Kubernetes: Up & Running by Kelsey Hightower
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is from the pioneers of the Kubernetes world. The authors explain the design elements of Kubernetes pretty well. It was enjoyable to read this book.

Kubernetes Cookbook: Building Cloud Native Applications by Sebastien Goasguen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a useful book, aimed towards the beginners of Kubernetes. The cookbook recipes could help reinforce the concepts that we learn in Kubernetes in a practical manner.

Kubernetes in Action by Marko Luksa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book explained the concepts behind Kubernetes well. It just did keep itself at the level of a book for an operator of Kubernetes and went into explaining what is happening underneath quite well.

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is a straightforward narration by Georgia Takei of a Japanese Internment by the US Government during World War II. George and his family had suffered this cruelty. He highlights how opportunistic senators took chances to rise to power by promoting racial discrimination.

I had not known about this part of US history. I also did not know how ACLU helped the Japenese in the US then. US had detained 250,000 Japanese families living in the US, many of them US citizens, into camps during WWII.

Having lived through this horror, a lot of these Japanese families restarted and rebuilt their lives again. George Takei turned to activism to share his story with the masses, and I think he has been very effective.

This book has come the right time when similar mistreatment is being carried out by certain opportunistic politicians.

The Mahabharata: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic by R.K. Narayan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Mahabharata is one of the most complex stories I have ever read. I read this book following The Ramayana by R.K.Narayan. The ethical dilemmas presented in this story is at a whole different level than Ramayana. While in Ramayana, there are good guys and bad guys in Mahabharata there is nothing like that.

No one is entirely good or no one is entirely bad. The Pandavas and Kauravas are brothers, just competing against each other, but their quarrel reaches to a level for war.

Coming to the war, which is an important topic of this story, the book has 3 chapters dedicated to the avoidance of war and only one chapter for the war.

In spite of suffering all the atrocities presented by Duryodhana, Pandavas realize that war is not good for anyone, and try for multiple attempts to prevent the war. Duryodhana plays politics and chooses to listen, and highlight points only which could give a chance for war.

And when it comes to war, Pandavas understands that a deterministic outcome is achieved by eliminating everyone in the enemy camp, even babies. So, after trying to avoid war, when the war becomes inevitable, Krisha proposes and leads a _genocide_ against the Kaurava clan.

To me, the most complex characters in this story were that of Karna and Krishna.
Karna has chances to prevent war, he understands his background well but still chooses to side with Duryodhana. Krishna is one who leads the Pandavas to war and gives guidance "on duties" in ambiguous times.

There is no good or a bad person in this entire story.

India has a Online Digital Library for everyone: https://ndl.iitkgp.ac.in

When I created an account, it asked me about my Education Level, and gave me a choice for "Life Long Learner"

Appreciate it!

I ordered Pizza using terraform today. I was learning about terraform and how provider can be anything, even Software as a Service, which is basically an API.

So, it made possible to develop software like terraform-provider-dominos using which you can order Pizza. I tried it. The terraform apply crashed for me, but I knew that terraform might have attempted the purchase operation and had probably crashed due to slow response from the API. It was the case. I saw my credit card charged in my account, an order confirmation email, and in 30 minutes, I got my pizza.

I tried this codeforces problem contest/1189/problem/A. Trying a contest problem after many years and I thought, it was a problem either with Dynamic Programming or with Recursion.

Turned out be a much much simpler one, that if a person reads the problem carefully and understands the scope of the solution, the solution can be written in < 2 minutes.

I spent 30 minutes unsuccessfully. Lack of experience shows up if you don't practice.

The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good by David J. Linden
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a very good book. It made me rethink about the pleasures of life in terms of chemicals, and its properties on the human brain. Everything we 'enjoy' is like a positive signal to a particular area in the brain called VTA where Neuron's release dopamine to make us feel the pleasure.

Various experiments that humans have done, such as chemicals we eat (the taste factor in food), drink, inhale, and physiological activities such as running, exercise, sex, and brain activities like deep-thinking, understanding, associative thinking, are all related and trigger those VTA neurons to give pleasure.

The process of pleasures are understandable, and once we understand this, we have better control over things around it, like society norms, and optimizing for our desired outcome.

The book also touched upon the topic of addiction, which is commonly associated with pleasure, but in reality, it is not. The perspective shared in the book about addiction, was it should be treated as a disease, like having a fever/cold/cough, and instead of feeling sorry or ashamed, actions should involve just as we take actions to come out of fever/cold and cough.

After watching Infinity War at a friends home, I became immensely curious and interested in watching all the related movies. Thor taking the power of the dying star etched in my mind from the Infinity War. I looked up the order to watch the entire series and before watching the Avengers: End Game, my family and I decided to watch the entire 21 movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We finished our MCU movie watching adventure finally watching with EndGame on 21st May, 2019.

It was a treat to imagination, and a pleasure follow this saga along!

Here is a Marvel Cinematic Universe theme shared in a reddit comment.

If you end up watching the entire series try out this MCU Quiz (The answer key is here)