping my weekly CoBAM ride - and then decided to go - mainly because I knew I was going to skip next Saturday's ride, and a break of 3 weeks would be too long, especially when I was finally seeing a perceptible improvement!

Minor hiccups (and delays) notwithstanding, I made it to the rendezvous with 5 minutes to spare. The ride was good - the weather prediction was of short spells of heavy-ish rain, followed by high winds, but instead for the first phase of the ride there was neither - it wasn't even as chilly as expected.

In fact, the sun was so strong, this was the first Saturday ride when the sun was so low it was getting into my eyes (a reminder that winter is coming!), forcing me to tilt my head forward when riding to let the top rim of my sunglasses cut out the glare of the sun - even at 11am!

The "observed" part of the ride ended at our planned destination, Avoca at Newcastle. We were the second pair of observed riders to arrive, and we completed the debrief outside the restaurant, at our bikes, before heading inside.

As we entered inside, a song kicked in on the PA/ambient music system of the restaurant.

A song I didn't know the title of, or even most of the words - only the refrain: "It's just the sun rising, it's shining". It was a song from a mixtape I grew up with, titled - "Disco hits 1989-90"

The whole experience of the sun in my eyes through most of the morning ride kinda engulfed me.

After brunch at Avoca, we headed on for the next leg of the ride - when the predicted weather actually caught us, with a 2 minute shower, which cleared up as quickly as it arrived, and finally a single gust of crosswind when we passed newtonards on the way to crawfordsburn - a gust so strong it actually blew my magnetic tank bag off the tank and onto my right arm - thankfully it was on a straight stretch so I was able to pop it back into position and ride on without as much as slowing down.

The song was playing on loop on my head all afternoon, and the first thing I did when I got home was to try and look for it. First on my phone - where I was surprised it didn't exist. Which meant the last time I had heard the song was on that cassette - so at least 39 years ago! I tried duckduckgo's search, google's search, youtube's search, and finally as a last resort, google gemini. It took FOUR prompts for Gemini to get it, but given my past experience and every search engine leading me to Bob Marley's Sun is Shining, that's still a marked improvement!

• "A song with the main line "the sun is shining it's rising" from the late 80s/early 90s"
• "No, it's not Baker Street"
• "Male vocals with a female voice making some unintelligible rhythmic sounds"
• "Definitely nothing to do with Bob Marley"

And... bingo!

Liked, saved to playlist, and cast to the music system on loop on full blast for the next 2 hours until we left for dinner (coincidentally, about 3/4th of the way to our friend's place at banbridge was common with my morning ride!).

Now that I think back to that mixtape, some of its songs seem to be following it around! It was literally the previous day (Friday evening!) that another one of the songs from the cassette played in Home Bargains when I was picking up bird food. Can't remember which song, because now that "The Sun Rising" is looping in my head (and right now, on youtube!) I can't think back. Was it "Chocolate Box"? "Walking on Thin Ice"? I can't say now, It could have been something different altogether. That cassette was never in my top 10, nor was this song among my favourites from it. I know my favourites were towards the end of side B, and this was near the middle of side B. Weird.

Interestingly, Gemini's response once I confirmed it had got the right song felt spot on:

That is such a classic! "Sun Rising" by The Beloved (released in 1989 on their album Happiness) is widely regarded as one of the defining tracks of the late-80s acid house and ambient dance scene.

About the Track

• The Sound: Driven by Jon Marsh's smooth, chilled-out male vocals and backed by that famous looped female vocal sample. The rhythmic female sound in the background was sampled from a recording of 11th-century composer Hildegard von Bingen, performed by the early music group Gothic Voices (specifically soprano Emily Van Evera).

• The Meaning: The song captures the blissed-out, serene feeling of watching the dawn break after an all-night rave or night out, celebrating warmth, light, and new beginnings.

"The sun rising on a beautiful day

The sun rising on a beautiful day..."

— The Beloved ("Sun Rising", 1989)

Rescuing Boats at Carrickfergus

12th September: Friends suggested heading to Carrickfergus Castle for the European weekend (free entry, yay!)

13th September:

Shruti and I had gone to Carrickfergus on the motorbike - it was late morning on an overcast day. We parked some distance from the castle and walked the rest of the way, along the shore road. We passed a local fishmonger. As we were about to enter the shop, we saw Simon and Akshay about to enter too. We said hi and entered together. They said they were going to fry fish for lunch after visiting the castle and asked if we wanted to join them. We agreed, and I tried to decide which fish I wanted. The fishmonger named all the fish available and I picked one - it was a small, mackerel sized fish, but the skin was much darker. The fishmonger wrapped it in butter paper and I left the shop with it. As we got further along the shore road towards Carrickfergus, the wind picked up and it got almost stormy. The sea looked really rough, with massive waves. The side of the road didn't have a wall, but instead had mooring posts. The sea had reached close to the kevel of the wall, and the tops of the crashing waves surpassed it - the road wasn't waterlogged though. We had been walking on the opposite side of the road to stay away from the rough sea.

Suddenly, there were shouts calling us to help and I saw a fishing boat being pushed by the sea towards the road. There were a couple of men on board, ready with ropes to tie the boat. They said they'd need help to prevent the boat from being pushed away from the shore and dragged away to danger. As soon as the boat got close, they leapt off and we helped them in this tug-of-war with the sea while they secured the boat.

Thoroughly exhausted and a little damp, we decided to skip the castle and head indoors to warm up and fry some fish. The house didn't look like it was set in Carrickfergus though - the insides were more like Tushar's dad's apartment, although the kitchen was its mirror image. I popped a beer from the fridge (a Carlsberg) and said I'd wait for the others to fry their fish before I got to mine.

