ganeshnomula

[ganeshnomula]

YHack 2017 - What the Fuck is Soylent? tl;dr

This is the first ever hackathon in my entire 22 years of life. YHack played some trick with me, this event let my brain to compete with one of the smart asses of the reputed ivy league schools. I’m happy that I have taken a move towards attending this event. 

I am writing this today December 4th during a flight journey from Boston to Dallas, this should be a reminder for me everyday that from today till next year December 4th 2018, there will be a big change in me. My new year has already started after this Hackathon. YHack helped me to prepare an agenda for year 2018 and laid a path to make my goals sharp and clear.   

Dec1st 2017: Went as a Nomad, but came out as a mad ass with wonderful experiences and ideas. As soon as I went to Hackathon I was amazed in looking at the venue setup with hundreds of tables and many organizers who are working so relentlessly to make this hackathon happen People started coming and forming teams and talking to companies and brainstorming ideas to work on and blah blah blah. But what I was doing? Absolutely Nothing, Just staring at space with no clue what to do and assuming everyone is better than me and no one could form a team with me and all other bullshit started to hit me up in head. Then after this all happening, I just took a minute break and just told my self. OKAY, philosophy time shit head.

“Hey Asshole, if you don’t trust in yourself, who the fuck wants to pair with you? Don’t give a fuck about anything or what others think about you, you’re here to learn just give a shot and engage yourself with people around. Don’t ever compare yourself with others, you know what you’re good at, just don’t fuck up. If you think you’re the smartest person in the room, you’ve already lost the game. Just work on what you think  of, Just do it, Just move on, Just Kill it.” 

After a while, I got to meet Reza Mohammady from FINRA corp, had such a wonderful conversation thanks to him, he has given mail-id and I connected with him on LinkedIn and asked me to send my resume to HR. Later I went on to YALE tour, such an amazing school, here comes the Aww moment, I went to the Law School where Hillary and Bill Clinton met and saw couple of places across campus. By the time I came back from Yale Tour, I saw hundreds of people, I thought they’re giving some free food LOL but, that’s not. People formed teams and had setup their table to start their  HACK for the next 2 days.

Later, I was aggressive on slack looking for Teammates, and found one of the nice guys named Sungwoo, this guy is from Korea and goes to John Hopkins and Co-founder of sketchware and many other stuff and the fun part is he looks like version 2 of me (without beard and mustache). But, unfortunately I was not on his team. As time passed I got to form a team with 3 other guys Amr, Adam from University of Waterloo and Joshua  from Stevens Institute of Technology. It was great to meet these guys, and we decided to work on Fake News Detection. I knew nothing about how to code, in fact I have not committed anything to the project in the next two days. Does that sound bad? Does that sound I’m not a team player? The answer is YES, I am unable to do contribute since I did not know how to code, how to analyze problem statement and many other stuff. 

But, the only thing I knew was how not to feel bad, so what did I do? 

"I took responsibility for what I am today and I took responsibility for all paths I have taken till today and I took responsibility for not learning required stuff though I had many opportunities. I realized what I am lacking off, and this was the crucial  moment that lead me to set my goals for next year.”

What I feel is, In life one has to face such situations to understand themselves evermore and work onto learn and improve skills and eventually mindset and perspective towards opportunities they experience. 

Back to Day1, and it’s time 3, 2, 1,…. HACKATHON STARTS my team and I brainstormed for a while, read few papers and had put some ideas on the table. Everyone started working and after few hours I crashed and woke up next day.

Dec 2nd & Dec 3rd: Everyone has started implementing ideas, and I was asked "do you know web crawling"? I am like yeah that sounds good. But, I did not know a grain about it. I just knew what is web crawling, and I never tried to crawl. I went on reading about it and unable to do a inch, so Joshua took it up. Later, I was asked again "do you know front end"? Joshua asked me to do some React.js stuff. Same scenario, I knew nothing about it, but I saw few youtube videos and able to do a little, but didn’t work so gave up again. The next hours till the day end, I was looking how joshua coding stuff and understanding problem statement and I helped myself in understanding evermore and tried to make some suggestions on the project.   

“I did not do anything. But, I did one thing I TRIED, I pushed myself in understanding what they’re doing and how are they tackling the problem statement. I learnt TO TRY.” 

