Blog
The Crooked Timber Of New India
I stumbled upon a YouTube video featuring Mr. Parakala Prabhakar, interviewed by few of the last esteemed journalists left in our country today: Mr. Karan Thapar. The discussion delved into the current state of politics, economy and social fabric of our country. Mr. Parakala Prabhakar is a political activist, economist, scholar, and author. Parakala, if you are unaware, is also the husband of the current Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman. This adds an intriguing level to this discussion.
April 24, 2024
Letters From A Stoic
This post contains letters from Seneca, a Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, and my thoughts on his philosophy. What is Stoicism? Stoics identified the path to achieving it [ good spirit ] with a life spent practicing the four virtues in everyday life: wisdom, courage, temperance or moderation, and justice, and living in accordance with nature. 1 Letter II Seneca’s second letter is addressed to Lucilius, emphasising significance of settling one’s self and deriving joy from solitude.
April 19, 2024
Two Phones, Too Much?
When I was starting out as a working professional two years ago, I made a pivotal decision that would redefine the way I interact with technologies. As a privacy advocate and free software enthusiast, my aim was to reduce my reliance on Google Services and other non-free software. This decision propelled me to carry two phones to compartmentalize my online activity. My primary phone is a Xiaomi Redmi Note 8, running LineageOS 18.
April 13, 2024
Coffee Can Investing - A Review
‘The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago; the second best time is now.’ I strongly beleive in the eight wonder of the world. It may be common sensical for someone with good discipline, patience, and consistency that the secret lies in waiting for the magic to unfold. The only way, my friend is paying the price: Time This magical reminder comes in a form of a book: Coffee Can Investing by Saurab Mukherjea and his team, that have created a roadmap that captures the common pitfalls of a common retail investor.
April 6, 2024
Integrate Umami on your Hugo Site
I always sought after an open-source solution for web analytics primarily to track visitor counts on my site. While I used Google Analytics for a few months due to its seamless integration with Hugo, it was without a doubt contradicting to my ethical principles. So starting today, this site will be using umami1 for web analytics. I opted umami because it is open-source, privacy-focused and the setup takes less than 10 minutes!
April 4, 2024
Bangalore Weather is Changing
Bengaluru is like a dear friend who gets along really well with anyone. She’s known for her pleasant nature, creative mind, love for greens and hanging out with people of diverse backgrounds. As someone who has lived with Bengaluru, like many of us, who deeply value the essence of her character, I would reject the idea if someone told me our beloved city could a face water crisis or reach a scorching high temperature of 37 degrees this summer.
April 3, 2024
Dune: Part Two - A Review
🚫 Spoiler Alert: reader discretion is advised for those who haven’t seen the film. SILENCE. * The Lisan al Gaib speaks * There is so much to say about Dune: a sci-fi marvel that exceeds expectations. On my first viewing of Dune Part One, it lacked the spice. But months later after revisiting the film, I found myself pleasantly surprised by the depth of the story. This led me to watch Dune: Part Two on the big screen.
April 2, 2024
xz has a secret backdoor
I already made a blog post on archiving files using tar that covered gzip, a utility tool to archive files with compression. In the same way, xz utils is an open-source lossless data compression tool primarily focused on the .xz file format, suitable for archiving large amount of data. Lately xz has been a victim to a highly sophisticated attack aimed at injecting a secret backdoor, that resulted in compromise of numerous distributions such as Debian, Kali, and openSUSE.
April 2, 2024
Facebook Intercepts Web Traffic
In a newly disclosed court document,1 it was revealed that Facebook launched a secretive initiative called GhostBusters in the late 2010s, which could intercept and decrypt the network traffic between people using Snapchat’s app and its servers. This enabled them to maintain a competitive advantage over other platforms, primarily Snapchat, later followed with Youtube and Amazon. How did they do this? In early 2010s, Facebook acquired Onavo, an Israeli-based VPN service and mobile data analytics company known for data compression technology.
March 28, 2024
Parsing Configuration files in Python
Introduction configparser 1 is a module that provides functionality for working with config files in a standardized format. Although storing configurations in formats like JSON, Yaml/Toml, environment variables or a database exists, configparser stands out to me as a pythonic approach, as it promotes simplicity and reduces dependencies. Quick Start Let’s take a very basic configuration file: [DEFAULT] ; this is a comment user_name = super-user passwd = secure-pass [DATABASE] host = localhost port = 5432 database = mydb [Logging] ; Logging configuration log_level = INFO log_file = /var/log/my_python_app.
March 27, 2024
An Empire of Hell
All the world’s a digital stage, and all the men and women merely scrollin’ – with no exits, their entrance is a screen – a portal to their unseen dreams. broken and broke. impulse and hope-less. a double-edged sword. swallow whole pleasure and pain. one man at their time plays many parts of ruin. His acts being seven gigs of your intimate data. first phase of his playbook – lure you in.
March 22, 2024
Indus App Store
Phonepe launched Indus App Store as an alternative to the Google Play Store. I wouldn’t call it a revolutionary product per se, as phone manufacturers already bundle their own app stores on their phones. It is good news for developers though, as there is 0% commission on in-app subscriptions and low fees in comparison to the Google Play Store. As a consumer, to use Indus App Store since it is a “Make in India” product does not cut it for me.
March 3, 2024
Sphinx Setup Guide
Sphinx is a powerful tool to create beautiful documentation by converting plain text source files into various output formats, like HTML, PDFs, LateX. Sphinx uses the reStructuredText markup language by default, and can read MyST markdown via third-party extensions. Both of these are powerful and straightforward to use, and have functionality for complex documentation and publishing workflows. They both build upon Docutils to parse and write documents. Prerequisites Python 3.8 or later.