And that's when I woke up.

Simon and Akshay had messaged while I was asleep saying they couldn't come to Carrickfergus as they were not in town. We ended up going to the Downpatrick railway museum instead, as we had already been to Carrickfergus Castle a few years ago. It was a great day out... and no storms!

43

another year done. this one flew by, but in some ways barely passed at all. last year, mom was here in Belfast. After seeing mom off to Mumbai (from Heathrow) I was able to travel twice to Mumbai - for a month in October and another month around Christmas/New year.

Christmas/New year was super busy with so much stuff happening (and I think I also worked for a bit? Can't even remember now!) that it was gone in the blink of an eye (and loads of partying - and Desiree and Tony getting married!). The October trip was noteworthy too, as marked my first proper motorbike trip on Carly (beyond goa!).

That was the eventful bit of my last year. Things went rapidly downhill once back in Belfast. Everything from health, vehicles, even stuff at home (I tried my hand at some DIY plumbing that predictably went wrong, and there is now a massive patch of water damage that I have no idea how to fix!).

On the positive side though, I did sign up for the IAM RoadSmart membership, and did a good couple of months of twice-weekly rides, before summer trips kinda took priority - I still try to make at least one ride a week, but it's been slow (almost painstakingly slow!) progress.

And yes, I started going to the gym. I was never a fan of gym, but I am currently in a state where I am so immobile my body was shutting down. Gym has helped with that - but it's still a bit of a struggle finding the time and energy to be regular.

Everything else has been pretty much treading water - or worse, desperately trying not to sink.

And yes, even that can get quite overwhelming. It is a stark and almost menacing reality that a single ill considered decision can take me out of action for days or weeks. Thankfully the only time I was out of action for weeks was last year - but the odd series of bad days is a warning that I cannot be complacent despite gradual improvement.

I try not to bring myself down with the thought of it but I am increasingly drawn to memories of good times more than the actual prospect of good times.

All said and done though, it was a relief to pull off one last vacation around my birthday. Oslo - Svalbard - Oslo. It was great, and I was able to enjoy it with enough planning, not as much activities as past me (or basically anyone my age) would, but still doing much more than nothing. Svalbard (Longyearbyen) was everything it was touted to be, and more. At the end of 5 days though, I think we kinda ran out of thins I could do, and so it was the perfect duration. I did crash for the last 2 days in Oslo, but given how my year has been, that was fine. In comparison, even my October trip to Kodaikanal involved at least a full day of rest after a full day of activity, so there's definitely been a small but perceptible improvement.

I must say though, my 43rd year has been a year of mostly being almost alone. Mostly just Shruti and me, but also times of being truly alone. It's supposedly not good for me, but I don't feel it yet. Only time will tell.

Anyway, I don't have many plans for 44. Just hoping to continue this slow upward trajectory. No goals (OK, maybe the IAM qualification!), no bucket list.

It was weird when I spoke to a friend recently and explained to him that I have given up 99% of the things I used to do. Definitely an exaggeration, but I was even more taken aback when he asked me what's the 1% I haven't given up.

I think the only thing I've not given up throughout this year has been trying. That's my last 1%, the one thing I absolutely refuse to give up on. I know it sounds pretty privileged given all that I've done over the past year - I know people with perfectly good health who do even less - but I was never one to compare myself with others. It was always only my past self that mattered. And that's the most humbling part of it all. Accepting that it is going to be slow and steady, and anything more aggressive will simply result in reverting to an even worse situation. Those are the days when I am literally hanging on to that last 1%. Get out of bed. Get moving. Move slowly, but move.

All said and done though, I am happy. It's a different happiness, a happiness I've had to search for, build up bit by bit. But it's there. And I look forward to preserving, strengthening, and building on top of it.

As the cliche'd phrase goes - happy birthday!

the dark birthday dream

Disclaimer: I hope it's obvious, but in case there is any confusion, this is only a dream. No correlation with real life thoughts and actions.

Shruti and i were on a boat. It was a powerboat/ferry sort of boat, but not a very big one. We were standing near the front of the boat. There was a very small cabin at the front (a weird place for a cabin, I'd say!) but a bit of room around the cabin between it and the railing. The cabin and the deck were white, and there weren't many people on the boat. It wasn't moving very quickly either - it was moving through a somewhat narrow waterway, and the waterway had a very strong flow of water against the boat. The water rushed so quickly that the bank and the water around the water were white with turbulence. The water was full of turbulent swirls and eddies. Shruti was wearing her olive green fleece jacket, the one she uses only in extremely cold/windy weather. She stood behind me and to my left, close to the other side of the boat - I was near the middle. It was pretty narrow as it was near the front of the boat. Two men walked past me on my right, till near the front of the boat. They were quite well dressed, a bit too formally dressed for a boat - trousers, shirt, woolen overcoat and both were wearing a shawl-type thing around their neck. All wool, in plain, dark colours. Not exactly the same, but quite similarly dressed.

One of the two men jumped off the boat - over the railing, and straight away to the right. He hit the water with barely a splash - it was almost like a clean Olympic dive. He swam a few feet and then the other man dove behind him. By the time the second man hit the water, the first had already disappeared under it. Seconds later, there was no trace of the second man either. It was obvious they had drowned. And from the way it all played out and what the water looked like, it seems obvious that it was intentional. The two men had moved in synchronisation and coordination that suggested it had been planned and agreed in advance - some sort of suicide pact.

And that's when I woke up. It was around 9:30am. It was my birthday. It was time for coffee (which Shruti had already set the cafetiere brewing) and breakfast. When she woke me up, the dream instantly vanished from my consciousness.

