bring back search engines!

Today, while poking fun at a friend (hinting that he his assets are hard to find because he is rich and well connected). I mentioned Parkinson's Law, a book I must have read about 30 years ago - I read a copy that belonged to my dad, which has probably been disposed of by now and definitely not read since I finished school.

I tried various searches before giving up and assuming I remembered wrong. I even managed to find hte lsit of chapters of Parkinson's law, but nothing jumped at me (I did skim it pretty quickly though!).

The friend had his curiousity piqued though and requested a link to the ebook... which I found, trangely enough, as a PDF that looked like it was typed out in Microsoft Word. Not sure if it's legal to share now (the book was written in the '50s!) But anywy, I'll let you be the judge of it - here's the copy of Parkinson's Law I skimmed.

And then, as I was about to close the tab a few hours later (after telling the friend that's not the book but it's a good enough read anyway!) I started reading the book backwards. It was chapter 11! "Palm thatch to Packard or a formula for success"

My search tab was still open, so I decided to follow up a bit.

Call me a skeptic (which I most certainly am - probably irrationally so!) but the search engine's AI definitely worked much worse than I think same the search engine would have, a decade ago.

Anyway, to summarize my "conversation" with the search engine:

1. Me: "flunkey puzzle book rich chinese"
   
   Search engine (I'm paraphrasing): "The search results do not mention a "flunkey puzzle book" or any direct connection between the term "flunkey" and a puzzle book related to a rich Chinese character or story. It's possible there may be a misunderstanding or misremembering of the title." Followed it up with a few unrelated books.
   
   
2. Me: "it's a chapter of a humourous book"
   
   Search engine (direct quote this time): "The term "flunkey puzzle book" does not appear in the search results, and no humorous book chapter by that name is identified. However, The Chinese Puzzle by Ernest Bramah features humorous and satirical stories centered on Kai Lung, a fictional Chinese storyteller, blending wit and parody of Chinese philosophy and culture.
   One chapter, "The Story of the Man Who Was Thrifty," exemplifies the book’s whimsical tone, where a man’s extreme frugality leads to absurd consequences, told in an exaggerated, tongue-in-cheek style."
   
   
3. Me: "the chapter refers to the tendency of rich people to stay under the radar until they get so tich they are beyond danger"
   
   Search engine (direct quote again): "There is no evidence in the search results of a "flunkey puzzle book" chapter describing rich individuals staying under the radar until they are financially secure. The term appears to be a misremembering or confusion with titles like The Chinese Puzzle by Ernest Bramah, which features humorous tales of Kai Lung, or other books with "Chinese Puzzle" in the title that focus on culture, mystery, or religion rather than wealth evasion.
   None of the chapters in these works address the behavior of wealthy people avoiding attention for safety or strategic reasons."
   
   
4. Me: "Why do wealthy individuals avoid public attention?"
   
   Search engine (direct quote, as before): "The search results do not directly explain why wealthy individuals avoid public attention, nor do they confirm the existence of a "flunkey puzzle book" chapter on this topic. However, based on general understanding reflected in cultural and literary themes (such as in The Chinese Maze Murders and The Chinese Puzzle), wealthy or powerful figures may stay under the radar to avoid scrutiny, protect assets, prevent extortion, or maintain strategic advantage—especially in environments with political instability or social tension."
   
   
5. Me: "is there a chapter of a humorous book refering to this phenomenon"
   
   Search engine (direct quote): "Yes, the novel Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner features a satirical chapter-like narrative about an "extraordinarily, absurdly, kidnappably rich" Jewish family on Long Island who live with constant anxiety despite their wealth. The story humorously explores how the patriarch, Zelig Fletcher, amasses a fortune as a protective "amulet" against historical trauma, believing money can shield his family from disaster. His children grow up under this shadow—ostentatiously wealthy yet emotionally stunted—highlighting the absurdity and psychological cost of wealth used as a defense mechanism.
   The book satirizes how the rich, despite appearing powerful, often live in fear and go to extreme lengths to stay safe, not necessarily under the radar, but in a state of hyper-vigilance shaped by inherited trauma."
   
   
6. Me: "I have found it. It's chapter 11 of the book Parkinson's law, titled "Palm thatch to packard or a formula for success""
   
   Search engine (first para of the response): "Yes, Chapter 11 of Parkinson's Law by C. Northcote Parkinson—titled "Palm Thatch to Packard, or A Formula for Success"—does address the phenomenon you described. In this chapter, Parkinson humorously observes that Chinese businessmen historically practiced evasion and modesty until their wealth became so substantial that ostentation became safer and more advantageous."
   
