Ambarish's musings

Debuggers are some of the most beautiful pieces of code ever written. They are every developer's oxygen tank in  the deep treacherous waters that is the world of software engineering. They are tools which help us figure out  what went wrong, and where. Now, apart from software development, where else can we use a debugger? Life, of course! Imagine if we could debug our life! Add breakpoints, inspect the local and global variables in  various scenarios, and change values if need be. We could take ourselves wherever we want… But, wait! I forgot a fundamental assumption. While debugging code, we manage to replicate the exact same  scenario any number of times we want. Absolutely not possible with life. Life provides you with one chance for a scenario, and you simply can't debug. A debugger for life is a powerful, yet useless weapon...

Let us take a moment to appreciate the people that we have known, interacted with, seen, heard about,  had a crush on, that have broken our hearts, who made us dream, and who brought us back to the harsh reality  of the world, who made us laugh so much that we had tears in our eyes, and who made us so sad yet we couldn’t  shed a single tear, who became our best friends, and who became cold and distant ghosts, who pushed us towards the finish line, and those who saw weakness in us and ran away, who we love, and who love us, and cherish our  presence and miss us in our absence, who made our days special, and who have made our days a nightmare,  who lent us their shoulders, and who kicked us when we were down, who dazzled us with their talents, who were mesmerized when we showcased ours, with whom we shared meat and mead, and all the people who gave us  a lifetime's worth of experiences. These are people who made us into what we are. Th...

You can't see it, You can't feel it, You can neither hear it, Nor smell it.   You think you have it, And just like that Poof! It is gone!   A year feels so short, A minute feels so long.   Time isn't real. Time is an illusion.

Cars always fascinated me, rather driving cars did. Ever since I went on the Pune-Mahabaleshwar-Satara road trip, I wanted to learn driving, and be able to rent a car and take my family out for a drive or something. Or go on more road trips with friends. Or just go out once in a while, for a nice long drive. Starting this Monday, I joined a driving school nearby. I drove a Maruti Swift Dzire and a Maruti Wagon R for the past week, and both vehicles are in good shape. The instructor is also good, he is quite attentive, and he solved like a million of my doubts this week. He laid out a great roadmap, which I thought was too simple to be true: Days 1-3: Steering Days 4,5: Gears Day 6: Clutch, brake and acceleration At the end of this week, he says I have learnt the basics of driving. Sounded too good to be true! Steering is basically holding the wheel for a long time, and then turning as and when required. Easy enough, right? I felt steering was the hardest. A...