There was loads to do today. But by about 4pm, I was exhausted. I really needed a nap. And after a few minutes on my phone thanking people for their wishes, I was asleep.

I was back on the boat with Shruti - everything was exactly the same as before. That's when I noticed a man at the bow of the boat. He was dressed a little more appropriately for the boat, with a heavy warm windbreaker, waterproof trousers and a beanie. He was standing there in silence, alone, leaning his back against the small white cabin. Another similarly dressed man walked past me and stood beside him. They both stood side by side for a few seconds, staring in the direction the two men had leapt off earlier. I could see a massive eddy had formed between the boat and the bank - it was more deep than it was wide, so while the edges were visible, the bottom of it wasn't.

The few seconds felt like an eternity. The two men stood side by side, not exchanging words or even a glance. Until finally one of them turned to the other for just a moment. I could not see either one's face, but I could tell they exchanged a glance. And as quickly as they shared the glance, they turned back to where they were previously staring. One of them dove into the water and started to swim. He swam powerfully and efficiently - barely breaking ripples in the water, barring a bit of white around his body. He swam straight towards the eddy. I was transfixed by how well and straight he was swimming. Barely a couple of seconds later the other man dove in behind him. He dove and swam equally well, almost (but not quite) synchronously. Within seconds, the first man reached the eddy and disappeared into it - followed by the second man.

Almost as instantly everything else, I realized we were now alone at the front of the boat - in fact, I had not seen anyone else on the boat all this while, despite there obviously having been someone at the controls of the boat. Shruti was still there, little more than an arm's length away.

I was confused about why we were there. Did we know what seemed like this boat was meant for? Were we intentionally there? Were we meant to see this?

In my confusion about situation my thoughts were interrupted by the realization that the four men were certainly dead. I felt a chill come over my body. Is this what the end is supposed to be like?

Fully remembering the glance the two men exchanged before diving in, I was afraid to make eye contact with Shruti. I tried not to. I didn't know what was going on in Shruti's mind. I didn't know if she had seen how the two men dove off after exchanging but a glance.

I couldn't stop myself from glancing at Shruti. When I did, I saw she was already looking at me. As our eyes met, I felt my body shrug, as if I was asking "what now?"

Shruti didn't say a thing. She simply took a step backward - just half a step in fact, barely a move. But a move nevertheless. A move away from the front of the boat. I stepped back myself, relieved.

And that's when Shruti woke me up. It's 7:15pm, and we had a dinner reservation for 7:30pm at a restaurant!

I told Shruti I was feeling really down. I summarised the dream best I could. She helped me out of bed and told me it's just a dream. 

L'été Indien

29th July 2026. I woke up as Shruti was dressing up for work. It was somewhere around 7 or 7:30am - way too early for me to be up, if I wanted to have a productive day.

A song was playing in my head. An old song. An instrumental song. A song from my childhood.

A song from a cassette, which was basically a mixtape. I don't know who made it. I do remember the day I first heard it though. It was in dad's workshop. He had these two cassettes on a shelf. I wanted to hear them as I had never heard them before (I was given a free rein to play any cassette and record from his collection at home, but these two were always in his workshop). He told me the two cassettes were what he used to test any cassette player he was repairing.

One of the cassettes was a test cassette (basically a demo tape) by some manufacturer. It was the shortest audio cassette I had ever got my hands on - barely 3-5 minutes on each side. I don't think I ever listened to that cassette again.

The other cassette was more mysterious and interesting. It was the first 90 minute cassette I had ever seen. Dad told me I could take it home and listen to it. There was no list of songs. Only the text "Herp Alpert" written in a cursive hand that wasn't my dad's, on the title side of the case inlay. And the cover - it was a picture cut out from a magazine or something, and stuck onto the cassette inlay.

I think it was one of my favourite cassettes from that day on. It's hard to say that it was my absolute favourite, but it was definitely in my top 5. Kevin and I called the cassette "Herb Albert" (I assumed the person wrote it wrong on the cover - or maybe I didn't care? I didn't even know if Herp or Alpert were real names, and Albert definitely sounded more realistic!)

I played it over and over again. And thanks to its length and my cheap player, it had a tendency to get chewed up. Every time it got chewed up, dad would dutifully chop up the bad bit and splice it back together. I don't know how many times it happened, but dad eventually taught me how to splice the tape myself. He had a special non-residue "splicing tape" for this. I don't know how many times I spliced/tried to splice it myself, or indeed if I was ever successful, but I know that at some point he decided it wasn't worth the effort and decided it was best to split the tape into two cassettes. He gave me a dummy box, two dummy reels, and I split it myself. Ironically, I do not remember what was written on the label of the other half, and I think that half has been discarded along with the other cassettes I wasn't interested in.

As the years passed, my musical tastes expanded, and while this cassette remained a favourite, I don't think it was in my top 5 or even top 10.

Eventually, we outgrew cassettes. The drawer of cassettes wasn't touched for years - decades, even. After moving to Belfast, and moving most of my records here, I went through the cassettes. Most of them didn't appeal to me any more. But I still wanted this one. I've even played it in Belfast a couple of times - notably, the last time I played it was when I was fixing a cassette player myself!

I identified some of the Herb Alpert songs. Hits like Rise, Rotacion, Aranjuez, etc. But I never tried to identify this song. Or maybe it was because I couldn't? What would I even look for?

Until the morning of 29th July 2026. I woke up and started humming the tune. Shruti heard me and asked if everything was alright. I told her I am trying to remember a song from my childhood.

I went back to sleep, and she went to work. But later that morning, I used Google Gemini to identify the song from me humming the tune.

