“Hey bud, get up! I got you some special coffee; that’s exactly what you need now!” said Aaron, entering my room. I had been working on something until 6 am, not realizing that I ended up sleeping at my desk. Though this was not new to me, I don’t remember the last time I went to sleep because it was late. Generally, I only hit the bed when I couldn’t stay awake anymore. I woke up around 8:15 am and felt that my body was burning hot and my throat was hurting. It took me no longer than a few minutes to realize that I had a fever, and it was not good.
Aaron handed me the warm coffee while I was rubbing my eyes. I was in shock to see the person who inspired me to be better every day standing in front of me, holding my go-to drink in his hands. Out of all the questions I ever wanted to ask him, I stupidly started by asking, while sipping the coffee, “OMG, this is my recipe. How do you even know this? Don’t tell me you read my diary!” Aaron smiled, “Vin, you know I was here since 7 am. I had nothing to do, so I read it a little bit. I must say, you have a whole emotional storm in you besides the tasty recipes and heartwarming poetry.” I felt a little embarrassed as no one knew that I wrote a diary, but I was amazed to see the one and only Aaron Swartz in front of me. I can’t describe him with words; imagine how you define someone who helped create the Really Simple Syndication (RSS) at the age of 14, developed the technical architecture for Creative Commons, created Markdown, co-founded Reddit, and above all, was a writer, an entrepreneur, the internet’s own boy, and a hacktivist who lost his life advocating for the free and accessible flow of information.
“Do you know, Vin, I love seeing a bit of myself in you, but remember, your journey must go far beyond me or anyone else. I had a world with Stephen and Albert; they told me about your curiosity, and I even met Steve before coming here,” said Aaron. I replied furiously, “But you know, Aaron, I just feel so empty and lost sometimes. I’m badly puzzled. I’m 23, and nothing seems perfect yet. Things are only going oddly. I’m not able to put forward my best; there’s so much I need to do.” “Calm down, boy,” said Aaron in a strict voice. “I know you well, and that’s why I say I see a bit of myself in you. Good things take time, but great things test you over time. When I wanted to make scientific papers available for everyone to learn, the entire US government was against me, and even our beloved MIT betrayed me. Everyone in the world has an easy way out, and most people take it, but that is not for us. When you want to do something beyond, you need to work much harder than anyone, and I can see you are doing that.”
I was a little emotional at the time. I said in a low voice, “I do remember that day when your video entering the MIT server room went viral and the US government attorney was bombarding you with baseless accusations. I never thought that MIT would not stand by your side and choose to be silent.” “It’s okay, Vin. I actually won in the end, as I still live in the hearts of many who truly care. And remember, today we are here for you. If I can give you one piece of advice, I would really say to make sure you add the human element to that checklist hanging behind your chair.” “But you know how bad I am at making any human connections in my life. Sometimes it feels like I am too messed up. There are thousands of contacts and literally hundreds of messages I get, but you know…” Before I could complete the sentence, Aaron added, “I know it’s an impossible task for us, but I also know that you have heard the sound of emptiness despite being surrounded by the voices of thousands. Vin, your journey is quite far, and your hunger is never going to be over. As Steve said, stay hungry. I want to stay here for a while, but I need to go, and I know you have a lot of work to do as well.” “When will we meet again?” I asked in a sad voice. Walking outside my room, Aaron replied, “Actually, I will be coming back twice, firstly on September 1st for the launch of ClimateThread, and later on December 1st when Perplexed will break records. All the best with everything, Vin, and remember, when you think you are precisely right, you are substantially wrong.”
Thanks a lot, everyone! I am so happy to see how much you all are loving my content. We have crossed the 45k+ read mark with the last blog. I apologize for not being able to write consistently; there has been a lot going on in my life, and I am a little overwhelmed, but anyway. For all of you who have been following me for a while, you know I always leave an announcement at the end. This time, it’s about my book. I am about to be done with the first draft by the end of this month and hopefully, I will announce a launch date soon. If you want me to write about any particular topic in the next blog, feel free to drop me an email at info@vinamrasharma.com with the subject “Inspiration.” Thanks and have a wonderful day.
‘I am so confused. What is going on? Is this even real!’. These were my exact words when I saw that letter; after having lunch with Steve a few weeks back, I started working on Perplexed more intensively. I was filled with the positivity of bringing a more extensive and better version of myself. It was Friday night, literally the third night in a row when I didn’t sleep. Around 3:00 am, I felt my room suddenly started feeling a little colder; I walked to the other side to check the heating, but it was working fine. Still, I was feeling cold strangely; out of nowhere, when I turned back, I saw a letter down on my floor just slid. I immediately opened my door to see who pushed it in. It was 3:08 am, and the mailing services had no scope to deliver anything at this time. As expected, there was no sign of life but silence; puzzled, I returned and picked up the letter, which was a letter to Dr. Vinamra Sharma by Dr. Stephen Hawking. I was all curious. I have no plan for a Ph.D. now; who would have written this? Well, Steve told me that I could expect someone soon this month, so I already understood that here, Dr. Stephen Hawking is no other than one of the greatest cosmologists, theoretical physicists, and, of course, my very favorite author. My excitement hiked to 11th heaven after receiving this letter from someone who had changed the world of physics and mine with his space-time theories.
