Articles

SCI

MU Mukundarajan V N

Survivors of Lightning Strikes: An Underclass of Invisible Sufferers

“Lightning only lasts a fraction of a second, but the aftermath can last a lifetime.” — Daile Zhang, the conversation.com

Aug 10, 2026 · 1 min read · 160 claps paywalled #lightning #survivor #medicalknowledge

MED

MU Mukundarajan V N · Infinite Impulse

When Is Mental Health Awareness Counterproductive?

When people start imagining that they are mentally ill

Aug 09, 2026 · 2 min read · 311 claps paywalled #mental-health #mental-illness #self-fulfilling-prophecy

AI SCI

MU Mukundarajan V N

The Peril of Unsupervised Moral Conscience

“Normalization of Deviance is the process by which unacceptable practices, standards, or behaviors become accepted when they’re repeated…

Jul 24, 2026 · 2 min read · 225 claps paywalled #conscience #integrity #standards

ECO

MU Mukundarajan V N

The Curse of Perverse Incentives

“Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome.” Charlie Munger

Jul 15, 2026 · 2 min read · 210 claps paywalled #perverse-incentives #greed #policy-design

MU Mukundarajan V N

“Best”: A Versatile Word

“Best” is an amazing word with a limitless scope for application, even when it doesn’t clarify what it exactly means.

Jul 14, 2026 · 1 min read · 252 claps paywalled #best #language #words

MU Mukundarajan V N · Infinite Impulse

Surrender: A Counterintuitive and Underappreciated Problem-Solving Tool

“When you surrender, the problem ceases to exist. Try to solve it, or conquer it, and you only set up more resistance.” — Henry Miller…

Jul 08, 2026 · 3 min read · 108 claps paywalled #surrender #acceptance #problem-solving

AI ECO HUM SPR

VA Varadarajan Narayanan · Pragmatic Wisdom

The Pesky Genie and the Manufactured Wisdom

Seeking a higher place: Struggle vs Progress

Jul 07, 2026 · 6 min read · 50 claps #ai #technology #stoicism

MU Mukundarajan V N · Infinite Impulse

Was Life Better in the Past?

No, it was different

Jul 06, 2026 · 2 min read · 688 claps paywalled #nostalgia #past #life

MKT MDA HUM

MU Mukundarajan V N · Infinite Impulse

How Do Writers and Content Creators Stand Out in the Age of AI?

“As AI overwhelms the web, we will need a way to distinguish people from machines.” —Andrey Mir, Big Think

Jul 03, 2026 · 2 min read · 472 claps paywalled #ai-content #ai-vs-human-creativity #writing

TCH LIF

MU Mukundarajan V N

I Have Few Social Connections, But Don’t Feel Lonely

Nourishing solitude keeps loneliness away

Jun 28, 2026 · 2 min read · 564 claps paywalled #solitude #loneliness #inner-life

SPT SPR

MU Mukundarajan V N · Infinite Impulse

Selling the Soul-A Powerful Metaphor For Moral Capitulation

“People sell their soul in such small quantities — a seemingly trivial compromise here, a rationalization of a minor evil there — that they…

Jun 25, 2026 · 2 min read · 311 claps paywalled #soul #selling-the-soul #moral-dilemma

ART GEN

MU Mukundarajan V N

The Beauty of Unintended Favourable Outcomes

Blessings often arrive in disguise

Jun 22, 2026 · 1 min read · 496 claps paywalled #unintended-consequences #blessing-in-disguise #favorable

MED HUM AI

MU Mukundarajan V N

The Misuse of Psychological and Medical Jargon

Terms from psychology, psychiatry, and medicine have been weaponised in everyday conversations to attack perceived adversaries and to build…

Jun 20, 2026 · 1 min read · 300 claps paywalled #jargon #weaponization #language

ECO HUM LIF

VA Varadarajan Narayanan · Pragmatic Wisdom

Am I That Old Man Who Would Not Stop Talking?

A painful reality check on floundering through aging and retirement

Jun 20, 2026 · 5 min read · 121 claps #aging #retirement #carl-jung

BIO SPR SCI

MU Mukundarajan V N

Do We Own Our Thoughts?

Our free will is limited to not acting on our thoughts

Jun 18, 2026 · 2 min read · 318 claps paywalled #thoughts-and-feelings #neuroscience #free-will

LIF

MU Mukundarajan V N · Infinite Impulse

What My Subconscious Mind Taught Me at 3.30 A.M

The body is often more powerful than the mind

Jun 17, 2026 · 2 min read · 262 claps paywalled #body #mind #healthy-body-mind

HUM AI

MU Mukundarajan V N

Evolutionary Psychology of News-Fatigue

“I argue that news fatigue is not laziness, weakness or a generational decline in civic interest. It’s the predictable response of a human…

Jun 15, 2026 · 2 min read · 371 claps paywalled #news #news-fatigue #evolutionary-psychology

HUM

MU Mukundarajan V N

A Strange, Yet Remarkable Formula For Success

“If A is success in life, then A = x + y + z. Work is x, play is y and z is keeping your mouth shut.” — Albert Einstein, vide, Philosophy…

Jun 11, 2026 · 1 min read · 459 claps paywalled #success #formula #einstein

TCH LIF

MU Mukundarajan V N

When Anger Carries the Burden of Other Emotions

“Anger is the secondary emotion. The primary emotion could be sadness, could be disappointment, could be stress.” — Anna Elton, time.com

Jun 09, 2026 · 1 min read · 206 claps paywalled #anger #emotions #subconscious-mind

GEN AI

MU Mukundarajan V N

Self-Regulation: The Key to Fire Safety in High-Rise Buildings

Fire safety rules are effective only if they are followed carefully and enforced strictly.

Jun 08, 2026 · 2 min read · 271 claps paywalled #fire-safety #regulation #self-regulation

AI

MU Mukundarajan V N

AI Won’t Make Humans Obsolete

“If there is some thing that you are meant to do, who the hell cares if there is a machine that can be made to do it just as well or even…

Jun 07, 2026 · 2 min read · 415 claps paywalled #technology #human-exceptionalism #ai

ECO

SH Shadrack Kipkoech

How I Built a Production M-Pesa B2C Payment System in PHP (The Hard Way)

A no-fluff guide to Business-to-Customer M-Pesa disbursements using Daraja API — with callbacks, background polling, and real error…

Jun 06, 2026 · 5 min read · 0 claps #lipa-na-mpesa #mpesa #mpesa-integration

ECO HUM

MU Mukundarajan V N

Leaders Without Titles: Decoupling Leadership From Authority

Leading with influence

Jun 05, 2026 · 2 min read · 205 claps paywalled #leadership #title #informal-leadership

ART ECO TCH

PE Petro Lesapiti Loltolo

Demystifying M-Pesa B2C Integration: The Architectural Trap Most Developers Fall For

A practical guide to B2C shortcodes, Utility Accounts, and async callbacks on the Daraja API

Jun 04, 2026 · 3 min read · 4 claps #mpesa #daraja #fintech

ECO ART LIF MKT

MU Mukundarajan V N

The Diderot Effect: How It Empties Our Wallets and Clutters Our Homes

Mindful consumption is the key

Jun 03, 2026 · 2 min read · 361 claps paywalled #overconsumption #overspending #clutter

AI HUM

MU Mukundarajan V N

Will AI Kill Our Curiosity?

Easy answers hinder deep learning

May 30, 2026 · 2 min read · 416 claps paywalled #curiosity #knowledge #learning

ECO HUM LIF

MU Mukundarajan V N

The Subtle Art of Lying by Omission

“The chief problem in historical honesty is not outright lying. It is omission or de-emphasis of important data. The definition of…

May 27, 2026 · 1 min read · 435 claps paywalled #lying #deception #truth

HUM SPR MDA

MU Mukundarajan V N · Infinite Impulse

Should We Let Chatbots Walk Away With Literary Prizes?

Ringing the death knell for human writing

May 26, 2026 · 2 min read · 205 claps paywalled #human-writing #ai-writing #creativity

ECO HUM SPR AI

VA Varadarajan Narayanan · Pragmatic Wisdom

The Courage to Be Forgotten

An Existential View of Legacy

May 25, 2026 · 4 min read · 50 claps #existentialism #retirement #aging

MKT HUM AI

MU Mukundarajan V N

Will Errors Make Human Writing Stand Out in the Age of AI?

“The popularity of tools like ChatGPT has led many authors to include errors and write with carelessness in order to appear more human.” —…

May 24, 2026 · 1 min read · 253 claps paywalled #ai-content-writing #human-writing #typo

ECO

DI Dinushan Sriskandaraja

Small Teams Are Building Bigger Companies Than Ever

A few years ago, building a serious company meant one thing: hire more people.

May 23, 2026 · 4 min read · 0 claps #ai-business #small-teams #modern-startups

LIF

MU Mukundarajan V N

Layoffs: A Long-Term Failure

Companies must try proven alternatives to layoffs

May 20, 2026 · 2 min read · 262 claps paywalled #tech-layoff #employment #reskilling-and-upskilling

ECO

MU Mukundarajan V N

Can Individual Responsibility Fix the World’s Problems?