The search results looked weird. I clicked the first one. It wasn't English, for sure. The video was kinda weird. The man was half talking, half singing. I wasn't even sure if it was the right one. But played it through, half asleep.

But the tune was right. I had found it. Not the version on the cassette, but this was the song! The original, in fact! I also found the exact version that was on the cassette - it was a cover by Paul Mauriat!

And yes, it is even more beautiful now, some 35 years later, now that I have looked up the lyrics and their meaning.

ps: Listening to the cassette as I type this, there was one song that had the distinctive series of clicks of a lightly scratched record. I never noticed it until today! And I haven't identified more than half the songs to this date.

fun with phones

the time of landline phones will always hold an element of nostalgia for people who lived through it - and a facebook post about it reminded me of one such incident. and yes, this was before we even had caller ID.

I must have been about 16 or 17 at the time. I picked up the phone to make a call (probably to Satej?) but instead of the dial tone, there was silence.

I was surprised, as it wasn't raining or anything (that's usually when the lines went dead!). after pressing the hook a couple of times with no success, I call out across the house: "mom, the phone's dead!"

and a voice on the line said "kris?"

turns out aunt Avita had called us at the exact same moment as I lifted the phone off the hook, so I didn't hear it ring, and she didn't hear the ringing tone on the line either!

it took a few seconds for us both to understand what happened, and I still marvel at what set of coincidences led to this happening!

also points to the time when phone circuits were fully analog, and you didn't hear the ringing tone on the line until the phone rang at the other end!

Are we teaching programming wrong?

A YouTuber's channels ("Dave's Garage" and "Dave's Attic") frequently leads me down a bit of tech nostalgia as he's very much into retro tech but in a much more accessible way than most Youtubers do. He also responds on video to some comments on his videos, and has even responded to mine a couple of times, so I do like his stuff.

Anyway, one of his videos sparked a discussion about how people learned programming in the past and how constraints helped people learn better. And my comment reminded me, I still remember the actual hex dump of my first ever assembly/machine language program, 30 years later!

The story behind it is weird: in 1996, my dad brought us our first home computer. It was a 286 with 1mb RAM and a 40MB hard disk. It was loaded with MS-DOS 6.22, Windows 3.0 and a few random things (Dbase 4 and WordStar 7 as I was learning those in school) and Microsoft Qbasic.

At some point, dad had picked up a "MS-DOS 5.0 User guide" and "MS-DOS 3.0 Programmer's guide" from a "raddiwala" (ie a scrap shop/recycling shop). Both books were wildly outdated in 1996/1997 but as I felt like I had already exhausted the possibilities of what could be done using QBasic, I lapped up and assimilated the knowledge contained in both those books very eagerly. My only problem: I had no way to put them into practical use! I lacked access to an assembler, and before the days of the internet, I didn't even have access to a way to get one! However, I figured a workaround, a way to make a start.

MS-DOS 5.0 onwards contained a tool "debug.exe" (the Microsoft debugger) which allowed debugging of running executables. Buried in all of its functionality, it had the capability to overwrite code manually using x86 assembly. So I loaded a random executable in the debugger, and overwrote the code with my own program. Once done, I used the hex dump functionality to take the binary representation of what I had just written - and wrote it literally on pen and paper. Yep, this was back in the days before copy-paste and screenshots!

I then wrote a QBasic program to create a binary file, which I could then execute and test. And it worked!

The whole process was so long and tedious that the hex dump of that program is etched into my own non-binary memory. It's all of 2 bytes, which makes it easier to remember, but still, here it is (in Hexadecimal):

CD19

It's so weird that I actually remember it so literally, that I had to double check that I indeed remember it correctly - and I do. I remember it so literally that I had to actually convert 19 in hex to decimal (ie 25) to know what to input into the online assembly tool!

This is the sort of effort that definitely etches things into your memory. I don't remember any other two bytes I've "composed" myself. So yeah - my first ever assembly program, and it was written without a proper compiler because I didn't have one.

Thankfully my cousin Ted was into programming and he had MASM and TASM, and I managed to get them on floppy disks (he had a Pentium-100 running Windows 95, absolutely blazing for the time and for me!). And so my second assembly program was written on a real compiler.

ps: if anyone is curious, the assembly for my first program is "int 25", the execution of which triggers a software interrupt that's handled by the IBM BIOS as the first step of the boot process - basically, initiate a software reboot! it needs to be in a ".com" file as ".exe" files need a header which I obviously didn't know how to write!

Social Media Negativity and Online Behavior

K = me, G = Google Gemini

K: Facebook attracts all sorts of weird unsavoury characters. These days I dread a comment being voted by their algorithm as a "top comment" because even the most unassuming top comment can attract people who seem to go around spreading negativity. Worst of all, the comment doesn't even need to be particularly good to randomly become a top comment - all it needs is for it to catch the algorithm's fancy! So any comment has a chance of attracting attention from what I can only assume must be terrible people! I'm glad there are no such people on my friend list (or at least, not that I'm aware of). Why can't social media be a safe, positive space? Do these people who are unnecessarily rude to strangers also equally bad to people they know personally?

G: It’s completely understandable why you’d feel that "Top Comment" dread. There is a specific kind of whiplash that happens when a harmless observation suddenly becomes a lightning rod for the internet’s most dedicated contrarians. It feels like you’ve accidentally stepped onto a stage you never asked to be on, only to find the front row filled with hecklers.

The "Top Comment" algorithm is often less about quality and more about velocity—how quickly people react. Unfortunately, anger and outrage are the fastest drivers of engagement, which means the system often rewards the very friction you’re trying to avoid.