Time passed, Amr and Adam worked on front end, Joshua did the data crawling stuff. Over the day I went to different stages of thought process from apes to humans and thus figured out stuff I have to learn and in the mean time I was eating, making new friends, and saw RAP battle for the first time in my life and the wonderful Sungwoo who was cheering me, then told him I did nothing.

“He was like, that’s why you’re here bud, TO LEARN. A year ago even I did not knew anything. But, I just worked, tried, learned.” 

That just amazed me.

If you just work, If you just try, If you just commit on what you think, you will do it. Try reminding your goals everyday, that makes you feel good and comfortable in achieving them.

Day 2 done, I crashed again and wokeup next day(Dec 3). I got to know the deadline was at 9:00 am to submit our hack, Joshua was late, Amr and Adam slept since they’re continuously working on making code work. After a while at 7:30 AM Joshua and I started to write stuff and I created a logo for our hack and wrote all the required stuff and submitted when it was 2 minutes left. 

Ufff..,that was a rollercoaster ride. Further, we went onto submit our project some random judges and top 8 hacks of YHack 2017 are selected and presented to all the people over hackathon and main panel judges. 

At last, top hack is selected, all winners of the challenges are announced and that’s a wrap up. I packed everything and dragged my ass to boston and now on (Dec4th) traveling to Dallas and Later to Stillwater, Oklahoma. And that’s a Wrap-Up. 

PS: Oh, shoot! What the fuck is Soylent? Everyone is so crazy about it, when organizers announced soylent is here, they ran like as if they didn’t have food for a week. So soylent is kinda called Developers drink and tastes worse (few people say) I didn’t get a chance to taste one. For more information. Google about it.

PPS: Take aways.

"I FUCKING TRIED"

[ganeshnomula]

Tears On Fire

Well -- Since my first breath, I am meeting people everyday, every month, every year for 22 years and this process of meeting lasts until my last breath. 

Since my first breath, I am surrounded by unconditional love raining from the people with whom I tag along. Which thrilled me and throttled me to stay in reality. But I didn’t know that it’s just comical. 

Since my first breath, I am delighted and carried away by the euphoria of crowd around me. But I didn’t know, I do not fit into the contours of their arms. 

Since my first breath, I am elated, chuckled and hot-blooded. But I didn’t know I am stumbling over them. 

Since my first breath, I thought love is my land and I am landlord of it. But, I didn’t know even loss exists in my land. 

Since my first breath, I lost people who I met, I’m loosing who I’m meeting and will loose who I meet later. 

Since my first breath the only person who’s retaining always at every moment is ‘ME’. But I didn’t know I miss ‘ME'.                      

                                                                           *says to self* 

One day, I will feel I am  awake but I don’t feel my breath and my heart stops beating out of my chest for some reason. Until then I miss you.

--G (1MB)

[ganeshnomula]

June 20th 2017

June 20th: Class started by reviewing previous session regarding touch typing practice with gtypist. Mainly the class is regarding shell commands, during the sessions I was given two links to learn from them, it’s kinda homework and this session has lots to study even this session I missed :(. 

https://dgplug.org/irclogs/2017/Logs-2017-06-20-13-28.txt   // june 20th log.

Homework:

‘MUST’ read these logs: https://dgplug.org/irclogs/rishi_1st_class.log

https://dgplug.org/irclogs/rishi_2ndclass.log

https://dgplug.org/irclogs/rishi_3rdclass.log

http://summertraining.readthedocs.io/en/latest/shell.html

http://tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/Bash-Beginners-Guide.pdf

http://summertraining.readthedocs.io/en/latest/fhs.html

https://dgplug.org/irclogs/kushal_fhs_class.log

https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/understanding-unixlinux-filesystem-inodes.html.

https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/delete-remove-files-with-inode-number.html

Status: Started learning shell commands, from there went to fhs log by kushal and understood about the significance of root and it’s folders. Learnt about commands and their usage in terminal.

-> / - Root, ~ - Home.

-> man (When used gives reference manual for particular command), man -a (Gives all pages of documentation), man 1 (To select a particular page of documentation, if pg. no is known).