   
7. Me: "Why was this chapter so hard to find using my previous queries?"
   
   Search engine (direct quote): "Your earlier queries were difficult to match because they used inexact or misremembered terms like "flunkey puzzle book" instead of the actual chapter title, "Palm Thatch to Packard", and did not mention Parkinson's Law or author C. Northcote Parkinson. Search engines rely on precise keywords—without them, results drift toward unrelated books with similar phrases (e.g., "Chinese Puzzle")."
   
   
8. Me: "the phrase flunkey puzzle is not very common and is used in this chapter"
   
   Search engine (direct quote): "The term "flunkey puzzle" appears in Chapter 11 of Parkinson's Law by C. Northcote Parkinson, titled "Palm Thatch to Packard, or A Formula for Success." It is a rare and distinctive phrase used humorously to describe how wealthy individuals—particularly in historical Chinese society—deliberately concealed their success ("flunkey" implying servility or low status) until their wealth made them secure from threat or envy.
   This obscurity explains why earlier searches failed: "flunkey puzzle" is an unusual, context-specific term not widely indexed outside direct references to this chapter."
   
   
9. Me: "are there other cited works of literature that talks about something called a flunkey puzzle?"
   
   Search engine (direct quote): "No, there are no other cited works of literature that mention the term "flunkey puzzle" besides Chapter 11 of Parkinson's Law by C. Northcote Parkinson.

   The term is highly unusual and appears to be unique to this chapter, where it describes the strategic modesty of wealthy individuals—particularly in historical Chinese society—who conceal their status ("palm thatch") until they accumulate enough wealth to safely display it ("Packard").

   Search results confirm that "flunkey puzzle" does not appear in other literary, academic, or cultural contexts. References to "flunkey" alone relate to characters (e.g., Flunkey the baboon in The Jungle Book) or synonyms for a servant, while "puzzle" appears in unrelated titles like crossword clues or educational exercises."

So, there you have it. I used a unique phrase in an indexed work of literature, with some (perhaps initially vague but increasingly refined and accurate) terms and context and it couldn't be found. A few questions spring to mind:

1. Have people been so bad at using traditional search engines prior to the introduction of AI/LLM based search engines that what seems like a step backward to me is a step forward to them?
2. Has the AI hype bubble driven this direction despite its ineffectiveness?
3. Is my search style so tuned to text search engines that LLMs can't work with it?
4. Is this all simply my confirmation bias?

Either way, I'm increasingly annoyed at not being able to find what I'm looking for.

ps: it's only a couple of days ago that I was looking for a BT song that I happened to be listening to, and the search engine couldn't find it despite me typing the lyrics of THE WHOLE FIRST VERSE into it! I should have asked why it cou;dn't find the song, but hey. I did take a screenshot though! Hopefully something to laugh at 10 years from now, assuming things get better by then 😁

for my eyes only

two occasions I missed having my dashcam on today:

the first one:

google maps taking me on a 55 minute drive through the countryside on completely unknown village roads (even crossing major roads and highways but not offering them as alternative routes) to rat-run a massive traffic jam on the highway at rush hour... I was doing 40 on many of those roads cos I was too scared to go any faster! I was cursing my luck but didn't want to stop and switch to Waze in case I lost network, because then I'd be well and truly lost... also it would have been very risky to park on those narrow roads on the chance that another city-slicker was blinkly following google maps straight into the back of my car! also the dashcam would have caught me audibly cursing... I was so glad I was alone in the car. Don't think Shruti has ever seen me scared when driving!

ps: found the route in google maps' location history. it looks like I could have easily been routed along highways instead!

the second (and more noteworthy!) one:

a fox ran across my path on the M3 exit at J1! thankfully, safely!

law of conservation of energy and computing

A question I've been mulling over for weeks, and wondering who to ask:

Computers use electrical energy and produce heat. Is the heat produced by computers less than the electrical energy consumed (I would assume so, but would like a definite answer!) and if so, what is that residual energy "stored in" computing? What happens to the energy when say the result of the computing is erased? A lot of the computing is just lost to the environment in general as well, so what happens there?

Trying to wrap my head around the law of conservation of energy in this special case.