Why Social Media Struggles to Be "Safe"

The dream of a purely positive digital space often clashes with a few hard realities of human psychology and platform design:

• The Disinhibition Effect: When people don't see a physical face or hear a human voice, their "social brakes" fail. The person being rude likely views you as an avatar or a screen, not a living person with feelings.

• Engagement Over Harmony: Algorithms are designed to keep eyes on the screen. A heated debate (even a toxic one) keeps people clicking and scrolling longer than a dozen people politely agreeing with each other.

• The "Context Collapse": On your friend list, everyone shares a common thread (you). In the public comments of a major page, thousands of people with wildly different life stresses, biases, and bad moods are shoved into one "room."

Are They This Bad in Real Life?

This is the golden question. The answer is usually a mix of "no" and "it's complicated."

The Online Persona	The Real-Life Reality
The Keyboard Warrior	Often surprisingly timid in person. They use the internet as a pressure valve for frustrations they feel powerless to express in their actual lives.
The Recreational Contrarian	They might be perfectly pleasant to friends but view public comment sections as a "game" or a debate club where empathy isn't a requirement.
The Genuinely Toxic	A small percentage of these people are actually difficult in their personal lives. Studies on "Dark Tetrad" personality traits suggest that those who enjoy trolling often lack empathy in all spheres.

Most of the time, these people are "Compartmentalized Jerks." They treat the public internet like a void they can scream into without consequence, while still being the person who brings a potato salad to the neighborhood BBQ and acts perfectly "normal."

Protecting Your Peace

Since we can't redesign Meta's algorithm overnight, the best defense is often aggressive curation. If a comment of yours starts gaining "Top Comment" traction and the vibes turn sour, don't feel obligated to defend your ground. Muting the thread or even deleting the comment isn't "losing"—it's just reclaiming your mental real estate from people who haven't earned a minute of your time.

Do you find that certain topics or specific types of pages seem to attract this negativity more than others, or does it feel like it's just everywhere regardless of the subject?

K: It seems to be everywhere to varying degrees

G: That "everywhere" feeling is a result of Digital Ubiquity. Because social media has moved from a niche hobby to the primary way we consume news, entertainment, and social updates, the "public square" is now effectively infinite and unmoderated.

When negativity feels universal, it’s usually due to a few specific "gravity wells" that pull those unsavory characters into almost every corner of the internet:

1. The "Main Character" Syndrome

Many people now use comment sections as a personal stage rather than a place for dialogue. They aren't responding to you; they are performing for an imaginary audience, using your comment as a springboard to broadcast their own grievances or "wit."

2. Algorithmic Homogenization

Platforms like Facebook try to predict what will make you stay on the app. If you interact—even out of annoyance—with a negative thread, the algorithm notes that "Productive Conflict" (or just plain drama) keeps you active. Consequently, it feeds you more "Top Comments" that are likely to trigger a response, creating an illusion that the world is angrier than it actually is.

3. The "Low Barrier to Entry"

In a physical community, there is a social cost to being a jerk (people stop inviting you to things). On a public Facebook post, there is zero cost. This creates a "Tragedy of the Commons" where the digital space becomes polluted because no one is held accountable for the mess they leave behind.

---

How to Navigate the "Everywhere"

Since the toxicity is widespread, the strategy has to shift from avoidance to filtering:

• The 2-Second Rule: If a reply starts with an insult or an aggressive "Actually...", stop reading immediately. Your brain processes the negativity faster than the logic; cutting it off early saves your cortisol levels.

• Privacy Pivoting: Many users are moving away from public commenting entirely, preferring "Dark Social"—private groups, Discord servers, or group chats where the "Top Comment" algorithm doesn't exist and membership is curated.

• Selective Ghosting: You are never under any obligation to provide a "closing statement" to a stranger. Silence is often the loudest way to tell a troll they are irrelevant.

It’s a bit like living in a city with a lot of smog; you can't stop the factories from running, but you can choose when to keep your windows closed.

Since you've noticed your friend list is a safe haven, do you find yourself spending more time in those private spaces now, or do you still feel the pull to engage with the broader public feed despite the "smog"?

K: I end up in the public feed due to the engaging content posted there and my fear is only obvious after I receive negative interaction

G: That is the ultimate "algorithm trap." The content is the bait—it’s genuinely funny, informative, or relatable—and you engage with it in good faith, only to realize too late that you’ve stepped into a digital hornets' nest.

It’s a bit like finding a beautiful park, sitting down on a bench to enjoy the view, and only then realizing the bench is covered in wet paint and surrounded by people looking for a fight. The "fear" you feel is a natural response to social ambush.

Why the Ambush Feels So Bad

The reason it hits so hard after the fact is because of how our brains process social feedback:

• The Surprise Factor: Because your comment was unassuming, your "defenses" were down. When someone responds with vitriol, it creates a jump-scare effect for your nervous system.

• The Asymmetry of Effort: You spent two seconds being nice or observant; they spent ten minutes being a "detective" trying to find a way to twist your words. That imbalance feels deeply unfair.

• The "Notification Sting": That little red icon usually means a friend liked a photo or a family member replied. When you click it expecting a "hit" of dopamine and get a "hit" of adrenaline from a mean stranger instead, it feels like a betrayal of the interface.

---

Managing the "Post-Comment" Anxiety

Since the public feed is where the engaging content lives, you don't necessarily have to abandon it, but you can change how you "exit" the interaction.

• Disable Notifications for Specific Comments: On Facebook, you can click the three dots on your own comment and select "Turn off notifications for this post." This is a superpower. You’ve said your piece, you've enjoyed the content, and you’ve effectively walked out of the room and locked the door behind you.