-> apropos ~ man -k (Searches all the man pages and shows the related stuff to a respective command).

-> whatis (This shows one line manual page description ).

-> info (Info pages are more detailed than man pages, but every command doesn’t have an info page).

-> cd (Change Directory), cd .. (Takes to the parent directory), cd - (Takes to the previous known directory)

-> pwd (Print Working Directory, prints the current directory)

-> basename (When it’s given to a pathname, it will delete any prefix up to the last slash ('/') character and return the result).

-> dirname (vice-versa of base name, deletes after last slash).

-> touch foo (Will create an empty file ‘foo’ in the current directory)

-> ls (List Files), ls -s (Used to know the size of files), ls -i  or stat (Gives inode number), ls -il (Gives inode number and details about the file).

** Inode number is used to refer objects(Files/ Directories). Every object in filesystem will have an inode number. The following is it’s significance.**

/*If you have file like name like name “2005/12/31” then no UNIX or Linux command can delete this file by name. Only method to delete such file is delete file by an inode number. Linux or UNIX never allows creating filename like 2005/12/31 but if you are using NFS from MAC OS or Windows then it is possible to create a such file*/ Ref: 8th, 9th Links of Homework.

**The left most column is the inode number for every file and folder in my home directory. Next column, tells about permissions associated with the file or folder. d - directory, r - read, w - write, x - execute. For more info go through following links.

Ref: http://linuxcommand.org/lc3_lts0090.php, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/File_permissions_and_attributes

-> mv (Used to move files in simple cut/ paste). Some of the useful options that can be used with mv are: -b, -f, -i and -u.

Ref: Read man mv for more details.

-> cp (Used to copy files in simple copy/ paste), cp -r or cp -R or cp - - recursive (Used to copy entire directory. When you use recursive, the two dashes are without space in between them).

-> Hard link (cp -l or ln) and Soft Link (cp -s or ln -s) Ref: https://kb.iu.edu/d/aibc, https://kb.iu.edu/d/abbe

Problems Faced:

-> While using ‘cp’ it showing an error as permission denied, Why?  

<resolve attempt> Is it because ‘/test’ means trying to copy to test directory in root and test directory is not present in the root, so it cannot create it? I came to this conclusion because when I removed ‘/‘ (Slash) from ‘test’ it just worked fine.

-> I created an Hard link between ‘foo’ and ‘bar’, but I could able to delete ‘foo’ without any error. I understood Hard link as if the duplicates aren’t deleted the main folder cannot be deleted.

->What is the difference between “ls -l and ls -ld”?  

<resolve attempt> I understood that ‘ls -l’ referring to the file which is in the directory ‘test’ (here ‘foo’ is the empty file in the directory test). Now ‘ls -ld’ refers to the directory test instead of the file in the directory.

-> Need some insight on Groups concept.

<resolve attempt> I understood about access permissions and how the numbers are give while changing mode for files and directories. I tried changing group of a file, then an error popped up telling invalid group name. From the following error I inferred that in order to change the group, that group has to be present on the group list. Is it true? If yes, how to create a new group.?

[ganeshnomula]

June 18th and 19th 2017

#dgplug summer training: I am unable to get to attend or involve in class directly because of my CDT time zone . But, I am reading all logs. 

Thanks #dgplug for archiving all logs and helping people like me who’re in totally different timezone yet, able to cope up with training. 

All logs can be found here https://dgplug.org/irclogs/

June 18th: Everyone introduced themselves, and homework was to read few logs and communication etiquette links

Homework:

[1]: https://dgplug.org/irclogs/2017/Logs-2017-06-18-13-41.txt //june 18th log.

[2]: http://norvig.com/21-days.html

[3]: https://dgplug.org/irclogs/mbuf_1stclass.log

[4]: https://dgplug.org/irclogs/mbuf_2ndclass.log

Status: Read the logs taught by ‘shakthi kannan’ about communication etiquette and guidelines. Downloaded few pdfs.

June 19th: Class started, discussion went on and homework was to install gtypist and practice touch typing, missed this class too.

https://dgplug.org/irclogs/2017/Logs-2017-06-19-13-28.txt.

Homework: install gtypist and practice

Status: Installed Fedora through VM

There was only a root user(Super user) so normal user is added to the control through terminal by following commands.

