Sajal Choudhary

Apex

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 08:17:08 GMT

The movie is based in Australia. There are plenty of familiar tropes.

I found myself losing interest but finished it nonetheless.

Ladies First

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 08:14:55 GMT

This movie showed up as #1 on Netflix and I was looking for something to watch. So I watched it.

It is a good movie.

I have been thinking about gender roles and politics thanks to a book talk I gave recently about Children of Time.

This movie takes the view that if roles were reversed women will behave the way men do and then runs with it.

That’s a less interesting approach I think, but philosophy aside, I enjoyed it. It is fun.

Amazon has a new plan for games

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 07:26:11 GMT

Amazon’s new plan for games: James Bond and AI Snoop Dogg by Jay Peters

Amazon’s bet on putting Tomb Raider everywhere — there are also a handful of titles available through Luna — indicates where the company sees things going. “We really believe that this line between TV and video games is increasingly coming together” such that “I think every major IP is going to have to have a video game story” as part of its go-to-market strategy, Gattis says. He also points to Amazon’s rights deals with sports leagues like the NBA and the NFL, saying there are “all kinds” of “companion-type games” that it can make.

Having both IP and execution is important. Good games need to be at their core, good games. But there is an increasing trend in the market of Sony and Nintendo making movies and TV shows from their games, so why not go the other way around?

Untitled

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 12:04:59 GMT

The Tragedy of the Commoner by Hugh Howey

This might all sound theoretical, but it’s actually what’s happening all the time. Every company is trying to increase profits, which means doing more work with fewer costs. Driving down costs means keeping wages as low as the market will tolerate and hiring as few people as required to do all the work. But every company also relies on all the other companies to pay great wages so there are consumers with dollars to spend. Walmart and Amazon might think they are in the business of selling widgets, but they are really in the business of generating wages. Their value to shareholders is measured by profits, but their value to the economy can be measured in how much in wages they inject into the system.

I did not know that Ford paid more wages for his workers and reduced their working hours.

This is the frustrating thing I have with how everyone is behaving wrt AI. Who will buy things when AI is doing everything? Who will buy these services if no one has any money to spend?

Here’s the thing: Walmart and Amazon would be idiotic to do anything other than what they are doing. Overpaying would be suicide. Hiring too many workers would be suicide. There’s zero incentive to do either. What both of them NEED, while they both fight to prevent with union busting, is MANDATED HIGHER WAGES. They both would benefit from a federal minimum wage hike to $30 an hour. It would increase consumer spending. Their profit margins would decrease, but SO WOULD EVERYONE ELSE’S, so there wouldn’t be a better place for investor dollars. In fact, the only way to prevent this gradual gutting of the middle class and the destruction of these business models seeking greater efficiency is for the government to rescue them with higher minimum wages.

State of Play June

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 08:32:15 GMT

Sony held a State of Play on 2nd June. There were a bunch of exciting showcases and gameplay reveals. These are the things that excited me.

Wolverine. The trailer looked good. I noticed two things. There was a lot of blood, but that blood got off of Wolverine magically. I wondered about the gaming loop, how fun would it be beating this hapless humans? There might be harder enemies to beat, but let’s see.
God of War Laufey. I loved the trailer for this one as well. Years ago I had tried to play God of War, but could not continue. I have both of them in my to-be-played list. This just makes me want to play those games and be ready for this.
Tomb Raider. Looks fun to play. I have played the three in the remake. I have not played the originals so the story would be new to me.
Control Resonant. This looks good too. But nothing new here in this trailer.
Until Dawn 2. Until Dawn is another game that I left after starting. This trailer looks similarly moviesque.
The Lost World. Don’t know if this one is tied with Jurassic Park/World movies, but looked quite good.
Ill. It looked good. A horror game. Not sure if I’ll play it. There are so many Resident Evil games in my TBP pile already.

Meta bot used to hijack IG accounts

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 06:39:35 GMT

Meta’s own AI was exploited to hijack Instagram accounts by Emma Roth

Meta’s AI support chatbot helped hackers hijack Instagram accounts, as reported earlier by 404 Media. In a video shared on Telegram, a hacker shows how they could take over an account by asking Meta’s chatbot to switch the email associated with someone else’s profile and then reset the password.

As more of our world moves to agentic AI stuff, this is both sobering and scary. Also, it was not really as much a hack as asking the Meta bot, hey this is my account, change my email. And it did it.

Glory

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 08:50:14 GMT

I had thought this would be a limited series, but no, they ended it in a cliffhanger.

I liked it. The story follows two brothers on a quest for vengeance, as they find out who killed their sister.

I liked the premise and the setting. The characters felt believable, though the number of times the characters were in peril and somehow managed to escape was a bit unbelievable.

I caught the lead doing the Netflix wants shows/movies to explain what is going on, a few times. So that was funny.

The AI Bubble

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 07:21:49 GMT

The AI Bubble — No One's Happy by No One's Happy

The buyers have not learned to manage and the sellers have not learned to price, the two failures meeting in the middle and being reported, in the aggregate, as demand. The buildout is being sized against consumption figures that include their own inefficiency — and the revenue projections required to justify it assume this inflated consumption will grow, not contract, as teams mature and architectures stabilize.

Nividia Announces RTX Spark Chips

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 07:02:10 GMT

Nvidia announces RTX Spark as ‘the most efficient PC chip ever built’ by Sean Hollister

“This is the most efficient PC chip ever built,” says Nvidia senior director of product management Mark Aevermann — without sharing so much as a single statistic or chart to back that up.

I just loved this turn of phrase.

About Using AI for Personal Notes

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 06:42:17 GMT

How global logistics got me over my fear of personal agents

All of which to say is that, for me, my personal theory is that AI psychosis comes from undermining your intrinsic faith in the workings of your own self.

And that comes from allowing an LLM that speaks in your voice to potentially write into your notes which, for a certain kind of person, is part of cognition itself. The AI doesn’t need to actually change your notes, the potential is enough.

Which eventually makes you go loopy.

The part about not using AI agents for your own writing and notes felt relevant to me. A thing that I agree with.

I believe writing helps me think. If I let AI do that, how would I think?

The Anthropologists

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 06:40:13 GMT

Review

How do you decide if a book is (or has been) a life changing book?
For me, if a book changes how I look at life or gives me a new way of doing some thing, then I call it life-changing. The thing that it enables me to differently has to be something that matters to me.

This book is a life-changing book for me. Which is a bit weird because I did not pick this book thinking it would.

I picked this book, because I had just finished reading [[202604261903 Children of Strife|Children of Strife]], and wanted to read something light and breezy - a romantic story. I searched on the library and this one seemed interesting - a story about an immigrant couple in a big city and their quest to find a home.

I don’t know if this was fiction or just a biography or a diary.

The book has 100+ short chapters, each talking about a thing. There are multiple sub-plots and strands that run through the entire book, but each chapter contains a single story in it.

The writing is gorgeous. The way the language flows and sounds.

And above all, it seemed so relatable to me. So many things that I feel or have felt over the past five years since I moved to Helsinki. Like the constant feeling of not being there for our parents, like feeling like foreigners here, like wanting to be friends with the locals.

We follow Ayse, who is a freelance documentarian, and the thing that she wants to capture is the beauty of every day life. To do that she visits the park and talks to people every day. Some of these interviews are interspersed throughout the book. She, her husband, Manu and their friend Ravi form a unit.

The story evolves slowly, and patiently. There are no high-stakes here. Just life.

