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Alfred is one of the most important person in the life of Bruce Wayne. Technically he is the Butler, but he was more than that to Bruce, especially since Bruce grew up without his parents, and Alfred was (probably) close to a father figure he has growing up. After he became Batman, Alfred was (what we now a days call) his “back office” 😄 Regarding the sketch. What I most liked about…
I came across this YouTube video which showed that one can generate images locally even from USB drive ( Video at the end ) As I might have mentioned earlier, I have a decent machine. It is an Intel i9 with 32GB of memory. So I thought I might give it a try. The project claims that it works on Windows, Linux and Mac OS, when I tried this on my Mac machine, I found out that only Apple Silicon is…
Spokenly I came across spokenly via this YouTube video At first I was reluctant to install it assuming that I will need to create yet another account just to use the app, but that was not the case. They have two completely free options: First one where Whisper and Parakeet models are used locally. There are other models that can be run locally, but the size of these models keeps growing bigger and…
As I mentioned in my earlier post , I listed my site on bubbles town. What that meant was my posts could be discovered from bubbles town. Bubbles Town has the nice feature of upvoting the blogposts that one likes. Now those upvotes are shown near the top of each blog post on my own website. 1 If you have a login on Bubbles town, you can upvote the posts you like there. The best part is you do not…
My kids were using Zorin OS 17 on their very old Pentium laptop with 4GB of memory. I understand that it is already an older version of Zorin. But it had started to feel very sluggish. Kids use it mainly for browsing, but opening the browser itself takes really long. But that is after they already wait - what feels like a long time - to see the login prompt 1 after powering up the machine. So…
This site is now listed on Bubbles Town What is Bubbles town you ask. Bubbles town is like Hackernews but for IndieWeb. Just like HN, users can upvote a blog post they like. The interface is simple (like HN) You can read more about it here
This is one of those options you don’t know exists till you need it (or sometimes you don’t know even when you need it because you were too afraid to ask lazy to search) Some time ago, I needed to extract only some data files from a huge tar backup that I received from third party. So I needed to reduce the size of a tar file so that I could download it from the server to my local…
When I started using mac almost a decade ago, I used the built-in screen capture shortcut. It works very well. Initially I only knew about capturing the entire screen. I would then crop it to the desired area. Then I learnt that I can select the screen area at the time of capture itself. Neat! If I want to add some markup - I would do that separately, after the image is captured. Then I came…
I grew up reading this Indian comic book named after this character. The comic was originally in Hindi. Eventually, they also made an animated series based on this comic (Also available on YouTube) Chacha Chaudhary is an intelligent old man. He solves everyday problems with his wit. He also has a sidekick called Sabu (muscular humanoid alien from Jupiter - Don’t ask!) There was a line oft…
It is always good to “reduce your bills”. So when I found out, that Codex CLI works with local models 1 (via Ollama) I immediately tried it. 2 After installing Codex CLI, I was exploring its features, and noticed it has tons of plugins. I was intrigued to know Google Calendar plugin works with Codex CLI It has things like daily brief which seemed interesting. 3 But my joy was…
Yet another main characters from Star Trek Lower Decks D’Vana Tendi Brad is another Junior officer aboard USS Ceritos. She is Orion - the race which was once considered space pirates. (In the cross over episode, Boimler and Mariner had to convince Capt, Pike that Orions can be scientists too) This time I tried yet another drawing program called Infinite Painter. This is closer to Tayasui…
As I promised (said?) last time, this time I drew one of the main characters from Star Trek Lower Decks. Brad Boimler is a Junior officer aboard USS Cerritos. While each of the characters have their own story arc, the series is antithesis to the live action star trek. This time wanted to try another drawing program called ibisPaint X It has a lot of functionality but seemed complex compared to…
If you are Star Trek (Lower Decks) fan, then this is : Rawda - an Areore male. The Areore were an ornithoid humanoid species. For others, this is bird like species with humanoid features. Look at the muscular arms, six packs, and hands like wingtips. I had watched this episode long ago, and liked it very much. The episode does not feature any of the regular characters. Instead, the main character…
