atharva's internet place
I grew up not being great at giving compliments. This was because I often saw grown-ups around me deploy compliments in a fake, ritualistic way. This made me overcorrect by holding back my appreciation for other people's gifts as some kind of misguided rebellion against fake compliments. There
Even with the most ergonomic posture inhabited in a befittingly decibelled soundscape, with a most comfortingly frictionless drafting pipeline, I am sometimes met with a sluggish pain where no words come out. I have fixed my environment, but no words would come out. I have taken a hike, but no
Go after what you like. Did you like this movie? Did you like this song? Did you like that smell, or that sensation, or your favourite poster's take or the smell of petrol-on-pineapple-on-pizza? Sort every damn thing into two worlds of like and do-not-like, scores, rankings, tier lists
Large language models are better thinkers than writers. OK—they don't think as humans do, but I've still let it write the vast chunk of my computer programs over the last year or so. That is a task which demands a reasonable amount of cognitive
Lobsters is a computing-focused community centered around link aggregation and discussion. The code is open source , so I had a look at how the front page algorithm works. This is it: $$\textbf{hotness} = -1 \times (\text{base} + \text{order} \times \text{sign} + \text{age})$$ $$\text{hotness} \downarrow \implies \text{rank}
Reinforce your stocks. And wait.
I was having a disagreement with an old friend about this recently. Smart guy, doing a PhD in AI (hi!). This made me realise that I should take a public position on this, as there are many other people I respect that seem to embody this position at various degrees.
Unprincipled predictions for 2026 based on vibes. I'm no superforecaster. Lots of it ended up being about AI because that's the big meta right now. AI and technology more technology is going to be draped in "organic, homegrown farm-to-cup" aesthetics this is in reaction
This essay aims to introduce social stigma around certain types of AI use, or at the very least, reduce the amount of slop I receive. What is slop? I like the deepfates definition : Watching in real time as “slop” becomes a term of art. the way that “
I've been putting things out on the internet for a while. old tech blogs circa 2010-2012 I was a child. I wrote articles about technology news (and reviewed whatever old used phone I had, posted them on youtube and x-posted to these blogs). I used "website builder&
I was in MoMA, watching Barnett Newman's intensely red canvascape ( Vir Heroicus Sublimis ) stare back at me. not me Most paintings have a subject. And a bunch of objects. This one had a large bright redness, punctured by vertical lines. My mind, in search of a subject that&
Comments to articles around the web, on my turf. Bengawalk There's a lot of whining about Bengaluru's broken and crumbling infrastructure. Pravar, the creator of Bengawalk takes a refreshing and productive approach and demonstrates that clear articulation can improve things on the margin. His video review
A totem (from Ojibwe : ᑑᑌᒼ or ᑑᑌᒻ doodem ) is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people , such as a family , clan , lineage , or tribe , such as in the Anishinaabe clan system . A conceptual thing humans have
How to write more? The bottleneck is psychological. There's a natural censor in your brain that blurts out objections and reprimands as you start to write. To remedy this, practice enough mindfulness so that you can catch the censor every time it blurts something. Eventually your head becomes
Atharva's note : This whole article has been written by an AI and presented without any edits. There will be some real human commentary at the end. You'll know when that happens. In the grand taxonomy of human endeavor, three species have emerged from the primordial soup