It reminded me a bit of [[202409201237 A Prayer for the Crown-Shy|A Prayer for the Crown-Shy]] and how it was similarly low-stake.

The reason why I called it life-changing is because it showed me that writing about life does not have to be boring or written as if we are documenting something.

Stories are everywhere. Stories are the point. I don’t need to say I went there, saw this, did this, then that. It can be more.

The Great Mental Models

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sat, 30 May 2026 03:44:52 GMT

Started reading.

Ghost of Yotei

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Fri, 29 May 2026 17:36:44 GMT

Started playing.

Witcher 3 will be getting an expansion

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Thu, 28 May 2026 08:06:57 GMT

The Witcher 3 is getting another expansion, more than a decade after launch by Andrew Webster

The fourth Witcher game may be a ways off, but fans won’t be without Geralt of Rivia for long. CD Projekt Red just announced Songs of the Past, the third expansion for The Witcher 3, which will be launching in 2027.

If only I could make some time now.

Meta announces subscriptions for its apps

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Thu, 28 May 2026 04:17:43 GMT

Meta Wants You to Pay for Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp Now by Juli Clover

Instagram Plus is priced at $3.99 per month, Facebook Plus is priced at $3.99 per month, and WhatsApp Plus is priced at $2.99 per month.

Good. When you pay for something, you get to gauge the value it brings. The free plans continue though.

Other than WhatsApp, I don’t think I would ever pay for any Meta app.

About Apple Sports

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Tue, 26 May 2026 18:12:45 GMT

I remember when Apple Sports was announced. Not the exact date, month or year. No. I remember back then when it had been announced, I had looked at it and thought to myself - this seems cool, I want to use it.

I could not use it then.

It was only available in the USA then. And Canada and the UK perhaps. It does not really matter. It was not available where I was. So I stopped thinking about it basically.

Apple Sports expanded to 90 new countries and regions recently. Gruber wrote about it. I decided to revisit it then. I downloaded it. I added Premier League and Manchester United to things I cared about. And also the World Cup. The World Cup feels like the main reason Apple Sports is expanding now.

It is a nice app. I had a chance to test-drive it during Manchester United’s last match of the season. I could not watch it on TV. And with this app, weirdly enough, it feels like I don’t need to. While I tried to find a way to watch the match live, frequent alerts on my watch and live activities kept me abreast with the happenings in the match. Once United were up 3-0, I did not feel the need to watch the match anymore.

Cricket is not supported yet though.

CITCON 2026 Helsinki

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Tue, 26 May 2026 12:51:05 GMT

Hello from my home in Helsinki! This is NordLetter #106, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.

You can reach out to me by replying on this mail or adding a comment on this. I am also posting on Mastodon.

I was at CITCON on Friday evening and Saturday. The meetups are usually blog posts on my website. But we are making an exception for CITCON. And there are so many things I have to talk about the conference.

Let's dive in.

About CITCON

CITCON is pronounced Kitcon, like KitKat, with a K.

This was my first CITCON. I heard about it at a Devops event, maybe a couple of months back. I had checked out its website and it had seemed interesting then. So, here I was.

CITCON is a open spaces event, which means that there are a small set of rules and then the rest of the event is designed by the attendees.

I arrived at the venue in Helsinki, a little bit later than the start time at 18:00. I had walked from Hakaniemi station, as Prerna and Savya departed to a party in Espoo.

At the registration counter, I was given a choice to pick between a black or a white lanyard, based on whether I was OK to get my picture clicked or not. I picked black. I was going to click a ton of pictures. And also a piece of paper I could scrawl my name down on. I did. I also got two drink coupons. And then I moved to the basement.

I found a few familiar faces there already. We talked. I then moved on to the big room. There was a slide-show going on the two walls up at the stage, showing pictures from previous CITCONs.

We settled down eventually.

The hosts - Jeffrey and PJ started the event in earnest. They were charming, warm and funny. They explained what the event was, what the rules were, who the sponsors were and then we were off to the races.

We sat in a circle in the big room and one of the things they did after explaining things was go around the circle, as everyone did three things - give your name, how you came to the event and what was the one burning question you had.

My burning question was what would we do with the pile of cards at the centre of the convention. Would there be some fun thing to do with them. Turns out no, it was just flourish.

The rules of CITCON

Every meeting will have three roles - the person who gave the topic, a scribe to take notes and put it up on the wiki and the people who are in the meeting.
Anyone can propose a topic. You don't need to have ppt ready before the talk, etc. You fill out the title on a post it note. Introduce the topic, answer some questions (if anyone has any) and then stick the note on the schedule.
If you had more than one topics, you could announce one topic at a time and then went to the back of the queue and started again.
After the topics were proposed, you would go and mark the talks you were interested in attending.
Similar topics could be combined, the topics could be moving around even a hour before it was supposed to start.
And finally, the law of two feet. If you did not like a presentation - for whatever reason - you could get up and leave.

I was not planning on presenting any topics. I had gone there as I usually do, just to listen to people and interact with them. But Antti talked about how juniors become seniors in an AI first world and I got in a line and proposed my topic - how to learn with AI.

There were snacks and drinks in the lobby outside. As some people went to find the topics that interested them. Some of us went outside and had some snacks.

I had salad with raspberry dressing and a few of the spinach thingies.

Then I went and marked some talks I was interested in - including my own.

About the events

There were five one hour events scheduled in five different rooms you could choose from. I did not really use the law of two feet, so I attended five events. People did move around and so their mileage may vary.

I reached the venue at 09:00. I had some veggie bagels and coffee, while talking about AI, writing, the parallels between SaaS apocalypse and what the music industry had already gone through.

Soon it was time for the first discussion of the day.

1. How AI Impacts Team Dynamics

A sense of camaraderie from co-workers complaining about the tool
Code is written by someone else, so people can talk about it without feeling like they are stepping on toes
AI is accelerating whatever team dynamics existed - so where people used to discuss earlier, they discuss more. If teams were insular, they are more insular now.
In a team, there seems to be a rising competition to build the thing that works.
POCs can be built by a single person - so its more insular
Roles are merging - kind-of - with designers pushing code to production - who gets woken up when there is a production issue
what happens if you port your app to a new technology and no one knows it - if the junior dev picks it up fast, how would the senior dev react
Do we devote more time to training/mentorship?
One signal could be if the junior dev is in a loop - asking question to an agent - get an answer - ask a question again

2. Hands-on AI frameworks speedrun

There were a few options:

I picked Superpowers.

The new thing it did for me was build a local development server to show mockups etc. I don't know if it was powered by this framework or not. I think it is. I saw the project structure and could see a directory with the relevant files. Interesting.

What I did was run till the implementation plan step in a single chat but then the implementation thing I started in a different chat using subagent driven deployment.

I could have maybe split the earlier steps as well. So after specs I could have created a different chat perhaps.

We broke for lunch after this. I had some salad, rice noodles and some tofu in peanut sauce. We ate outside as it was sunny outside. Just the perfect sort of weather. I gave some suggestions on where to do touristy stuff at, to one of the attendees, who was here with their family.

Then we were back for the third session of the day. I was confused between the one I went to and Don't start with AI.

3. Your AI platform is missing 5 things

Governance
1. Who can create agents
2. What can they access?
3. How do you maintain control?
Integration
1. How do agents connect to systems?
2. Where does work actually happen?
Observability
1. How do we understand what the agents are doing?
Multi-agent collaboration
1. What becomes possible when agents start working together?
Deployment sovereignty
1. Can the platform run where your business requires it to run?

