Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

Travel can be a pain for women because there are enough idiots in the world who will take the opportunity of a woman seated next to them to make them miserable for the entire flight by making unwelcome advances etc. IndiGo recently launched a program to try to address this issue. If the ticket is being booked for a female passenger then the system will show them the seats that are already occupied by women. This allows the passenger to book a seat that is next to a lady passenger. I first noticed this when I was checking in Jani for her flight. The below screenshot shows what it looks like:

Female Friendly seat selection option

I think this is a good move but as with all things there is an easy way to game the system so men can ensure they are seated next to a lady. Basically, I need to open two windows. In one window I would search for a flight ticket pretending to be a lady passenger. Since the payment is not required till after we do a seat selection I get to see which seats are occupied by women. Then I cancel the process and start a fresh one with the actual passenger details picking a seat next to a lady.

There is no easy way to detect and block this. One option would be to allow the seat selection only after making the payment for the ticket but that would mean folks would have to make a second payment for the seat selection as most of the options are paid ones, which would not be a user friendly experience.

Even with that, this is a good move and should help make the flights more comfortable for women.

Source: NDTV: IndiGo Launches Female-Friendly Seat Selection Option. Here’s What It Means

– Suramya

As folks who know me know I read a lot of books. To give you an idea of what I mean by that, I read 209 books in 2023 and my goal is to read 365 books in a year. In 2024 I have read 99 books so far. (I am way behind in my reading this year due to various reasons)

A little while ago folks in my apartment complex started a book club and I was invited to join since I read a lot. Book clubs are interesting but I never saw the appeal because of multiple reasons. First, I read fast enough that by the time others in the club would finish a book I would be in my 4th or 5th one. The second issue is that I don’t particularly like dissecting a book and look for hidden meanings or life lessons etc in it. Lastly, in a lot of these clubs they seem to be more interested in hanging out/gossiping rather than book readings.

I have no issues discussing books but doing it in a structured way takes the fun out of it. Also not a lot of folks read the kind of books I do so that’s another issue I face. In the next meeting over here someone is actually preparing a presentation on the 3 Body problem and that just sounds like work to me. Personally when I meet with like minded folks I exchange book recommendations rather than the content of the books. That could also be because I mostly read fiction whereas a large majority of folks who are part of these clubs seem to prefer non-fiction books that can actually be dissected and have a lot of data to discuss.

As I mentioned in a previous post I have never been a part of any of the fandoms and I am glad that I didn’t. The issue with discussing books is that folks get too invested in it and that just takes the fun out of it.

However, all that being said I am glad book clubs exist as they give a way for people to connect and learn about books they might find interesting. Anything that gets people more interested in reading is great in my mind.

– Suramya

Someone shared the image below and ever since I saw it I have been trying to figure out what the problem is. I think this is a very entitled take or someone who is suffering from the Main character syndrome (a term used to describe someone who often sees themselves as the main character in the story, and that everyone should cater to their whims)

Would you get angry if your kid was over at a friend’s house and their parents invited other adults over without checking with you?

This is a very common thing that happens all the time. When we were kids we would go over to a friends place and hang out. If the parents had folks over we would be asked to keep it down or go play outside. I see the same thing with my friend’s kids, the kids play separately and the adults hang out separately. If your kid is at my place and I am taking them over to someone else’s house without telling you then you have full right to get upset. However, if we are at home then you don’t have any right to restrict / control who I have over at *my* place. Who are you to require that I should get your permission to have friends over at my place? If there was a specific person who you don’t want interacting with your kid, you can request that I don’t call them over when your kid is there. However, end of the day it is still my decision to agree or disagree with your request.

‘Feeling Murderous’ because you didn’t get to control someone else’s life and friends is just silly. If you feel so strongly about this then you should get some help to figure out why this is the case because it is not healthy (in my opinion).

Or it could just be that they are worried that their kid will interact with other ‘normal’ adults and realize that what their parent is putting them through is not normal behavior. Another possibility is that the kid is getting abused and they don’t want them telling an adult about it.

Whatever the reason behind the ranting, I feel bad for this person’s kids. Hope they stay safe and are able to get away from such a control-freak.

What do you think? Am I misreading the situation and do you think this kind of demand makes sense?

– Suramya

It is human nature to compare yourself to others even though it might not be the best idea, especially if you are in a relationship. People compare themselves to their partner’s ex’s and the time and I personally don’t understand why you would do that but that is just me. I mean there is a reason their ex is the ex rather than the current boyfriend/girlfriend. If your partner really liked their ex better they wouldn’t have broken up with them in the first place.

The following came up in my Mastodon feed and I am honestly flabbergasted. I don’t know what so say to someone whose entire sense of self worth is based on their Leetcode score of all things?? Seriously? This guy needs to go to therapy to understand why their worth is not linked to their score on an online platform.

“I am jealous of my girlfriend’s ex because he is better at Leetcode than me”

This might sound silly and something we can laugh about & ignore but there are larger implications of this kind of thinking. This person’s entire self-worth is based on their score, so what do you think they will do at work if someone is hired who is a better programmer than they are? They will gate-keep and block that person from performing their work efficiently. If they are in a position where they can impact hiring decisions it is quite possible they would attempt to prevent people who are better than them from getting hired in the first place. In open source communities these kind of folks will prevent new people from joining the project because the new joiner might be better than them at coding. Instead of learning from the new person they would create walls and gates to prevent folks better than them from joining.

Unfortunately for them and the projects they are part of, most people would be better than them in coding because a person with this kind of mentality is not someone open to learning new things and better ways of doing stuff. They would be stuck in their ‘idea’ world’ where they are the best and that is not a recipe to improve. As the famous quote goes “If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room“.

Long story short, you need to stop comparing yourself to others. Of course it is good to have healthy competition but feeling like a looser because your Leetcode score is lower is just plain silly.

What do you think?

– Suramya