Every now and then, I use private (or temporary ) chat mode when asking something to AI. Not because I am asking something sensitive 1 but because it is a one-off query, and I do not want to pollute my chat history. It may sound stupid, but … Sometimes - most times - the default search engine DDG uses its AI to find the answer rather than just searching. It is helpful. Most times, I look at…
When adding a new post, I was looking for appropriate tag for the post. I wasn’t sure whether I have already used relevant tag earlier, so I checked /tags assuming that I’ll see the tags there, but there was no listing. I thought I broke it when I did a major update recently. But that was not the case. So I checked the original theme from which I forked mine. Even their site does not…
Inspired by this sketch Compared to the original, two humans and a dog are missing from my copy 😄 It has been exactly a month since I posted my last sketch. I had been meaning to draw something smaller in between, but never got around to doing it. The original drawing (link above) says this was built in late 19th century. But in reminds me of some old bungalow (not seen in person, just imagined)…
The last update to the theme was in Dec 2024, as per the git log The website looked like this 1 Then recently, I came across blowfish theme. XeroLinux used it 2 (but currently it uses Astro+Tailwind 🤷♂️) So I tried to locally see how my site would look with this theme. I liked it a lot. But … The documentation site is s…l…o…w 3 So slow, that the entire machine comes…
Last time I wrote about my first experience using opencode, I was using (and learning) opencode CLI This time, I switched to Zed editor . Zed is so amazing that it can work with “Agents” installed on your machine (or it can install them for you) via ACP - Agent Control Protocol It recognized that opencode was already installed on the machine, and show it in the drop down. I decided to…
Few days ago, in AIML cohort that I teach, one of the student faced a problem where some python package refused to install because it required python 3.10 or higher. So I asked the student to install the latest python using uv python install 3.14 But we kept getting the same error. Turns out, uv uses system python by default. (Which was 3.8) Here are the steps that ensure uv uses specific version…
Everyone is praising opencode - It is like Claude Code, or Codex (or Gemini CLI) except it is not tied to a corporation. It works with models from all of them, and other models, not from these corporations. I had installed opencode long time ago, but never used it. Today, I decided to give it a go. As I was exploring, I came across /editor command. 1 I had expected /editor command to open a file…
If you use Zellij as your terminal multiplexer on macOS, you’ve probably hit the same wall I did: the default keybindings are built around Ctrl , but on macOS inside a modern terminal like Ghostty , Ctrl is a warzone. This post documents the full journey of finding a setup that actually works — including all the wrong turns. The Problem with Ctrl on macOS Zellij’s defaults use Ctrl as…
I had heard about Oh my Posh several years ago. It was in the context of Oh my Zsh 1 Oh My Posh was its Powershell cousin. Since (AFAIK) Powershell is on Windows, and I haven’t used Windows in so many years, I had no use of it. Then few days ago, I came across XeroLinux 2 The shell prompt looked very nice. I had assumed it must be starship which was my prompt engine till that point. But…
I had saved a pencil drawing of a tortoise from the internet. Unfortunately I can not find the link to the original. I wanted to try a light pencil layer first and then a final layer, but since I did not play around with brushes too much, it did not turn out the way I wanted. Looking back, I should have used lighter and broader pencil for the first layer, and then HB, followed by darker (2B ?) at…
Using Gen AI in day-to-day life Today, I wrote an angry email to some support team. While I was writing it, I realized that while I’m pouring my heart out, the tone I used will not help. Yet, I could not have made it better without a lot of effort/multiple iterations. ChatGPT to the rescue. I simply pasted my response as-is, and asked it to make it professional sounding. The reworded letter…
This image inspired by a cartoon appeared in the local newspaper. I liked how simple drawing the robot was. (I’m always looking for simple-to-draw sketches) For the first time, I used color (albeit very tiny, still…) The original sketch had light blue hue for the body of the robot, but I decided not to paint the whole sketch. Just the eyes to draw viewer’s attention was enough.…
