Pandemic Chronicles

My blog posts while being in self-quarantine/isolation during the time of COVID-19 Pandemic

10 random little joys of the Internet

Photo courtesy of Cinqpoints

Let’s acknowledge that things out there are pretty bleak. Chances are, like me, you are stuck at home looking at the growing body count. And it’s hard to know where to turn for solace. The news doesn’t help. Social networks manage to amplify everything, creating an even greater sense of dread. I don’t know about you, but I could use some fun distractions.  Luckily, the Internet has obliged, offering up these 10 little gems: 

  1. Let’s start by taking care of ourselves by taking this Coursera course from Yale: The Science of Well-Being. 
  2. How to start a love affair with AudioBooks. My multiple attempts to get into audiobooks have only resulted in multiple failures, but after reading this article, I am going to give it another shot. Though, I still don’t think they are technically books. Just saying. 
  3. If you are losing your mind being at home, just take a deep

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Musings
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[Podcast] Stuck@Om with Bijan Sabet, Spark Capital

Today, I am kicking off a new podcast series — Stuck @ Om. This is a series of casual but candid conversations with people whose opinions I respect, and enjoy learning from. I get on the Zoom with someone and we have a conversation – like we would if we were meeting in real life. We talk about the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the world, and what we do for a living. Whether it is investing in startups or inventing the future, writing about our society or simply the logic of data and science.

In this debut episode, I chat have a candid conversation with my dear friend Bijan Sabet—the co-founder of Spark Capital—about the impact of the pandemic on humanity.

I had so many questions, many just rattling around my mind. I was wondering about how as a species will deal with the ability to connect? Do

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Podcast, Technology
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Humans, we don’t control much

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

My parents, grandparents, and extended family would often talk about the lessons of The Bhagavad Gita and other ancient Indian learned texts as I was growing up. Later on, after I grew up and read many of those texts myself, I concluded that people are better off when focused not inwards, but outwards, to the others in the world around us. TLDR: Less narcissism and more humanism

So yesterday, I sent an email to the readers of my newsletter asking them how they were doing. And the responses have been phenomenal. Nearly 700 wrote back, telling me what was on their mind, what they were wishing for, and what was worrying them. If there was one universal theme connecting most of these replies, it was a hope that we all learn from all this and come out of this pandemic as better humans.  

Granted, there may be some

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Musings
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Zoom, Zelfies, and Physical Distancing

I needed some distractions from the harsh reality of modern-day America. We have always known that there are two Americas: One made up of normal people and another in which a convicted felon and rapist gets a COVID-19 test in prison because he also happens to be rich and famous. I would prefer not to focus on the fact that, instead of saving people, politicians are worried about their own portfolios, the companies that stuff their wallets, and saving the economy.  

Common sense seems to elude many of us: dead people don’t buy anything. The longer you remain deliberately ignorant about the virus, the longer it is going to kill people. So to our presidents, governors, state legislators, and other politicians: please stop lying. Stop trying to blame others for our own organizational mess.

Over a century ago the Spanish Flu started in Kansas and killed millions around the world.

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Musings
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At home we work: Some thoughts on working from home and remote work

In 2006, I started a blog called, WebWorkerDaily. As an early believer in the power of broadband and the disruptive nature of the networks, I sensed that the future of work was distributed. As it turned out, I wasn’t alone. The site attracted many fellow believers, so-called digital nomads, and became host to fun and lively conversations. 

It was also about a decade too early. The economic incentives were not yet enough for companies to entertain new ideas about how to structure a workplace. And truth be told, the early tools were rudimentary at best. Over the years, the concepts of remote working and a distributed workforce started to gain traction — mostly because of the increasingly apparent wisdom of the ways of companies like Gitlab and Automattic. Yet, despite the success of many distributed teams, even most technology companies and their anointed sages have been dogmatic about their conceptions of

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Technology
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Sunday

Sunday in San Francisco can be either of two things: warm and sunny or (as it usually is) grey, cold, and somewhat windy.  Yesterday was no different. Highs of 61 degrees Fahrenheit, a low of 46. Small pools of sunshine trapped in low grey clouds. It was my kind of Sunday, one that invites you to just lie in bed and enjoy laziness as a gift from the divine.

Maybe it was my childhood, or perhaps it is just how much I have slogged in life, but I take my Sundays very seriously.  When I was young, I woke up late. Sundays meant 30 minutes of cartoons — does anyone remembers the classic He-Man series? Or Spiderman? — and then an episode of Star Trek.  And then a super-late breakfast. It was the one day I didn’t get harangued by mom to do homework or study. It is hardly a surprise, then, that

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Musings
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03.22.2020: Worth Reading

Whether it is tech-bros or political opportunists, we have reverted back to our usual narcissistic selfish and politically divided self within a week. It is impossible to use social platforms and not feel a degree of disgust with everything. As a result, I am going to end my live blog on Coronavirus. I will still occasionally link to longer pieces that intelligently add context to the current situation. The following are good examples:

Why the Coronavirus has been so successful. Ed Yong is a well-respected science writer, and his in-depth report on the current pandemic is as clear and detailed report you can get. It explains why we need to be very serious about self-isolation. 

“Chinese Virus” as a phrase is a political dog whistle. This article with that same title explains the cause, the effect, and unshakeable truth of the interconnectedness of all our societies on this one planet. It

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Technology
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Dealing with not knowing

Every morning I wake up, go for a walk and come home, long before I have encountered any other humans. I don’t want to see another soul, being distrustful not only of them but of myself. Are they infecting me? Or am I infecting them?

Once I’m back at home, I make some tea and then check the news. I visit Twitter. It is the same sense of panic. It may be news from yesterday or day the before, or maybe it’s from today. I can’t tell. It all seems the same. And before it is even 8 a.m., anxiety envelopes my entire being. When will this end? Three weeks, six weeks, or six months? It already seems so endless. I am not sure how to deal with not knowing. 

The modern human (or rather, the post-social human) knows it all. Whether it is Facebook or Twitter, we all are swimming

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Musings
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Invisible

Photo by Jesse ramirez on Unsplash

It takes 797 round trips from one side of my apartment to the other to get to 10,000 steps each day. The more preferable option is to get up at 4:30 am and go out to take a walk down the Embarcadero without worrying about breaking any self-isolation rules by running into a jogger, biker, or some random walker. And that is exactly what I did this morning, but it wasn’t long on my journey before I was seeing more people than I cared to encounter. So, I went into the side streets and made my way home. 

As I headed back, I saw construction workers building apartments — those glass cages soon to be filled with members of the remote work revolution. I saw homeless people huddled next to each other, fighting off the cold that descends on San Francisco every night. I saw Amazon delivery

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Musings
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