Author Archives: paragkalra

Dealing with leaking showerheads

I still remember the day when my bath shower started continuously leaking the water and turning the handle won’t do anything. I was a new home owner and kinda freaked out. The thing which annoyed me the most was that I couldn’t see water getting wasted. Also closing the water supply until some contractor came to fix it seemed daunting as sometimes it may take a few days for a contractor to show up.

However over the years, I have learned a few tricks to deal with a leaking shower head. This strategy doesn’t waste water and also doesn’t require me to turn off the water supply.

To begin with every time you have a leaking showerhead, chances are that the cartridge sitting inside the shower handle needs to be replaced.

But what if you don’t know how to open and replace the cartridge. Also, you don’t want to waste any water for hours or maybe days.

So here is what you can do to deal with a leaking showerhead as a temporary solution:

  1. Turn off the main water supply.
  2. Take off the showerhead.
  3. Measure the diameter of the pipe.
  4. Also note the brand of the shower handle which is not working. In my case, it was Moen as shown in the picture below:
  1. Head to Home Depot with your removed showerhead to purchase these things: water pipe cap or ball valve, tefton tape, wrench and a shower cartridge (optional).
  2. First get the water pipe cap which you will need to close the pipe where the showerhead is attached. I once made the mistake of getting a gas pipe cap instead of a water pipe cap so make sure you are getting the right one. Also if you are not sure about the diameter of the cap then just grab a small pipe at Home Depot and test if it fits into your showerhead which you must have brought with you. And then test if the cap also manages to close the same sample pipe.
  3. Alternatively you can get a ball valve instead of a water pipe cap. The advantage is that with the ball valve, you can still use the showerhead by attaching it to the valve’s head. And once done with the bath, you can turn off the knob to stop the water. Basically the knob on the ball valve acts as a temporary shower handle.
  4. You will also need a wrench and the tefton tape to create a secure seal while putting the pipe cap or the ball valve.
  5. Now at this point you may also decide to also shop the possible cartridges for your brand of shower handle. And I would highly recommend purchasing the cartridges too as contractors usually add a heavy markup to get the parts for you. Now if you are not sure which specific cartridge would go then just buy all the cartridge models matching your shower handle brand and then just return the unused ones after the fix. For my Moen shower handle, Moen Posi-Temp 1222 cartridge worked:
  1. Refer to YouTube to find countless videos on how to use tefton tape and wrench to close the water pipe using either the water pipe cap or the ball valve. Note: If your bathtub also has a spout (tap) then just pull the diverter to divert the flow of water towards the showerhead.

You are all set. You can now turn on the water supply while you wait for your contractor to arrive without wasting any more water.

Stock investing questions

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor and this is not investment advice.

I have made every possible mistake in the book when it comes to stock investing and in fact I still learn something new everytime I invest in a stock. So I thought I am creating my own set of rules purely for myself so that I can read, refine and repeat it from time to time as I learn new things. Most importantly, I want to have my own tried and tested framework for investing where my decisions are data/value driven and not out of emotion, speculation or FOMO.

My plan is to refer to these stock investing questions/rules aka cheat-sheet before any investment. Specifically, I want to call myself out if I am going against my own principles before any investment.

So let’s get down to business and here are some of the questions to ask before buying any stock according to me:

  1. Do I understand what the company does?
  2. Do I know if the Founder/CEO is a relentless executor?
  3. Is the company solving a hard and a unique problem and does it add value to your life?
  4. Do I use and love the product of the company or do I know others who are deeply and madly in love with its product?
  5. How difficult is it for the incumbents to buy/replace this company/product? This answer depends a lot upon the founder/CEOs execution and long-term vision.
  6. Will the company be still there after 10 years?
  7. Is it already or can it become a monopoly in 10 years?
  8. Can I hold the stock of this company for the next 10 years and ignore all the charts/volatility?
  9. How difficult is it to get hired by this company? In my case this is applicable because I am a Software Engineer and I mostly invest in tech stocks. And the best way to find this is to go and interview with the company.
  10. In these 10 years, can the company grow by 10x aka can they create a completely new market to dominate? For e.g, can a 100B dollar company become a Trillion dollar company in market cap or can a trillion dollar company become a two trillion dollar company?
  11. Am I buying at the peak of the market?
  12. Am I buying at an all-time high of this stock?
  13. If the stock has already fallen significantly from it’s all-time high then how low can it go?
  14. What is the true value of the stock and at what price am I willing to buy?
  15. Have I set up the LIMIT trigger for the price I am willing to pay? In other words I don’t want to manually buy the stock out of the blue or emotion/FOMO but instead use the machine to find and catch the dip at which I am willing to invest.

