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My flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco was overbooked. There was a generous voucher to take for a volunteer who was willing to take the next flight. The next flight was scheduled for the next day in the morning! I wondered why not take a bus through the California hinterlands instead. So, I volunteered. At the bus station’s waiting area, an Indian-looking man walked towards me. Before I could say something, he asked me in Hindi where I was from. “Haryana”, I replied, assuming he was an Indian. He didn’t recognize it. “That’s beyond west Punjab”, he asked further in Hindi. “Yes”, I replied. ...

Granada Granada is one of the oldest European settlements in the Americas. While it has nice Spanish-era architecture, there isn’t a lot to do in Granada. I would recommend starting your day with a walking tour. Afterward, consider visiting the Chocolate Museum of Granada to learn about the chocolate history of the region. In the evening, do the tour of an active volcano, Volcan Masaya for USD 22 per person. The volcano is good and one can see a fair bit of magma. If, however, you have seen active volcanoes before, then it can be a bit boring. ...

Generated code, ideally, should not be committed to version control. Committing generated code can sometimes speed up testing and code generation but it is a design smell. It is better to cache generated code via CI caching. Committing generated code to version control is the worst as it is hard to even detect the difference. However, there are a few specific circumstances where committing generated code/config/data to version control is worth it. ...

I reached Aswan, Egypt after an overnight train journey. The city is not exactly tourist-friendly, and I wouldn’t get any signal on my Google FI connection. This has happened before but this was the breaking point. I quickly ran to a nearby store and got a local SIM. The plan was cheaper than my Google FI plan (10 US$/GB). It is 2021, SIM cards are activated in a matter of minutes and data is cheap. It might take you ~30 minutes of bureaucracy to get a SIM but the coverage one gets is well worth it. Especially, if you travel in remote areas where international roaming might only provide limited coverage. Further, only buy a pre-paid plan, so, the amount you are going to spend is limited. ...

I use Makefile for Android just like I use Makefile for my non-Android side-projects.

Day 1 - Guadalajara city Start with a walking tour to see the center of the city. Compared to Mexico City, Guadalajara appears safer, cleaner, and more well-maintained. Do check out the largest gold market and the largest covered market in Latin America (“Mercado San Juan de Dios”). ...

Android has two distinct navigation guidelines as opposed to iOS. Getting them right is nuanced.

One core aspect of traveling is figuring out where to sleep. Barring more exotic options like sleeping in a tent or an RV, most people end up choosing either a hotel, an Airbnb (or VRBO), or a hostel for a stay. Read on to see what I like/dislike about each of these and what’s my favorite. Hotels Hotels are designed for tourists and not travelers. Hotels, especially big chains, are great for consistent and high-quality service. ...

I have traveled to many countries around the world. Some accept credit cards. Some only deal in cash. Some accept US Dollars. Some only accept local currency. Nowhere, however, I have dealt with a system as weird as Argentina. There are myriad exchange rates.

Let’s say you are building a git analytics product. Your product supports GitHub and GitLab for now. It might support more products in the future. 90% of the codebase that supports GitHub and GitLab is identical. 10% is specific to GitHub and GitLab. There are two ways to build software abstractions here. The easy path to fall for is to have unified objects that take care of both GitHub and GitLab data. These objects would, however, behave 10% differently depending on whether it is GitHub or GitLab. Your codebase will be ridden with conditionals that trigger only for one or the other. ...