Its like a changelog, but for life, updated monthly
This month was mostly finishing current sem's assignments and giving practical examinations. Published 2 blog posts and currently working on several other drafts. Still waiting for MLH fellowship interview decision. The fellowship is starting on Jan 30. Just want to do an internship before graduating.
I finally received my MLH swag 😛
Started studying Data structures and algorithms. I am using the book "Introduction to Algorithms" by Thomas H. Cormen. I am also using the website visualgo to visualize the algorithms. and Leetcode to practice problems.
I am also building this browser based Coding environment as my final year project.
Currently reading Everybody writes by Ann handley and contagious by Jonah berger. On the non fiction side, I recently read Catcher in the Rye by JD salinger. I want to read all the famous classics. Books that are mostly in category of "Books that you read atleast once".
A random cat photo from reddit
This month was hectic than normal, lame college exams, no hackathons and general stress that I am about to graduate in about 6 months.
Some highlights:
As you can see on my github commit graph, I have not build something in a while. I do want to participate in more hackathons. I have some ideas which I will build in the coming months.
Improving communication(both written and spoken) by making youtube videos? I am not sure if this is a good idea. I will try to make a video every week. I will also try to write more blog posts.
Eliminating bad habits, incorporating good ones and building a solid morning routine with a focus on mindfullness. This feels quite hard but I am committed. Books like Unthered soul, living Untethered by Michael A singer and Miracle morning by Hal Elrod, slight edge by Jeff Olson are helping me a lot.
I will be looking into React Native(for building mobile apps), Machine learning, Typescript.
This month was a mix of Hometown vacation and start of my final year. Didnt get much time to create but spent good bunch of time thinking about life. I am going to graduate in a year.
Overall, I participated in 1 hackathons. Won best UI/UX prize
I took a writing and reading retreat for an entire week. Why? I was bit disappointed by my work and seeing no progress, I became a bit sad.
I often remind myself that it is due to taste gap
Also, I am seriously rethinking about redesigning my website.
Overall, I participated in 5 hackathons. Won in 2 of them.
Discover Music: A web application that allows users to discover music based on their favourite artists, tracks, genres or country.
Agro Alerts: easy to use dynamic website and a WhatsApp bot for getting weather information.
Rapyd Starliner: Payments Application utilizing Rapyd's virtual accounts API to accepts payments from Singaporean customers
MLH through time: A time machine disguised as a web app to explore the history of MLH and its website.
Population by pixel: Webapp to generate pixelated pictures of endangered and vulnerable animals. The more pixelated the image, the closer the animal is to extinction.
How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery by Ken ashton
I am still not finished yet, here are some of my favourite quotes from the book:
Work is the soul of creation. Work is getting up early and going home late, turning down dates and giving up weekends, writing and rewriting, reviewing and revising, rote and routine, staring down the doubt of the blank page, beginning when we do not know where to start, and not stopping when we cannot go on. It is not fun, romantic, or, most of the time, even interesting. If we want to create, we must, in the words of Paul Gallico, open our veins and bleed.
The only bad draft is the one we do not write
Nothing begins good, but everything good begins
I regularly read(ok Almost daily) Living Untethered and listen to Untethered soul(audiobook) by Michael A Singer
The Thumbnail you see for this blogpost is made by an AI :)
These images are just created using a text description 🤯. Made possible by Dall-e, It is a new AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language. I recently received a invite and have been playing with it since.
impressive isn't it?
I created some more images
A city on mars
superbike winning the race digital art
synthwave superbike
The more staraightforward the prompt, the more accurate the image it makes. Doesnt produce good results if you gave it vague prompts. It will be interesting to see how it will integrate with graphc design workflows.
My (stupid) End semester exams just finished today!. I will be starting my final year after this. (I am a CS student, I hate college tho)
This gave me a lot of time to think, to evaluate my motivations & mindset. I read heavily about mindfulness.
Instead of running in circles around project ideas and tutorial hell, I am now focused on building stuff and sharing it online. I just finished and submitted my project in my first hackathon as I write this.
How I am going to do this?
Earlier it was just me, working alone in an underground cave. This is no fun and definitely not sustainable. I can't build everything alone, I should be able to talk to people. That's what I am focused on now building stuff and documenting it, sharing it.
I joined a Gym: to do resistance training and also as a commitment for building an active lifestyle. Sitting in front of a screen most of the waking hours is definitely not healthy.
Building rad stuff for the web in form of hackathon projects, products and contributing to open source.
communicating more openly via this blog and other social channels
UI improvements to my website. Nothing major, just some minor thing that annoy me. My website follows form more than function.
perfecting my daily ritual: I will write about this in detail shortly
What I want to learn more about