I just finished a new piece - peacock - laser etched on birch wood:

Just finished this piece - peacock. Laser etched on wood. #peacock #wooden #wood #woodworking #sketch #art #artist #artprocess #artist #ipadpro #henna #india #egypt #tattoo #lineart #woodcraft #painting #pyrography #birds #ipadpro #digitalart #laser #lasercut #lasercutting

A post shared by Shriphani Palakodety (@life_of_shriphani) on May 4, 2017 at 10:09am PDT

The peacock is India’s national bird, features in marketing copy for a couple of Florida counties and is the de-facto ruler of a county in the LA area.

As a bird, the peacock is rather unremarkable - it has a voice that inspires no positive feelings, it can’t reach great heights when it takes flight and it can’t cover long distances. It has widespread popular appeal merely due to its looks.

The superior appeal of the visual permeates all aspects of life - architecture, music videos, election campaigns, software, tools, apps - you name it.

Man will put up with anything if it just looks good.

Kimono Labs and I have parted ways; I will be working on problems at a stealth startup starting Monday.

I can clearly recall why I became a computer scientist. I was sitting in a class and we were discussing how cons was implemented. And then I saw this definition:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

(define (cons a b)
    (lambda (x)
        (if (= x 1) a b)))

(define (first l)
    (l 1))

(define (rest l)
    (l 2))

The lambda calculus and the material in the little schemer kept me in the field (computer-science i.e.) and assured me that there would never be a dearth of aha! moments in my education.

Good educators can deliver such aha! moments in every single lecture. A good textbook can do it several times each chapter.

I have since tried to find material that delivers such aha! moments.

Hopefully, I will encounter them for the rest of my life in whatever I do.