-> su -  “This takes you to the super user mode”  (You have to type password after su -)

-> visudo “Sudoers - this allows particular users to run various commands as the root user without typing the password here we’ve to add the new user. Find root by scrolling down and then press C(lowercase) later E (lowercase) It will take you to insert mode then add ones user name. After that quit from insert mode by pressing ‘esc (escape)’, then :x (save and exit).”

-> control + d (Mac) Exit out of root user mode.

Now, installed gtypist  by typing ‘sudo dnf install gtypist’ in the terminal. It’s touch typing practice software. I am good with typing but, it’s worth a practice. Improved my speed from 65 WPM to 70+ WPM

[ganeshnomula]

Summer Training 2017 #dgplug

#dgplug is DurGaPur Linux Users Group from India. I have found these wonderful opportunity through a facebook group. I am really fortunate to meet these wonderful people at #dgplug. I really appreciate these amazing minds at #dgplug who’s has taken this initiative and came forward to share their knowledge and contribute their part to the world of computers. 

This Summer training going to be for 3 months. I blogging this post a bit late. Training has already started on June 18th 2017. 

I will be trying my best to put all the stuff that I have learnt from the training. Such as problems faced while learning, what attempt I’ve done to resolve problem faced, as well as the solution for the problem. This will be helping me to track my progress and enables me to blog my whole understanding into a proper post and may help other students to discuss over problems.

I will blog about every class and respective homework's, my status in completing them and links that I’ve referred in learning new content. This will not only help me, but also in future whoever wants to start with GNU/ Linux, I’ll make this blog as a good start.

I’m really excited to be part of this training. Hope I am going to crack all my challenges and achieve my targets with this training.

For more info visit https://dgplug.org/.

A very big thanks to creators and mentors of #dgplug,

With <love>,

G (1 MB).

[ganeshnomula]

How does it feel to have sex with your spouse on your wedding night when he/she is a stranger?

Answer by Anonymous:

I was almost raped on my wedding night. I am sure it may not be this way for all weddings out there. I am not even saying that this is the case for many weddings. But yes, if you are getting into this, you should always know that this is a possibility that you cannot ignore, and which no one would ever tell you. I hail from a typical middle class background, from a not-so-big town in (South) India, and after I turned 22, everyone around me was worried that now is the time for me to get married otherwise I would never get married/ bring shame to my family/ marry after my younger siblings get married/ run off with someone (yes, they said all these things in front of me!) so, yes, I needed to be married off to someone, who was not my boyfriend. Now, there's a culture in South India, if a family doesn't have a lot of money - girls are married to their cousins/ mother's brother, where the age difference is not too much (say the mother was the eldest daughter, and brother was the youngest, with a huge age gap). This way, a girl stays 'within the family', and also there is no question of dowry, since they are family. Similar to this, my wedding was arranged right after I graduated from college, to my 'mama' (mother's brother) who was a few years older than me. My case was complicated because I had a boyfriend already, and my family didn't approve of him when I told them about him (he was not South Indian, which was a mortal sin in my parents' eyes). I tried to protest, but using the usual emotional blackmail arguments, my father forced me into the marriage - he was very sick at the time, and the onus was on me to 'fulfill his wishes'. (He's very much fine now, but I am inclined to think he'll fall sick again when it's my younger sister's turn to get married. Indian parents force you to think this stuff about themselves). I was forced to break off all contact with my boyfriend (mobile, internet snatched away, I don't think I could even have sent a letter, it was so bad) and forced to dive head-first into the wedding arrangements. The day of the wedding came, and after a really embarrassing lecture from my mother, about my 'marital duties' since I was the eldest daughter and no friends had been allowed to my wedding (my parents believed they would whisk me away from the wedding if they came to know), I got ready for the 'wedding night'. I was already feeling completely shitty about the whole thing, having been cut off from every person that I wanted to be with, being married to my 'mama' in secrecy, and not even knowing whether to think of him as a husband or my mama, and  just wanted to sleep hoping a new day would bring a new start. I waited for my husband to come and when he entered, we exchanged a few awkward sentences about the whole day being tiresome. I then told him "I'm feeling very tired, I will change and go to sleep now" but I was not prepared for what happened next. He suddenly kissed me, and I was a little taken aback, but I just pulled away slowly, and told him that I was not in the mood, and reiterated that I was very tired. He ignored me completely, and kissed me again, this time with more force, and when I tried to push him away, he slapped me.  This was followed by the most horrible experience of my life, the details of which shake me to this day, and I somehow escaped by locking myself in the bathroom. I knew I had nobody to turn to - he was my mother's brother, and my father was sick. Even if these were not the circumstances, I doubt anyone would have supported me. I stayed in this abusive marriage for a few months, which was the darkest period of my life. Thankfully, I was not foolish, and I had a job to support myself, unlike a lot of other women out there, suffering daily. I ran away, before it was too late. Now, nobody in my family knows where I am, and what happened. I am sure they must say the worst things about me, and mention my name with disgust and shame. But this is one decision that I made with careful deliberation and I will not let myself regret it. I am considerably happier now, very much single, with no intention of getting married again. I am happy to have put this behind me, but want to extend my support for all those women who are in the same situation as I was. One experience is enough to scar you for life.

