Pilot

Its 3:30 AM here in Palakkad, Kerala. The "WHOLE" city is deep asleep. I can hear the mosquitos buzzing in the next room. Yeah, its that quiet in here. But I, I am fully awake.

So in this quiet times, I have decided to write a blog from now on, whenever sleeplessness troubles me. Why? Well, I happen to be a great fan of Sherlock (the sentence doesn't make any sense. YET. But read on , it would soon fulfil its existense), and I was watching its Pilot episode 'A Study In Pink' where Watson's psychiatrist suggests him that writing a blog would improve his condition. I am about to give it a shot too, though I am not a war-hero dealing with a post-traumatic stress. The problem is, I just can't sleep.

So, let's rewind the tape back 5 months, to know exactly how a guy like me (an insomniac), ended up in a city like this (early to bed and early to rise type). Well its answer also lies in my habbit of sleeping late. I guess it was mid of July, college was over. Final semester's results were out, and I was still UNEMPLOYED. Why? I didn't believe in theory, and my past interviewers didn't believe in practical questions. Moving on, so I was sitting in my room, going through some online job portals and also I was looking to resolve some programming doubts on stackoverflow. It is then, when I discovered that stackoverflow too had a job listings. I came across a startup on the listings with an open position for Software Engineer-I. Its reindeer logo was the thing that really got my attention. It symbolized FUN.

I was half asleep I guess, because what I did next was not how I dealt with job postings usually. I sent a 4-5 line response to the e-mail mentioned in the link, with this resume link attached. You should really see the resume on this link, to understand what I did.

The next morning I woke up to a realization of having done something stupid. But then I thought, whats the worst that could happen ? A "NO" ? Will do, I have heard that a couple of times before. But to my surprise I had a mail in inbox saying "Thats a really cool resume, let me know when we can talk". Well that mail really made my day. I had chat with the Founder of "Perleybrook Labs LLC", the startup. He presented me with a coding challenge, which I happily accepted (Now that was the kind of interview I had been waiting for). I completed the challenge, got an offer, was flown from Baroda, Gujarat to Palakkad, Kerala at company's cost (First time I was having an airborne voyage, and it was free :D), had a great time, accepted the job offer, and now here I am (in Palakkad) writing this blog.

To the Sleeplessness responsible for some great times and this awesome job :D !!!

Simplicity

Finally, I have managed to redesign the blog. Somethings still need a final stroke but that can wait for a while. Now its time to share my thoughts on the new design.

Looking at the old design, the default design provided by Octopress, I felt a need to simlify it. There were many angles for simplification. The sidebar was a nice feature but it seemed like bit of a distraction when I tried to read the post from a reader's perspective. There was no "About" section in the navigation bar, its important to introduce ourselves to the readers to establish a connection. The Twitter section was not showing the latest tweets, instead it was just showing the 'Status updating...' view.

"Simplicity is the ultimate Sophistication" _{- Leonardo da Vinci}

So, in quest of simplifying the blog I followed the guidelines mentioned in the video below. It is from Apple's WWDC 2013 Keynote event. And it packs the best ideas on design you may ever hear or see, and that too in a short span of under 2 minutes.

See, I told you. The video is as amazing as their products are.

So, back to redesigning. I cloned the 'BlogTheme' theme. Started breaking Octopress down, understanding what each file did and what needed to be modified to achieve further minor modifications that the theme needed, to achieve my objective, 'Simplicity' indeed. But the fun part is, to display the posts the way I wanted, I had to deal with complexity of Octopress. It was more complex than I imagined. But let me not bore you with its complexity because as they say "A clockwork loses its lustre once one glimpses the gears beneath its face". But let me also tell you this, once the blog looked the way I wanted, no matter how small modifications I made to achieve it, knowing 'How things Work' and then 'Make it Work' made me really happy.

Now take a good look at the blog. The background is clear white, the fonts are black, Title and navigation turn red when you hover mouse over them (quit doing it again and again they might get red hot angry), bad joke, still moving on. Did you notice the post content is now justified. Its symmetry adds up to the blog's beauty. At the end of each post you will be able to see the categories the post belongs to. Clicking a certain category will display all the posts belonging to that category. There is nothing fancy or extraordinary styling to the blog and still it looks NEAT. Its the typography thats making it neat.

"Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away"

I hope you liked the new design and the new reading experience.

CG-2092

As of this hour I have completed reading Dan Brown's latest novel Inferno. I almost read remaining two-third of the book today, enjoyed it, visualized it, lived it inside my head. There cannot be a better way to start a New Year, feeding my imagintion with INFERNO, a happy meal indeed. This novel like most of Dan Brown's prior novels, presents as its main character, Robert Langdon, the Harvard symobologist.

The fun with reading Dan's novels is the way he writes them, with perfect blend of reality and imagination. I could clearly visualize the novel as a movie while I was reading it. Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon, Natallie Portman as Sienna Brooks, Hugo Weaving as Bertrand Zobrist (Straight from 'V for Vendetta', a chaotic Hero), Judi Dench as Sinskey, Tom Cruise as Provost. The novel also introduced me to some new terms like vector viruses, transhumanism and few other interesting terms which I am going to google extensively to learn about them.

Inferno also revolves around the true villain of population explosoin and how a 'mad' scientist goes around approaching this problem. The novel presents us with so much of valid facts and some of them being really thought provoking, is a real treat to readers in itself.

As of the title of this post, it is the way in which believers of transhumanism philosophy create code-names from themselves. Transhumanism is the belief or theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, especially by means of science and technology. You should read the novel to dive in further, not only this one, but each of Dan Brown's novels if you haven't read them.