Then the discussion.

4. AI learning

When interviewing how do you figure out if people actually know stuff and not just using AI to answer questions? Maybe a change in how interviews happen? Like these days people are put in front of an AI agent and asked to use AI to solve a problem.

Train on thinking models - system thinking.

Get a bigger picture explanation from the model then dig in as needed.

Challenge the junior during code reviews - whether they understand what they wrote. Helping them learn to think critically.

Figure out how can you add friction that causes the learning.

Set up feedback loops. Add instructions and agent sets up a retro. Explaining what it did so you learn something. Going back and forth with the model about the decisions to make.

We are moving up the layers of abstraction - maybe we don’t need to learn to code anymore.

5. Is true ownership dead?

Ownership should be shared - ideally with business. Technical implementation ownership could be with an engineer, but true ownership lies with business.

People will continue to have ownership because AI is a tool, it can’t be held responsible.

As in the earlier discussion in the morning. AI just accelerates the situation in the company.

What level of attention would you pay to the things you’re building. Like if it is a UI thing would you test the hell out of it when compared to maybe something like financial transactions.

Wrap up

We sat around in a similar circle as Jeffrey and PJ thanked the sponsors and us for making this event a success! We all talked about our Aha moment from the event. Mine was from the hands-on session. It was different from what I had expected it to be. There was no hand-holding. I just did this thing I was thinking about doing for the past few months and it worked out beautifully.

We went for dinner at The Train Factory after that. I walked to the venue with Peter. We talked about platform stuff, about the hands-on session he could not attend and some other things. We reached the venue but had to roam around trying to find the place. We eventually did.

The place was nice and charming, but still a bunch of it is under construction. There were a few eateries open - 4 - with one already closed and out of food.

There were two long tables reserved for our group. We ordered some drinks and then talked.

We talked about language, the etymology and history of it. We talked about the Finnish language and how or why it had survived. I asked Claude to help me learn Finnish - based on someone's comment that Finnish was a language of rules. If you knew the rules there was little ambiguity after that. We talked about history in general. I asked about some recommendations for some channels which did max 20 min videos. We talked about which are the places where you learn the max number of languages as children. We talked about children. We talked about raising them. I heard wonderful stories.

Then the buzzer buzzed, my food was ready. I had ordered veggie momos and noodles. They were both very good. Or maybe I was super hungry.

I left feeling so full and happy. CITCON is awesome. I was glad to be a part of it.

If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄

Until next week.

The Literary World is Not Prepared for AI

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sat, 23 May 2026 05:14:44 GMT

The literary world isn’t prepared for AI by Gaby Del Valle

None of this, however, explains the uncanny quality of AI-generated work, or what distinguishes bad LLM-produced prose from bad human writing. When I ran Nazir’s story through Pangram, an AI- and plagiarism-detection software, it came back as 100 percent AI-generated. According to Pangram, the most obvious tells were Nazir’s use of triads; the word “stubborn,” which is six times as likely to appear in AI-generated text than that made by humans; and the phrase “as if it had,” whose appearance is five times as likely. But here we have another list of three, written by me, a human.

They run their own writing through Pangram, and it came back as human written. But these tools are not deterministic. You can’t say for sure, that’s the point.

I for example am almost afraid to use em-dashes anymore, lest it be determined that AI wrote these words. It did not.

But it is an exciting time for sure. I read a piece yesterday comparing the SaaS industry to the Music industry, and how the SaaS disruption had already happened to the Music industry. The main point was how music creators are content creators now, who create content with music.

I think a similar point exists for writing as well. It’s all trust. And also, what’s the point. Writing does many things including clearing up your thoughts, if AI does it, you don’t get any benefits.

Anthropic is profitable for a specific quarter

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sat, 23 May 2026 03:50:00 GMT

Anthropic's "Profitability" Swindle by Ed Zitron

That’s $15 billion a year in compute costs, but reduced to an indeterminately-discounted level for the precise months that Anthropic is using to tell investors and the media that it has an operating profit. That operating profit is a result of accountancy rather than any improvements to its business model.

It just does not feel right reading this. The unit economics would never let them turn profitable. Or so it seems. The costs will increase linearly with revenue.

Whenever I read about these companies I always think back to a novel I had read in the Foundation series, where they talk about a technology which was awesome but the costs never made sense. So there’s one working artifact in the entire place and that’s it.

This feels similar. Maybe this side of the business will always run at cost or at loss and they are all looking for people to pay them more of other ways for people to pay them money.

Gemini will use Volvo’s external cameras to interpret parking signs

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Wed, 20 May 2026 04:34:04 GMT

Gemini will use Volvo’s external cameras to interpret parking signs by Andrew J. Hawkins

Gemini is gaining the power of sight and mobility. Today at the I/O conference, Google and Volvo announced that the AI-powered assistant will be able to access external cameras in the upcoming EX60 SUV to help explain and interpret its surroundings to vehicle owners. The upgrade is possible thanks to Volvo’s use of Google’s embedded Android Automotive as its vehicle operating system.

This will be a useful feature. I find myself using Claude to interpret the signs all the time. It would be a better experience if you get it in the car directly.

The Problem with Current

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 18 May 2026 08:04:30 GMT

Or why it does not work for my reading habits.

I recently started using Current to read the various people I’m subscribed to. I had some problems with the way Net News Wire works and it had some nice ideas about how reading on the web (via RSS feeds) should work.

With Net News Wire it had felt like I was always drowning and for most of the Hacker News feed just marking it all as read after a while. It is a heavy feed - there are maybe 100 odd posts in a day. It always felt like I was rushing to reach Inbox Zero.

Current’s mental model worked in a different way. It purported to show a feed which would adjust in time showing you things that you wanted to read. Things that you did not read would go away in time based on what it was - so news feed would go away from the river quickly, while those by people who posted less often would stay in the river for longer.

I gave it a try.

I have been using it exclusively for a couple of months now.

But it has never felt like home. Too often I find myself trying to find an old post by a writer and there’s no place for me to find those posts.

The main problem though is the feed. It feels like I don’t control it. If I want to read stuff from The Verge, there is the voices feed, but not the main feed. And I don’t control it. I have found pieces from Daring Fireball that never make it to the feed.

That irritates me. I want in control of what I read. Not this thing that decides it based on whatever. Even though I love the idea of reading whenever I want to and not being told hey, you’re behind - 50 unread posts or whatever.

It’s weird - because I paid for current. It feels weird wanting to go back to Net News Wire. Like admitting defeat - like it’s my problem somehow.

Current does a lot of things pretty well. But it just does not sit well with my mental model of things. I think in folders. I miss that - basically.

About the drone emergency in Finland

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 18 May 2026 06:26:11 GMT

Finland did not overreact to Friday's suspected drone incursion, minister says

Many other countries have SMS-based alert systems that do not require people to have a third-party app installed to receive essential alerts and information, as they are sent directly to the devices.

I was wondering about this when the thing happened on Friday. The first I came to know about it was a WhatsApp message in a group. Then after follow through got a message that the situation had cleared.

All the while, I kept thinking, I should have received a message on my phone - directly from the government - as a push notification or SMS. Weird that we don’t have it here in Finland.

The Fazer Experience

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sat, 16 May 2026 21:16:18 GMT

Hello from my home in Helsinki! This is NordLetter #105, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.

You can reach out to me by replying on this mail or adding a comment on this. I am also posting on Mastodon.