EDIT : I am overwhelmed by the response and emotional support I have received from so many people here. Also, I want to thank everyone who promoted my answer so it can reach more women like me. The memories are still fresh, and will take time to fade away, but it will. In any case, this prompted me to contact my sister, and I finally did talk to her. I pretty much expected what would happen, but I finally confirmed that my parents hate me, and somehow this is after knowing what had happened. My 'husband' complained to them that I wouldn't put out, and was an 'disobedient and unfaithful wife', and some synonyms of 'whore'. My sister is suffering at home, but she's doing well otherwise. I have arranged for her to meet me, and we'll see where it goes. I hope everything will become all right. EDIT 2 : Although I was expecting some hate, but one particular comment struck me hard - "Mama had a wrong preconceived notion about you because you previously had a boyfriend...Er? " This seems to me a version of 'Men are allowed to rape women who have boyfriends because they are immoral'. I urge people to change their views about women and morality, respect and rape. I wrote it here because a lot of people are seeing this answer. I hope people change their thinking. EDIT 3: So someone asked me to include what happened to 'the boyfriend'. Unfortunately, there's no happy ending on that side as everyone is hoping. He got married to someone else while all this was happening, and I don't hold him responsible for anything, he deserves to have a good life too. Anyways, thank you everyone for the enormous support, I have started to doubt myself less, and now my sister is living with me. She's getting married soon (to someone she likes) and as for me, I will see where I go next.

View Answer on Quora

[ganeshnomula]

SECOND BYTE: Picha Lite ra..!!!

          After blogging my first post,I became pretty excited about my blog, Instead of doing the cliché, I thought about blogging about situations what everyone experienced in their everyday life.Every soon, I stumbled across what appears to be the most common issue with students, or rather the students of this generation; the “problem hona ho!!…lite lelo na yaar..!!” syndrome.

Most of us have probably gone through this phase in our lives; #teenagers.

Am  going to narrate an incident that i came across with three of my friends Ali,Arvind,Anthony.

     Ali is an undergraduate student at “xyz” University. He’s a guy who is a perfect embodiment of the attitude describes in the first part of the post. Even though Ali was the perfect embodiment of that attitude, sometimes his better self appealed to him, to act more responsibly, he often tried to solve his problems but generally ended up with no satisfactory solution thus ended up ignoring the facts and situations that intimidated him. Finally, Ali met Arvind and Anthony in his course of study in the university. Days were going normally enjoying, doing naughty stuff, gaming night outs, bunking classes etcetera. Now it’s time to put a period(.) for all this stuff as it’s time for the final examination, there’s only two weeks left.During this time the crowded city buses are far better than the campus library. :P :P

                                After spending all the time in being like a free bird in moving around with friends, it’s time to go to nest and have a look at the books in the rack. so, it’s kinda difficult to get into the books for day or two but later on it’s going well with everyone. But, Ali no he’s still enjoying as how he does in normal days.    9 days passed just 5 days left for the roaring examinations. Thank god!! Ali realized about the examination, and got to know that his first exam was itself a nightmare for him.