AI Generated Image of Dr.Stephen Hawking and Dr. Albert Einstein coming to meet Vinamra Sharma
With no delay at all, I opened the letter; strangely, the letter had no long text but a little message for me which stated ‘3:60 am February 9th, 2025’; my excitement turned into curiosity and confusion again, ‘What 3:60 am, isn’t it 4:00 am and why Dr. Hawking signed under with the same date but year says 2031’. My mind was wandering in the storm of thoughts and theories when I realized it was already 3:59 am; suddenly, it went so quiet that I could hear my wristwatch ticking on the table upside down. Suddenly, there was a bright flash in front of my eyes; I could see nothing but just two shadows walking towards me. It took me around two minutes to rub my eyes and see it was no one else, but Dr. Hawking, and right next to him was someone who needed no introduction but the person who defined and then redefined the whole definition of physics, Dr. Albert Einstein. I was speechless; in front of me were two of the most extraordinary scientific human beings; before I could process all, in a low voice, Dr. Einstein asked in a laughing but polite tone, ‘Vin, I hope you won’t mind an extra guest over. Sorry for coming down without prior notice; I met Dr. Hawking in Universe 212, teaching the flow of time at the University of Glasgow. I saw he was in a hurry during the lecture, and when I asked him why, he told me that he had a scheduled meeting with you, as I had no class. I asked him if I could join, and here I am’. My eyes were shining just like the the first ray of sun to the sea, in an exhilarated state I said,’Sir, you have no idea how happy I am to see you both here; I can’t believe my eyes, you know I was just drafting this contrast to your theory of relativity, I doubt its application in quantum space time’. Before I could complete my sentence Dr. Hawking stopped me by saying, ‘Ahh! boy, I can feel a little bit of me in you, which I doubt is any good! You forgot to ask Dr. Einstein to sit, you know we have traveled across 626 Universes to visit you. Quantum space travel is quite not that smooth yet, we are still working to streamline the flow yield.’ with this note both Dr. Einstein and Dr. Hawking started laughing while I felt a little ashamed of the fact that I forgot a very basic in my excitement. In a low tone, I asked them to sit and went to kitchen to grab some water.
AI Generated Image of Vinamra Sharma in the right, Dr. Albert Einstein in the middle and Dr. Stephen Hawking at the left.
When I came back with a water bottle and two glasses in my hand, Dr. Einstein and Dr. Hawking were talking about something I have no idea of, with the tone all I understood was the fact that they were debating about something. Looking at me Dr. Einstein said, ‘Thanks a lot Vin, I needed the water like anything, do you know I met Leonardo last week and he was telling me about you which actually made be subconsciously curious to research more on you and based on my findings I have to come down to meet you’. While serving the water to both of them, I said,’Yes sir, even I wanted to connect, you know I have a ton lot of questions to ask’. With a smile on his face Dr. Hawking added in the conversation, ‘Vin, we know there is a lot going with you, even during our travel we both were discussing what we can share with you, you know we just can’t tell you everything, it will disrupt the flow of time. Though we will try to fairly complement your inquisitiveness with closest possible retort‘.
Despite of us three in the room, it was all quiet; I can hear each word what there were saying as clear as possible which made me curious again about my wristwatch which stopped ticking, Dr. Hawking was looking at me with a smile in his face rejoicing the moment said, ‘Look Albert I told you the first actual question Vin will ask will going to be about the time in the letter, Vin don’t worry your watch is fine and so do what I wrote in the letter. It is right now 3:60 am and we are in a quadrant of a quant second, the time runs relative to the space which itself is relative to the surrounds here’. Dr. Einstein added to the talk by saying, ‘See, it is as simple as the fact that your mass is relative to energy which is a condensed state in itself proportional to the time which here is quantised; don’t worry if you do not understand why so, you will get it soon. And yes that Dr. Vinamra is you in the letter, not now but soon enough. We know you delayed your plan of PhD, but you never know what life gets for you, wait a couple of years and you will find out’. ‘You know, the time is multi-dimensional; Newton’s laws were limited; every action you do not just have equal and opposite reaction but have around a trillion of corresponding reflex and sub-actions as best of our current understanding.’ said Dr. Einstein. I was so lost in deep thinking while Stephen added, ‘Vin, I read your Paradox of Time; I have to tell you it was impressive besides you were unaware of the multidimensional aspect, I wonder why you have chosen Computer Science over Physics, you know if you have opted physics which you apparently did in one of the Universe, you would be at Max Plank in Germany right now. But anyways; I am here for something quite more important than just science today. Steve told me about his lunch meeting with you, truly that is recommendable how he was talking about you so much. I have to tell you something your goals and desires are high but you need to couple yourself around the life as well.’