In the morning today, as I was scrolling past one titled - 'Spring 2025', I came across a picture of Prerna at the the Roihuvuori Cherry Park in Finland.

The cherry bloom season was in full swing a couple of weeks back or so. There are many around the many apartments at the beach area, around the bus stop in Kumpula. The main bloom had happened in the weekdays, I think Tuesday. I had told Prerna then, there would be no point in going to the park this year.

The same thing had happened to us in 2024 when we had last gone to the park. The bloom had happened over the weekday, and by the time we got there, the bloom was no more. The colour, was not there anymore.

But trees are trees. So, here, a few pictures of some trees from around Kumpula.

Back to me scrolling past the picture in the morning. I saw that and knew that we will not be going to the park this year. And I was reminded of this piece I had read thanks to Hacker News some five days ago.

The Locals Don't Know

And then you have the tourist. Bright-eyed, eager, and fresh off a rewatch of their favorite Rick Steves episodes, the tourist is the most naive person to ever arrive in the city. The tourist has not spent decades fitting themselves into a jaded but comfortable box named Life In The City. The tourist, more than any local, can really do whatever they want.

And I felt like I was the resident who was kind of done with the park. The getting there, the dealing with the many, many people who congregate there around this time.

I felt a little happy about that too. That I do not consider myself a tourist in this place. This is my city. It took all of five years.

Speaking of touristy things. We visited the Fazer Experience Visitor Centre last Sunday. This visit was organised by the HOAS committee of our buildings. We were part of a lucky few, who managed to fill out the form in time.

We drove to the centre and were just before the pre-agreed time of getting there by 13:45. There were a few student looking people there already.

We said our hellos, put our names and signatures on a piece of paper and then waited while our reps got us our tickets.

The tour started then, with our wonderful guide getting us past the stanchion, past the massive bunny statue and into the exhibition hall. This was our first stop in the tour, and the place where the guide told us about Fazer, like the fact that this particular shade of blue, is copyrighted by Fazer. We saw a short video presentation about the company and the founders.

After this we moved to the greenhouse (fondly called a Swedish sauna). This is where we saw a bunch of cocoa trees, some spice trees, banana trees and so on. While the guide talked about where Fazer gets the chocolate from.

Then, we moved to the third stop, where we tasted some wonderful Fazer bread, and then played around with blocks, trying to build a healthy plate. Mine was 5 stars - super healthy.

Then there was the memorabilia section, a wall full of things that mean something - something about their history. I particularly liked the different posters they had.

There were more stops along the way - the place where we talked about how some of the candies came into being - trying to reduce waste as one example. We smelt the different type of candies and tried to guess which was which. We tasted two candies and tried to guess which was fruity and which not.

There was also a toy structure here. I had seen something similar at MoMa. There were also chairs built by a famous Finnish designer. But Savya was getting cranky by this time - he had had enough talk about candies, and wanted to taste some candy now.

Thankfully, the last and final stop on the tour was the candy tasting section. We don't eat chocolates usually, in this household. But we did not hold back here. We ate a lot of chocolates. Took pictures of ones we liked.

Then we got a goodie back each after we were done. We bought a fridge magnet from the shop. I wanted to grab something at the cafe, but all they had was more cakes and pastries. We had had enough by then. So we did not.

Instead we went to IKEA and had some veggie meatballs there.

Since we're human, I managed to compare my experience to the one other similar experience we had in Zurich at the Lindt chocolate factory.

That was bigger, the space. We had walked over so many different floors. The green area was bigger. There were so many different educational pieces on how chocolate is made and so on.

Not so much here.

Lindt also had this tasting area where you could basically taste liquid chocolate. That was awesome.

But it was a wonderful experience none the less. On a smaller scale. Sure. But wonderful nonetheless.

If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄

Until next week.

New Xbox controller for cloud gaming leaked

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Thu, 14 May 2026 19:22:13 GMT

Leaked images show Microsoft’s new Xbox Cloud Gaming controller by Tom Warren

But this Xbox Cloud Gaming controller is separate and designed to compliment Microsoft’s expanded cloud gaming efforts with Game Pass. It will connect directly to Xbox Cloud Gaming servers to reduce latency, much like how Google’s Stadia controllers used to work.

I am interested to see how this all works out.

Shift

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Wed, 13 May 2026 05:37:57 GMT

Started reading.

South Korea Floats Citizen Dividend Using AI Profits

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Wed, 13 May 2026 03:10:14 GMT

South Korea Floats 'Citizen Dividend' Using AI Profits - Slashdot

Presidential policy chief Kim Yong-beom said in a Facebook post that a portion of the profits and tax revenue derived from the artificial intelligence boom "should be structurally returned to all citizens." That is because, Mr Kim argued, the economic gains from AI are based at least partly on industrial infrastructure built by the country over five decades.

Perhaps one way to do this. Perhaps the easiest way.

Geography is four dimensional

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 11 May 2026 08:27:25 GMT

Geography is four-dimensional | Derek Sivers by

Forty years ago, a family moved from India to Canada, and raised their children with “Indian values”. When those children visited India last year, the locals laughed at their outdated beliefs. What their family had said were facts were just a perspective from 1980.

I have had this feeling many times in the past. Our memories of places seem stuck in time. Some things change, some don’t.

Like super-fast delivery services exploded while I was in Finland. It was a surprise to know, when I first did it, that I could place an order and it will be at home in ~ 10 mins.

Time is the fourth dimension.

The Locals Don’t Know

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 11 May 2026 08:21:26 GMT

The Locals Don't Know

And then you have the tourist. Bright-eyed, eager, and fresh off a rewatch of their favorite Rick Steves episodes, the tourist is the most naive person to ever arrive in the city. The tourist has not spent decades fitting themselves into a jaded but comfortable box named Life In The City. The tourist, more than any local, can really do whatever they want.

Wheezing past the cradle

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sat, 09 May 2026 20:51:46 GMT

Hello from my home in Helsinki! This is NordLetter #104, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.

You can reach out to me by replying on this mail or adding a comment on this. I am also posting on Mastodon.

I spent most of last week coughing into my elbow (when outside) and just coughing (while at home).

I don't want to say Savya got this from his päiväkoti and passed it on to me. But I am not not saying it either.

What I do hope for is that this would be the last sickness of the season. I am really done with this. And in the immortal words of a fellow parent - it's summer now!

Speaking of, on Friday, at his päiväkoti, the teachers, Prerna and other fellow moms celebrated Mother's Day. There was coffee, a burger, some art and a couple of cards made by Savya.

Not by design, but we managed to celebrate Mother's day over the past couple of days, with some Samosa Chat at Indian Street Food Corner, Samosa and Handi-Paneer at Mango Palace and finally, Soya Chunk Kebab by your's truly.

Tomorrow, we will be visiting Fazer thanks to the tenant committee of our building. There were some tickets made available via a online form they had set up. Sometimes I wonder if there could be a better way to do this. Because, all that you have time for in these things, is fill out your details. And then the form is closed.

Incidentally, at Savya's last päiväkoti, one of the last things we did was celebrate Father's Day. There was supposed to be coffee and snacks, but I did not get any.

I was happy sitting with Savya and seeing how he plays. I got to play with him inside his päiväkoti. Prerna had been with him during the beginning-getting-to-know-the-päiväkoti phase. So I did not know the insides of the place.

I had sat with Savya while he drew with some crayons inside a father-son caricature. And then he ran around in the gym/sleeping room with other kids.

