https://ingau.me/ Recent content on Gautham Shankar Hugo -- gohugo.io en-US Copyright © 202X, Gautham Shankar. Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/blog/enough-with-the-echo-chambers/ Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/blog/enough-with-the-echo-chambers/ social media is one of the worst things that has happened to humanity. everything was fine until youtube and the old facebook. the algorithm has deteriorated the human mind. llms and chatbots pose an even greater threat. we don’t need more echo chambers, we need more connection. that was the thing with movies and books. they showed us there is a story behind everyone. they showed us we are all so different and yet the same. https://ingau.me/blog/how-i-write-my-blogs-in-obsidian-and-publish-instantly/ Wed, 23 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/blog/how-i-write-my-blogs-in-obsidian-and-publish-instantly/ I’ve been using Obsidian for all my writing lately, and it’s been a game changer. The local-first model means everything lives as plain text on my machine, and with the Minimal theme, the interface stays clean and distraction-free. My vault lives in iCloud (Dropbox or Google Drive work too), so notes sync seamlessly across devices - I often start drafts on my phone and finish them later on my laptop. https://ingau.me/blog/on-the-value-of-our-hours/ Fri, 10 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/blog/on-the-value-of-our-hours/ Time is not just numbers on a clock - it’s slices of our life that we give away. When we work, we’re not just trading hours for money; we’re trading pieces of our existence that we could have spent with family, friends, or pursuing what we truly love. Our life is actually just a series of such hours - moments that we’ll never get back. We often think we have infinite time ahead of us, living in the comforting illusion of “years” that stretch endlessly forward. https://ingau.me/projects/ Sat, 09 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/projects/ Here are some of the side projects I’ve been working on: Bookmarksheet is a Chrome extension that allows you to add your favorite web content to Google Sheets with a single click. Quickdeck helps you create slides faster. It automatically generates slides from your existing content, allowing you to format them using Markdown. Write is a minimalistic web application designed for focused writing. helpmedecide 🫂 is a web application that helps you take better decisions. https://ingau.me/blog/masters-of-doom/ Thu, 22 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/blog/masters-of-doom/ Masters of Doom, by David Kushner, tells the story of the two Johns - John Romero and John Carmack; and how they created Doom and Quake - which revolutionised computer games, giving rise to the gaming culture as it exists today. I’m not a gamer. What, or who caught my interest was John Carmack - a legend in the field of technology and programming. Also, I love to read on how makers make. https://ingau.me/blog/writing-ai-and-authenticity/ Tue, 20 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/blog/writing-ai-and-authenticity/ AI should help me find words to my thoughts, and should not do the thinking for me. Once I start to use AI to think for me, what I write is no longer my work. It isn’t authentic. Writing, or any other art for that matter, is a deeply personal affair. It looses its meaning the moment I outsource it. I understand and crystallise my thoughts as I write; I gain clarity. https://ingau.me/blog/comfortable-silence/ Mon, 19 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/blog/comfortable-silence/ I love the moments of silence in company of people dear to you - a lover or perhaps an old friend. It is comforting and serene, where there is no urge, no compulsion to fill the void with words. Instead, it is a gentle quiet that wraps around like a warm blanket. There’s a lingering feeling of sweet melancholy, the feeling of being together yet in our own worlds. These moments are liberating, the fear of being judged as uninteresting disappears, so does the desire to entertain or impress. https://ingau.me/blog/be-the-human-in-the-loop/ Sun, 18 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/blog/be-the-human-in-the-loop/ some envision a future where ai renders humans obsolete; many remain unconcerned, going about their everyday lives. i prefer to strike a balance, staying at the forefront of developments and figuring out how to stay relevant. in its current form, ai is a tool that helps people be more efficient. it can help people and industries become insanely productive by acting as a co-pilot. however, there is the need for human guidance and oversight, which essentially determines the quality of output since the technology remains the same. https://ingau.me/blog/things-i-love/ Thu, 15 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/blog/things-i-love/ morning cup of coffee, evening cup of tea. afternoon nap after a full lunch. siesta. smell of rain. sound of rain. petrichor. reading by a window, lying on the bed. watching the washing machine wash. working hard on important things. a clean room, a bed that is made. feet in water. or sand. or both. first rays of sun on my face. finding words to my thoughts. reminiscing with friends. https://ingau.me/blog/working-theory-on-happiness/ Tue, 13 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/blog/working-theory-on-happiness/ Have you ever caught yourself thinking that a certain achievement or possession will make you happier? And when you finally attained it, did it bring the lasting happiness you expected? This question led me to discover the concept of hedonic adaptation. Hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic adaptation, is the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes. https://ingau.me/blog/beyond-reason/ Sun, 11 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/blog/beyond-reason/ about six months ago, i started contemplating the purchase of a new bike. my existing ride was sufficient, but i longed for a more powerful machine - one that brought me joy beyond mere commuting. i wanted to buy the perfect bike for me, just that i had no clue on what it meant. i began observing bikes on the road, getting excited when i see a bike which