Ravit's Blog

 I have made my blog theme pink. We shall see how that goes. Hmm, yes. Not much more to say here. I finished rereading To Kill a Mockingbird yesterday. I found the novel quite entertaining. I have been learning about neural network pruning lately. Turns out you can remove the majority (majority!!) of the weights in a network and actually improve the accuracy. That is some weird stuff. Deep learning feels like an empirical technology that has not been fully comprehended by the scientific community. I mean, yeah, they understand part by part how each operator comes together to make a computational graph, how loss functions are created, and how optimizers fine tune the loss function, but all higher function is God's doing. I am confident that no one on this earth fully understands how the 100+ million parameters in a GAN come together to turn a horse into a Zebra. It feels as though the human race has been gifted the magical power of deep learning by some divine power. But our mind i...

Ah, yes. The writer, his keyboard, and a functional screen. In the same room. The writer has made time to write. Right now, the writer is writing, but this is not always the case. He ponders upon his vocabulary before writing, so as to appear erudite. Anyhow, the inclusion of diverse vocabulary in his writing is permissible, so long as such words are used appropriately in context. The writer does not know what to write about. He suspects that he may have even forgotten how to write. But nonetheless, he sits down before the computer to write, not out of compulsion, but rather due to an inexplicable desire for expression and his association of the act of typing with the return of satisfaction. The writer has no expectations to live up to, so long as he is writing on this blog, for his own writing pleasure. He pauses to reflect how unfair the world is, in the sense that out of all the individuals in the world, with distinct personality types, affinities, and propensities to various occupa...

I walk through a forest. I do. I don't? Shall I not? Am I already walking? Since I am walking can I choose to walk? No, that would be nonsense. Time only goes in one direction, right? Right? "Right?" I scream. No response. God has not answered my call. God is playing a video game and I am the main character. I am the Mario of this universe. I bathe in a feeling of unparalleled bliss. As my walk comes to a close I settle under a large oak tree, I wonder when I even learned what an oak tree is. I ponder whether I even know what an oak tree is. Maybe I don't know actually what an oak tree is. My mind sometimes bestows upon me the most wonderful gifts of all. I would pick the utter thrill and fantasy of indulging in a vision of flight above the best chocolate in the world. But what saddens me most about this unbridled indulgence in imagination is the fact that I choose to write my darn posts so close to 10pm. I wish I could prolong my meditative relaxation, but my interne...

What if the Helium atom were God? The Helium atom becomes part of a wave of heat. The heat wave seeps through the vent in the house of the sinner. Sinner has defiled the home, removed the m from home, adding the ou, and left behind a terrible headache in the benign and all but benevolent spirit of the home. The helium atom moves, with resolute intent, seeking to avenge the arrogant housekeeper. "You have no place in this world, let alone this house." He moves. He enters the nostril of the sinner and lodges himself in the depths of the lungs, and all at once, as if struck by lightning, the man is seized with the excruciating, inescapable pain retribution for his misdeeds. He is upset, and unrelenting in his pursuits, with the sympathy of no man, the power of all. An omnipotent creature, the helium atom grows in size, increasing his . But who is He? He is no one at all. He is but a powerless atom. But yes, he has high apple pie hopes. A deluded, unforgivable creature. Shrouded ...

 I soar. A bird. A powerful bird. I am the most powerful entity there is and there ever was to be. The bliss as I glide over my dominion. Such crushing power under my thumb. I dream of flying. Or rather, falling. I dream of radiating a powerful energy that provokes utter marvel. The people of my kingdom stand aghast in admiration. But of course I do not see them. I have closed my eyes and entered a penitent state. As I open my eyes, my sleek figure slides past two tree trunks in so impressive a manner that the action of sliding and gliding, though unpremeditated, would not stand a remote chance of replicability, even by the most nimble birds. I am a god. But no. Even deities are flawed. I am a Leviathan. My brain has attained a self-sustaining, incomprehensibly aloof state of function, requiring no one, no thing, no idea to validate itself. This world is meant for me. I am the world. I am everyone. I feel everyone and everything at once. I hunteth not the worm, but watch my soul do...

A couple of months ago I had hypothesized that waking up early would put me at an edge by boosting my daily productivity, improving my mood, and giving me a bit more satisfaction. Today, I gained some more confidence in that theory. The past few days have been difficult for me, as I've found it a bit tough to fulfill my "duty" that I put forth for myself. Some days I didn't have motivation and just didn't want to work. I would get dismayed and at times frustrated by delays in my schedule and the difficulty I had in completing my assigned workload for the day. During these days, I also wasn't waking up as early as I used to. Rather than waking up at 7/8 am, I woke up at 8:30/9:30. Though this wake-up time isn't too disappointing compared to the 10AM it had been at some point during my past summers, it posed some problems. My morning exercise would be difficult due to greater heat in the late morning, but mostly because of the glaring sun. Furthermore, by th...