AI Generated Image of Vinamra Sharma and Dr. Albert Einstein exploring quantum time sitting on Pluto.
‘But, you both know my current situation. I am struggling to find and define my identity; I am not satisfied with what I am doing, my emotions are unstable, sometimes I just feel like crying and don’t even know how and who to express it to. I have so many things on status pending, you know I plan to launch TechPints next week, PERPLEXED launch date is in less than three months, my research project is still pending, I need to push the AI app I am developing for my current company to production in less than two weeks while there is a lot yet needed to be done in it, we pitched for MyFarm last Friday and hopefully will be starting with the incubation in the coming week, I need to develop the cross platform mobile application for that as well, my three research papers are still pending, for the Youth entrepreneurship challenge I need to redefine my problem statement and start working on the initial MVP, I need to make this power source optimiser placement prediction model for the Build for Earth team as our showcase to investors is in less than a month, I need to complete and push the React code to GitHub for my teammate to collaborate and help me finish on time, my half written book is still on hold and I need to complete it, also I have to attend two upcoming events and fly to London next week.’ I said this all in one single breath, surprisingly the expression on the face of both Dr. Hawking and Dr. Einstein were not really what I expected rather, they were laughing and it felt like they were enjoying.
‘Vin, Vin, Vin; Jakoś to będzie (It will all work out somehow); all you need to do is to believe in you and I am saying this than it really mean something, and you know why I said it this way. You need to get your emotions in line, you are at your least productive zone. You know the only thing more complicated than Physics is human emotions, even in the year 2980, we are trying to understand it; well let me tell you something even in this Universe you have a lovey dovey personal life.’ told Dr. Einstein, while Dr. Hawking added in a contrasting way, ‘Nie ma tego złego, co by na dobre nie wyszło (There is no loss without some gain), Vin, there is something common between me, Dr. Einstein, Steve Jobs, and Leonardo da Vinci; if you know you know, I don’t want to say everything upfront. But remember the sky is not your limit even as there are infinite number of skies that you need to win over. well I know we haven’t really answered any of your question completely yet, but we came here to just to make you realise something and I believe we accomplished our target; well we need to travel back somewhere and Dr. Einstein will be coming back to you soon again’. ‘Yes Yes, you know Vin probably around one and a half month from now, I will be coming back to you about something but until then keep your hustle going and maybe for your emotion part there will be someone you can expect to visit you next month or even earlier.’ said Dr. Einstein in a composite voice.
AI Generated Image of Vinamra Sharma in the left, Dr. Albert Einstein in the right talking
Before I could even react, it was this bright light again, my vision was all lost for a moment; it took me next 15-20 minutes to digest this all and get back to completing the code I was working upon. Though I realised its already too late to sleep, I went to the kitchen made another cup of coffee and decided to push my sleep to another day.
Well, I hope you all are liking the blogs, well I am very happy to share that our viewership is crossing borders much faster than I expected; our last blog had readers from around 46 different nationalities. If you are a constant reader I know you will be looking to this last paragraph for some announcement, I will be doing a little giveaway of chocolates and a letter written specifically to you, if you will be in the top three people who write me an email at info@vinamrasharma.com, telling a short story about your life and what good change you will bring in world if you will get the funds you need to implement it. Looking forward to reading some of the amazing thoughts of yours.
It was 10th of January 2024 when I got this call from a random US number at around 3 am in the morning. In half way of a tired off sleep, I picked up the call subconsciously; Hey is this Vinamra? the composed voice on the other side asked and I said yes in an undertone following up with question; who is there, is there something urgent? He said in a joyful way, ‘you know me too well already, but you will meet me soon enough; someone told me you are liking cooking food nowadays, is that so? Anyways I am boarding to my jet on my way to you, will catch you at 10am at your doorstep’. Before I would have understood anything the phone got cut, my sleep have already vanished by that time thinking who it could be, well I tried calling back but the phone was off. I went across my conversation with almost everyone in the past few weeks trying to figure out if I have invited someone unknowingly, tried to recognise that voice in my head but the incident was really uncommon I can feel that I have heard from him before but do not know where and when. Though as being tired of all day, I again just dozed off in the arms of sleep sitting over couch.
