atharva's internet place

The best kind of advice I have received in my life is so obvious that it feels stupid to say it out loud. Advice like this is often ridiculed online for being simplistic (and thus useless). I used to share this sentiment. But I don't anymore.

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In memoriam of the year that won't exist anymore.

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It was value education period (shortened to V. Ed.), sixth grade. The format deviated from the usual years where a teacher would be assigned to make us open our V. Ed. books to imbibe ourselves with holistic values to become good citizens.

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Programming language discourse is silly. It gives the impression that the language you use is the one important parameter with all the leverage when most people are working with hundreds or thousands of parameters. The art of software design is a quest to make robust analogies that transcend computation substrates and specific technologies.

With that in mind, here's some stupid programming language discourse.

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A Pattern Language is a beautiful tome on architecture and urban design that I found in my company's physical library. It had a pale yellow minimalist cover, a small form, and some blotchy typography accompanied by evocative photographs and lively doodles explaining the essence of its ideas. I always judge a book by its cover. How was I not going to borrow this book.

Cover of A Pattern Language

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These days I derive little joy from my possessions of necessity. Knowledge workers, over the last couple of decades, have traded the engagement of our senses for an upgrade in flexibility. I shall elaborate.

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There's a pattern of things I predictably like—which I shall now call “just the right amount of unpleasant”. Some examples to follow.

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Is art paintings, sculpture, architecture, theatre, dance, film, poetry, literature, craft and criticism? It's hard to describe it in concretions. Sometimes concretions aren't enough. Let me try something more abstract—to me, good art is powerful compression.

The human condition is vast and complex, the only way to not be overwhelmed is to compress and compress more.

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This is lifted from my old blog that's not around anymore (with some light edits). My default mental state is no longer weirdly existential. Although it's been a while since I've played some games in my head.


It's the weekend. I sit back on my revolving chair and make my way down each layer of mortal, material thoughts to my default state of being weirdly existential. At this point, a thought appears.

Remember what it was like when you were a child?

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This is lifted and reposted from my old blog that's not up anymore. I don't use twitter/X/whatever anymore. Now for the post.


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The Ethical Algorithm by Michael Kearns and Aaron Roth is a thought-provoking book that touches upon how algorithms are shaping society. I expected it to be a bit like Netflix's The Social Dilemma, that is, a giant red flag of how the age of algorithms is ruining society. Instead, I got a forward thinking book that's full of practical ideas, many that can be (and are) applied right now. Refreshingly, the explanations are crisp, and the authors don't assume prior knowledge in either computer science, statistics or ethics. It's definitely worth reading to help understand the technological crossroads our society is in.

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