This week was momentous in terms of work adjacent things. I rediscovered my earlier post on be a hybrid and thought, that's a nice way to introduce myself in meetups and otherwise.

I also went through my first learning module at herizon. I had registered with them some time back, but did not do anything after that. The module was full of practical instructions, including things like - having a plan for the meetups (meet 3 new people), on what it means to network, how hiring happens in Finland, how to Linkedin and so on.

Most of these things were things I had heard from others in the past. But reading it here, in order, in one place, did something that getting this information in a disjointed way did not.

I finished reading Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut this week. This, surprising to me at least, was only the second book I've read of the man. Surprising because I know Kurt Vonnegut, and love his writing.

In addition to whatever I have written in my review, I loved the fact that he had named all the chapters in the book. And such funny names they were.

This is a funny and fantastical book. Read it.

I also gave a book-talk on Children of Time at work.

I have recently discovered a bibliography group at TCS. I thought they were new, but turns out they have been at it for the past 20 years - mostly based out of Mumbai - which explains why I hadn't heard of them.

I had loved reading Children of Time and wanted to discuss it's salient themes - around gender, intelligence, it's answer to Fermi's paradox and so on.

I had prepared the slides last week. My original plan was to keep it super minimal, with just the text on a white background. But then, at the last Vibe-Coding Meetup, I saw someone present these beautiful bold text on top of beautiful pictures slides, and I thought, this would be perfect for my talk.

So I went ahead and downloaded some images from Nasa Images and put some text on those.

I had fun with the talk. The goal was the discussions - and they were fun and insightful.

I am hoping to do this again, this time with Outlive.

And finally, two AI things that interested me this week.

Thanks to RAMaggedon, Apple raised the Mac Mini's starting price. They ended up shelving some configurations. I would not have cared as much about it, but my Mac is showing it's age now. I got a message some time ago about lack of free space. Not once - twice. So, that.
I came across this post about using HTML as the output format for Claude Code. I have had similar experiences in the past. Once when trying to come up with alternative UIs for something. Once while trying to learn something. And once today, when I wanted to build something and needed step-by-step instructions on how to do it. HTML is great for that!

Have a happy mother's day. And if you can, give them a hug!

If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄

Until next week.

Use HTML as output artefacts with Claude

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sat, 09 May 2026 14:13:51 GMT

Thariq on X: "Using Claude Code: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of HTML" / X by

HTML can allow you to interact with the document, for example you might want to ask it to add sliders or knobs to adjust a design or allow you to tweak different options in the algorithm to see what happens. You can also ask it to let you copy these changes into a prompt to paste back into Claude Code.

Thought provoking piece.

I have been defaulting to asking Claude to generate outputs and artefacts as HTML only.

Over time though, I noticed it using better formats, for example when I asked it to teach me something. It created a multi-tab html artefact, I could use. I saw its value then.

I also saw its value today, when I wanted to build a dashboard in tableau and wanted instructions on how to do that. It is good at generating htmls with buttons I could click on, to mark something as done, with svg wireframes to give me an idea of how the thing should look like.

Markdown has value though. Obsidian runs on Markdown and it has great value. But as people has been wondering about chat interfaces and how that is the CLI of computing, I wonder if this is the next evolution of it.

I do remember Google announcing something similar though - that Gemini was very good at building web apps and whenever you asked it something it would create a new page with that information..

But this is a user hack, a prompt thing and so something you can control. And hence better in my opinion.

I will be trying this more often.

Will Carrick continue as the United coach

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sat, 09 May 2026 05:22:57 GMT

Michael Carrick has the light touch Manchester United need for next chapter | Jonathan Liew

The reason Carrick should get the job has little to do with tactics or dogma or optics or even short-term results. Indeed it is his very lack of overt branding, his refusal to indulge in grand theory, that is perhaps his greatest asset. In his autobiography – wherein the fish anecdote is related – Carrick also reveals his obsession with tidiness. When he gets into a hotel room, the little notepad needs to be put in a drawer, brochures and room service menus cleared away. Books on a table need to be left straight, not at an angle. At home, pans have to be washed up before dinner can be eaten.

The reason why not - as has been mentioned in the article itself - is you feel burnt by the Solskjær appointment.

Cat’s Cradle

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Wed, 06 May 2026 18:46:08 GMT

Review

What can I say about Kurt Vonnegut? What can I say about Cat's Cradle?

The first book I read by Kurt Vonnegut was Timequake. I was new to reading then, and was asking around for things to read. A friend I knew then suggested I read Kurt, among others. And so I did.

This is the second book I've read by Mr. Vonnegut. Though I thought I had read Slaughterhouse Five. I haven't or I can't remember having read it.

Cat's Cradle was hilarious. Each chapter, each line was hilarious, dark at times, but humorous. The plot seems nonsensical at times, but logical. Each action leads to the next - as we follow and unnamed writer who becomes the president of a nation - but in Vonnegut fashion, it does not matter.

I loved the ending of the book - a perfect round circle, a perfect to tie all things off.

One added bonus in the audiobook edition of Cat's Cradle was that there was an interview with Mr. Vonnegut at the very end of the book. It was like icing on a cake.

Birdsong

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sat, 02 May 2026 22:20:45 GMT

Hello from my home in Helsinki! This is NordLetter #, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.

You can reach out to me by replying on this mail or adding a comment on this. I am also posting on Mastodon.

I finished reading Things my grandmother said this week. It is a nice book of poetry written by an Indian guy - Amit Majmudar. I picked this up because of it's cover and the fact that the writer was Amit. When I saw this was a poetry collection, I started reading it immediately.

It was a nice collection of poems. There are two poems in it which are about the things his grandmother said. Both, are the poems I loved the most.

I felt inspired after reading this, to write a poem called - things my mother said. I created a blank note for this. And I sat, and thought. And I could not remember a single thing my mother said.

And I felt that's what the poem should be - a blank page.

A few days back, I was travelling through the woods, with Savya (peacefully sleeping in his pram), when I heard some sound, a rustle of the leaves. I got a little jolt of adrenaline out of that. We have evolved to be afraid of sounds in the dark. Sounds which could mean a predator nearby.

It was a little brown bird, trying to grab something - dry leaves, a broken stick, something, perhaps to add to its nest, somewhere high up in the trees.

I was reminded of this, this past week, on a morning stroll through the same woods. This time there was light though, and I could see the birds clearly enough.

There has been birdsong in the air for the past three weeks or so - ever since the weather has changed for the better. But the birds were never visible. They don't sing on the ground. They sing in the skies, or somewhere in the trees.

I love nature. I love spring.

I wrote about little buds sprouting from trees earlier. They have turned into leaves now. There is greenery on the ground and up above, in the trees.

I love nature.

This week was Vappu week here in Finland.

The difference this week was that Prerna got to attend the putting the hat on Havis Amanda ritual.

Havis Amanda is a bronze fountain statue of a young woman rising from the sea, located at Market Square (Kauppatori) in Helsinki. The statue represents the city of Helsinki herself.

Students in Finland get the cap after passing the matriculation exam. And they wear it proudly throughout the years - especially on Vappu.

We had planned to go have a picnic at Toolo lake. But we ended up celebrating it the Finnish way - alone.

I made Biryani though. And it was awesome!

If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄

Until next week.

Good developers learn to program

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sat, 02 May 2026 06:21:30 GMT

Good developers learn to program. Most courses teach a language. by EvilGenius

A junior who learns programming as "describe what you want to a model and accept what comes back" is learning to be a translator at one further remove from the machine. They are not getting closer to programming. They are getting further from it, with prettier intermediate output.