Regardless of whether you agree with my principles or not, I just want to say don’t get greedy or blind in FOMO, read some books on how to value companies/stocks, invest if you understand what you are buying and at what price you are buying, invest only the money you own and what you can afford to lose.

OMSCS mistakes and learnings

So I graduated from Georgia Tech in 2020 under the OMSCS program in Computer Science (Specialization: Computing Systems) while working full-time and seeing my newborns become toddlers. It was one of the most demanding and yet rewarding phases of my life. I made many mistakes and still learned a ton along the way. Most importantly, I survived and I got out. Thus I wanted to share my OMSCS learnings to help others avoid some of my mistakes. With that said, here are a few things you should or should not do in OMSCS:

  1. Your mileage may vary but for most of you if you have a family with kids and full-time job to take care of then never take more than one course.
  2. Go above and beyond to get an A in each of your OMSCS courses. Because once you start getting complacent with B, you may easily get a C and that will mess your overall GPA. 
  3. Don’t forget to make use of the grade calculator for each class. Nowadays all the OMSCS courses use Canvas but that was not the case for my first 5 courses. Canvas has an inbuilt calculator that lets you predict your final grade of your current class as you submit the assignments and receive the grades. So make use of that calculator and always make sure that you are on track to get an A.
  4. Don’t worry about getting the letter W on your transcript. If you are not confident that you will be able to get an A or if you have the slightest hint that you may not be able to do well in the current course then just drop it before the withdrawal deadline. Only side effect of that would be that it would leave a grade of W for that course on your transcript. But the good news is that it won’t impact your overall GPA.
  5. Don’t enroll in a course either because of its hype or some technology buzzword. Use OMSCentral and Reddit to research courses and to read the course reviews. Also, take courses by going from easier to harder instead of taking it randomly.
  6. Don’t forget to use the class support forums on a daily basis like Piazza and Slack (if available). Actively participate in these forums multiple times a day.
  7. Don’t begin a course without some prep work. Most OMSCS courses should list the syllabus along with the prerequisites and the required readings/books. Also, during my enrollment OMSCS course videos were available on Udacity. So if that is still the case then at least watch the lecture material before the course begins. That will also give you a hint if you will enjoy the course and whether or not you should take the course.
  8. Have a clear end goal in mind i.e in how many years you want to complete the program and which courses you want to take for your specialization. The longer you drag the more difficult it would get to reach the finishing line.

Go Jackets!

Recommended books

Here are some of the best books matching my interests which I would like to recommend. I have thoroughly enjoyed every book on this list and learned something profound from each one of them. Note that most of the below books were consumed in the form of audiobooks.

Also, the below list is sorted in the chronological order in which I have read these books and doesn’t rate or rank one book over the other. In my opinion, all the below books are equally good but your mileage may vary depending upon your interests.

  1. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
  2. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
  3. Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal by Nick Bilton
  4. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
  5. How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease
  6. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
  7. David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell
  8. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
  9. Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight
  10. Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
  11. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
  12. I Can’t Make This Up: Life Lessons
  13. American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road by Nick Bilton
  14. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
  15. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
  16. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
  17. Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
  18. Becoming by Michelle Obama
  19. Billion Dollar Whale
  20. A Short History of Nearly Everything
  21. Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
  22. Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know
  23. Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators
  24. Inside Out: A Memoir by Demi Moore
  25. The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company
  26. Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
  27. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb
  28. Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX by Eric Berger
  29. The Cult of We by Eliot Brown
  30. Play Nice But Win by Michael S. Dell and James Kaplan
  31. It’s About Damn Time by Arlan Hamilton and Rachel L. Nelson
  32. The Code Breaker – Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson
  33. Untamed by Glennon Doyle
  34. Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity by Frank Slootman
  35. Will by Will Smith
  36. The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness by Morgan Housel
  37. Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell
  38. Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing – A Memoir by Matthew Perry
  39. Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier by Kevin Kelly
  40. Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
  41. Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes by Morgan Housel