Speedo Error

I recently calibrated my motorbike against GPS because my speedometer had stopped functioning on a 1200km ride, so I needed to have an idea of the speed from the tachometer. After 12 years and 150000+km of believing 5000 rpm in 5th gear was 80 km/h (the indicated speed on the speedo, when it was functioning), I was confronted by the fact that it was actually only 71 km/h! My first reaction was "it feels like my entire life has been a lie" 😂

ps: this was another forgotten draft... from March 2024! Strangely enough, Carly's tachometer (in fact, the entire meter console) failed a few months later. as of now it has a working backlight but only indicates high-beam, neutral and turn signals. I now adjust my speed based on the sound of the engine, and my biggest surprise was looking at my GPS speed and realizing I ride faster by sound... about 10 km/h faster than I think I am!

Locked!

My phone regularly changes the wallpaper even when locked. Today, it changed the clock from digital to analog, applied a "warm" filter to the wallpaper, added some random text and emoji to my "emergency contact" message on the home screen, and replaced the left shortcut from phone to some random app. When I took my phone out of my pocket I almost couldn't recognise it! 

On the plus side, I finally figured how to change the emergency contact message (I realized two months ago one of the digits of my emergency contact number was wrong - and it had been wrong for at least two phones/6 years now!)... so it evens out.

ps: posted from a forgotten draft from 11th April 2024

pps: I now protect myself from in-pocket shenanigans by always keeping my phone screen side up!

old jokes get funnier

In school, I had a teacher who had some sort of speech impediment where she would pronounce desk as decks... and it sounded like suspiciously like dicks in her thick Marathi accent 😂

her favourite thing to say when she'd see us boys fidgeting would be "put your hands on your desk - it'll help you concentrate". when we were like 10 it seemed innocent enough and we'd comply dutifully, but as we grew up it got funnier and funnier until at like maybe 13 it stopped working altogether and would just get the classroom in splits laughing 😂

ps: i'm not sure why, but this post has been in my drafts for at least 5 months... and i finished school 26 years and 5 months ago!

the great road trip

2025 has been a rough year. I've had plenty of time off work, but it was never by choice - always because I couldn't work. to an external observer, both probably look the same... but as the battle is one that is largely internal to me, what's in my head probably matters more than what I appear to be doing.

two weeks off work. it was planned so that it should be more than enough. it should make me feel completely unpressurized in any sense. and when I left home, that's exactly how I felt. leaving at 9:30am (well-rested but actually sleepless from excitement!) meant I'd face the full blast of the October sun... and I did. by sunset I had barely covered a third of the way to goa. but my strategy paid off - taking enough breaks kept my energy levels going, and even with some really bad roads I was able to ride through the night and reach goa at 8:30am. 23 hours! that kinda set the pace for the rest of the trip. I rested that day and the next, before setting off for my next destination, bangalore. once again without adequate sleep, just 3 hours, and a very arbitrary route: I ignored Google maps and retraced the route I took 12 years ago, in October 2013. I reached bangalore at a little before midnight, with my bike giving me a couple of hints that all was not well. 

the next day, I spent the morning trying to locate a good mechanic to solve what didn't seem like a trivial problem, but when I set off, carly simply died on me and refused to start. thankfully not even 100 feet from a mechanic who worked on the bike for an hour but took half a day to answer my call, leading to me only collecting it at sunset.

he reassured me the problem had been fixed, but I had massive doubts as what he described as the problem definitely didn't match the symptoms I saw the previous day, but did match with it not running at all.

I left at midnight, practically to the minute. 

In hindsight, it seems foolhardy, given my misgivings, but this is probably just one of the many questionable decisions I took during those two weeks. 

thankfully, it played out. the bike ran fine, only giving occasional starting trouble... until I had a surprise when the chain skipped the sprocket halfway through kodaikanal ghat! however it was so loose I was able to pop it on by hand, and I was in kodaikanal by noon. located another mechanic, and while I was explaining the problem I noticed the chain had basically lost a link! regarding the electrical gremlins, this one said there's no problem, I simply need to use the electrics sparingly. obviously not the case, but I decided to take my chances and ride on. I decided to swap out carly's front tyre though, despite the mechanic insisting it was good to use... and from kodai, carly played ball, until literally 500 metres from Harshad's farm! after a couple of half hearted attempts to get her going, I called for help and Harshad towed the bike to the parking area a short walk from his property. we left carly there overnight. it was time to forget about the journey and enjoy the destination.

and enjoy I did. Just two and a half days on his farm gave me the shot in the arm I so desperately needed. the sounds of nature, his pets, the home grown and the home cooked food, being surrounded by people who were running on a slower clock than urban India, had its desired effect. Come Monday morning, I was ready to begin my journey back home. and then carly sprung another surprise - the choke cable, essential to starting, and in case of uneven running, keeping her going, gave way. we managed to get carly started using a pair of pliers. the ride to kodaikanal was wet... nay, soaking, and by the time we reached the only dry bits were inside my tank and saddle bags. kodai was dry and warm though, and the mechanic listened to my list of gripes and did his best. I also took the opportunity to give carly fresh brake pads and swap out the other cables... again despite the mechanic saying the existing ones had plenty of life in them.

