Hi, I’m Bhuvan.This is my commonplace book.

Visualizing trade flows and tariffs

Cool site to visualize tariffs, sanctions, and global trade deals. https://portolan.cc/ https://x.com/i/status/2081473121953911112

Inequality stats

Lots of new inequality statistics from the World Bank's PIP on Our World in Data: .png>) Inequality statistics are heavily contested and rightly so, but read the right way, they still have some use.

We're all goldfishes

I’m feeling it right now. I had to set a timer for 15 minute on my computer and block all distractions to write this. If I didn’t force myself to focus I would easily get distracted by something after few minutes. Even when I’m doing things that I’ve been waiting to do it, I still feel the urge to do something else. I don’t know how and when this happened. During the last few years I was always studying, working, and doing…

Disenchated generation

The WhatsApp uncles and aunties generation that have seen the benefits of the two decades after liberalisation are content with their “settled” lives, their garba in Vietnam and their misguided belief about India’s standing going up in the world because of this government. But the reality confronting the Insta generation is that their future isn’t as rosy and the correcting and disciplining mechanism of the political system…

Perspectives on the student protests

Governments find such protests much harder to confront because there is no obvious ideological counter-narrative. One can’t simply invoke nationalism or accuse every dissatisfied student of serving foreign interests when the grievance concerns administrative failure. The usual political vocabulary becomes ineffective. More importantly, governments are generally better equipped to deal with identifiable opponents than of…

Be more ambitious

Simon: Let’s talk a little bit about the human element. A lot of people are feeling a sense of loss now that so much of what they considered to be their role in building software is being subsumed by the models. How do you think about that? How has the past year and a half changed the way you think about your own craft and the value that you add? Thariq: Cat and Boris are such good reminders that you have to be more…

On the student protests in Delhi

What makes this moment fundamentally different is that the public is no longer appearing terrified. Despite heavy police deployment, massive surveillance cameras and the use of tear gas and force, the sheer volume of everyday citizens, broke the atmosphere of intimidation. People didn't just step out of their homes. They stepped out and converted individual isolation into a loud, collective voice. By refusing to be divided,…