These are two main characters of O Human Star Comic When I looked at this comics, I really liked how simple the character faces were. So decided to see if I can draw them. I am likely to draw more characters from this comic in the future. These two faces were drawn by looking at this page This is the first time I used layers in HiPaint. First layer is the a pencil drawing. I was surprised how…
The doodle comes from Dave Gray’s old video (Not sure of the source - sorry) But doodle itself was not the interesting thing. Today I discovered that the Whiteboard app has excellent pen tool. I used the Size 10, and I was able to create excellent calligraphy (if I may say so myself 🫣) Normally I add the date and name in some other app, but I could not resist writing the date in calligraphy…
This is my attempt to create a sketchnote of the session he delivered during the World Sketchnote Week. 1 Looking at other people’s sketchnotes of this session, I realize that I need to do much better. I’ve just reproduced parts of sketches from his session. Drawing Dave’s face was original idea, rest of it seems unconnected ideas. I should have used banners, containers,…
All the (English) words (sentences, paragraphs, chapters, books …) are made up of only 26 alphabets. (Let us leave aside punctuation marks for now 😉) Similarly, most the (basic) drawing is made up of these 12 basic shapes, hence the visual alphabets. This English phrase makes it easy to remember ALL HOT BREADS A: Angle L: Line L: Loop H: Home O: Oval T: Triangle B: Blob R: Rectangle E: Eye…
First Install Harper using the method appropriate for your OS. Then add the following to languages.toml [language-server.harper-ls] command = 'harper-ls' args = [ '--stdio' ] Restart Helix Editor. Now you should see squiggly lines under incorrectly spelled words. 🎉 In order to see (and possibly choose) the correct spelling, take the cursor on the error and space a (Code actions)
Add the following to your (platform specific 1 ) config file shell-integration-features = ssh-env, ssh-terminfo Now reload the configuration. The configuration can be reloaded at runtime by pressing ctrl+shift+, (Linux) or cmd+shift+, (macOS). Update: (13 April 2026) Here is another solution, maybe generic, does not involve updating Ghostty’s config file infocmp -x xterm-ghostty | ssh…
The idea comes from the book “The Magic of Thinking BIG” Dr. Schwartz makes a point that just persistence is not enough. Each time you try (and not succeed) learn from it, and change something (experimentation) only this will lead to (eventual) success. I tried to show this visually by having different styles the word Try is drawn in the bottom half (but also wrote experimentation -…
Once upon a time, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) was all rage. How does your product show up in the Search Engine. But now a days, people have stopped using search engine. Instead they prefer to “get the answer” from one of the LLM/GenAI The Search Engines also now have “AI summaries”, so may be AEO can double as SEO 🤷♂️ Software: tldraw.com
This is not shared to showcase my skills 😄 But to remind myself (maybe others 🤷♂️) that sketching/drawing doesn’t have to be a big deal. When I make a mental list of things to buy (aka shopping list) I usually write it down if it is more than 2 items (else I’m bound to forget something) Usually, I write it down as a text (doesn’t everyone ? 🤔) But today, I thought in images.…
I had not planned what to draw today. So I decided to use this time for practice. Here is the reference Few things I noticed today. Having a digital canvas has advantages of being able to zoom in. This came in handy when coloring the hair and t-shirt. While at normal scale (no zoom) I have to fill a tiny portion so as not to worry. But I lose precision. I am unable color without leaving tiny…
This is another one from the same YouTube video I referenced earlier for the Church This time, I wanted to try watercolors in true urban sketching style (Although this isn’t an Urban sketch 😄) Hence, Tayasui Sketches. I chose Water Color Paper to start. Rather than drawing directly as suggested in the video, I did 3 steps. First, I drew a rough sketch using Pencil tool. On a water color…
I came back to tldraw for this one. But first, here is the inspiration for this sketch : The video shows how to draw directly using the ink. tldraw was kinds closest to that feel. There is only one tool for drawing. Call it pen, brush whatever. There is no fancy fountain pen, technical pen, certainly no pencil. No layers. While tldraw honours prssue sensitivity to an extent, that is about it.…
After my last sketch, I kept searching for simple sketching/infinite canvas program, and came across an app simple called “Whiteboard” The UX is a bit different, but not too difficult. This might be my second favourite after ExcalidrawZ The sketch is really simple (it is meant to be) The sketch is based on this video by Eva Lotta 🙏 I probably did this under a minute. But I learnt how…
