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Proof that AI is not ready? My dad gave up his GC this year and is going for an interview for a B-1 tourist visa for US next month. He was on GC for two years in which he came to usa for 60 days at a time. We decided it was never worth it for him to stay on GC (the pandemic changed all calculations). I asked Claude and Gemini the same question on a complex issue about his upcoming interview and his time as a GC. I was expecting similar answers from both – turns out they are so far apart from each other that I have no idea whom to trust anymore. Yeah, trust AI at your own peril 😀

To be fair, I find all paid AI tools like Claude/ChatGPT/Perplexity too expensive for me right now. Of course thanks to my company I have access to many internal or externally built models that I can use them for my specific use cases for free, so I do have that advantage. But even then, if I did not have access to these tools, I am not sure if I would be missing THAT much just yet.

Google Gemini is too expensive at 20 bucks a month to be useful to me. I tried it out for trip planning to Spain and it did a great job at it, and more and more I’ve been using it for search too, but it feels largely too much for 20 bucks. At 2.99 or 1.99 a month I would be subscribing to it as a no-brainer, but at 20 bucks, nah, I am ok putting a little extra effort in my google searches.

I can’t validate these numbers even though it was on TOI a few days ago that 15 years ago, Indians spent 17 million$ on international travel. Today it is 17 billion$. If its true (even if its off by few billions), its still staggering how much wealth has been generated. Of course not comparing to China because I am sure that same stat will be 20x India haha, but still focusing only on India still means that there is so much more disposable wealth than ever before now.

Shockingly enough I have taken only 2500 pictures in my entire vacation which seems….lower than I thought I had. Don’t mind it though – less photos to delete! That said this trip I felt I needed a separate camera / not because iPhone camera is not good, but the camera is such a battery drain that I would be almost out of charge by 3pm daily! It’s good that due to heat we would always be at hotel most of times but I did have to charge my phone at restaurant multiple times. I am thinking of looking into a small dedicated camera now.

The amount of fuck Israel signs and Palestinian flags we saw all around in Spain was truly remarkable. I did not know Spain officially recognized Palestine state in 2024. Well done. It was also so poetic to see all the fuck Israel signs on trash cans in barcelona – people knew their assignments 😆. Couple that with strong LGBTQ+ and trans rights, Spain literally is beautiful not just geographically but in hearts and minds. Truly special country.

I saw the finale of last of us season 2 on flight back and I do not regret not watching beyond episode 2. Felt absolutely insufferable and drab and nothing in story felt like it moved. Even the finale also I fast forwarded some parts. This show is so over at this point.

Dune part 1 has literally become my favorite in-flight movie. I saw the movie again flying in (and I have lost count of how many times I’ve watched it on flights now). Every fucking frame of this movie is a masterpiece. Not one second feels like it was wasted or not needed. Every frame is art. I don’t think Dune 2 came close to the absolute genius of Dune 1.

This time we really lucked out with Rover. Last two times we had folks over living at our place while we went on vacation and in the two years this has become very expensive and non-affordable anymore. So I reluctantly looked at Rover again and found an asian lady very close to our house. I did a trial night with her with my doggo as well as an initial visit with doggo to feel out the space. It was clear from get go that doggo was comfortable and happy. So we booked her for 2 and half weeks, and my god, my dog legit didn’t seem thrilled he was coming back with us! She is wonderful, and she kept doggo and others busy. Just based on how comfortable and happy doggo looked, this lady is a keeper! For my doggo to be so happy and almost unwilling to come back home after 2 and half weeks says a lot. Phew!