March 1, 2024
Stop Using Whatsapp
It’s disheartening to go against what is a lost cause. To tell someone to stop using whatsapp in India is like ripping off their right to communicate freely. Nobody cares about privacy around here. If someone likes me tells them their favorite messaging app is invasive, they tend to prompt questions that imply I may have something to hide. Well in truth, Whatsapp is a closed-source, zuckbook-backed, data-mining company, which in many ways is compromised.
February 18, 2024
Apple Vision Pro is Trash
Have you ever had of something called a Bad Apple? Well you might be amazed to hear that all the normies have assembled together again to admire a new addition to their walled-garden, The all new VR Headset, or as apple likes to call it their first “spatial computer” This device is supposed to be put on your head so that you seamlessly switch between the physical and digital world.
February 5, 2024
12th Fail
It is not your typical underdog story where the protagonist goes from poverty to prosperity. 12th fail is an inspiring take on hope, determination, honesty and failure. Contrary to many other bollywood biographies, lack of a traditional villain in this story is a bold move. This made it all the more intriguing. Moreover VVC captures the universal struggle of truth and empathy, creating a narrative that resonates deeply with the audience and effortlessly brings tears to the surface.
January 14, 2024
Best Films - 2023
these are my favorite films of 2023. of course, there are better films i have missed. do let me know if any. English/Foreign Barbenheimer Two films that are a phenomenon in itself - Greta Gerwig’s hysterical comedy and Nolan’s Atomic Bomb. My favorites this year. Killers Of The Flower Moon An epic about Osage killings. Killers Of The Flower Moon is a good Western with fine storytelling; the kind you expect from a Scorcese film.
December 21, 2023
Django Project Structure
I love the Python Programming Language, and its most popular Web Framework - Django. In fact I love it so much that it is reflected in my pseudonym. I am no expert django dev, however I understand the design. this blog post unravels the intricacies of Django’s structural design. Design Django follows a Model-View-Template (MVT) architectural design pattern. Model: Defines the data structure of the application. Models are used to interact with the database.
December 16, 2023
Archiving Files Using Tar
I like archiving files and directories, mostly due to local storage constraints. Creating backups of files and saving them in tarballs or 7zips has become second nature to me. However I have realized I have been doing it wrong all along. I’ve predominantly relied on GUI methods, only to discover that the command line method is so straightforward that even a caveman could do it. This is a short note for me, and for you in case you would want to compress or extract archived files using the command line.
November 9, 2023
70 Hours per Week
Infosys founder Narayana Murthy recently said that, young Indians must work 70 hours a week. – a phenomenal recommendation from a prominent capitalist. I respect his achievements but a statement like this makes me want to question his intelligence or, take any of these wise old men seriously. His idea is if you want India to realize its economic potential every young Indian must say: “This is my country. I want to work 70 hours a week.
November 1, 2023
In Support for Palestine
All the big news organizations are known for manipulating facts and having biased opinions. If you think there are not taking a side, you are overly optimistic. Moreover, relying on a for-profit major news organizations is akin to burying one’s head in the sand and trusting whatever information comes along. It is a no-brainer. Their support for Israel makes it even more clear of their ignorance. More civilians are killed by Israel and they will never show you that.
October 20, 2023
The Story Of My Experiments With Truth
In hindsight it might seem like we are not affected by history, however, for the most part we are. Take a currency note for instance. Did you ever reflect on the man behind the note? His truths, legacy, philosophy, or principles for that matter, that left an indelible mark on our history. Today, I want to share my review on Gandhi’s biography, “The Story Of My Experiments With Truth”. There are 5 parts in his book, and I will go over all the key learnings from the Mahatma himself.
October 1, 2023
custom domain for github pages
There are far more problems in the world than setting up a custom domain. it’s ridiculous how a simple thing is made so complicated that any new user would break their head trying to make it work. in this blog, i will share how to set up a custom domain using github pages. i already had github pages1 set up, and i bought a domain from hostinger. if you haven’t purchased a domain, you can get it here, and if you are lazy to create a static page on your own, you can use one of these templates.
September 26, 2023
mpv scripts
in this blog, i will share a list of no-nonense scripts for mpv. if you are not using mpv, and using something else – here are few reasons why you must consider it: lightweight customizable with scripting support relatively easy to setup and use faster than vlc Scripts1. mpv chapters1 Display chapters and allow you to jump to them with a mouse click. as easy as saving the file in your scripts/ folder.
September 18, 2023
jawan - a review
last thursday, i went to watch the socio-political action thriller, “Jawan”. there were two compelling reasons i couldn’t afford to miss this film: first, my unwavering admiration for the superstar Shah Rukh Khan, and second, my curiosity about the unique mummified look that had been teased. apart from this, there was the film’s antagonist played by our very own Makkal Selvan, whose outstanding portrayal of “Michael Vedanayagam” in the web series Farzi had left a lasting impression on me.
September 14, 2023
solving captchas
solving captcha programatically is a pain. me and this other dude at work took about two weeks to solve version 2 of google recaptcha which we learned later, was an enterprise versioned captcha. i did not understand what that meant, until i read between the lines of the docs. this blog is a simple sidenote on how to solve recaptcha (v2) with 2captcha API. you can read the docs, which btw, is amazing.
September 10, 2023
first blog
in the vast expanse of the internet, i have constructed a small place of my own – a webpage, with a philosophy of its own. so if you don’t know me, let me tell you, i like simple stuff. and strangely enough i chose not to make this site super responsive with a shit-load of javascript. oh yes, if you have not guessed it already, i used a static site generator for this page.
September 4, 2023