I had started this post yesterday... ===== Hello there, Time for me to spill some more thoughts onto this page. A couple days ago I would have posted but I had to finish my work (wrapping up my third pomodoro block) and yesterday I had just forgotten to do so. But today...now....it is just 9pm so I'm going to take it easy for the next hour and enjoy the early night before wrapping up for the day. ===== Ironically, though, another task popped up and I spent the time till 10pm doing that. Now, it's about 24 hours later, and I'm here again at 9:29pm. I want to enjoy the time for the next half hour and work on this post. I've finished my work for the day. I actually have some more exciting software development tasks coming up in my company Konect, so that's something to look forward to working on tomorrow. Hmm... maybe I'll talk a bit about what I observed regarding my tasks. Some of them are fun, some of them aren't. I'll tell you one thing that I don't...

One of Bhagavad Gita's themes is that of man and work--the individual's obligation to fulfill his duty during his lifetime. I suppose during the time Gita was written, determining this was more straightforward. There were warriors, the Kshatriyas, merchants, the Vaishyas, and priests, Brahman. People could move freely between these casts before the system was rigidified, as best as I understand. Nonetheless, they had a clear-cut sense of duty and knew what they had to fulfill in life. Based on what I know, I feel that identifying one's Dharma is more complicated in today's world. I was taught that I could become whatever I wanted. I was not educated from childhood, like Arjuna or Rama, that I will grow up to fight and govern, or that I would be a merchant. My duty is not clearly laid out for me, as it seems to have been for Arjuna. In these past few months in quarantine, I've left the house once to pick up my high school diploma and 12-14 times to go running. Living...

Ok, so from the first few chapters of the Gita that I've read so far, I notice that Lord Krishna seems to emphasize the role of duty and work in life. He had a few ideas that caught my attention, which I'll detail here: In his state of despondency and depression, Arjuna asks Krishna what the purpose of work even is, when renouncing one's desires is the action that brings one closer to God. Krishna responds that work (karma) is an integral part of life , and that while suppression of temptation is indeed crucial, it does not imply that one should turn to inaction, but that one should merely work because it is work, and not expecting any return or reward. Even Lord Krishna engages in work and fulfilling his duty (as with life and soul inevitably comes work), but he does so in a manner that is disengaged and not expecting or anticipating some outcome, but simply because it is Dharma. Different castes have different roles to fulfill in life, and Arjuna's role is that of...

Hello, It's been a loooong time since the last post... Lately, I've been spending my time indoors. From 5-7 I stay in my room, either play piano, read, or sleep if I'm tired. In my quarantine time, I've finished my 8th grade book The Grapes of Wrath  and started plenty more. I've also cleaned up my room, taking after Dr. Peterson's suggestion. Recently, I started reading Bhagavad Gita (Professor S Radakrishnan's Sanskrit to English translation) out of curiosity as to what one of the most respected Hindu scriptures recommends as the proper way to live life. So far, it is interesting to hear about Lord Krishna's recommendations on what the ideal individual should do and what the aim of life is according to this great scripture. The nature of the dialogue to have the ultimately flawed disciple, Arjuna, communicating with the ideal Lord Krishna, who has supposedly achieved the highest state of life, makes it convenient for me as a reader to relate to both ce...

Hi everyone! Lately, I have been trying to improve my life. Not that it isn't great already, but just that I feel that there is a large degree of happiness and potential I still have yet to unlock. Both in terms of the variety of activities I pursue (last post), as well as the things I value, and my outlook on life. One idea I read a few weeks back is on the topic of successful people. In essence, it went something like: most of those who are successful are not successful because of some inherent talent or some insane ability to always work hard. They are successful because they know their potential and are not afraid to pick themselves up when they fail. I want to lead a successful life. Most importantly, that entails one where I am both happy and satisfied with the things I am doing. One means I am pursuing of achieving both of these characteristics is through maintaining a growth mindset and maximizing my utility of this mindset through my day-to-day life. As a consequence o...

Happy new year! 2020.... My senior year of high school has flown by pretty quickly. Not unexpected, but nonetheless, crazy to think about. At the moment, I am quite happy, as I finished the last of my college applications on Sunday, and the workload in that regard has dropped significantly. As I wrap up most of my academic classes, I am excited about the relatively greater degree of free time and freedom I will have over the next three-fourths of a year until college begins. Although I'm not quite done yet, I do feel quite relieved of the looming pressure of application season; I have been looking forward to this time for several months. Now I know things rarely go exactly according to plan, but there are a few things I am truly looking forward to experiencing: just some ways I want to have fun: Running - I have been recreationally running for about six months now. I started last June, and hope to keep up my engagement in the activity and hopefully see an improvement. YouTu...