Bright Possibilities

Author: Murali

  • ideaX from KCLS is awesome

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    Murali
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    In the past month, I had taken my 7-year old son to the ideaX event at the Bellevue main library. At this event there are an array of things to play with – blocks, lego mindstorms, 3D printer pens, line tracing robots, liteBricks, paper planes, etc. Besides kids, even adults were enjoying the event. This…

  • Energy consumed and CO2 emissions for top 3 countries

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    Murali
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    Yesterday I read about the smog-filtering bicycles to be launched in China. This brought up a question about the utility and the state of affairs of CO2 emissions and air pollution in China. From my trips to Chinese capital city of Beijing three years back, I recall the high level of pollution and the orange sunsets…

  • Flying High (Poem with Picture)

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    Murali
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    Thanks to a wonderful bird photo from a friend, here is the poem card. Thanks S.Sivakumar for the excellent photo of a soaring bird flying high. 

  • Cash – less in the future?

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    Murali
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    In my work on eCommerce, several times I had dreamed up having cashless transactions enabled at lower costs. The dream is coming alive. I am excited to read about the cashless systems in China – NYTimes: … cash is rapidly becoming obsolete. In India, applications like Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM), PayTM, etc., are set…

  • Flying High – a poem from 1999

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    Murali
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    Years back I used to write down a few small poems. This summer my daughter is doing a summer camp on writing and poetry. She came home and described about the variety of poems. So I dug into the archives to find a poem to post here. Flying High (Aug 26, 1999) ————————– Flapping the…

  • Reducing Email Clutter

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    Murali
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    I have a half a dozen email inboxes which means it is important to keep the clutter down regularly to get through the mails. Here are some steps I take to reduce the clutter and keep the email life saner. Use Junk Mail or Spam Filters from the native email service provider. This reduces or…

  • Looking for Better Scout Den App

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    Murali
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    We live in the worst of times with constant lack of time; And we live in the best of times with active kids. Sometimes people say we are living without attention. That said, from my experience as a Den leader for Cub Scouts in 2016-2017 (see the reflection piece), I felt it is important to…

  • First year of Cub Scouts – a reflection

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    Murali
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    My son (shortly M) started his first grade in 2016 and also started showing curiosity towards many activities. In the fall of 2016, M rambled down to a table with a lone rocket on the table. Curious as he was, he wanted to touch the rocket. The kakhi clad (now we know that they are…

  • Making Shields using modern maker technologies

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    Murali
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    In the medieval times, one cannot guard a state without great knights and soldiers. And these knights in-turn relied upon great armor, shields (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield), and swords. In the modern era we rely on defense technologies that reach farther. Still there is a lot learnt from the ancient shields including patience and creativity. Today my…

  • Evolve Software Architecture using a principled approach (Part 1)

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    Murali
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    Software rules the world, everyone is aware of this. And along with it people say, Software is easy to change, easy to create, easy to adopt, etc. Still Software is often hard to understand. For both individuals and teams, having a common understanding of the architecture of software makes life easier to evolve the software to be faster, cheaper,…