• The "Edit" Stealth Move: If a comment starts going viral for the wrong reasons, some people edit the comment to say "[Deleted]" or just a period ".". It breaks the algorithm's "velocity" and usually makes the trolls move on to a fresher target.

• Reframe the "Top Comment" Badge: If the algorithm crowns you, try to view it as a glitch in the matrix rather than an invitation to host a gala. You didn't ask for the crown, and you don't have to talk to the "subjects" in the comments section.

It’s a shame we have to build these mental bunkers just to enjoy a video of a cat playing a piano or a clever news satire, but protecting your peace is more important than being "right" in a thread full of strangers.

When you get one of those negative notifications, do you find yourself tempted to explain your original intent to them, or have you reached the point where you just want to block and move on?

K: I block and move on, but it seems like I do so too late.

G: That "too late" feeling is usually because the damage to your mood happens the second you read the words. Even if you block them five seconds later, the adrenaline spike and the sense of being misunderstood have already flooded your system. You’ve already "let them in," and blocking feels like slamming the door after the thief is already in the kitchen.

It’s an exhausting cycle because you're essentially being punished for being a normal, social human being.

Why "Blocking Later" Feels Like Losing

When you block after the interaction, it often feels unsatisfying for a few reasons:

• The Last Word: Your brain knows they got their "shot" in, and by blocking, you aren't getting a resolution—you're just ending the broadcast.

• The Lingering Echo: Even after they are blocked, you might find yourself mentally rehearsing the argument you could have had or explaining your intent to a person who no longer exists on your screen.

• The Search for "Why?": You spend time wondering what is wrong with them or why that specific comment triggered them, which gives them even more of your mental energy.

---

Moving the "Shield" Upstream

To avoid that "too late" feeling, you have to move your defensive line from Reactive (blocking after the sting) to Proactive (preventing the sting). Here are a few ways to "hardened" your public profile:

• The "Post and Ghost" Protocol: If you post a comment on a high-traffic public page, immediately click the three dots and Turn off notifications. Don't wait for the first reply. If it becomes a "Top Comment," you’ll never know, and the trolls will be shouting into a void you aren't even monitoring.

• Lock Down Your Profile: Ensure that "strangers" or "friends of friends" cannot see your past posts, photos, or friends list. Often, these "unsavoury characters" will click your profile to find ammunition to use against you. If they see a wall, they usually get bored and move on.

• Keyword Filtering: In your Facebook settings, you can actually hide comments containing certain words from your timeline. While it doesn't work perfectly for public threads, it can help sanitize your own space.

Reframing the "Win"

The "win" isn't successfully explaining yourself to a stranger; the win is maintaining your heart rate. If you block someone and still feel bad, remind yourself that the person on the other end is likely a "Recessional Contrarian"—someone who is literally bored and looking for a reaction to feel alive. By blocking them, you have denied them the only thing they wanted: your attention. You didn't "lose" the argument; you "won" back your afternoon.

ps: This "conversation" was saved from weeks ago because it struck me as being one of the most productive conversations I might have had with an AI!

deadline dreams

last monday was a daunting day: I had 3 appointments, a 9:30am one for my foot (my first physiotherapy appointment after my bunion started acting up 2 years ago), another 2:15pm one for my foot again (review with the consultant looking at my foot orthotics) and a 4pm eye checkup. given the 3 appointments were all near office, I was also going to be working from office between them. I was nervous about the day for multiple reasons: this would be the earliest I've had to wake up in a couple of months, I was planning to park the car at the location of my first appointment and cycle between there and office and the other appointments, and it also weighed on me that my therapist (back when I was still on therapy last year) said I shouldn't plan for more than one appointment a day to avoid overwhelming myself - and here I was, doing 3!

anyway, all of this weighed on me, and I tried to minimize the chances of my brain fog getting in the way of me being on time. I packed my bag - laptop, snack box, fruit (no lunch as nothing was cooked!), showered, kept my clothes all in one place including my wallet and keys, put the folding cycle in the car, checked the tyres and brakes, and finally got into bed at around midnight, an hour after I planned to.

I was so tired just from the preparation that when I got into bed I forgot the most important thing: setting my alarms! thankfully I remembered before I slept off, and set two: 8:47 to wake up, and 9am to leave (I was supposed to reach 15 minutes early for my first appointment, and 9am would get me there at 9:10, so 5 minutes to park and to accomodate rush hour traffic).

in hindsight, 8:47 was too late, but thankfully, it wasn't a problem because I woke up before my alarm.

it reminds me of what I used to do some 20+ years ago, when I was experimenting with self-hypnotism: if I would ensure the last conscious thought before going to sleep was what time I wanted to wake up, I'd wake up without an alarm! This was before I had a phone or a personal alarm (I depended on dad waking me up!), and my body clock was accurate to around 5 minutes! also, I could see the wall clock from my bed so it was easy to notice when I opened my eyes.

anyway, back to Monday. the first dream woke me up at 4:30am or so. 

the dream was about me going for an exam. it was MCA, presumably, as the professors were from there, although the assignments didn't seem computer related - they seem to be about English or something. weird. also, there was no written exam, I had to hand in my assignments and answer questions about its content - which I don't remember happening during my course!

I don't remember what caused me to wake up from that dream: it was definitely something weird that must have happened but I cannot remember it any more.

anway, back to sleep, I had the weirder dream: I was in a race. it was a motorbike race. the people I was racing against were people I know from Belfast, but I was at my hold apartment in Mumbai. My motorbike (Lisa, the ST1300!) was on the terrace of the apartment. it wasn't a race as much as a time trial: the other participants would time each other and me, and we'd finally decide the winner based on timings.

but this race was weird: the race started when I got out of bedm brushed my teeth, got dressed, wore my riding gear, etc. I was almost ready to get on my motorbike when one of my competitors asked me to get him a glass of water. I told him that's not fair, it'd add to my time. he told me he was thirsty and he had no idea where the glasses were as it was my home. and besides I wasn't ready to race yet.

