Abhrajyoti Chakraborty

Essays in @NewYorker @NYTMag @nytimesbooks @guardian @Hazlitt @thenation @newrepublic / fiction @IowaWritersWksp

[Abhrajyoti Chakraborty @avroch]

Irrfan Khan died exactly two years ago today. I think about him every day. I went long for @Hazlitt on my obsession with Khan, what it was like to grow up watching him on screens in India and the US. These are a fan’s furtive notes, written over years https://t.co/peUw68GmMB

[The Pragmatic Engineer @Pragmatic_Eng]

Devs will “cash in” AI gains as time. Dax Raad(@thdxr), creator of OpenCode, on the incentive problem most companies are ignoring:

“We forget how big the software engineering industry is. Every company in the world employs software engineers to some degree.

The majority of these environments aren't like the most motivating, exciting environments. Most people there are trying to do their job, go home to their kids, have a reasonable life.

You give them a button that lets them do their work faster. The natural place for them to go is to hit that button as much as possible, do the same amount of work and just cash in that extra time, right? Which makes total sense.

If you have no reason to be above and beyond motivated, you're not going to really use that to push your organization harder. Yeah, these tools may make you more productive, but be really realistic about your employees. Where are they going to cash in those gains?

Obviously some companies are not like that. Employees are motivated. They have good reason to be. They're compensated in a way that makes sense, but most places aren't like that.

The problem with that is usually in those environments there will be a couple people that are irrationally motivated because they love the work they do, et cetera, even though the rest of the company isn't as motivated.

They're usually the ones that are trying to make sure everything is good quality, trying to push everyone to try harder. They're all now overwhelmed by slop PRs. And we've had a few people on our team that have joined and their previous company was like this. They were the person that still cared. The rest of the organization just hits the button and gets their tasks done and they're drowning in just garbage and they're getting burnt out and they're leaving.”

[Abhrajyoti Chakraborty @avroch]

Some thoughts on Ann Patchett's new novel WHISTLER for this week's @NewStatesman

[Abhrajyoti Chakraborty @avroch]

Link here: https://t.co/gPjBhEuRlc

[The New Statesman @NewStatesman]

THE RACE

Inside this week’s issue:

- Makerfield Days: @will___lloyd reports from the constituency

- Why Starmer failed: Wes Streeting speaks to @EthanCroft98

- Hockney: @AndrewMarr9 and Michael Prodger offer portraits of the artist

- Canterbury Tales: @GMonaghan1998 makes a pilgrimage

- @Rosiemillard writes the diary

- Left Hook: @OliDugmore takes on Elon Musk

- Abhrajyoti Chakraborty considers Ann Patchett

[Abhrajyoti Chakraborty @avroch]

Link here: https://t.co/gPjBhEuRlc

[Abhrajyoti Chakraborty @avroch]

Some thoughts on Ann Patchett's new novel WHISTLER for this week's @NewStatesman

[Abhrajyoti Chakraborty @avroch]

Some thoughts on novels, nations (and Naipaul) via Rahul Bhattacharya's interesting new novel Railsong for @ObserverUK

[Abhrajyoti Chakraborty @avroch]

Regarding Scorsese https://t.co/kv4bUNRO83

[Abhrajyoti Chakraborty @avroch]

@keshavaguha I feel like reviews have increasingly become a means to curry favours, either with the author or with the literary clique perceived to be backing them

[Abhrajyoti Chakraborty @avroch]

Please, dear lord, no more books and articles about "understanding AI"

[Abhrajyoti Chakraborty @avroch]

@johnpmerrick Really appalling

[Abhrajyoti Chakraborty @avroch]

@Celestemarcus3 Congratulations!

[Abhrajyoti Chakraborty @avroch]

@Powell_DA Also Tagore (though some years it falls on May 8th, depending on the Bengali calendar)

[Abhrajyoti Chakraborty @avroch]

HBD, Satyajit Ray! I'm going to post a few pieces I've written on him over the years. First up, this long one on the intricacies of his middle period and his stint in Hollywood https://t.co/Ei6ck5E5BJ

[Abhrajyoti Chakraborty @avroch]

@joybhattacharj https://t.co/4lBLdBj2YI

[Abhrajyoti Chakraborty @avroch]

HBD, Satyajit Ray! I'm going to post a few pieces I've written on him over the years. First up, this long one on the intricacies of his middle period and his stint in Hollywood https://t.co/Ei6ck5E5BJ

[Abhrajyoti Chakraborty @avroch]

And of course, this 2020 essay for @the_point_mag on Mrinal Sen, a contemporary of Ray, and their two diverging paths to becoming filmmakers in mid-century Calcutta (and India) https://t.co/Jety8cVTEo

[Abhrajyoti Chakraborty @avroch]

HBD, Satyajit Ray! I'm going to post a few pieces I've written on him over the years. First up, this long one on the intricacies of his middle period and his stint in Hollywood https://t.co/Ei6ck5E5BJ

[Abhrajyoti Chakraborty @avroch]

For @TheTLS I wrote on one of my favourite Ray films, NAYAK (THE HERO), and his tryst with matinee male superstardom https://t.co/no1DM12Bco

[Abhrajyoti Chakraborty @avroch]

The Indian actor Irrfan Khan died six years ago today. In 2022 I wrote this essay on my obsession with the man, an ode to growing up watching him onscreen at the turn of the millennium