I just ordered this book from Amazon: Man Swarm and the Killing of Wildlife. Can’t wait to read.

Found this book while surfing the web. The reviews on Amazon resonated loudly with my world view of 33 years of existence. I realized how much pride I take in not my life’s trivial achievements, but my ability to think about and understand the gravity of the overpopulation problem. It saddens me to no end that the reckless, parasitic growth of our race is eradicating wilderness and wildlife at a breakneck speed. It is shocking that our population grew more in the last 40 years than in the previous 3 million.

I know I can’t do much about it. I can’t defuse the population bomb and the calamity that is about to ensue. But I am awfully proud to make the most impact a single human can do, by staying childfree. This is the best decision of my life and I wake up full of energy every morning because of this. I am most thankful to my lovely wife for sticking with me on this “uncommon” life path. I wish more and more people like us would muster the courage to defy the endless societal brainwashing, and think harder before bringing new lives in this screwed up world. It is going to be nothing but a grueling existence for the poor souls.

Very recently I had long conversations with my sister and an old college buddy on my most favorite topic – being childfree by choice. Needless to say, I had to play defense all along. I just seem to enjoy it, since I have everything to gain and nothing to lose in our choice. It just bothers me to see smart people making this life choice mostly under the pressure of our child-obsessed society and trying to convince everyone that it is the most fulfilling “duty” in the whole world. Through our conversations I could sense regrets as well, when they both agreed that they could not enjoy the “me-time” anymore.

Just when I thought I was sick of the parental myth and bullshit, this fantastic post brightened up the day:
The Myth that Must DIE

No kids for us, thanks. We both worked very hard for the life we have now. I consider myself a lucky person to have a wife who cherishes her personal freedom, enjoys hiking the outdoors, and forever ready to take up an adventure together. Given the direction the global economy is heading, there is no way we could throw this life to the trash bin in one fell swoop. We would rather devote our free time in volunteer work, community projects like habitat for humanity, and helping people in need. There is so much to do and so little time. I think it is a great recipe for a simple, modest and an overall happy existence.

Reporting back after 3 weeks at my new job and doing a bit of retrospection. The December 2010 layoffs seem to be a distant past now, but the timing could not be any better. Given the industry standard of 2 days to accept or reject an offer, I could very well miss the chance to interview with Zoosk, had the timing been a little bit off. And that could be pretty bad, since as far as I can tell, my current job satisfies my laundry list of expectations quite well. Maybe more than well.

You see, when you live 50 miles from San Francisco, one of the world’s best cities, you should really visit it often. And just like I had a million excuses to not explore the NYC area in detail when I lived in Long Island for 2.5 years, I always found myself cringing to the thought of driving to San Francisco. The freeways are always crowded, parking in the city is a headache, and caltrain is not exactly cheap.

Now when the job is a SF based startup, you have no choice. Up at 6:45am, out the door at 7:45, take the 8:13 train from Sunnyvale, reach SF by 9:02, ride bike 2 miles and arrive at work by 9:30. So what did this make me ? A morning person with heightened value of time and appreciation of physical fitness. The migraine headache I used to suffer on most evenings are magically gone now. I have more stamina than before, more energy for work and more ideas of staying productive. Even weekends are no exception to the rule of waking up before 7.

Now let’s talk about work. Being one of 80 people and being one of 14000 is remarkably different. Like a family member vs just another Giants fan. Talk about fast decisions, the excitement of rolling out new products and seeing the company grow. 30 engineers getting solid work done every day. Streamlined agile process with zero overhead. No daily standup bullshit, no wasteful meetings. Stable test environments are a one-time setup. Code changes can be tested on browser within a few seconds. Meaningful unit tests, automated builds. It is almost like Joel Spolsky’s checklist followed by the book.

In short, end of 2010 was extraordinary and the turn of events could not be better. Thank you Yahoo, for this new lease of life at the start of the new decade.