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Articles with the following titles would be considered a joke “BMW is planning to merge its series i5 cars and Motorrad bikes” “P&G is planning to merge tissue paper and toilet paper” “Arm and Hammer is working on merging face wash, body soap, shampoo, laundry detergent, and dish cleaner” Not that these combinations can’t be made or have never been made but consumers would just not buy them. They are usually inferior or more convoluted, or even worse, both. ...

We traveled there in the month of October and the weather was really nice and cool at that time. Day 1 At 10AM, we started with a 30-minute guided tour called Decisive day, it’s a nice introduction to the struggle of American colonies against the British rulers. More so for the foreigners like us. From there we continued onto another hour long tour called Freedom Trail: Meetings, Mobs & Martyrs which talks about how individuals took sides in the revolution. We were running out of time, so, we had to skip the other Freedom Trail tour, but I would highly recommend doing both. All these tours are limited in capacity, therefore, show up well in advance to collect the free entry tickets. ...

Day 1 I landed in Quito and started the journey with Mitad Del Mundo which apart from being a monument near the equator line has some nice short scientific demonstrations. Expect to spend about 2-3 hours there. Then I headed to Telefrico (“aerial lift”). The ride is nice and gives a beautiful view of Quito city. Highly recommended. ...

You are standing in a queue waiting to buy food, order drinks, or buy tickets. The queue is long and is moving slowly. You are grumbling about the people standing in the front, why are they asking so many questions, why can’t they make choices beforehand. And then your turn comes. You are prepared. You know what you want. But it took so long to reach here. why not confirm your choices? After all, you stood for so long, at least you can spend a minute or two confirming that you are making the right choice. If you made an incorrect or an incomplete order, who would stand again in this long queue to correct it? ...

The authors are founders of 37Signals. The book talks about how to go about remote work, its advantages and pitfalls. Here are some key takeaways from the book.

Day 1 We started our journey with Chihuly Garden and Glass, it consists of amazing glass sculptures of various sizes. Worth every penny. Highly recommended for everyone. From there we continued to Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Visitor Center, half of it feels like a publicity stunt but the other half is insightful and worthy of a visit. ...

Bottled water is not only expensive but is harmful to the environment. Therefore, I try to reuse the same bottle while traveling. I used to carry a hard-plastic bottle while traveling and then one day at an airport, I saw another traveler carrying a flexible bottle, it looks like a pouch. Compared to a standard 500mL hard plastic round bottle it is slim and hence a good fit for a travel jacket. That’s why I fell in love with one and quickly added it to my traveling gear. ...

Choosing a travel backpack is a topic of several online debates. Here are some of my learnings. The final decision depends on your preferences. Size First, start with the size, usual sizes are around 25L, 45L, 65L. The 25L is OK for a day or two, and you can stretch it for a few days. It is almost what a good office backpack looks like. 45L can last for a few week-long urban trips. Of course, it cannot contain things like sleeping bag etc. Both of these are good choices for urban travel or travel not involving sleeping outdoors. For travel involving carrying sleeping bags or tents, a 65L backpack is unavoidable. But here is the flip-side. Not only, it is bulky but also, you cannot carry it in most airlines. You have to do a check-in which even if free, can be time-consuming. Here are some images from Google illustrating the sizes. ...

%f in user-facing strings is dangerous. Depending on the architecture, programming language involved, version of that language and compiler optimization flags, results can vary slightly. And if there are multiple languages involved in the serving stack, it is almost impossible to argue with the outcome. If those variations are immaterial, then use %.1f or %.2f to get one or two digits of precision after the decimal point, respectively. Otherwise, don’t use %f at all.

In 2001, Amazon’s share price crashed from 100$ to 6$, they had to do a 15% layoff. But it was Jeff Bezos’s perseverance, tenacity and grit because of which Amazon survived. As several startups from the Bay area to Bangalore get a mark-down of their valuations, the question about how many will survive and eventually produce a [positive] return for their investors is being asked. Between what a startup’s real value is and how viable is its business model, the real question to ask is how committed are the founder(s) to make things works. In the longer run, only that will matter.