The common perception towards programming is often colored by a sense of begrudging monotony. This is more or less true for any technical pursuit since the public imagination regards subjects that fall into this assortment as lucrative but insufferably tedious or boring. Such an opinion partly owes itself to the nature of these subjects themselves because they involve the rigorous application of…
Artwork: Maithreyi One of the quintessential parts of modern life, I would say, is its imposition of neatly defined boundaries. We have prescribed times that dictate when we eat and when we sleep. We enroll ourselves in ordered institutions with an array of specializations providing us knowledge through pre defined categories. We marry and raise children, hoping to extricate them of the confines…
The sensibilities of an individual can largely be determined by the way he uses language. Although a person can be considered articulate when he is able to express himself without hindrance, he still remains far removed from being in complete possession of his words. Its not so much that he wields language imprecisely but he arrives at a place where language itself feels inadequate. The more he…
I have for long considered the pursuit of knowledge and art as solitary endeavours. Despite the prevalence of institutions that impart education and the necessity of participating in communities therein to further our horizons, I felt there was always a personal element in the instinct to create and understand which was beclouded by the presence of the “Other”. Throughout history the…
There’s one particular passage in the Archaeology of Knowledge where Foucault calls himself as the enemy of the Weltanschauung, a word that loosely represents a general orientation towards life. Such a proclamation seems rather innocuous in and of itself but if understood in the proper context, it reveals Foucault’s disdain for overarching truths and narratives. By pioneering the…
Introduction There are many things that one often encounters in life, which, for no apparent reason, incurs his immediate disapproval. Such premature judgments can be a little concerning because they sometimes express our prejudices or other convenient misconceptions we might selfishly entertain. However underneath this seeming lapse in judgment there could also be a certain form of intuition at…
Ever since my departure from institutions of formal learning, my concern for academics had slowly waned and withered. I have not met anyone who likes examinations or assessments, not even those who excel in them. It is almost unanimously perceived as tedious and even the best of students would likely prefer another mode of evaluation. Despite its short sightedness and its attempt to reduce…
In a previous blog of mine on Linux, I talk about how the commonplace ignorance towards technology is becoming more detrimental with each day. This is an idea that one of my favourite writers Neal Stephenson introduced in his essay “ In the Beginning was the Command Line ”. To provide a brief summary, the essay outlines the development of major operating systems and reflects on how…
Human interaction has taken many forms since the dawn of the internet. From the humble beginnings of electronic mails, we now live in an era of instant messaging where the experience of communication afforded by platforms like Whatsapp or Telegram is nothing short of seamless. Provided that you have an account in these services, they allow you to call, text and even share any kind of multimedia…
This is a continuation of a previous essay I have written titled That Which We Seek My encounter with the works of Kant and Hume thrust me in a direction I seldom anticipated. Although I was acquainted with the idea of the “unknowable” written about in many great religions and myths, somehow Kant’s formulation of the noumenon made it for me a living reality. Something we can no…
A large part of Linux might seem daunting to a novice user because it involves the command line. Unlike Windows or MacOS where the graphical interface is intertwined with the operating system itself, Linux’s GUI is simply another package that is installed. The system can function just the same without it because at its core it relies on something called “tty” to communicate with…
SSH is a word that you might often see thrown around when talking about servers and connections. It is sometimes used as a noun in sentences but also as a verb. Its colloquial and sometimes unconventional usage in certain contexts might leave you confused on what exactly it means. Is it a program or does it denote an action that we do? Well, its technically the former. SSH abbreviates to…
If you have been persuaded by my argument to use Linux or atleast to see for yourself if any of my comparisons hold water, perhaps the first confusion that might arise is why are there so many flavours of Linux? I had mentioned previously that “Linux” strictly speaking in and of itself is not an operating system. What we refer to as Linux is only the kernel which essentially is the…
It has become unfashionable to use religious language to describe any human experience. I believe the disrepute religion has fallen into over time is not entirely due to prejudice or blind disdain. It was widely felt that the understanding once afforded by the frameworks of faith was subordinate to that of reason. I have found myself in the crossroads of both these sides, unable to give up one for…
A Dismal State of Affairs The indifference that people show towards technology has always surprised me. By indifference, I do not mean a general lack of interest. It is quite evident that people like to use the latest technology if they ever have the means to and do prefer to invest a lot of time before purchasing any electronic product. However this interest is almost never sustained when it…
I have been preoccupied with a morbid thought ever since I began writing about the limitations of human language. The fact that language sometimes falls shorts in expressing what we think and feel is by no means a novel idea. Philosophers, immemorially, have debated on the nature of human language and perhaps ironically have attempted to demonstrate through words how inadequate they can be. This…
Language initially enters the purview of human experience as an instrument of communication. As toddlers, we experience the world around us while having very little means at our disposal to communicate the former. Any kind of articulation at that stage is often monosyllabic where the recipients of our incoherent babbles make all the effort to understand our intentions. Language in such a primitive…
So weechat is one among many clients that is used to connect to an irc network. Unlike other messaging platforms where you recieve a message that was sent to you even if you are not online, IRC functions in way that requires your client to constantly stay connected to the server to recieve messages. So if your user disconnects, you won’t be able to receive messages nor will you be able to…
The world of today is not particularly concerned of antiquated ideas like angels or demons. From the contemporary point of view, anything that does not retain an objective existence which can be proved by methods of science are simply dismissed as the whims of human imagination. Such a frame of reference has always struck me as sensible because it grounds individuals on a plane of existence which,…
With each passing day, I find myself increasingly confronted with valid reasons as to why psychology is an essentially doomed enterprise. It is evidently quite paradoxical for a student of psychology to feel this way but what perplexes me even more is why such a question does not often arise in the minds of individuals who pursue this discipline. Unlike other endeavours whose object of study lends…