When I woke up, I checked the clock; it was already 9am surprisingly the sun was out as well which is no less than a miracle when you live in Scotland. I needed to clean my room as it was a big mess and so do have to go and buy groceries as well. While my mind was all the way perplexed thinking who is actually coming. I took a wee shower, cleaned my room and rushed off to buy the things; the time was so limited that my curiosity in unfolding the identity of the visitor is taken over by sense of making right arrangements. I landed back home at 9:55am, eagerly waiting for the clock hand to move forward with five minutes, and in the very moment of this long enough short wait, there was a knock on the door.
I opened the door and I was shocked, I couldn’t believe what I was evidencing with my eyes, my heartbeat got so loud that I could feel the vibrations, before even I could utter a single word, he said, ‘Won’t you let me inn vin? It is very cold outside.’. He walked inside, gave me a hug and said, ‘Ohh, its is so good to see you in-person mate, my friend Leonardo told me you needed my help, so here I am’. It was no other than Steve Jobs himself, I couldn’t believed my eyes, I am finally with the person I have admired my entire life but how is it possible was the question in my mind. In this state of twist, confusion and excitement, I asked, ‘Steve are you for real, I can’t believe…’, with a smile on face Steve instantly replied before even me completing my sentence, ‘Come onn Vin, you are kidding with me right; you just found Leonardo next to you few weeks back, stop thinking like humans for a while !!, by the way I am badly hungry; I hope you cook as good as you like cooking.’. My happiness hiked the eleventh sky, this guy standing next to me was one of the finest entrepreneur in the world, his visions were beyond the possibilities of the time, he turned the market of personal computing and changed the definitions of technological advancement forever. With this all going in my head I said, ‘Sure, let’s hop off to the kitchen and talk while I prepare food, also you know I got a million of questions to ask !!’ with this note we both started walking with a smile at our faces, I opened the door for him and we entered kitchen.
I opened the fridge and pulled out the fresh vegetables I bought few moments back, ‘Seems like we are gonna have some delicious veg cuisine’ said Steve and added after a pause of few seconds, ‘you know when I was of your age I always use to walk for a mile to visit the Hare Krishna Temple to eat a good meal once a week; that was a different time vin, I was a different person back then’. I was listening to him very carefully while washing the vegetables and taking out the chopping board, I curiously asked, ‘Steve do you miss the old times, I know things weren’t the way they were portrayed, I know there is a lot to what world knows’. Steve replied instantly, ‘I know you know it well Vin, but remember today we are meeting for you not for me; I know your dreams are bigger than anyone’s desires, I know you are not hearing the call of jiggles as you use to, Leonardo told me all, and I am here to tell you that yes you are gonna change everything.’. ‘But you know the things are messed up now, seems like all got stuck, I am not growing in life, I am not able to sleep at night, I don’t feel satisfied at all, I feel like I am getting stuck in the circles of life, I got a ton shit of pending things, I am losing the human connections, I am just not finding the right cord’ I added furiously using out all in a single breath. Steve walked around the table, opened the wooden draw on the top and pulled out a glass to serve me water,’Chill down’, he said offering me the water. ‘I know and that’s why I am here; remember to construct the miracle first you need to demolish the old, same goes off with life Vin. You need to unlearn to learn, you know what I mean’. I drinking the water and turning the gas onn said, ‘you are right Steve but, you know I use to thought that maybe I would feel better if I cut checkmarks down my list, but the more I am ticking them down the more things are adding up, I turned 23 last month and I just feel I wasted it all. I want to have everything and I can’t settle for anything lesser ‘. Steve started laughing out of nowhere and said ‘Ahh boy, have you ever thought what you will do when you get it all?, you will seek more and this is what the paradox of cycles all about. I remember the same tendency got me fired from my own company. The world only knows me well in the words of Walter Seff Isaacson, while my soul cries out loud in ‘The Bite in the Apple’. Vin life is way beyond anything we as humans assumes, there is a dimension above our understanding of them and that’s why I showed up to you not to them.”. With the little butter in the pan veggies were frying in a low flame, and I carefully listening to the Steve was fitting a battle of thoughts flooded with shine of emotions in my head.
‘By the way what that Illuminati hieroglyph doing at the wall of your room, you know we don’t put it there in general. Also I read the first draft of your book, I believe you do need to take down few of the theories, it’s too much to express for now.’ Steve added in a serious note. ‘But Steve, bounding words, twisting meanings and portraying the imaginary is the job of pseudo clairvoyant. Don’t you we the people of Science must only convey facts and findings’ I replied instantly. Steve got his smile back, not because of my words but because the food was ready. In the mean while I was serving us the meal, Steve poured red wine for him and some pineapple juice for me. We spent the couple of hours eating and talking a lot more about things, but not everything is meant to be shared atleast not at this moment, but wait don’t worry, there are somethings that are needed to be conveyed though you need to wait until the next month.
Okay, so if you reading until the end and know me for a while I always leave something for you, so feel free to email(vinamrasharma5@gmail.com) me with a message or any topic you want me to write and I will definitely pick a random one and write over it. Well thanks a lot for all of your support our last blog got impressions over 43 nationalities and the numbers are growing.
Details make perfection but perfection is not a detail.
– Leonardo da Vinci
The Tuesday started rough and rapid, I woke up at 8:58 am and needed to be somewhere at 9 am. I guess the alarm didn’t really rang, rushed in a hurry to washroom to take a bath, I booked my cab with wet hands and wore clothes in a hurry. Ofcourse I got late but that’s alright I managed it somehow, the life is getting super busy nowadays, this new job, the part-time course I started, the research project with my professor and this multinational, working on Perplexed, freelancing project, Startup I am helping, this hackathon project which got incubation, PhD application, job application, and what not. But, the is actually good, I guess these are the things what make me feel alive or atleast keeps me away from the trap of thinking nonsense. Okay let’s cut straight.
I was sitting on that last white bench in this small library at a random city college in Glasgow, what I am doing here is another story maybe I will tell you someday later. I saw a gentleman walking straight to me in long brown coat and a hat on his head, it was strange as this desk is at the very end where people do not usually come up at all. He stopped by me and asked are you, are you Vinamra, I was shocked how does he know my name, before I could say something, he told in a lower voice, ‘don’t worry, neither I am a student here; I also just jumped inn as I love books as much as you do’. I was all perplexed but yet gathered the courage to ask, ‘Do I know you? sir’. He laughed in joy and said, ‘oh son, I thought you were as smart as people claim’, he further added, ‘I am Leonardo, Leonardo da Vinci’. At that very moment my curiosity turned into excitement, I rose in joy and pulled a chair for him to sit.
Leonardo quickly sit and said, I am as busy as you but just came by to see for a reason, before I could understand anything he pulled out his famous art work The distance from the Sun to Earth and the Size of the Moon from his left pocket and from the right a brown sheet of paper seems as old as the melody of Rome. He said, ‘You know Vinamra, I wasn’t an artist, I was an inventor, I was a human who had the ability to think, I don’t know what is the problem with the world today; they see me as an artist’, I replied,’Yes sir, I can understand you deep, people see you only for your success but not for efforts I think; but still you are not less than a hero of your time, your assumptions of 1506 is a reality of today’. He laughed in joy and added, ‘oh kid, don’t be just thinking what this world think, I know you have ability to think and do different and that is why I am here’.
Suddenly I noticed, my watch just stopped. when, I checked my phone and time was not moving at all, was I trapped in some Time paradox? to be honest I do not know that still but it was different everything was moving around me but the relative time for me and him was still. Leonardo was worried and badly tensed; he looked into his watch and said, ‘Vinamra, I am running late, let us just work on this piece quick, I have the calculation for the flow of time but the rest is on you, how much you can push it, and I am sure we can achieve the time travel soon.’ I was all lost and was not able understanding anything at all, I added, ‘but what do you want me to do with this, it seems a truth of another universe and time; are you sure you are looking for me’. Suddenly a bell rang somewhere and he disappeared with a note left, ‘you know the destination, you just need to find the way’.
The Leonardo next to me, is a tale of truth, reality and twisted times, you may question what it means, just look harder and you will find your meaning in these texts.
By the was thank you so much and congratulations to everyone, we have crossed a mark of 10k new readers in the blogs every month from almost 34 different countries, I never thought you people will ever like to read the shit I write but thanks to you all for making this a reality. Okay see you all soon, hopefully I will start the YouTube channel from next week.
Hey readers, I hope you all are doing well and excited about this new blog! Well, just a tiny update: I was in India right now and finally celebrated this Diwali week🪔 with my family. I know I was off the grid for a while, though thanks to you all, we now have readers from almost 23 nationalities reading these sluttish words. It is interesting to see how I started this blog as a professional place to dump knowledge, but it ended up being my emotional punch bag; isn’t it strange how I hate expressing what I feel even to the closest humans, and here I throw thoughts out of me? By the way, I am just now sitting at the New Delhi airport waiting to board my flight to Dubai; yeah, I am going there, but not for COP28. This is motivating as I promised myself to work as hard as I will be invited as a presidential guest in the next event. I will be in the United Kingdom from next week onwards.
‘The Final Call: Enigma Attaining Solidarity’ symbolises a call we all get at least once, and I feel this is my time now. So far, things are changing rapidly, and nothing looks the same as before, but a wise man once said, “Change is the only constant of human life” I can say I feel it deep now. I am not very sure about my words today, and that is strange, isn’t it? How can I claim to be a so-called writer while I myself have no idea what I am writing today? I guess human emotions are too fragile; yes, no matter how much I deny being human, I am one of them. Well, in the middle of this conflict of finding my existence, I am here contradicting everything I said and thinking I should work on stimulating the human feeling using haptic neuronic impulse through a microcontroller embedded into the brain. Seems like I got a good idea through the other fact is also that I have almost pending work that weighs nearly a ton more than me on an urgent basis. Ahhh, someone, please, my day count of at least 56 hours instead of 24, but I know It will not work either as my hunger to attain the things I don’t think will ever be satisfied.