If you’re starting now-

Pick one language and go deep. The kind of deep where you have shipped a non-trivial thing in it, maintained it for a year, and fixed bugs in it that were caused by past-you being wrong about how the runtime worked. Tutorial-deep does not count. Then pick a second language that is structurally different from the first. C# and Python is a useful pair. C and JavaScript is a sharper one. The contrast is the point. What you are looking for is the part that is the same across both, because that is the part that is actually programming.

Mac Mini starting price rises

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sat, 02 May 2026 06:20:31 GMT

Apple raises the Mac Mini’s starting price by Emma Roth

The cheapest Mac Mini now costs $799 as a result, offering 512GB of storage and Apple’s M4 processor. With the AI-driven RAM shortage squeezing suppliers across the globe, many device makers are either raising the prices of their products or have stopped selling certain models completely.

Thanks AI.

I was looking to buy a new Mac. I had bought a 256GB model ~ 6 years back. I would buy a model with more storage now.

Let’s see when (if) this stops or reverses course.

The AGI clause is dead

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 04:38:44 GMT

Microsoft and OpenAI’s famed AGI agreement is dead by Hayden Field

Microsoft will remain OpenAI’s “primary cloud partner, and OpenAI products will ship first on Azure, unless Microsoft cannot and chooses not to support the necessary capabilities.” But OpenAI can “now serve all its products to customers across any cloud provider.” That lets OpenAI pursue its goals of courting enterprise customers as it reportedly prepares to go public — opening the door to working with Amazon or Google, for instance, and attempting to relieve restraints on its compute that have led to spats with Microsoft. Microsoft appears to still receive a cut of revenue from these outside agreements.

No more AGI requirement in the deal either.

Things My Grandmother Said

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 04:46:16 GMT

Review

I picked this up because it showed up as recently added in the e-library. I liked the cover and it was a Indian author. Next I saw that it was a poetry collection and I could finish it between waiting for Cat's Cradle to be available.

It is a nice collection of poems. Amit writes poems about the strong women in his life. The two poems about things his grandmother said were my favourites. The last poem in the book - about us being like poems - was memorable as well.

It is a wonderful collection of poems. It does not demand too much. It is a easy recommendation.

Children of Strife

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 16:04:26 GMT

Review

This is the fourth book in the Children of Time series. That answers the why of this book. I have loved each book in the Children of Time series. I have loved the narration by Mel Hudson for all the books in the series. The madness of Avrana Kern particularly shines through for me.

I found myself struggling to catch a hold of the story in the beginning. I was not sure what was happening. Eventually, I got hooked. Though I never really cared for these characters enough.

This was also the first book in this series, when I knew how it would end, before it ended. There was a particular moment when I knew where the gods would go.

This book seems to be a result of all the billionaires we have in our world. The way they act, the grandiosity of their behaviour.

I like my author's to add their politics to the books they write about. I like my books to be about something more than just the plot. There are those who disagree. Fine.

If you enjoy sci-fi, you would enjoy this book. If you've read Children of Time, this book is a must-read.

Seeing the Crown Bridge

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 20:52:19 GMT

Hello from my home in Helsinki! This is NordLetter #, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.

You can reach out to me by replying on this mail or adding a comment on this. I am also posting on Mastodon.

Three years ago, as my then room-mate and friend, and now avid reader of this newsletter, had gone back to India to bring his wife to Finland with him, I was looking for a new flat for myself.

I had been to India as well, and had met Prerna by then. We were going to get married as well, so I needed to move out and find a place for us.

One of the flats I saw was in Kruunuvuorenranta. It was a new apartment, with a beautiful view to the sea and a K-Market nearby. The problem was that there was a long winding road to get to my office. I would have to take a bus. During the summers I could have cycled. But still. The person selling renting me the apartment had mentioned that a bridge would soon get built directly linking this place to the city centre. Then, the rents in this area would go high and so on.

I did not rent out this apratment. I did eventually find an apartment in Matinkyla, where we lived for the next three years, before moving back to Helsinki.

Today, I went and saw the apartment via the bridge that was supposed to be constructed soon.

Kruunuvuori Bridge is Finland's longest bridge and it links Kruunuvuorenranta in the eastern suburb of Laajasalo with central Helsinki. The bridge opened last Saturday. I saw a bunch of posts on social media. The bridge opened to pedestrians first and then to the cyclists in the evening.

If you know me, you know I don't like crowds, so I had decided to visit the bridge sometime next week, i.e. this week. A few other people seemed to have had the same idea. I saw a bunch of people with their cameras out, taking pictures with the bridge. It reminded me a bit about crossing the Brooklyn Bridge without the Manhattan skyline. Of course the crown bridge is shorter. I know.

It was a windy, rainy day today. It had been sunny all through last week. So of course, there's rain and some snow today. What's spring without some snow in April?

I wanted to recreate my walks from my time living in Helsinki (in Merihaka). I took a tram to Hakaniemi and decided to walk from there to the bridge.

The crown bridges project is three bridges in total - Merihaansilta (connecting Merihaka to Kalasatama), Finkensilta (connecting Kalasatama to the zoo) and Kruunuvuorensilta (the crown bridge). Merihaka and Finke bridges were open since long. This was my first time using these bridges though.

Walking through Merihaka and toward the first bridge, I kept feeling like this was a new place. My memories of this place are from a time when they had dug up this entire place, and I would walk through a new route every few weeks. It felt settled now, I could almost imagine a tram going through this area, making it hip and cool.

This place would always feel like home to me. And so I'm happy it's cool now.

I continued walking and went past the public sauna that has always been there. I went past the Helen power plant - I had seen huge ships docked here, unloading coal perhaps. How would that work now? I wondered. Did they shut down the plant? This place might have been at the periphery of the city at some point, it isn't now. People don't want polluting plants in the middle of the city.

And just like that, I was in Kalasatama now. I remember how long getting to Kalasatama had been in the past. Bridges, people! Bridges!!

We have had so many lunches in Kalasatama, it used to be my dream location to live in Helsinki. I saw it from a different side now. Just passing by. I saw the places we had sat in. I saw the Mustikkamaa island from a far. I saw the bridge that went from the island to the zoo. The bridge that I had not crossed then. I was at the Korkeasaari Zoo now.

All this after passing the second bridge - Finke.

I continued walking and was soon at the star of the show.

The crown bridge is beautiful and elegant. It is a cable stayed bridge, with one tall tower in the middle, cables running from which support the deck.

The left side of the bridge had tram lines running through it. The right side was for pedestrians and cyclists. Right side if you're going from the zoo side.

There were joggers and cyclists going about their routines. There were also people like me, who were here to see the bridge.

I climbed to the middle, and wondered if I should return from here. I decided not to and went down to the other side. It had started raining by then. I stood under a shade for a bit. Waiting, and wondering where was the flat I had come to see. I opened up my map and found a singular K-market right across the sea from me. I remembered where the house had been.

And I wondered if I had made the right choice then.

I did not dwell too much on that though. The rain had dissipated for the time being. I wondered if I should take a bus from here. But the bus would take 38 mins to get to where I needed to go to. See what I mean?

So, I decided to walk back up the crown bridge and the other two bridges after that.

If you do come to see the bridge, the view is better from this side, the Kruunuvuorenranta. You get to see the Helsinki skyline in the distance - the church, the massive ferries waiting at the dock, the three skyscrapers in Kalasatama.

