Journal
Occasional writing on technology culture, digital life, work, money, education, and public issues.
Journal articles
Page 3 of 17Retry LLM requests without creating a retry storm
Retries should cover transient failures only, use exponential backoff with jitter, and stop inside a total time budget.
Stream AI responses with SSE without leaking abandoned work
Streaming feels fast, but the server must cancel upstream generation when the browser disconnects and must not keep billing for an abandoned response.
Validate LLM structured output with Zod before using it
Schema-constrained output improves shape, but the application must still validate values and reject impossible combinations before they reach business logic.
Idempotent AI tool calls in Node.js: prevent duplicate side effects
An AI agent may retry a tool after a timeout even when the first call succeeded, so every money-moving or state-changing tool needs a stable operation key.
Sleep debt: why one long weekend sleep may not fully reset you
Extra sleep can reduce acute tiredness, but repeated short nights affect attention and routines in ways that one late morning may not completely.
Cloud storage cleanup: free space without deleting your only copy
A cleanup is safe only when important files exist in another verified copy and sync status is understood before.
Scholarship website or scam: checks students should make before paying
A scholarship application should not become a reason to surrender banking credentials, OTPs, remote-screen access, or an unexplained processing.
How to verify a viral video before forwarding it
A convincing clip can be old, cropped, staged, synthetically altered, or correctly filmed but falsely described, so verification must test context as.
Android battery health: habits that matter more than charging myths
Battery aging is influenced by heat, time at extreme charge levels, and charge cycles; one perfect percentage rule matters less than avoiding.
Air quality index in India: turn the number into a daily decision
AQI summarizes pollutant measurements into categories, but personal decisions should also consider symptoms, exposure duration, and local health.
Heat index and wet-bulb temperature: what each warning means
Heat index estimates how hot conditions feel from temperature and humidity, while wet-bulb measures evaporative cooling limits under specified.
Flight cancelled in India: what to document before asking for help
Resolution depends on the reason, notice, itinerary, and airline response, so a clean timeline is more useful than arguing from a screenshot.
Passport reissue in India: renewal, expiry, lost passport, and documents
A passport nearing expiry is handled as a reissue, and the required documents change when the passport is lost, damaged, short-validity, or contains.
Digital arrest scam in India: verify a notice before fear takes over
Indian authorities do not conduct an arrest by forcing a person to remain on a video call and transfer money to a so-called safe.
NPS vs PPF: retirement market risk versus long lock-in certainty
NPS and PPF are both long-term tools but differ in market exposure, withdrawal rules, taxation, costs, and the role they can play in retirement.
Demat account charges: AMC, DP fees, and the costs people miss
Zero brokerage does not mean zero account cost because annual maintenance, depository-participant debit charges, taxes, and product fees may still.
Stock split vs bonus shares: more units do not create free wealth
A split or bonus issue changes the number of shares and adjusts the per-share price; the company does not become more valuable solely because units.
Share buyback: what changes for remaining shareholders
A buyback reduces shares only when completed and may return excess cash, but it can also be poorly timed or funded while the business needs.
Rights issue explained: subscribe, sell the entitlement, or let it lapse
A rights issue gives eligible shareholders a time-limited choice, and doing nothing can allow a tradable entitlement to expire without.
IPO cut-off price and ASBA: what retail applicants are choosing
Selecting cut-off in a book-built IPO means accepting the final discovered price within the band; ASBA blocks money rather than transferring it.
How to read an IPO RHP without reading every page first
The Red Herring Prospectus is long, but retail investors can begin with risks, use of proceeds, financial statements, promoter history, and.
Small-cap funds: understand drawdowns before chasing returns
Small-cap funds can participate in company growth but also face deeper drawdowns, weaker liquidity, and capacity.
Portfolio rebalancing: restore risk without predicting the market
Rebalancing returns a portfolio to its intended mix after markets move, turning risk control into a rule instead of a headline-driven.
Asset allocation before fund selection: decide the risk first
The split among equity, debt, and cash usually matters more than choosing between two similar funds because it determines how the portfolio behaves.
Bond prices and interest rates: the inverse relationship in simple numbers
Existing fixed-rate bonds usually become less attractive when new bonds offer higher yields, pushing their market prices.
Dividend yield traps: why a high percentage can be a warning
Dividend yield rises when the payout grows or when the share price falls, so a spectacular yield may reflect a business under.
Free cash flow: check whether accounting profit becomes cash
Free cash flow helps test how much operating cash remains after capital spending, but one year can be distorted by working capital or a large.
P/E ratio for beginners: what the number cannot tell you
Price-to-earnings is a shorthand for price relative to reported profit, not a complete measure of quality, growth, debt, or accounting.
Bid-ask spread explained: the cost missing from brokerage ads
The bid-ask spread is an immediate trading cost that becomes important in illiquid stocks and ETFs even when brokerage is advertised as.
Market order vs limit order: the price-control tradeoff
A market order prioritizes execution while a limit order controls the worst acceptable price, and neither guarantees a good investment.