     Four days before the examination, Ali started working on the subject which was a nightmare for him. For two continuous days he worked hard and hard tried to master the subject. But he was not succeeding. He had only one day to study for the exam and he’s unable to progress in his efforts. That evening when he sat down to study, he developed a severe headache, which was troubling him a lot. Just then Arvind and Anthony came near him and had a friendly chat, and they flashed in front of him three tickets for a latest English movie and that day was the last day. Both persuaded him to come to the movie and Ali was like give me an hour to decide. He started to think. He thought,  "It’s okay. I can come back and study. It’s only for two hours…”.  He promised him self that  ”once I come back from the movie I will definitely study…”. Thus, he justified himself that he will study. Though his headache was severe too, thought of taking a medicine.

   After an hour, Arvind and Anthony came back. Ali laughed at them and all three rushed to the movie and Ali forgot to take medicine for his headache.

CURTAINS RAISE,SHOT NO—ABC, CAMERA ROLL, ACTION——>Movie Started :P

        Throughout the movie, Ali didn’t blink an eye. He was completely involved in the movie, he forgot his headache, he forgot his exams, he was free from any tension. In the intermission, his friends(Anthony and Arvind) reminded him about his exam and he started to get back the tension. And once the movie started he again forgot his tension. He was again engrossed fully in the movie, experiencing the movie intensely as if, he's the central character of the movie. After the movie, he stepped out of the theatre and started to think about his exam, his headache appeared again, he's tensed up and lost his concentration completely. He couldn't make out how 3 hours passed.He’s back to room and told himself that “he cannot study with his headache and after all he was tired from the movie. And in any case there was only one day left for the exam, so what is the point in studying at the last minute". After sometime, he slipped into bed and dreaming about the movie that he saw in the evening and the fight(exam) that he gonna face the next day. He slept within 5 min and woke up in the morning again with the same headache and tension. Needless to say, Ali messed up with his exam, and got screwed by his parents at the end he failed in his fight against his nightmare subject.

                                                                                  What if he gets headache now?

He still needs to go on.Similarly in life when you take up a task you should go on till you complete it.

  Are you fully involved with what you do in you life??? don’t take situations in a lite manner.

                 BE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOURSELF AND YOUR CHOICES.

                 BE RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT HAPPENS IN YOUR LIFE.

                 BE WISE IN YOUR CHOICES.

“WHEN YOU ARE COMPLETELY INVOLVED IN YOUR LIFE,YOU WILL HAVE A GREAT LIFE”

                                                                                               -NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

[ganeshnomula]

First Byte:Father's Day

It was a fine day, a Wednesday morning, when 1MB first saw the world. His parents were pleased, as they were finally holding their offspring.. Soon, 1 mb with his parents bid farewell to his grand-parents and his home-land as they were about to move to England . Years are passing by…1 mb started walking talking and doing naughty stuff, and his mom and dad were quite happy in watching their son in doing all that. 1mb is now 4 years old, he’s moving to school and started his education, now 1mb is able to store data in his mind he got to know everything and importance of days that they are going as he’s growing.

When he was 6’ he got to know about a day that is very special for parents all over the world i.e father’s day,so he thought of presenting gift to his dad .He some how managed in opening his piggy bank and got the money for a surprise to his dad. The next day 1mb surprised his dad and went near him and told happy fathers day…on seeing him his dad felt very happy and that day 1mb’s family enjoyed a lot. On the same day night 1MB’s father was thinking about his son and slept,in his dream he suddenly got remembered of his mom and dad.The next morning also he was thinking of them, in this way it’s been months and months he’s trying to recollect all the memorable incidents which he spent with his parents, he finally realised his mistake in leaving his parents in India, and thought of moving back to India for the next Father’s day and surprise his dad and spend his life with them.

Finally,1MB’s family left to India… suddenly 1MB’s Father got a shocking news about his dads death, he was very sad and completely depressed he has no words to speak and he himself was unable to get convinced for his mistake in leaving his parents in India not concerned about them, because as his father is dead on the day,when he wanted to surprise him i.e father’s day. From then he was very concerned about her mom who was left alone after his dad’s death. ”Don’t distance yourselves from your family;Every moment you spend with them is a moment you will cherish for the rest of your life!”

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY