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I'm a bit of an eclectic mess 🙂 I've been a programmer, journalist, editor, TV producer, and a few other things.

I'm currently working on my second novel which is complete, but is in the edit stage. I wrote my first novel over 20 years ago but then didn't write much till now.

I post about #Coding, #Flutter, #Writing, #Movies and #TV. I'll also talk about #Technology, #Gadgets, #MachineLearning, #DeepLearning and a few other things as the fancy strikes ...

Lived in: 🇱🇰🇸🇦🇺🇸🇳🇿🇸🇬🇲🇾🇦🇪🇫🇷🇪🇸🇵🇹🇶🇦🇨🇦

Fahim Farook

"Three of Us" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23804378) is a wonderful, sometimes melancholic, movie.

It starts off with this air of melancholy that kind of persists throughout the movie. It might feel a little slow at times, but I loved the feel of nostalgia and, sometimes, whimsy that the movie evoked.

The actiing was brilliant — not just words, but emotions evoked through a gesture, or a glance.

I always notice Jaideep Ahlawat when he appears in a movie, but afterewards, i can't remember the movies themselves. Swanand Kirkire was great too, but the standout performance here was by Shefali Shah. Absolutely brilliant!

#Movies #Hindi #Bollywood #SliceOfLife #QuietReflections
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Fahim Farook

I generally like Nani's movies, but some of his recent ones have been especially good.

"Hi Nanna" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt25433734) has to be at the top of that list as far as I'm concerned.

At first, it felt a bit like "How I Met Your Mother", but there is a turning point and once you hit that point, there is no looking back. I just had to finish the rest of the movie.

It was heartfelt and moving. It was a bit of a rollercoaster ride of expecting something to happen and have something totally different happen.

One central premise might seem a bit unlikely, but it made the overall movie work.

Definitely recommended! 🙂

#Movies #Telugu #Nani #HiNanna
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Fahim Farook

I used to develop apps for my own use and then distribute it as freeware.

Then life got busy, I stopped writing apps for personal use — just developed for the App Store.

I'm back full-circle now — coding apps for my own use ... but I don't release them in any form, just too much work/hassle.

How things change?

Or maybe we've become too used to centralized distribution points?

I don't know ...

All I know is that suddenly, after a long gap, at least a couple of my most-used apps are developed by me.

#Coding #SoftwareDev #PersonalProjects
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Fahim Farook

"12th Fail" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23849204) is an inspiring story — a story of striving against all odds, against corruption, against classism, against hundreds of thousands to gain a coveted position.

This is more true-to-life than a lot of recent Hindi movies and so far I love every minute of it. I've lived some of it and I do understand where the people are coming from. Makes me nostalgic but also makes me want to stand up and cheer!

#Movies #Hindi #Bollywood #AgainstTheOdds
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@sgamel I totally agree that people don’t learn from history and repeat the same patterns — this is one thing that annoys me so much about humanity …

But at least in that case, you can argue that they don’t even see the pattern because they are so blind.

But in the case of the time loops, they know exactly what happens and what their actions were to cause a situation to occur. So it’s not quite the same as not learning from general history, at least in my opinion 🙂
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Fahim Farook

"Parking" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28184712) is an interesting story about how a small incident can blow up to become a big issue due to egos, misunderstandings, and due to the opinions of others affecting our actions.

Maybe this is a (South) Asian thing, but I totally understand how the two characters came to be in the situation that they ended up in ...

A lot of us just rely way too much on what others think/say about us than just living life the way we want to.

#Movies #Tamil #Parking #RealLife
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@timrichards This particular post was inspired by a Malayalam movie named “A Ranjith Cinema”.
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Fahim Farook

I get so tired of movies where people know what happens (deja vu, time loop etc) and know that certain things will happen due to their actions and still do the same thing expecting to stop the events.

How does that make sense at all? If your actions cause a chain reaction, shouldn't you stop?

It's so annoying when they persist despite knowing what will happen instead of trying a different course of action ... Or not doing anything at all?

#Movies #Plot #Writing #DejaVu #TimeLoop
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Fahim Farook

Watching "Kho Gaye Hum Kahan" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15434074) I felt this strange sense of connection to both "Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara" and "Dil Chahta Hai" — it was almost like a journey across the years with different lives ...

KGHK brings home the fact how different things are in the digital age and how much things have changed since the other movies, which were like 10 years apart.

I was quite surprised to realize that it’s been 20+ years since “Dil Chahta Hai”. Where has all the time gone?

I liked the depiction of social media reliance in KGHK and how it probably is true for some and while I can understand the culture, I still feel like an outsider looking in on strange creatures 😛

What will it be like 10 years from now? Interesting to ponder ...