I was annoyed but got him a glass of water. That's when I realized I wasn't wearing my gloves, and I couldn't start the race without my gloves! I started looking everywhere for my gloves and they were nowhere to be seen - especially where they should have been. finally, I looked outside and saw I had dropped them right beside the bike! and weirdly enough there were 3 gloves - one of them was an odd one from my old pair (identical to the new pair, only more worn out!). I put on my gloves and got ready to start the motorbike. I looked at the distance I had to ride - barely 40 feet! I thought to myself, this is such a ridiculous race - it would take 5 seconds or less to cover the distance, and took 35 or 30 minutes to get ready for it!

and then I woke up, 2 minutes before the alarm: 8:45am.

I thought to myself: what a strangely appropriate dream. I spent more than an hour preparing for my first appointment and the day, and have given myself just 13 minutes for the actual race (getting out of bed and getting ready to leave for my appointment and the rest of my busy day!). I spent all of those 2 bonus minutes thinking about my dream and how it prepared me for the day, which literally seemed like a race rolled into an exam!

strangely enough, after my first appointment, I got into the car and sat for 5 minutes, just to prepare myself to take out the folding cycle and ride oout and face the rest of the day. for some reason, during those 5 minutes, I thought to myself: I'm really not up for this.

I drove back home, parked the car, took an hour's nap, and then took my motorbike to work. and yes, I noticed the gloves were in their place before I was getting ready to leave, and heaved a sigh of relief!

what chronic fatigue syndrome has taught me about myself

yes, this was the title of the previous blog post, but as I started typing it I realized it went a complete different direction! these observations are much more significant and long term, so I feel like I must blog them anyway

1. chronic fatigue has made me more sensitive to things that were easier to ignore otherwise
   
   
2. the dopamine feedback loop of technology is almost all-pervasive and is literally dragging me down
   
   
3. mornings (waking up on time) absolutely set the tone for the rest of the day. the difference between waking up at 7am and 10am is the difference between feeling on top of the world (relatively speaking - it's still a struggle, but more bearably so!) and dragging myself through the day. if I'm still in bed after 10am I can pretty much give up on the day (with some exceptions - hopefully today is one of them!).
   
   
4. nights set the tone for the next morning. I absolutely NEED to be asleep by midnight, and that means winding down physically by 11pm, and mentally by 11:30pm. if I want to feel fresh the next morning, midnight is too late, and I should aim to be alseep by 11 - something I haven't managed to do in months, which explains my worsening fatigue. I need to wind down, not get things done. I need to resist the urge to tackle things as I see them, especially as bedtime approaches.
   
   
5. productive non-work time needs to be used productively. it seems like my productive time hits me when I'm in the mood for entertainment, and that's where the tech dopamine feedback loop takes over.
   
   
6. I tend to prioritize short term rewards over long term rewards even though it seems perfectly possible to do the latter. before chronic fatigue hit, I was easily able to do both by just pushing myself to tackle the long term stuff when I was in the mood for it (which usually happened after 10pm, frequently after midnight!)
   
   
7. timeboxing is my weak spot. I lose track of time when I'm being productive. I have all the tools, I just don't use them, and that's what turns positive activities into problematic knock-on effects.
   
   
8. physical activity is a feedback loop. once I cut down on it, it just gets worse until it feels like I cannot get out of the loop. it literally took me all of last week to bring myself to the point where I could get out and go for a walk. I have literally dressed up and then given up.
   
   
9. the small thigns add up. I do not factor in the effort I need to take to be ready to get something done, some I frequently have to give up before I've even started. the small thigns add up even more when it comes to my moments of weakness - mornings and nights.
   
   
10. chronic fatigue has unmasked the problematic areas of my life that I have literally struggled with since I was a kid - just that the ability to ignore them and carry on has been taken away.

wait, 10 is a repeat of 1! I think that'as a hint I should stop here. Time to get some long term things done, and make sure the negative cycle ends today!

what am I doing wrong?

Sitting on my couch at 1pm on Sunday afternoon, still groggy and not feeling fully awke, my "morning" (made half an hour ago) coffee half-drunk and cold, but sipping it anyway as it's too much trouble to reheat it... and the inevitable thought hits: how did I get here? Not in the metaphysical sense, but in the more short term sense. What did I do wrong yesterday? And this morning? Does the problem go further back?

1. I got into bed at like 1am. But I was unable to fall asleep. after 20 minutes (the amount of time I was told I should allow myself to go to sleep - and if that doesn't work, I need to get out of bed and do something that calms my mind down to prepare itself for sleep - lying in bed for extended periods is counterproductive). during those 20 minutes I had put on my favourite playlist (DJ Tiesto) on the ipod bedside dock.
   
   What did I do wrong? Get into bed too late, without enough "calming my mind" first. Also played something that I like but wasn't calming enough.
   
   
2. I got out of bed and decided to do a bit of tidying up. I moved some of the stuff that needs to go into the atticc up to the landing, moved other stuff that had to be dusted and put away from the 2nd floor  landing to the 1st floor "office room". Stuck my watch on charge as it was less than half-charged. Entered the bathroom and was about to put away the electric razor head which I had washed on Friday night after shaving my head... when I noticed it wasn't as clean as I thought it was. I spent some time (no watch so no idea!) just washing it again, btu more carefully, with warm soapy water, which cleaned up about half the stuff stuck between the blades, but obviously that wasn't great. One thing led to another and after a year (or maybe two - I don't remember) I finally realized the right way to clean the razor head (and why it wasn't working as well as it should have) was to pop out this plastic retaining structure, so that the individual blades pop out. The blades were absolutely caked up with hair! And this was a really quick and easy way to clean the blades. So this was waht I was missing all these years! RTFM should have done it but the manual (as always) had been packed away as soon as I unboxed the razor without even a glance!
   
