log 5 = 0.6989

This is my fifth weekly log.

I am going to be travelling a lot this week. In fact, I am already travelling as I type this.

Caution: There is no code in this post and it mostly contains nostalgia. You might easily get bored.

Sister’s birthday

NH 44

Typing this from National Highway 44. Travelling to my place for attending couple of marriage functions. Fortunately, I got 3.33. It’s a class of public transport buses run by TNSTC. The idea behind it is it will take 3.33 hours for a trip from Bangalore to Salem and vice versa. Fun Fact: 3.33 buses have aeroplane stickers on them.

Marriage functions

Attended 2 marriage functions in one day! That’s huge. Because I rarely attend marriage functions these days.

At home

I came back to my home at Erode after months. I never thought that I would be caught up so much in other stuff, which restricts from visiting my place often. But that’s the way things are right now.

A evening view from the terrace of my home at Erode.

With lights on

Books on my way

I started to dig up a little at home to see if I could find some of my old books.

Bingo ! Found this under the bed.

The feel of discovering the book case is priceless.

I am going to introduce you to two of my favourite books, which were the first to convince me that programming is fun.

I happend to attend a computer class in the holidays that falls between schooling and college. Those days were really challenging and fun. I used to own a computer with 512MB RAM ( I guess ) running Windows XP. I installed Turbo C on it after much struggle. I did not have access to internet those days. I kind of liked keeping away from internet and sticking with the above two books and exploring the possibilities of C and C++

Those days remind me of Aaron’s words.

“If you have goals in life, you’re probably going to need some sort of organization. Even if it’s an organization of just you, it’s still helpful to think of it as a kind of machine. You don’t need to do every part of the process yourself — you just need to set up the machine so that the right outcomes happen.”

— Aaron Swartz ( Fix the machine, not the person )

I ran the perfect organisation with the right setup of machine.

Next up is a book that got me into web development and JavaScript.

It deals with a lot of important and basic concepts that made the web what it is today. HTTP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JSP, etc. It’s definitely one of my favourites and i would recommend to anyone who is interested in learning web development.

While leaving, I took some of the classics with me.

Train journey after years

It’s been years that I got an intercity train. I have used Bangalore metro trains once in a while after 2015. But this is the first time after 2015 that I took an intercity express train. I mostly slept and read a book on the way.

First failed project proposal

While browsing my book case, I got some thing precious. It was final year in my college and I was just getting very serious about Node.js + Open Source. Final years are known for the project works in college. It was time to decide the final year project.

It was the time, when I launched an open source project called compilex and felt very positive by the response I got on the internet. I wanted to work on it more and spend time perfecting it. So, I took the printout of the README.md file of the project and rushed towards my project mentor for an approval.

How naive of me !? hahaha.

It was rejected saying that the idea and scope is small and the presentation of the idea is unconventional. I saw people showing abstracts of projects with titles which they themselves didn’t fully understand.

Anyway, We did something else ( of course with Node.js ) for my final year project and it turned to get the best project award at the end. But, that’s a story to be told some other time :)

The printout of README.md file, that I proposed as abstract of my project

Just Add Magic

I spent the saturday night watching Just Add Magic) Season 1 with my sister ( on Amazon Prime ). It’s the first series that we sat together and watched. We both liked it a lot. Saving the upcoming seasons for the future.

Thanks for reading. I quote verses from my favourite Tamil literature “Tirukkuṛaḷ” at the end of my blog posts.

“ஞாலம் கருதினுங் கைகூடுங் காலம்

கருதி இடத்தாற் செயின். “

— திருக்குறள்

Translated meaning ( in my words ): People who work at the right time and place, have the power to take over anything in this world.