suits my taste and my head nodding sideways in disapproval when i see one which i detest. https://ingau.me/blog/the-why-behind-bookmarksheet/ Sat, 10 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/blog/the-why-behind-bookmarksheet/ i recently published bookmarksheet, a tool for adding your favorite web content to google sheet in a single click. why build it when there is a plethora of bookmarking apps out there? honestly, i wanted to build something to overcome my builder’s block. i wanted to prove my ability to create something independently. i just wanted to build, and build i did. surprisingly, i find myself using it regularly. when i come across something interesting while browsing the web that i want to save for later, i want to easily do it in the simplest manner. https://ingau.me/blog/i-love-the-beach/ Fri, 09 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/blog/i-love-the-beach/ I love the beach for its gentle breeze, caressing my face. I love it for the setting sun, painting the sky in vivid colours. I love it for the endless waves. But I love it more, for the moments it holds. A child holding the hand of her father, feeling the sand under her soft feet for the first time, her eyes wide with wonder. Friends, their laughter against the sound of waves rising and receding. https://ingau.me/blog/why-i-am-taking-a-short-sabbatical/ Tue, 06 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/blog/why-i-am-taking-a-short-sabbatical/ I have two great passions in life - writing and building. I’ve spent the the past few years doing the latter, but I’ve neglected my love for writing. Writing helps me articulate my thoughts. It’s where I discover and develop my inner voice - the very essence of who I am. I live life at a more leisurely pace when I write. I’m more attentive to the smaller, simpler joys of life. https://ingau.me/notes/vps-checklist/ Mon, 23 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/notes/vps-checklist/ This is a checklist for setting up a VPS for a nodejs application using pm2 and caddy. [ ] SSH into the server. If you are using a cloud provider, you can find the public IP address in the console. You should either have the server’s private key or your local machine’s public key should be added to the server’s authorized keys. Here we assume the second case. ssh <username>@<public_ip_address> # Eg. https://ingau.me/notes/asymmetric-encryption/ Thu, 23 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/notes/asymmetric-encryption/ Uses a public-private key pair. As the name implies, public key is shared and private key is kept secret. These keys are generated at the same time using an algorithm and are mathematically linked. The keys are used together in one of the following ways: Encrypting with public key Used for sending messages only the intended recipient can read. Bob encrypts a plaintext message with Alice’s public key, then Alice decrypts the ciphertext message with her private key. https://ingau.me/notes/email-security/ Thu, 23 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/notes/email-security/ DKIM DKIM allows the receiver of an email message to check if that message was authorized and sent by the sender responsible for the domain. A sender adds a private key on their mail servers and signs the message. The receiving server checks the public key stored in the TXT of dkimselector_domainkey.domain.com to validate the private key added by the sender. Suppose we are using SendGrid to send emails on behalf of a customer. https://ingau.me/notes/functional-programming-js/ Thu, 23 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/notes/functional-programming-js/ In functional programming paradigm, you achieve the program objective using pure, deterministic functions. Pure functions Output is solely a “function” of their input. Given a specific input, it will always return the same output. Does not cause any side effects. Eg. It does not modify global variables. In short, pure functions acts ( reading + writing ) only on stuff that is local to it. let currentCount = 0; // Pure function function incrementCountPure(currentCount, increment) { return currentCount + increment; } // Impure function function incrementCountImpure(increment) { return currentCount + increment; } Here, the output of the impure function depends on the global currentCount variable. https://ingau.me/blog/epiphany/ Tue, 14 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/blog/epiphany/ The third time today it struck me I ain’t so naive. A falling feather or an autumn leaf on a wuthering day finding it’s way, sometimes carried away. Soaring high and stooping low in an act of let go. https://ingau.me/blog/punaar-puli/ Tue, 14 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/blog/punaar-puli/ “It’s a Punaar Puli”, he would say. A fragile man in his late 70s, Achachan was always sure of everything. “No, it’s a Kodam Puli Acha " my mother would tell him. “I planted it here, wouldn’t I know?” We all were at our ancestral home to spend the summer holidays. This was the third time in five days since we came here that the exact same conversation was playing out. https://ingau.me/blog/reminiscence/ Tue, 14 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/blog/reminiscence/ Her fluttering hair, soaked⁣ in the ocean air. ⁣ ⁣ Distant smiles o’er⁣ a squeal of⁣ surprise⁣ as the sea waves⁣ rise⁣ and recede. ⁣ ⁣ The sudden glimpse of a faraway ⁣ memory⁣ like⁣ a gentle sea breeze to put a disturbed mind⁣ at ease.⁣ https://ingau.me/blog/the-biscuit-poem/ Tue, 14 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/blog/the-biscuit-poem/ A biscuit dip with a stiff stiff grip but the biscuit slips Oh, a luckless " blip " The perfect dip now a sunken ship. ⁣ ⁣ [Dedicated to tea and biscuits] ⁣ https://ingau.me/notes/gpt-qa-bot/ Mon, 15 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://ingau.me/notes/gpt-qa-bot/ LLMs such as GPT-3 / ChatGPT are trained on generic web data. They can be used to tailor an answer based on context by supplying the context along with prompt. We cannot use the entire documentation as context as it is too large to fit in a single prompt. It may also lead to bankruptsy from the OpenAI charges. So we split the documentation into sections and associate each section w/ its embedding.