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On a Serendipitious Journey

The internet is a world of information. In an age of information everything is but a google search away. Take the example of science. When I was studying, if my textbook said water froze at 0 degrees, we took at as the truth. We did not have a doubt. Today, the internet is a great doubt clearing machine and ever so often when the kids come up with a doubt, we google and get an answer (or sometimes more confused).

Apart from this, I am a huge fan of serendipity and believe it builds my divergent thinking muscle. The other day I was at an office and noticed a book called 'The Lego Architect' and bought it on Amazon. This book, while it is about Lego and architecture, taught me many words which I had no idea existed.

Brutalism, for example.
Leaded windows.
How does water behave at 0 degrees (trust me the answer will surprise you)
How to install CustomRom on a phone (yes, he got the bright idea that he can do it - luckily I dissuaded him).

We dismantled an old mechanical clock - it cannot be used now, so our first effort failed.
We dismantled a non functioning mosquito racket - we figured that a capacitor failed, but we don't know how to desolder a circuit (yes, we figured that too, but we are short of a soldering iron for now among other things).
We now have an old washing machine circuit that we have no idea what to do with...

And during my interviews I often ask people about something new they have learnt and use that as a source of serendipity as well...And it has resulted in books being bought, concepts being learnt and many more aha moments. 

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