As I said earlier, walking on this bridge reminded me of walking on the Brooklyn bridge. I think people visiting Helsinki will similarly be walking on this bridge.

I can't imagine hawkers selling stuff on this bridge as they do on the Brooklyn bridge though.

If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄

Until next week.

Finland Rebrands

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 09:18:20 GMT

Finland rebrands: 'Making happiness happen'

In the strategy, we underscore that Finland's happiness is built on trust, equality, freedom and a society that works. While Finland is not a perfect country, it stands out internationally by, for example, giving people the space to live life on their own terms. These are the messages we want to share about Finland with the world," Mikko Koivumaa, the board's chair, said in the release.

Every year when Finland is declared the happiest nation on the planet, there is this counter argument about Finland’s problems. There are problems of course, Finland is not a perfect country, but the happiness index measures different things.

It makes sense to lean into this branding. With Indians, for example, I have been seeing a lot of celebrities making a trip to Rovaniemi. We could draw in more people.

Change of Guard at Apple

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 07:58:18 GMT

Another Day Has Come

Cook has transformed Apple in his own image. The company is much more predictable now than it ever was, or could have been, under Jobs. It now runs on an annual schedule that can be printed on a calendar. There is far less drama, and no scandal. And there is seemingly no drama, at all, in this particular transition, despite the incredibly high stakes and the (justifiably) large egos in Apple’s leadership team. Cook inherited the greatest company in the world. He’s handing it over to Ternus in even better shape than what Jobs handed to him. Even the timing of the announcement and the transition, on Apple’s annual calendar, seems perfect. Cook oversees one last WWDC in June, then Ternus takes the helm on the cusp of Apple’s announcement of new iPhones in September. It’s hard to imagine a more orderly, confidence-inspiring, exciting-but-not-at-all-surprising, this-feels-right way to do this.

Cook will be stepping down as CEO and become chairman. Ternus will be new CEO. Srouji will be the new chief of hardware - which seems like a new made up position. Kind of reminds me of how Jony Ive was chief of design. Hopefully it does not blow up similarly.

Atlassian Enables Default Data Collection to Train AI

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 19:44:16 GMT

Atlassian Enables Default Data Collection to Train AI by Let's Data Science

Atlassian will begin collecting customer metadata and in-app content from Jira, Confluence, and other cloud products by default on August 17, 2026, to train its AI offerings including Rovo and Rovo Dev

Well if you don’t have your data, the company that has it, can make changes like this anytime they want. And they have a strong motivation to do so.

And so they did.

Evacuees Flag Day

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 12:52:52 GMT

Flags fly to honour Finland's internally displaced

Monday marks Evacuees' Flag Day (Evakkojen liputuspäivä), which honours Finns who had to flee their homes during wartime, either temporarily or permanently.

Chinese Tech Workers Are Starting to Train Their AI Doubles and Pushing Back

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 12:50:40 GMT

Chinese tech workers are starting to train their AI doubles–and pushing back by Caiwei Chen

Earlier this month a GitHub project called Colleague Skill, which claimed workers could use it to “distill” their colleagues’ skills and personality traits and replicate them with an AI agent, went viral on Chinese social media. Though the project was created as a spoof, it struck a nerve among tech workers, a number of whom told MIT Technology Review that their bosses are encouraging them to document their workflows in order to automate specific tasks and processes using AI agent tools like OpenClaw or Claude Code.

It felt creepy reading this, as if who a person is, could be written down in some markdown docs in a folder.

We are more, so much more than these things.

Wool

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 11:12:01 GMT

Review

I first came across Hugh Howey, when someone in the writing community on Reddit, linked to his excellent collection of essays on the topic. I loved reading that. And so, the next thing I did was figure out what books he had written. The silo series popped out to me. And so I ordered the first book at the library. I picked it up - a glorious hardcover. I started reading it. And then, for some reason I could not continue - maybe I got a car and started commuting to work like that. I do not remember. The point is I could not read Wool then. Oh, I wish I had!

Wool is the first book in the Silo series. It talks of a world where humanity is reduced to living underground in silos. The book is grounded, a bit like Game of Thrones - where bad things can happen to characters you're rooting. There is a memorable list of characters from Mechanical and elsewhere. There are twists in almost each act of the book.

After reading the notes by Hugh at the very end, I figured out why. He wrote the first section of the book after losing his dog. He wanted to write a sad story then. So he did. He self-published it, and it took off.

People demanded more, so he wrote more, forming the book as it exists today in the novel form.

I absolutely loved reading it and hope you do too.

City Biking Through the Summer

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 14:41:52 GMT

Hello from my home in Helsinki! This is NordLetter #, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.

You can reach out to me by replying on this mail or adding a comment on this. I am also posting on Mastodon.

The woman in the yellow jacket slowed her bicycle to a crawl, then slowly, gingerly put her foot down, then the other. Other bicyclists passed her by, as she slowly moved the cycle perpendicular to the bicycle track, facing the zebra crossing.

The light turned green then, and the bus I was sitting in started to move. I smiled at this. She was old, and frail, and yet she was riding this bicycle with two bags hung on the racks of her white bicycle.

I do the same, not as gingerly as her, nor on a white bicycle. I use city bike - the 35 euro per season service that the cities of Helsinki and Espoo provide every summer.

Once subscribed, you can take a bike from any of the many stations around the cities, and ride a city bike for 60 mins. It is a great solution for last mile connectivity in the cities.

In my case, it is a great way to travel to and from work each day.

On Tuesday, I bought the subscription after trying to get this ticket since before April started. Whenever I tried, it said, there was no card added to my account.

I checked my HSL account, removed the existing cards, and added the Wise card again. It looked OK on the HSL app, but I was just not able to buy the subscription.

On Tuesday, after dropping Savya, I decided I will ride a bike to work today. I stood, in front of the station at Kumpula campus and tried to this one more time. I would take a bus otherwise.

It did not work. It gave the same error. This time, I scrolled down, and saw that there was a section for cards in this web page, and there was no card added here.

HSL and City Bike operate independently from each other. Or that was my experience. You need to add a card on the city bike page as well. Why is that? I don't know.

There are two ways to reach my office in Vallila - via the E75 or via the little bicycle track that goes through Kumpula - Kumpulantaival.

On Tuesday I had taken the E75, on Wednesday, the bicycle track. The bicycle track was calmer, through nature, fun overall. On my way back I was singing out loud while riding the bicycle. I'm smiling now, as I write this, thinking about that.

I was going downhill, going uphill is a little different.

I know my route now, so I get to enjoy the ride, without worrying where to take the next turn. That helps.

All through the summer, I have been wondering whether to buy this bike or that, but I think this provides me with the best of both worlds.

I get to enjoy doing the thing - riding the bike, without worrying about maintaining it, or worrying about where to park, and so on.

But the same thing, can manifest in different ways. Like the same freedom that allows me to park this bike at any station means, I need to find a station and then walk a little bit extra to where I need to be.

It also means, that a bike needs to be available at the station, for me to take a ride. Which has been a little problem here at the campus. In evenings, for example, there are no bikes at the station. I guess the students ride the bikes to the station in the morning and then leave in the evening.

It has not been a problem till now, but can be.

Oh but the joy of riding a bike in the city. And that too for so cheap. For comparison, I buy a multi-journey ticket for around 10 trips for 30 euros, approx.

Back home, I had bought a Firefox bike after starting to work. I had wanted to ride it to work then as well. But riding the bike from Noida to Gurugram was not possible. Well, even if I was working in Noida, it would not have been possible then either.

