Rahul

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Break Stasis

I have this OXO sink strainer that plays a simple role in the system that is my kitchen sink: drain the water, catch the food. The other day, I let it sit overnight with some bits of food. In the morning it looked bone dry, so I picked it up to empty it into the trash and to my surprise— drip drip drip —water everywhere. I got annoyed. “You had one job. You’ve been sitting there all…

Get an AI code review in 10 seconds

Here’s a trick I don’t see enough people using: Add .diff to the end of any PR URL and copy&paste into a LLM for a quick initial review. You can get an instant feedback on any GitHub PR. No Copilot Enterprise. No browser extensions. No special tooling. Example PR Link: https://github.com/RahulPrabha/oldmanrahul.com/pull/11 Add .diff to the end:…

Hard work is irritating

My understanding of getting into a flow state (or “being in the zone”) was completely wrong. Authors like Steve Kotler and Csíkszentmihályi describe achieving flow as a structural problem. To achieve flow we must match our skills to the challenges in front of us, they write. If the challenges are too easy, we’ll get bored, if too difficult, we’ll quit from frustration.…

Learning how to learn (Pt. 1)

I graduated from the University of Waterloo with honors. The school’s math department even sent my family a Dean’s List letter to highlight how well I was doing during my undergraduate program. I mention this not to pat myself on the back (fear from culture expectations powered many of my 16-hour study-a-thons), but to bring a modicum of credibility to what this three-part series…