Yes, this hunger thing is true. I never thought I would be like this, but this is a reality; I remember my young high school vinamra wishing to earn a yearly package of what I am making every month now, and still, it seems like nothing; I need more and more. We have already talked a lot out of scope, didn’t we? Yes, this happens very often now. I love to be an extrovert with my blog, and I can say this is becoming a best friend to me. It is strange how just about three weeks back, I was thinking yeah, I can potentially be in a stable place; maybe I should pause this hustle and spend quality time like most humans do, but things completely changed, and yes, I am changed too; Ahh, I guess its the time to board the flight strange why people are already lining up in a queue to be in the aircraft while it will definitely not leave without taking everyone present here at the gate, it feels like a local train where people are rushing to take the seat. Should I join this nonsense lane, too ?? or should I pretend I am too rich to care about such things !! This is the exact reason why I don’t like humans, but look how twisting destiny the flight got delayed; this world is a real rat-cage where people are only into rat-race.
There is a reason behind the triggering of this call, but I will not be disclosing that now or maybe ever. But yes, these words are here to let the world know that they will witness something beyond their thoughts and dreams. By the year 2025, you will see things hiking another level of destiny and changing the possibilities forever, Perplexed will break every record and will be the fatest Unicorn start-up in the world, and I will be there working each night as it is the last hustling every day even if It will just be me in the end. Solitude is the ultimate truth, I always asked myself this question will I be happy if I achieve everything but I will end up alone, I know this sounds scary but what is more than scary is that I believe my answer is yes. As a 23-year-old now I think I need to change the perspective of my life in an inverted way as now I am ready to be in solitude forever but I am not at all ready to sideline even a single thing.
Ahh this blog is getting too big, let’s conclude this for now, Let me write the second part to this once I reach back Scotland, until then be safe and keep on husteling also as our tradition of leaving something exciting for you at the end of each piece; I will be available for a zoom catch up later this Saturday 25th, feel free to ping me on my email (vinamrasharma5@gmail.com) I will be sending the invite to 2 people writing me first, let’s see who really read this long.
It’s 8th of October 2023, Sunday mornings are generally lazy until I realised that there is a lot of pending work I need to do, which seems to be impossible to complete in just one day. Still, I choose to write this blog first ;-). It’s around 1:30 am at this side of the world, a rainy morning, and a hungry me as always. Well, the pasta is boiled, as soon as I am done writing, I am gonna make the tasty delight worth with by actually eating it 😋(ps: this gif below is exactly me eating).
Life is really changing up now, I believe I am changing too! To be honest with you, I have no idea who this person is I see in mirror now. It feels like I am going deep into the matrix, the temptation(💰🧚♀️🏎️🛩️🎡🏛️) seems to be true while I know it is just a false reflection, the me is lost somewhere between the fine-lines of dwarf reality.
When I look back, it seems like through this journey so far I have lost a lot and found just a few, its strange how the whole world tell your story of marching ahead with glory while you still find yourself standing still doing nothing but getting lost. Though this is completely personal, it’s peculiar how I am sharing it on my blog read by almost five thousand people monthly. Isn’t this a paradox again? The paradox of human emotion and expression, ohh, I guess I got the title for the next blog, hahaha look at me trying to be over-smart and thinking for the next blog even before this one actually concluding.
I can deeply feel William Blake, when he said “Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death“; though you looses all the sense of emotions, empathy, and understanding of people when you are diving in the sea of desires which are bigger than reality of most of the people. Of-course your determination will be challenged by the thoughts and assumptions of realist time to time, you will miss the faces you have left behind, despite having thousands unread texts you haven’t replied and hundreds of people around, you will end up in solitary but remember the bigger good requires the harder effort.
Maybe I am not meant for emotions, I am great with the people I just meet and know nothing about; but, when it comes to people really mean to me, I am not able to express, or show!(📚💃) Though I have decided I am here for something beyond, and yes I am ready to win the world🌏. I know this Tryst of Marching Ahead: What did I lost, What do I find? will be dilemma for life… but I will wake up each day with the determination to paint a new heights of possibility, to develop a meaning bigger than any definition.
Well, its almost 5:00 am here, I guess I should prepare my pasta dancing on a random melody and singing the emotions, there is a lot pending on the to-do for today.
Defined by words, derived by facts; determined by will, and defused in emotions; the lost phoenix is a tale of you residing in yourself.
Hey everyone, isn’t it really long since I have written something? Ahh… I was quite stuck with the paradox of life until today in middle of super busy day I decided to pause it all and share something that make sense only to stars residing far. Well, I am happy to see that our viewer count is increasing in the blogs and very surprisingly most of you like the blogs around life then tech. Someone really said the truth; science is the language of mortals but arts is the sense of living. (Ps- That someone is me 🙂 )
Let me start this piece with a question to you all; have you ever felt lost? lost in emotions, lost in thoughts, or lost in work ? Now, you are thinking and I am sure the answer is yes, isn’t it? So is the answer is yes smile :-)(don’t ask the reason, why I asked you to smile; sometimes its just good to smile. Look at your face you all looks beautiful).
Well, ‘The Lost Phoenix‘ is all about you; remember how we all had some dreams and desires for us when we were little. Yeah I am talking about the exact thing of having a helipad on the roof, going on to the trip across Europe with no identity, developing a time machine to travel back and get all the exam questions in advance, or what type of people you would like to have in life. What have happened to that now? The twisting events of life have shaped the things differently?? or you may say that now you are learned enough to understand and restructure the life right way. Well I am here to get your phoenix take you out of yourself just as the style of Dumbledore.
In the rapidly changing and continuously evolving life our definitions of things have been badly influenced or I would say contaminated with a precious gift of sense known as logic. Besides being the most crucial ingredient in the recipe of life; when you add it too much the dish really get bad. Today. take a break just the way I did and think of the decisions you have taken by adding logic and that has changed what you always wanted to what should be there. Is it really justified, is it really worth it and even though if it is worth; are you okay with it ? What, why are you reading so seriously; calm down, I know its the first time I am twisting not with codes but with emotions.
Well, this blog is here to just to share an additional pointer in the collection of nodes, by the way I am happy to see that you have read it all along the last guys. So just a small reveal ‘The Lost Phoenix’ will be there as a whole chapter in my upcoming book, possibly launching in November. I know you are excited, stay tuned and ya another fun thing drop me an email at info@vinamrasharma.com with your name and a short message by 10th of Aug 2023 and you will be having a coffee on me 😉
Well, its good to see how people have started taking an interest in the astounding field of hackathons; I remember when I started my journey in 2019, I actually had no idea what this word even meant, but the only image that was in my mind is of someone hacking my Facebook and text to the girl that I never got the courage to write.
This blog is especially for those who are starting their journey with hackathons; if you are someone who just decided to give it a try for the first time, I hope reading this blog might help you get the most out of your event 🙂
Firstly, remember hackathon is never about technology nor about ideas; it’s all about an experience, so just focus on that.
Team building could be an initial challenge, always be hyperactive and draft a message expressing yourself, what you are here for, and mentioning that you are looking for teammates. Generally, most hackathons use media like discord and slack to communicate, and you will always find a channel with a name like #find-a-team, or you can just write to members of the track directly.
Always share your LinkedIn or any social platform to grow your network; even if you are not on the same team, remember connecting with people is always paramount.
Also, it’s not even essential to know even a single technology to take part in any hackathon. You can always contribute with idea development, research, presentation, logistics, and a ton of other things.
But what I really suggest is that a hackathon is a perfect place to learn and grow, so you can always learn things and apply at the same time.
The other exciting part is to reach out to amazing mentors when you feel stuck or if you are unsure about any implementation, it could be as small as not deciding on the right idea, code not running, or even nothing at all working out.
Another critical aspect of a hackathon is to engage with workshops and activities going across the place; these activities keep you motivated as well as most of the time, you get the opportunity from some of the very learned and experienced people.
On the prospect of searching for potential jobs, I personally consider hackathons a very good place. Just as we want good companies, good companies also want to have employees who have excellent skills and mindsets, while hackathons are one of the perfect places to find this delicate intersection.
So constantly interact with the sponsors of the event and drop your resume with a message to consider you if they come across any good opportunity where you can contribute, I can say this personally works, and for me, it actually helped me to work with an exciting silicon valley startup.
A very common question apart from just experience and how to have a good experience is how to come up with a really good project; the answer to this question actually much simpler, remember, it’s just 70% of impact and 30% of technology. A common mistake I see people making in hackathons is that they always look for technology. If you ask me, I suggest you focus on the positive impact you can bring from your work rather than just the tech stack.
Generally, we find hackathons of straight 24 or 48 hours(there are even longer events such as a week-long, a month-long or even more), so working continuously for these many hours could be challenging, especially when you have a bunch of other things to do as well. Well, as these events are global, there are more than chances that your team will be from people of different time zone, so you can always plan by distributing the work and keeping each other in the loop with the updates. Even playing a few games in between and just talking or listening to music also helps.
When you and your team are done with the work, remember to conclude all with an excellent presentation and show it in the way you thought of it with you first came up with the idea.
Finally, when you submit your work, always thank your wonderful teammates for their work and tell them that no matter what the results will be, they all have worked wonderfully and how much you loved working together.