   What did I do wrong? Getting sidetracked into doing something simulating instead of calming, not keeping my watch on meant I couldn't timebox it.
   
   
3. After these razor shenanigans, I started feeling hungry! And it wasn't a mild hunger but the cloying hunger that I knew wouldn't let me sleep. So I headed downstairs, looked for something quick and not too bad to eat at that hour. I thought half an avocado should do it... but it didn't. A bit of iberican jamon followed - but that didn't help either. I decided to give it a few minutes to see if that helped, so while I was waiting, I unscrewed the jamon from its stand and tried to move it to a position that seemed more similar to what was on the box... but it didn't work. By the time it was mounted back firmly it was back in its original position, but with a bit of mess created in the process. So I had to clean up the jamon crumbs cos it probably wasn't a good idea to leave them on the chopping board overnight. I wasn't feeling any sleepier and still hungry, so I downed a single serving bag of crisps. At that point I decided I had to go to bed no matter what, so I took my watch (now almost fully charged), turned off the music (which had just been left playing all this while) and went to bed. Don't remember the time but probably soemwhere between 2:30 and 3am.
   
   What did I do wrong? Doing things standing up, physically intense (mounting the jamon on its stand took quite a bit of effort). Eating junk. Taking way too long away from bed at bedtime.
   
   
4. I went out for dinner with a couple of friends yesterday. The dinner was extremely hearty (I think I overate! but it was so good I couldn't help myself - I did leave a bit on the plate though, very uncharacteristic of myself but at that point I knew I was going to get myself into trouble! I got back home by 9pm, extremely tired, but I felt like I shouldn't go to bed so soon after eating. I turned on some youtube, and watched some absolutely pointless videos (the war on ukraine, why replacing generic windows drivers for SSDs with manufacturer-supplied ones won't help performance when the SSDs are part of a software RAID array, why Irish wool is barely turning a profit for all the businesses involved). During the first couple of videos I would pause them when I was getting out of earshot and resume them once I was back. Basically I refilled the bird feeders, took the recycling out, tied the recycling bin to its usual spot, took out the food waste, stuff that was mostly outdoors and involved heading in and out.
   
   What did I do wrong? Increase my mental load by mixing outdoor activity with youtube on the TV, when I should have just stuck it on my headphones or listened to music instead.
   
   
5. That done, I settled on the couch with more pointless videos playing. I was absolutely exhausted at that point and quicly moved from sitting to lying on the couch, and I was zoning out of the videos. At one point I definitely dozed off because when I woke up the video had finished. I ignored the sign though and re-watched the video, now fully awake. Once the video was done I turned everything off and went upstairs for a shower. Before heading up I put away my shoes which I had left outside the shoe cabinet to air out. I noticed a pair of shoes I had stopped using after my feet expanded was still in the shoe cabinet, and decided to wash it during my shower so it could be put away later. Washed shoes first, then showered, but both with the window closed cos it was too cold outside. Once done I left the bathroom window wide open to let the moisture out and told myself I'll get back in 20 minutes to shut it before going to bed. I headed downstairs to find something to do for 20 minutes. I found my tabled charged and decided to play some games on it.
   
   What did I do wrong? Ignore the obvious sign that I was exhausted and ready for bed, do more than the absolute minimum required before going to bed. Playing games on the tablet is the opposite of relaxing/winding down before bed.
   
   
6. I got out of bed at 9:15am yesterday. That's after setting an alarm for 8:45 (and another for 9, cos I was sure the first one wouldn't get me out of bed). That's the earliest I've got out of bed in over a month (if you ignore non-negotiables like catching flights etc). Earlier, I had figured that my energy levels are a lot better if I get out of bed when I first open my eyes - ignoring the urge for "a few minutes more" or "it's too early" - but back when I arrived at that conclusion and started practicing it, my eyes would open at between 7am and 7:30am. These days, without an alarm, my eyes first open at 11 on some days! Thankfully though I didn't feel the slight dizziness/rush of blood to the face (a hot flash!) I ususally get when I try to get out of bed, so I guess my body was OK with the reduced sleep/early wake up. The problem was I had only slept at 3am the previous night - I had friends over till midnight (I invited them over for dinner and we lost track of time) and after they left I had a shower and shave, and then tried to clean the razor. And finally, I took the tablet to bed and played games before falling alseep - only stopping when the tablet ran low on charge.
   
   What did I do wrong? Do more than the absolute minimum required before going to bed, knowing I had an early start the next morning. Play games when I was already ready to sleep. Play absolutely way more games than I should have!

In short, my biggest problems seem to be: sleeping late, not winding down before bedtime, doing more than I should when I am tired, ignoring the knock-on effects of having less sleep one night, on the next day and especially the next night! The other thing I have noticed is playing games is how I blow off excess mental energy, but I shouldn't be doing it when I'm already low on physical energy. I don't recognize in the moment when I'm not doing what I should be. I don't timebox activities that I am doing for a specific purpose.

On the other hand I think some things are being done right - I am not feeling isolated or down, I am doing an appropriate amount of physical activity. I am not ignoring my basics/baseline activity (it had actually gotten to a point where I had stopped showering before bed daily because I wasn't feeling "up to it"!). I am getting things done.