Abhijit Tomar's blog
On the ethics of having children While most aspects of childbirth such as pregnancy, abortion, and child rights and custody involve passionate debates, the very act of producing offspring has escaped such scrutiny. In this piece I seek to explore if it is ethical to consciously have children at all. When you ask someone why they had children, most reasons go something along these lines - I wanted…
Your STUPID-19 test results Hey man, It’s your doctor. I’ve got bad news. You’ve tested STUPID-19 positive. Which one you ask? The big one of course. Please find below your diagnostic test report - Test Observation Comments Mental input Presence of imaginary conversations in unlikely scenarios observed Remedy at the earliest by reading a book, learning a new language or starting an online course…
“10:55PM” I read on the locked screen of my phone as I lay on my bed. Being confined for days in a hospital room can be utterly boring. And bored I was. Despite having stayed there for 4 full days I had explored nothing beyond the immediate vicinity of my room. Hauntinental Hospital was an imposing building. A dour, soulless look. Ironical for something so closely involved in the exchange of…
A few days ago, a cousin of mine called me. He had just had INR 9000 (~$125) wiped from his account to a telephone banking scam. So how did this educated and tech savvy guy in his 20s, well aware of such scams end up in this situation? He had fallen prey to an innovative type of scam that is plaguing multiple businesses listed on Google. Often when you search for a business on Google, you will see…
It sometimes happens that a word begins to mean (roughly) the opposite of what it was initially defined to be. This is the definition of manufacture in 2018 - manufacture | /man·u·fac·ture/ | verb To make (something) on a large scale using machinery. However, the word dervies from the latin words manus (meaning hand ) and factus (meaning to make ). The definition of the same word in 1618 was…
Every minute you spend on the internet, you are being watched. Each site you visit tracks you and tries to sell your information to the highest bidder. It is known. So what tools can you employ to keep your internet browsing private? As a wise man once said, a browser needs extensions as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge: uBlock Origin Best ad-blocker in the market. Period.…
Three hours post arriving in Dubai, I was depressed. Why the hell is the traffic so orderly? Why is everything so clean? It felt eerily robotic. If I was supposed to behave this way, I wasn’t ready for it. As an Indian, it was almost as if my free will had been stolen from me. I walked into my hotel lobby and heard a bunch of Chinese tourists yammering. The receptionist shouted to the security…
This article is a follow-up to the freelancing session conducted by Abhijit Tomar and Harshit Manocha at IIT Bombay on 17th of September 2016. It is intended to be a primer for any student looking to work as a part time freelancer. Two paths will be covered- those of a developer and a designer. This post will cover the broad topics of: Why freelancing? A student’s approach Opportunities overview…
As a Mechanical engineer interested in software development, the internship season put me into a bit of a quandary. Since software companies seldom open for non-CS students, weeks had passed by without me signing a single IAF (Internship Application Form). In mid-August, Microsoft India Development Centre (MSIDC) came along. I had stood runner-up in code.fun.do (the Microsoft university hackathon)…