Rahul gives unsolicited advice

The first edition of the regional Python conference PySangaman got over yesterday. First of all, I applaud the team on their decision to hold the conference on Friday and Saturday. During the audience feedback session after the conference late Saturday, a few people mentioned that they'd prefer a Saturday/Sunday conference. This prompted one of the organizers, Shreyas, to respond with their reason for the current schedule, which is an obvious answer in hindsight. He mentioned that heading back to work immediately after two busy days of conferences leaves no room to ponder upon what was learnt. It also leaves little time for folks out of town to travel and relax before getting back to their usual routine. Moving on, there were a few amazing talks and there were a lot of amazing people. I don't think I've networked as much as I did at PySangaman. The keynote speaker's talks made me ask a lot of questions, mostly in person. A couple of talks introduced me to some very a...

I keep checking Hacker News a every couple of hours and maybe a week or two back (actually a month and a half), I came across a discussion on Depression and Job. One of the comments was very helpful and I've had it open on my browser ever since. I went through the list mentioned in the comment again today and I wanted to share the same with you. The discussion as a whole can be found here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17521757 . The specific comment that I am referring to can be found here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17523642 . Leave work after 8 hours without making excuses Go to bed at the same time every night Get at least 7 hours of sleep. Try for 8. Stop drinking alcohol and using drugs Eat better. Cook your own meals. Do meal prep to make it easier. Start exercising. Start 3x per week, 15 min of HIIT per day. Drink a large glass of water when you wake up. Drink water throughout the day. Don't drink more than one cup of coffee per day D...

I came across this really concise and approachable introduction to Recursion in Python and thinking recursively in programming. While it didn't teach me anything new, it was a good way to talk about the topic. And extra points for the visuals!

On the 28th, I gave a talk at the ChennaiPy meetup group on Dunder methods in Python. You can find the Jupyter Notebook that I used to present the content in Github . To give you an overview of the talk, I introduced a number of dunder methods in Python, methods which provide functionality to make your custom objects mimic native Python objects. If you didn't know, dunder is short for double underscore. A common dunder method that we all come across in Python classes is the `__init__` method, which is used to initialize an object during instantiation. Dunder methods are also called magic methods. The dunder methods of interest are `__repr__` and `__str__` : Provide the official and unofficial string representations of the Objects `__eq__`, `__lt__` and comparisons : Provide the functionality to compare custom Objects in Python. `__hash__` : Are used for operations on members of hashed containers like set, frozenset and dict. `__iter__` and `__next__` : Provide the func...

Updated my website, after almost an year. I hadn't updated it after I moved to Chennai. And instead of manually maintaining a list of books I read, I simply point to my goodreads profile now. I still need to update the list of talks I've given but one thing at a time.

If you didn't already know, keyboard shortcuts can be used in GMail e.g. to compose a new mail, to archive a read mail. Those two actions (compose/archive) are the shortcuts I most use and I love it. But BUT! every so often I end up pressing a key, by mistake, that archives a mail which I didn't intend to or worse, deleting one. You might say that I can disable the action by clicking on `... undo` but if I perform multiple actions, I can't undo them all. And bringing things back from the Trash is easier for me because my Trash is almost always empty but bringing things back from the Archived section is harder because it's not ordered by most recently archived. I wish I could selectively enable/disable keyboard shortcuts. I dunno if GMail already can do this. I dunno if there's a way to add this functionality to GMail. I dunno if a different email provider has this functionality. Do you know?

This is the last blogpost among a series of 3, which list all the graphic novels that I read in the last 6 weeks, while I was visiting the Austin office of my company. Most of these books were suggested to me by my colleagues, something that really surprised me. I didn't know there were so many work colleagues who were into graphic novels and comic books. Joe The Barbarian - Is one of the best graphic novels I've read these past two months. It's the story of a hypoglycemic kid and it's wonderfully told. It's one that I recommend everyone read. Watchmen - You might've seen the movie. I liked the graphic novel better than the movie, even though the movie was on the back of my mind the whole time. I liked it better because of the full page scenes and how much deeper the story is, when compared to the movie. It's a classic and I'd definitely recommend it if you're interested in graphic novels. 300 - Again, you might've watched the movie. Ag...

In the last post , I talked about some of the graphic novels and books I'd read over the last 6 weeks. Most of the books in that post were multiple volumes of a series that I'd started reading. A few of the books listed here might be part of a series but I haven't (yet) read the other volumes in the series. Volume I of Maus . Maus is the story of a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, being told by his son. It's visually different than anything else I've read, especially because the Jews are represented as Mouse and the Nazis as Cats in the graphic novel. People of other races are represented as other animals, for example the Polish people are represented as Pigs, if i remember correctly. It's a sad but powerful read. Snow Piercer : The Escape is part I of a 3 part series about a fictional future where all life on the planet has been wiped off because of severe cold. Earth is blanketed with snow and humans survive on a train, that chugs along the cont...

To give you some context, I've been in Austin, Tx since August the 3rd. Starting the first weekend of August, I've been voraciously reading graphic novels or, as you might call them, comic books. Loads and loads of comic books. And what an awesome time it has been. Over the course of the last 6 weeks, I have read a total of 37 books, 35 of which were comic books and 2 of which were books. Let me get the books out of the way first. I read The Postmortal , which is the story of a future where people could take a shot to prevent aging. It's an interesting read, not just because of the premise but also because of the way in which it's written. I wouldn't mind reading it again and I would definitely suggest it to someone interested in science fiction. The second book I read is When breath becomes air , which is an autobiography of the Stanford neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi and his life before and after he was diagnosed with Lung Cancer. It's a beautiful story and ...

I just read 300. Yes. Read, not watched. The movie 300 is based on the graphic novel 300, by Frank Miller. If you are interested in comic books and graphic novels, you would've heard of Frank Miller. You would be familiar with his work if you are fan of Batman. Now, coming to the actual book, it was beautifully drawn and interesting to read. I kept comparing it to the movie, in the back of my head. I no doubt prefer the book to the movie. The book felt more visually appealing than the movie. It was also better at grabbing and holding on to my attention better than the movie. I don't know why but I very much prefer reading the story than watching the story, even if the movie had followed the story exactly. Coming to deviations between the book and the movie, the story arc is probably the most prominent, atleast in the beginning of the book. The book takes a non-linear arc where we see the 300 prepare for war as we learn about how Leonidas became king and how the war started...