Systemic reforms must work in tandem with responsible consumer behaviour

May 14, 2026 · 2 min read · 375 claps paywalled #nudge-theory #behavioral-economics #consumer-choice

AI TCH

AK akash parapurath Govindarajan

How I Cut AI Token Usage by 60% With a Markdown-Based Multi-Agent Orchestrator

A zero-cost pattern to reduce LLM context waste, eliminate hallucinations, and make AI coding assistants actually useful in enterprise…

May 14, 2026 · 5 min read · 0 claps #ai-agent #token-optimization #github-copilot

MDA TCH HUM SOC

MU Mukundarajan V N · NEW LITERARY SOCIETY

“Radical”: A Word That Makes Me Uneasy

Its overpromise has consequences

May 09, 2026 · 2 min read · 390 claps paywalled #radicalism #language #new-literary-society

LIF

MU Mukundarajan V N

Self-Checkout Kiosk: Technological Convenience or Customer’s Unpaid Labour?

No free lunch

May 02, 2026 · 2 min read · 371 claps paywalled #self-checkout #retail #productivity

MDA HUM LIF

MU Mukundarajan V N

The Dutiful Habit of Cross-Checking

Cross-checking is a more thorough form of validating the accuracy or truth about a fact, situation or condition than plain checking.

Apr 29, 2026 · 1 min read · 312 claps paywalled #crosscheck #fact-checking #habits

AI

MU Mukundarajan V N

Why AI Can’t Replace “Doormen”

A job is not the same as its barest task

Apr 27, 2026 · 2 min read · 446 claps paywalled #ai #automation #doorman-fallacy

ECO HUM SOC

MU Mukundarajan V N

How Profanity Degrades Public Discourse

When leaders don’t mind their language

Apr 11, 2026 · 2 min read · 344 claps paywalled #profanity #public-discourse #politeness

GEN LIF

MU Mukundarajan V N

Two Quotes That Speak an Obvious Yet Underappreciated Truth

“A good life is one in which things do not go perfectly, but you find a way to have a good day regardless.” James Clear

Apr 10, 2026 · 1 min read · 386 claps paywalled #silver-lining #life #life-lessons

AI HUM SCI

MU Mukundarajan V N

How a Theory of Intelligence Outlived Its Critics

“I’ve lost the battle with psychometricians, but I’ve won the war with the rest of the world.” — Howard Gardner, Big Think

Apr 08, 2026 · 1 min read · 355 claps paywalled #multiple-intelligences #ai #iq-test

MU Mukundarajan V N

Life Isn’t Just a Deal, Mr.President

Shady deals won’t save the world

Apr 05, 2026 · 2 min read · 371 claps paywalled #world-war-3 #deal #peace

MU Mukundarajan V N

“Earnest”: An Elegant Word That We Need To Rediscover

There is no meritocracy in the usage of words

Apr 04, 2026 · 1 min read · 564 claps paywalled #words #earnest #usage

SCI SPR

MU Mukundarajan V N

“Death Cafe”: A Safe Space Where Talking About Death Is Not a Taboo

Can you imagine talking about death and dying over a cup of tea?

Mar 25, 2026 · 2 min read · 313 claps paywalled #death-and-dying #death-cafe #life

SPR

MU Mukundarajan V N · The Daily Cuppa

Purpose: A Moving Target

“It’s rare to find your purpose for life, so instead look for your purpose for this season.” — James Clear

Mar 24, 2026 · 1 min read · 259 claps paywalled #purpose #life #life-lessons

HUM

MU Mukundarajan V N

Defending “Taste”: The Last Bastion of Human Agency

“I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.” ― Oscar Wilde

Mar 22, 2026 · 2 min read · 479 claps paywalled #taste #agency #humanism

LIF

MU Mukundarajan V N

Saying Yes or No: What Is Best?

“The oldest, shortest words — ‘yes’ and ‘no’ — are those which require the most thought.” — Pythagoras

Mar 17, 2026 · 1 min read · 293 claps paywalled #yes #say-no #life

ECO

MU Mukundarajan V N

Optimism, Pessimism, or Scepticism: Which Is the Right Stance in the Present World?

Pessimism seems more realistic of the three

Mar 07, 2026 · 2 min read · 262 claps paywalled #world-war-3 #leadership #international-order

GEN HUM SPR

MU Mukundarajan V N

Irrationality: An Enduring Paradox of the Human Condition

We are irrational beings pretending to be rational

Mar 05, 2026 · 1 min read · 318 claps paywalled #irrationality #reasoning #choices

MU Mukundarajan V N · Infinite Impulse

Some Reflections on the Mystery of Intuition

The gut instinct proves the mind-body connection

Feb 22, 2026 · 3 min read · 560 claps paywalled #intuition #gut-instinct #gut-brain-axis