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This is a story of a messaging app used by billions of users. The app followed an extremely strong model of privacy. The app never persisted the user’s data on the servers. All the communication is end-to-end encrypted. A lot of users of this app, especially, on Android would regularly uninstall and reinstall the app. Now, to prevent these users from losing messages, the messages were backed up to the user’s SD card. In the Android security model, an SD card is a public storage space , accessible to all apps. So, to keep messages private, the backups were encrypted. ...

One up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch is an impressive book about fundamental analysis for stock picking. Following is my terse summary of the same. Emphasis on Fundamental Analysis Look around for companies that are performing well and invest in them before Wall Street institutional investors pick them In the long run, common stocks give the best rate of returns Only basic math is needed to analyze and pick stocks “Don’t gamble, invest your savings to buy good stocks and hold them till they go up and then sell them. If it doesn’t go up, don’t buy it” Investing directly in common stocks is a seven-card stud-poker hand Rules of investing in the market Buy a home (≠ house) before stocks Only invest what you can afford to lose (without impacting your daily life) Patience, Common sense, and willingness to do independent research Ignore short-term fluctuations There is nothing called a good or bad market Predictions are futile ...

Google Domains A year back, I had to migrate my domain after Google decided to shut down Google Domains. I had to, not only, painfully setup multiple side-projects sub-domain mappings again on a new domain registrar but also re-verify my domain and re-create those mappings on Google Cloud Run . Google Container Registry Google Container Registry is shutting down in 2025. It has been replaced with a new project called Artifact Registry. So, why is Container Registry being shut down? Probably because it 10X cheaper than Artifact Registry. ...

On my way from the Prague airport to the city of Prague, I sat on a bus next to a man wearing a suit and tie. “Here for business?”, I asked. “European Space Agency meeting”, he replied.

Unlike Tokyo , Kyoto is a nice and cozy city. We started the day with a walking tour that gave us an intense view of this city of shrines. There is a lot to do in this city. However, I would recommend focusing on a few of the best specific shrines. Inari Shrine - do the full mountain hike to the top and check the small waterfalls on the backside Kinkaku-ji Shrine Ninna-ji temple - a 1200-year-old temple with several statues of Hindu gods sculpted in 800 AD. ...

For more than 10 years, this website has been running on WordPress. Over time I come to dislike it for multiple reasons.

This book seems to address the myth that primitive societies are more harmonious than our present societies.

Statistical outcomes matter only if you are playing a statistical game

While traveling in the streets of Cairo or Qahira/क़ाहिरा, I came across a group of Indians who didn’t look like tourists.

Tokyo isn’t a city per se but a prefecture. A prefecture is more akin to a county in the US. Japan has 47 prefectures. I would recommend two important cities in Tokyo to spend your time in - Akihabara Electronic District and Shinjuku (fancy) District. While public transport is great, payment requires cash, iPhone, or Suica cards. Unfortunately, Android phones sold outside Japan do not have the appropriate NFC to pay. There are multiple different types of rail companies operating in Tokyo. When you buy a JR pass (please don’t) or a 24-hour pass, it isn’t obvious where you can use it. ...