TL;DR Stuck with “No pubspec.yaml found” when building Flutter APKs in a multi-root VSCode workspace? Fix it in 3 steps: perfect workspace naming, cwd overrides, emulator-ready URLs. The Problem Top-level folder with 2 separate Git repos : flutter_app/ (Flutter) fastapi_backend/ (Python) Flutter .vscode/tasks.json ignored in parent. Tasks fail: “Must be run from root of Flutter…
It has been almost two months since I was meaning to try omarchy I could not “move” to it, since I was in the middle of a project. Since then, I have moved to Macbook Pro for development. I was testing the waters, lurking on reddit etc. Recently, Omarchy made huge progress. When I first came across it, it was already 2.x Now it is 3.1.x One of the “features” of 3.x was…
The machine I got has macOS Sonoma. This is from 2023 - almost 2 years old. There was Sequoia - in 2024 and now there is Tahoe - in 2025 I wanted to upgrade to the latest. But quick check on the internet suggested that I may be better off staying on Sequoia. Tahoe seems unstable ¯_(ツ)_/¯ So I decided to make USB bootable for Sequoia. When installing via the app store, it directly starts the…
I had been meaning to upgrade my early-2015 MBP for quite some time. Then I got one from office, so did not need to upgrade. then something or the other kept coming up. Few months ago, I visited a shop to get battery replaced for my MBP The service was good. The shopkeeper also told me that he has some used MBP for sale. Usually these come from corporate customers (I think) and are in good…
As I wrote earlier I’m doing Flutter Development on a Windows 10 machine. The configuration of this machine is as follows : Intel i7-6600U @ 2.60GHz 16GB RAM 224 GB SSD AMD Radeon R7 M360 (2GB) So on paper this looks impressive. But it feels so sluggish. But “feels” is very subjective. (My other machine is 10-year-old-MBP) So I decided to gather actual timing. Starting Visual…
Recently, I started working on a flutter project. I started on my own 10-year old MBP. (running Linux mint 22.1 BTW) It has “just” 8GB RAM. Flutter development is (near) impossible on this machine. As per the documentation Android Studio requires 8GB and with Emulator 16GB, while 32GB is the “recommended” configuration. But it is not just the documentation. I tried to push…
I have been almost exclusively using Ubuntu and its derivatives as long as I remember 1 Benefit of using such mainstream distro was that for the most part, all the software was available in deb format. But recently things are changing. More and more software is being made available via snaps, flatpak or appimages Much can be said about pros and cons of each of these. But that is not the point of…
During Ganeshotsav, Jnana Prabodhini Prashala organizes a variety of workshops for students. For these 10 days, there are no regular classes — instead, students immerse themselves in learning new skills. This year, I had the privilege of conducting a Mass Media workshop for 20 boys from 5th to 7th standard (a mixed group). I don’t need to emphasize how bright these children are — after all, they…
Yesterday, before I installed Hyprland on Mint I was researching Hyprland, and someone/somewhere mentioned pikaOS PikaOS is a gaming/optimization-focused Linux distribution that emphasizes ease of use and high compatibility. Built on a Debian base but with cherry picked and custom compiled packages ensures that Pika is stable whilst being bang up to date! I had mentioned in my post about Omarchy…
Ever since I read (and watched videos) about Omarchy I so wanted to try it. As I mentioned, the ISO directly wants to install it on the machine. There is no live - try before you install - option. So I didn’t. I wanted the next best thing. Try Hyprland with disturbing the cart too much. Why not try setting it with Linux Mint that I’m already using ? Reddit forums were discouraging.…
I had tried Omakub a while ago. While it is nice, it is Ubuntu under the hood, and Gnome and I did not like the aesthetics of it. I then used KDE for long time via Tuxedo OS, and then settled on Linux Mint Cinnamon flavour. Recently I came across Omarchy via the Reowrk podcast It is next incarnation of DHH’s (dare I say infactuation?) move to linux. As is the natural progression, one enters…
I was told by AnduinOS by one of my friend. I was told that it looks like Windows 11 I was intrigued. Spoiler Alert : It does not 😄 All it really has is the centered menu button - which was to the left bottom for the longest time. Everywhere. Gnome, KDE and other DE (even until Win10) 1 It is based on Ubuntu and uses (skinned) Gnome. It did not boot on my MBP (Currently running Linux Mint ) I…