#Movies #Hindi #Bollywood #DigitalAge #Change
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I have interviewed 100s of candidates for software engineering positions.

I’ve done take-home tests, in person challenges, pair programming with the candidates.

All of them were awful experiences for me and especially for the candidate.

I can only think of a single instance where a code challenge exposed a poor software engineer and I could definitely have made the same assessment just by talking to them.

Lately I’ve stopped doing any software or mental puzzles.

I don’t do any of that when I interview designers or QA people or HR people, so why would I be particularly toxic towards software engineers during the hiring process?

Instead, I actually read their resumes (which is significantly quicker than doing interviews, asking them to repeat the same information), and then I ask them questions like:

- Where do you get your tech news?
- How do you learn about new technologies?
- What do you most appreciate in your coworkers today?
- What is a perfect workday like for you?

I specifically avoid trap-style questions like “what is your greatest weakness?” or “why are you leaving your current job?”

I recommend that you make a plan for what you want to learn about the candidate, e.g. “are they good at acquiring new skills?” or “do they share the same values as the team?” and then structure the interview around that.

Be a non-toxic manager. Make your company look good during the interview process. Get better candidates.

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Fahim Farook

"The Family Plan" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16431870) was much better than I expected 🙂

In fact, I think the only other Marky Mark movie that I enjoyed more than this was "The Big Hit" and that was way back in the 90s.

Mostly good fun, a few stupid bits, but overall good family entertainment!

#Movies #English #Hollywood #MarkWahlberg
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I’ve spent the past couple days battling with SwiftUI’s transferable protocol and ShareLink to export images to iMessage while retaining the gps data and I haven’t cracked it. Does anyone have experience with this?

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Fahim Farook

"Dhootha" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19868374) has an interesting concept but is marred by poor execution.

The characters over-explain everything and Naga Chaitanya has just one expression. I'm not sure he can make the main character believable ...

I'm still on the first episode and am on the fence about continuing, but I guess I’ll continue to watch just to see how the episode ends.

#TV #Telugu #Thriller #SuperNatural?
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Fahim Farook

"Candy Cane Lane" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21328106) is an OK enough Christmas movie, but I expected something special/magical from it.

Just didn't get that feeling. It was just a run-of-the-mill kind of story with a little bit of heartwarming family-stuff thrown in.

Just didn't have that “something” which makes you care about the characters …

#Movies #English #Christmas #CandyCaneLane #EddieMurphy
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Fahim Farook

"Label" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt25965602) continues to impress with each episode. The story is interesting, has at least one poignant moment in each episode that also makes you think about people in general, and has interesting twists.

Well worth watching ...

#TV #Tamil #Legal #Gangster #Label
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@sideshow_boz I use the Xcode one — generally for the same snippets that I can’t bother to remember, over and over again 😛

“Why waste memory loading a third-party app if the built-in one does the job for you?” is my motto.
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@sideshow_boz @flanker Sure thing 🙂

Just providing a bit of additional info since I did this for several collaborative projects where people were submitting PRs (and definitely not trying to be nitpicky 😛) …

I generally create a sample.xcconfig or template.xcconfig file and put the placeholders in that and commit that. But I add the real ones (debug.xcconfig and/or release.xcconfig) to the .gitignore file so that they don’t get committed to the repo.

Then, in my instructions I tell people to copy the template file to the real version and add their own info.

That way, all they have to do is clone the repo, create the xcconfig files once and they are set. All their PRs and commits don’t mess up your set up and vice versa 🙂
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@sideshow_boz @flanker Or, you can add an xcconfig file to the project to hold the team ID and a few other details. I find that option easier (if set up properly and documented). Details here:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/adding-a-build-configuration-file-to-your-project

This repo has an example showing how it works:
https://github.com/huggingface/swift-coreml-diffusers

I was going to suggest this for Chinotto but then got busy 🙂

It makes it so much easier to keep a repo in sync with your own changes because the Xcode project itself doesn’t get changed and all you have to do is not commit *your* xcconfig to the repo …
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Fahim Farook

Exchange from "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters":

"Cryptozoologist, what's that?"

"He studies animals that don't exist."

If he studies animals that don't exist, isn't the correct term "hallucinating"? 😛

I believe it's more correct to say that he studies animals that aren't yet proven to exist?

#TV #Monarch
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Fahim Farook

"Kannur Squad" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt25274786) is a good movie — part police procedural and part road trip across India ...

Not a lot of one-man-against-20 "heroism" (except towards the end) but a more accurate and realistic depiction of police work than is usual.

So many small touches like the initial case to introduce the team, the individual personal stories, the bureaucratic hassles you would have to face in day-to-day police life (which is never shown in the more “hero”-oriented stories) etc …

Well worth watching.

#Movies #Malayalam #PoliceProcedural #AcrossIndia
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