If you win the event, that’s great, but even if you don’t, make sure you write a good message congratulating winners and thinking of the organizers who put so much hard work into making this event possible.
The image below is AI generated image based on the content of the blog; also, if you feel you have more questions still to ask, click on this link to schedule a quick meeting with me and get your answers :
AI-generated image on the base of text in the blog
<Disclaimer: Just one of my professor advised me to write in precise points and focus on the key ideas, so I am trying to do the same with this blog, not just with my answer sheets>
Ps- Writing this blog doesn’t actually feel like writing at all; it’s just like me expressing my other half :-), so please don’t mind if you find me flowing in emotions.
Cryptography is a beautiful subject; it’s full of mystery, thrill, and of course, filled with wonders of joy. So in this blog, I share my experience decoding a cipher text encoded using an 8-rotor encryption machine. So it was just the 2nd of March when I was completing this LinkedIn course on Introduction to cryptography and secure development when I went across moodle(LMS used by the University of Glasgow) to see some of the great content posted by my professor to learn from, suddenly I realized that I have a pending midterm assessment which is due in less than 46 hours roughly. When I read through the description of what I needed to do, I got speechless, as I had almost no idea what I would do, so the professor emailed us two cipher texts which were encoded using this 8-rotor machine code he had uploaded in the portal written in JAVA, other than this he had given us a text file containing roughly 10000(ten thousand) possible keys that could be input to the code to decode the cipher text.
So, as we had multiple keys with us, some random cipher text, and the 8-rotor machine code, we needed to find the right key and decode the cipher text into plain sensible text using the right key. So, one of the best ways to do this would be a brute force ofcourse, though; the interesting fact was that as we already have a set of keys, we can actually use a dictionary attack.
In task one, we already have the information that the first two letters of the plain text will be “T” and “h” this got half of my task done; it seems to be simple while performing the dictionary attack; I just filtered the output for the part where the first and second character is as T and h respectively. Well, I thought that this would be enough, but it wasn’t actually. So I got two possible keys after this and two plain texts; the first one was for sure wrong as it just had the first two characters as ‘Th’ but followed with a string of random characters that make no sense and for sure is not an English sentence. The second one was right as it has the decoded English sentence that makes the right sense. So here I have added another filter just by making another set of words consisting of general terms used in the English language such as as, as, the, we, us, etc. This allowed me to resolve the first task with an ace.
In task two, we didn’t have any characters of the plain text, so it needed more effort and a different approach. The only assumption we were given is the context will only generate an English sentence. Now, being a machine learning person, the first idea that hit my mind was precisely to develop an NLP model that would analyze the language to find the key, but the biggest challenge was that we needed to create a code in java, which is an alien language for me always(Ps- I just don’t know why I never liked it, maybe because of its syntax). So I had to think of another way which must be straightforward as by that time I was hardly left with 23 hours, and I needed to do some calculations and produce a report as well besides the code. Well, so what I did is simply browsed google for the average number of lengths of English words(which is almost 4.7 characters), and I replaced the filter for checking to check the average of the set of words in the generated plain text and wohhaa it worked right 🙂
Finally, with all my findings, I completed the report and the complete Midterm assessment to save myself from failing the subject just 3 hours before the deadline 😉
Hey everyone, how are you all doing? Isn’t it too long since we have talked?? Or maybe you have wrote to me on my social platforms (i.e., WhatsApp, Instagram, LinkedIn, Matrix, etc.). Okay I am here to reveal a secret today!!
If you have written to me in past two months there is a high probability that you might have talked to my AI Bot but not me. Okay I am sorry for doing this, but the results are surprising as well as shocking and terrifying on one way.
As the background, I have been working on this AI bot for almost three years since I was in bachelors, and finally I am happy that it is understanding expressions better and has started responding the way I am. So it was just the month of January when I thought that why not integrate it with my social medias and see how it react to real time interaction and how the people interact without knowing that its not a human.
Summary of what happened:
Count of Interactions: 53 different people (Women:31, Men:20, Unknown: 2)
People found it to be not me: 12
People assumed it’s me only: 41
What kind of interaction have happened?
So, I started with allowing text to text interaction where it was replying to the chats, while later, I used classification on a set of posts and allowed it to share with people posts that most suits based on the chat data interchanged.
Outcomes of this:
Made so many people happy that I am replying on time finally😁.
Helped two people feel super happy when they were feeling low and interacted with almost 5 hours continuously.
Lost an amazing friend😒 (Coz the bot ended up sharing a creepy post, which made her feel uncomfortable, and as this is bot is another me, so I never explained what really happened)
Examples of Few Interactions:
Someone Classified it as a botNormal Interaction(Person didn’t realised that its a bot)
I will be making the whole code public soon once I fix few issues; stay tuned 🙂
