VIM Tutorial - Everything you need to know #1

So you have heard way too much about vim and have given it a go but it turns out that you have given it up after trying it for two days, the reason being you just cannot get used to this new way editing software! You probably already know how to shift between "escape" and "insert" mode of VIM.


COPY PASTE COMMANDS IN VIM

yy Yank (copy) the current line, including the newline character.

dd, Delete (cut) the current line, including the newline character.

p (paste) the text after the cursor

SCREEN SPLITTING.

Ctrl+W, S (upper case) for horizontal splitting

Ctrl+W, v (lower case) for vertical splitting

Ctrl+W, Q to close one

Ctrl+W, Ctrl+W to switch between windows

Ctrl+W, J (xor K, H, L) to switch to adjacent window (intuitively up, down, left, right)

The lies we have been told

Initially, I thought of writing an article titled "things I wish I had known five years earlier" but honestly speaking most of them I had already known. Also, this article is intentionally written in Hinglish so to have a more realistic feel with the narrative.

Disclaimer: Views can be biased, keep your own judgment with you while reading it.

1.) CGPA 

I vividly remember my seniors giving this advice to me "agar job chahiye toh cg matter nahi karta but research me jaana hai toh kam se kam 8 lana padega". Everyone nodded their head in agreement as if no truer words had ever been spoken before.

For the next five years every time during the exams I asked myself the purpose of "hacking" the previous years' question paper so that I could repeat the same process during examination Hall.  Well, ideally this shouldn't have been the case. Ideally, learning should be equivalent to scoring high marks in an exam. But that's not the case. Not for anyone.

Experience tells us that the best way to study for an examination is to make the list of probable things that will come in the exam, understand them, practice enough problems to cover the range of expected questions and deliver during the examination. The problem with hacking the question paper is that knowledge often is retained just for the duration of the examination, and even if you remember parts of it later, the breadth and depth of the topic is somewhere lost. So clearly examinations aren't the best way to test if a person is learning something or not and yet we tend to study the most just before a test. Hence, order to increase the growth rate in learning there needs to be examination conducted.

You solve previous year paper, you can pass the exam. You solve the previous 5 year papers, you get a distinction. You solve the previous 10 year papers you can probably help the teacher set the question paper for your batch. The only way one can make the tests unhackable is not to increase the difficulty level of the exams (as is assumed by many) but to make them optional. If we are not compelled to study something, we won't do it out of pressure but we will do it for a higher belief system, thus ensuring contentment with our learning experience. Now, keeping students engaged and interested all the time would require newer initiatives and creative solutions in approaches to teaching which is indeed a hard task to accomplish, and I do not think it is right thing to blame teachers for that (Note that I am presenting this point of view just to discard it later is because many of the students believe in it) but instead, make CGPA matter way less than it already does. CGPA should be a metric to guide students rather than a fail-safe mechanism of promotion/demotion. Just like how a gym trainer guides its' incubees. They advise them on follow up course of action depending on the individual requirements rather than kick them out of the gym.

“Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.” ― Richard Feynmann

2.) Happiness 

In the last 50 years(1970-2020), we have seen the advent of technology, and very few deaths because of famine/wars as compared to the previous 50 years (1900-1970). Fewer humans are dying because of starvation. More and more people have access to basic needs such as roti, kapda and makaan. Yet suicides rates are through the roof. Before 1950, suicide rates in countries such as Japan, New Zealand and France was one in 100,000 but today it has increased to a whopping 25 people in 100,000. The reason is pretty simple when economic prosperity happens, expectations ballon. People don't get depressed because of external happenings but from failures internally. Going forward into the century even if the government provides free food for all, cure us of all diseases, ensure world peace, free electricity and internet access to all, it will probably ballon the expectations that people have from themselves, thus leading to more misery.  According to John Stuart Mill "happiness is nothing but pleasure and freedom from pain, and that beyond pleasure and pain there is no good and no evil. Anyone who tries to deduce good and evil from something else (such as the word of God, or the national interest) is fooling you, and perhaps fooling himself too". So, we are biologically entitled to increase our pleasant sensations, the problem is pleasant sensations are like a drug that needs to upgraded with every high you have. Let's assume you feel high after eating a dessert you have craved for long. You end up having it on a regular basis, you won't feel the same high in your second, third eatings. You will crave for more. You will crave for a better dessert and that search will make you miserable.
So what should we do? Aim for less!? Doesn't that sound like losing? No. That's not my point. My point is that pleasure would only feel like pleasure if it is constrained for an aeon of time. Repeated pleasure is nothing but pain.

And when solutions are easy and plenty, we do look out for repeated pleasures.



3.) Technology 

I recently saw a video from 1989 which talked about how our world in 2020 would look like. It talked about flying cars, home automation system and voice-activated circuits. I am not sure about that but 2020 has seen a rise of mobile applications such as Snapchat, Twitter, Reddit, Youtube in ways that wasn't imagined in 1989.  

VendingCook Update

2019 in review.

Gotta update this page. On my todo list. 

https://www.icicibank.com/aboutus/article.page?identifier=news-icici-bank-announces-winners-of-icici-appathon-2019-20191505142621937

Indiahikes Brahmatal Trek

There wasn't much of a purpose or expectation with this trip, I just wanted to have a great time. And I did. :-)


Day 1
The day began with my journey from Delhi to Rishikesh which was lot more colder than I had anticipated. The bus was shivering and the engine making crude noises from time to time. All of the road journeys made the vehicles dance to the tune of nature, as if trying to tell us that here nature rules and not the automobile technology. When I reached Rishikesh it was already dark and I had nothing to do except to have dinner and sleep in the comfort of my blanket.