While reading the novel I also thought for some part, that the novel would follow the pattern of Dan Brown's prior novels, I almost even believed it for an hour of reading, and then was thrilled when I was proved wrong. A masterpiece. If you have read his novels, I hope you know what pattern I am talking about. I would rate this one as second favourite work of Dan Brown, "The lost Symbol" still remains my favourite.

Wish you guys a Happy New Year and may you find what you are looking for this year. I end this post with a fitting quote from Inferno

Seek and ye shall find.

Rainy Winters

I am sitting at my desk. Its 2:30 AM on 22nd January. Its officially winter here in Vadodara, and it is also raining cats and dogs with loud thunders. Expereincing best of both Winter and Monsoon, a better weather could not be asked for. I reached Vadodara on 10th Januray from Palakkad, on a leave to celebrate the Kite Festival, the only festival I celebrate, was planning to get back to Palakkad by 20th but luckily (as I always am), I got an extension. I am allowed to stay home till 2nd of February and work from the most comfortable spot on the planet, HOME.

I reached here on 10th, and was welcomed by the cold weather that I longed for. The Southern states are cold defficient, so these were the only days I could enjoy winters, here at home in Vadodara. Things haven't changed here much, its same old same old. As always I went to my Aunt's home to celebrate the Kite Festival along with bunch of visiting relatives. While celebrating festivals its always more the merrier, and so it was indeed. Enjoyed flying kites this time more than ever. After a long long time, the weather was perfect on 14th as well as on 15th for flying kites. Even the freaking direction of the wind was perfect. At night we flew lanterns. The sky was decorated with so many lanterns and crackers that one could gaze at it for hours, it was just awesome. To sum it up, I spent 14th and 15th flying kites, eating sweets, playing cards, flying lanterns, watching the night sky filled with lanterns and crackers and forgot to capture those moments in camera cause I was busy enjoying. I also cut loose all the connections to exteriror world for those 2 days, no internet no phone, and those were the best 2 days since I got here.

After an awesome Kite festival it was time to visit the Baroda Museum. One shouldn't miss this place while visiting the city. I refreshed my memory with all the artificats, scluptures and paintings in the museum. I also got to know that MS University here offers a course in "Renaissance Art", and the students are allowed to recreate the paintings in museum as an exercise. I am tempted to join that course, or atleast learn some of that, lets see what happens. The leave has ended as of 20th, and work has been started at full fledge. The visiting relatives have all left for their homes. Home feels a little empty now, but again thats perfect for work. Theres a different kind of freedom whilst working from home. And as I am visiting home for a short span, the royal treatment is quite pleasing.

Coming back home after 4 months, I realized that I have lost contact with few friends, increased contacts with few, and few others have left the country. I will be making ammends soon. Too many places are yet remaining to be visited here, and I plan to cross them all till 2nd. Leaving THE CITY is going to be much harder this time than ever before due to the weather, friends, home and the way the laundry here gets done by itself without my indulgence.

Its going to be LEGEN...'wait till 2nd of Feb'...DARY...LEGENDARY

Eleutheromania

Eleutheromania, an intense and irresistible desire for freedom. Its late night on Sunday now, end of weekends, most of which I spent on coding competitions on Hackerearth making it to 17^th position in the first one and 5^th position in second one. I missed 1st position in the first one by 0.5 points and a chance to win an I-Pad due to my lazines. Lesson learnt. Never back down.

But this post is not about the weekend, its about this week that started with me leaving home, dear home, on Sunday morning at 1:30 AM and landing in Coimbature and enroute to Palakkad, back again at the rented house, preparing for full fledge work from Monday. I have never in my whole life missed home or my city so much. It kind of felt unlike me for a moment. Now back to present scenario. Since we bought table and chairs at the rented place it now seems a little bit more livable. It feeds my fuel to stay awake at night, and also helps me stay in touch with my hobby of drawing, whenever I feel like it. After you have spent 3-4 months sitting on mattresses to do stuff, you really begin to value the comfort of something as basic as table and chairs.

This week I have probably seen and reseen more awesome stuff than few other weeks. I have watched some amazing movies like Rush, Lone Survivor & Ted. I wonder why Rush didn't win any awards, it was the best movie of 2013 if you ask me. I came across some good stuff on drawing & algorithms, been going through it all week. But the best part was watching Facebook Stories. Things like this make me wonder how technology is changing lives out there, how amazing experiences are being had by people, life changing experiences in some cases, through facebook. After watching this you might realize that you have underestimated the goodness of Internet & Facebook. Another thing that had my attention this week was "Flappy Bird", its incredibly simple yet unbelievably addictive mobile game. My highscore is 61. The game is kind of an enjoyable frustration.

Now to the part where I conclude the title, Eleutheromania. This week I realized that no matter how many mistakes I made, how many exams I failed, or how many wrong turns I took, I always ended up in situations that were in some way or other better than what I had pictured them. I also have observed it in other people's lives, the same thing; the less you worry, the more you live. This feeling provokes me to make more mistakes, let go of everything for atleast an year and do whatever I feel like, and see how I survive the year and its aftermath. I am not sure if I am brave enough to do it, but lets see what happens, you never know. And as of now I have a new goal. "To leave a mark on the sands of time rather than being just another breath on the mirror, disappered and forgotten."

Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is - everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it.   _{- Steve Jobs}

Code Test

    #include <stdio.h>
    
    int main()
    {
        printf("Hello World\n");
        return 0;
    }