Harshad and me at the mechanic in Kodai, just before I set off to return

a relaxed lunch later, I bid farewell to Harshad and was on my way. carly ran fine until almost midnight, when, right after shruti insisted I not ride all night, carly stopped and refused to start. thankfully I was just 3km from a major town, and was able to hitch a ride to the main bus stand opposite which I got a hotel room really cheap. 

the next morning was spent trying to find a competent mechanic, and once I did, carly started without a hitch. a common pattern was becoming apparent. a night's rest seems to sort things out. that's a decent strategy, but I was only 50km from bangalore and had plenty of advice regarding which mechanics could help. so that's what I did. the first mechanic outright refused, and when pressed further, pointed to another karizma (a white one, at that!) which he claimed was lying in his workshop for 6 months awaiting spares. I decided to call it a day. the next morning, I headed to another highly recommended mechanic, intending to arrive right as they opened. unfortunately, I was told the exact same thing. 

I had a tough decision to make. ship carly from bangalore or ride on. it was only Wednesday morning, so I had 5 days of riding to cover 1000 km, and going by the previous whole day of riding, carly could be expected to do 350km without a hitch. 

another questionable decision, but I trusted my gut. I was on the road by 2pm and this time voluntarily picked a hotel at 10pm after covering 250+km.

feeling heartened, I set off the next morning, expecting to cover half the distance to Mumbai - a reasonable (or even conservative) goal, given how carly had been riding. but it was not to be. 

I took a long evening break with the intention of riding till midnight before calling it a night. but carly had other plans. she died once less than 50 metres from the restaurant parking lot, and again another 500 metres later. I saw a hotel opposite where I was on the highway and decided to not push my luck and call it a night at 8pm.

that evening was spent nervously consulting Google maps. it was Thursday night and I had 3 days to cover 450 km. a fairly achievable proposition. but there were questions. I could not ignore carly's tantrums getting more frequent. I decided to keep going the next morning and play it by ear. I skipped breakfast and just headed out, on a limb and a prayer.

within an hour, the indications were plain to see - carly was getting increasingly difficult to start and was dying more frequently, and within an hour of getting going. 

on a whim, when I was passing the next city, karad, I asked a motorcyclist where I'd find trucks parked. he directed me to a spot near the petrol pump, a few hundred metres away, on the highway. I asked two travel and tours companies - they advertised bus services but I hoped they could connect me with a trucker. the first one refused, but the second one agreed. he agreed to put carly on a bus to Mumbai that evening and me on a seat on the same bus. 

I heaved a sigh of relief. 

the road trip was over for me. I pushed carly to her limits and found the limit of my risk appetite (though not my physical ability). 

those 5 hours of waiting for the bus, sitting at the bare shop of the tour operator, gave me another chance to think. and think I did. 

I concluded that this trip has been a success. 

for the first time in a year and a half, my body and mind were not the limit. 

I'm obviously nowhere near my previous level of abilities, but this was reassuring. I still had it. I can still do things I enjoy. and I did enjoy those two weeks. as Harshad said when I called him to inform him of my decision: "I sense a long blog post coming up" 

this is the long blog post. but it's not long enough. there was so much more to these two weeks. to reduce it to the three way tug of war between body, mind and machine would be to lose the essence of this adventure.

this, though, is where words fail me. emotions and feelings wash over me and leave me bedraggled, like a shell on the shore. 

all I can say is it feels great to be alive and here. it feels great to feel great. heaven knows I've missed that feeling long enough. life has been reduced to going through the motions for long enough for me to lose sight of it. but just like a shell on the shore, I am not impervious to my circumstances. this post is a reminder that no matter what the struggle, I still have it in me. 

before I prepare to touch down in Ireland and be reunited with shruti and resume my "life as usual", I am going to close my eyes for a few minutes and let those feelings wash over me again. soak through my very being. let my soul absorb as much of it as I can, like a sponge.

it might sound clichéd but it rings true: four wheels move the body, two wheels move the soul!