The weather and the roads are not conducive to this though. I rode that bike a couple of times though to India Gate on Sundays. But then the friend I would ride with left UP and went to live in Rohini in Delhi.

And so that bike stayed in my balcony eating dust for many, many years, before I sold it to the same friend. He had a girlfriend now. They wanted to go out on rides together.

I will get a e-bike at some point. But the good ones are so damn expensive. You can get a used car for cheaper than that.

I finished reading I Deliver Parcels in Beijing by Hu Anyan. It is exactly what it says in the title - experiences of a man who delivers parcels in Beijing. There are so many things I have underlined in this book.

There are so many meditations on work in this book. Things that one might feel do not apply to them, but they do. Like this.

But, supposing work is something we are compelled to do, a concession of our personal will, then the other parts of life—those that remain true to our desires, that we choose to pursue, in whatever form they take—might be called freedom.

On a warm sunny Friday afternoon, as part of a team day, I went and played Curling.

Do you know what Curling is? Its an Olympic sport. Have you seen those vides of athletes almost parallel to the ground, sliding some rocks across some 45m? Here's one, check it out.

There are two teams eight stones, the goal is to get your teams stone as close to the centre as possible. The team with their stone closest to the centre wins. Of course these are stones, so you may have an awesome shot and be on the absolute centre (like hitting the bulls eye) but the very next shot the other team can knock your stone away.

There is a reason its called chess on ice.

It was difficult to play. You basically put a thing on your left foot (for a righty), start with sliding the stone, then start sliding with your left leg, then keep your right knee on the ice, and then at some point leave the stone imparting it some spin. After that your team mates brush the ice trying to get it to go a bit further. After it crosses the blue line the other team tries to brush the ice so that it leaves the house.

I could not slide on the ice. I would just start and then push the stone away while falling on my ass on ice. But I managed to win two games for us. So yay?

It felt a bit like bowling. But not really.

But as I said, I had fun. I did scrape my knee though. And thanks to that, no yoga these past two days. Yay :(

After the game, we went and had pizza at Capperi. The pizza was great. The kind I like with fresh ingredients - great tomatoes, great cheese, awesome bread. It did not feel heavy at all.

I and Prerna will go there sometime this week.

The gents talked about their time in the army, and some things that happened after that. They asked about me and India, and whether service was required there. I told them it isn't. But service men and women get respect in the society. We talked about other things as well.

I finished with a tiramisu in a beautiful teacup. I loved it.

I walked down the street to a go-around and rode a city bike home from there. I needed to.

If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄

Until next week.

RAM Shortage Could Last Years

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 07:47:50 GMT

The RAM shortage could last years by Terrence O'Brien

According to Nikkei Asia, even as suppliers ramp up DRAM production, manufacturers are only expected to meet 60 percent of demand by the end of 2027. SK Group chairman has even said that shortages could last until 2030.

That’s sad.

Vibe Coding April Meetup

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 19:39:17 GMT

I saw a few familiar faces at the event today and a few unfamiliar ones. It was raining lightly, as I walked from my office to the venue - 350m / 8 mins. I saw a technician putting the bicycle stand in place above the bridge. That city bike station is in gray on the HSL may at present. If it becomes active, I may park my city bike here. It's closer.

1. "From Layoff to $9K/Month: Lessons from Building and Selling Mobile Apps" by Steven Phuc, indie developer

People are paying to use apps on mobile now
learn to build and sell
Build
- Build for yourself / what you want to use
- Build to sell / how to reach them / why use your app
- Build simple - one feature / get feedback early
- You don’t need to know everything to start building. Just build. Shoutout to The Pareto principle
Selling
- Find your mentor - someone who is maybe 6 months to 1 year ahead of you so that their lessons are useful
- Build in public
- Find your marketing channel
It takes time to build and sell

2. "Vibe Coding Without Losing Your Edge", Johanna Wäänänen, Founder, Systemic, PhD Researcher

the talk had a striking visual design - striking images with text on top
Dev work has shifted from focused to constant context switching
We go into a stressed/anxious state - reducing our cognitive state
This is a new competitive advantage - everyone will have access to the same tools - the capability to collaborate, think clearly, learn fast
how?
- Learn to know your state
- Learn to shift your state
- Create rhythm

I have been thinking about this a bunch these past few days and had a few micro posts on this - Human cost of 10x productivity was a recent one. So this talk felt timely.

3. "The Job of Product Designer in the Age of Al", Lassi A Liikkanen, PhD, Director of Product Design and Insight, Qvik Ltd.

when building products we are trying to balance a few things -
Tools are changing, process remain, designers are busy
what designers do may change, who they are won’t
How UI may change - algorithmically generate UIs
Design agent - human led, agent operated
ai makes every one feel like a generalist. Judgement matters more in this world.

Google Launches Gemini on Mac

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 08:02:44 GMT

Google launches a Gemini AI app on Mac by Emma Roth

Google is launching a new Gemini app on Mac that allows you to interact with the AI assistant without switching windows on your desktop. With the app, you can use the Option + Space shortcut to pull up a floating chat bubble, where you can ask Gemini questions and share your window.

They have finally launched the Mac app that they said they would. It’s not fully featured yet. But a good first start.

A year is a long time in the AI world, maybe when it comes to renew my subscription, I will go with Gemini this time?

Sajal Choudhary

Apex

Ladies First

Amazon has a new plan for games

Untitled

State of Play June

Meta bot used to hijack IG accounts

Glory

The AI Bubble

Nividia Announces RTX Spark Chips

About Using AI for Personal Notes

The Anthropologists

Review

Read More Books

The Great Mental Models

Ghost of Yotei

Witcher 3 will be getting an expansion

Meta announces subscriptions for its apps

About Apple Sports

CITCON 2026 Helsinki

About CITCON

The rules of CITCON

About the events

1. How AI Impacts Team Dynamics

2. Hands-on AI frameworks speedrun

3. Your AI platform is missing 5 things

4. AI learning

5. Is true ownership dead?

Wrap up

The Literary World is Not Prepared for AI

Anthropic is profitable for a specific quarter

Gemini will use Volvo’s external cameras to interpret parking signs

The Problem with Current

About the drone emergency in Finland

The Fazer Experience

New Xbox controller for cloud gaming leaked

Shift

South Korea Floats Citizen Dividend Using AI Profits

Geography is four dimensional

The Locals Don’t Know

Wheezing past the cradle

Use HTML as output artefacts with Claude

Will Carrick continue as the United coach

Cat’s Cradle

Review

Birdsong

Good developers learn to program

Mac Mini starting price rises

The AGI clause is dead

Things My Grandmother Said

Review

Children of Strife

Review

Seeing the Crown Bridge

Finland Rebrands

Change of Guard at Apple

Atlassian Enables Default Data Collection to Train AI

Evacuees Flag Day

Chinese Tech Workers Are Starting to Train Their AI Doubles and Pushing Back

Wool

Review

City Biking Through the Summer

RAM Shortage Could Last Years

Vibe Coding April Meetup

1. "From Layoff to $9K/Month: Lessons from Building and Selling Mobile Apps" by Steven Phuc, indie developer

2. "Vibe Coding Without Losing Your Edge", Johanna Wäänänen, Founder, Systemic, PhD Researcher

3. "The Job of Product Designer in the Age of Al", Lassi A Liikkanen, PhD, Director of Product Design and Insight, Qvik Ltd.

Google Launches Gemini on Mac