Day 2
The second day was our journey from Rishikesh to Lohajung. I made that journey in a tempo traveller which had a seating capacity of 12 folks. The driver of the tempo traveller was a person who had 33 years of driving experience and a temper of 2 year old. He made sure to tell anyone on the road who dare cut him his choicest cuss words with a sheer innocence that could make an ice cube melt. He was an epilogue to the famous gormint aunty. Midway through our ride, the tempo traveller decided to catch a cold and refused to budge (coupler shaft axle mumbo jumbo, but I don't get it and you really don't care) but with some dcold total from the mechanic, it was ready to go. It was already dark when we reached lohajung and the cold was right up at our hotel alley. A tasty dinner of paneer and daal awaited us at lohajung. After a small pep talk by our trek leader on death and small injuries such as losing a hand we were on our way to Brahmatal top. Or were we?

Day 3
The only thing you will hate more than washing your hands in winter of Himalayas is waking up in the morning. Do I really need to wake up? Why can't they just use helicopter to transfer us to Brahmatal top. None of the pep talk by our trek leader had anything about the waking up in the morning while explaining the dangers involved in this journey which I honestly think is a little unfair. After a quick breakfast we started for bekatlal, our second campsite. The journey from lohajung to bekatlal was 5 kms and a memorable one. We caught glimpses of some homes and saw women carrying 10kgs of some plant as if it's a piece of cake while we were busy making inquiries about the khacchar wala who could carry our luggage so that we can drowse ourselves in nature. I wondered what sort of credit cards do they have? Survival had a simpler meaning for them :- staying alive, getting food for the next day and taking care of the loved ones. Quite a contrast to where all of us were coming from, a world of dopamine inducing mobile applications which can induce stress and anxiety anytime, anyplace and anywhere. The same way farming was a lie to human civilization, internet is a lie to human connection. Musing through some of these random thoughts of mine, we reached bekatlal and the campsite was beautiful with tents to take a shit in and a proper kitchen. We had lunch, played games, sang old songs, sang some new songs and some regional songs as well. One thing about the mountains is that it gets dark before you know it. And dark means good food and cool breeze. Although the place was cold the people were warm with emotions and we all became a group of friends very quickly.

Day 4
Well, after a rugged sleep we all woke up to ankle deep snow at our campsite. All of us rejoiced and did an action pack performance of snowfight which can put any Salman Khan movie to shame. The fun did not last for long as we heard the news that the snowfall is expected to continue in coming days and we won't be able to make it to telundi if that's the case. We made a quick journey to bekatlal lake during which we saw heavy snowfall and a decision was made by our guides and trek leader that we should head back to the basecamp. The sheer excitement of snow turned to a frail expression to accept the reality of nature and move on the basecamp.

Day 5
We started back to Rishikesh thinking that the trek is over but in mountains the experiences are infinite and we had an amazing time during our journey, rejoicing our new found freindships. Everything about Rishikesh is scenic. The people friendly and everyone is a yaatri trying to find God, peace, Beatles Ashram, a cheap mode of transport or tasty ramfal. The iconic duo ramjhula and lakshman jhula are what you will traverse through multiple times during your stay at this beautiful place and somehow the narrow stones of cobblestone will become a cherished memory. We all went to the beatles ashram (a place where beatles have written many of the iconic songs including let it be ) and did some crazy videograaphy and photography.

It's long time coming anyways. So heree we goooo, The problem with today's society is that the fact that we have been trying to live under a big rock trying to hide our emotions. The access to laser fast communications has made us numb any emotion we want and demand an instant sense of gratification to our needs. Even a small hope makes us feel a beat and then leads us to being afraid of ourselves, our actions and mistakes. So it makes sense to take your dreams and run away with them.It's great to be smart, to be disciplined but it's far more important to have fun. It's important to take away relationships from our experiences, to let ourselves emotionally vulnerable and learn little about the world. The trek made me extremely grateful of the fact that I am alive, the fact that I have what I have and last two days have been nothing but rundown fever from the hangover of such a great experience. If you made it this far, thank youuu... :-) 

VendingCook: Update November 20 (Vessel, Falling Mechanism Done)

I was hoping for faster execution of things, unfortunately, things have not been so as I planned.  I have created the multiple modules of the machine such as the spring coil (which allows falling of the Maggi packets into the Vessel), controlling the electric kettle with Arduino and welding the vessel and attaching couplers to the motor.

See pics/video attached!

VendingCook : Update! Dt: Oct 27 (Created Design, Built the website)

It has been an amazing week. I finally decided to take up this project after a lot of brainstorming. I am well aware that this is not even close to my domain of expertise or something that I have tried before but nothing ventured is nothing gained. It involves a huge amount of mechanical / electronics aspect. I am hoping to complete the project before Nov. 30, which would be quite a feat if accomplished. The design in SolidWorks was made by Yash Faldu.

Design
As the motor rotates the coil it would convert rotational motion into linear motion, thus anything kept between the 2 consecutive coil rotations would fall in container. The container would be connected to Induction Cooktop which would heat the Maggi based on the signals from the microprocessor(Arduino/pi). The container would rotate delivering the cooked Maggi in a bowl.

Website
https://chaturbots.com/
The website is taken from a template I had used earlier. It had a purplish theme which I changed to dark black. I would try to come up with new ways to make this project as interactive as possible with an audience with the help of this website.

I think I am going to have a blast while working on this project as there are so many new things to explore! Adios for now and do not forget to subscribe to the newsletter.