blog 17

Why Starting Early Is So Important

Today, I attended a TEDx talk hosted by my school, Sunbeam School Lahartara. I was part of the Organizing Committee (OC) and was left inspired by the talks and ideas shared during the event. I would like to emphasize one of the many learnings I took away from the event: the importance of starting young.

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Fail Fast, Grow Fast

In his talk, Tejas Jain, founder of MU20 School of Opportunities, mentioned that the people we get inspired by are not inherently exceptions or outliers. He believes that the characteristics society labels as “outlier” are, to a large extent, dedicated to how early they started in their field or domain. This primarily has to do with the science spectrum of it, specifically: a) Neuroplasticity and b) Pattern Recognition.

The earlier we start, the more time we have to fail and learn from those failures. This practice leads to recognizing patterns in the way they approach their life. People who start young don’t dwell on setbacks; rather, they have learned the hard way that a setback is exactly an opportunity to grow. One of the quotes put up during his talk was:

Talent is universal, opportunity is not.

And for the people reading this blog, the biggest opportunity you have in your hands right now is time.

With that, I will end this blog by mentioning one thing. Remember we discussed Imposter Syndrome in one of our previous blogs? This is the exact entity that will stop you from executing all that you have read above. Your “monkey brain” will come up with thousands of excuses, some of them being, “I am already 25, and I see 15-year-olds building their startup; maybe I am too late,” or “What will people think of me if I start too young? Will they see me as a trivial kid trying to act like an adult? Am I missing out on my childhood?”

These thoughts are very common, but they are devastating. Try to remove them from your mind as soon as you can.

If you are interested in knowing more about Imposter Syndrome, check out this blog that I wrote a few days back.

Beyond AI

Beyond AI is a program for high schoolers and undergrad students from all around the world, which builds foundations of Artificial Intelligence from absolute zero. The participants are asked to prepare for a one-month-long period, where they learn from various domains such as programming, linear algebra, calculus, LaTeX, et cetera. This preparatory phase is followed by six weeks of a learning phase (which ends next week at the end of the consolidation week) and lastly, the research phase, where we research on one of the many provided research topics.

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Reflection:

The program has been really rigorous, yet very profound in the way the things are approached. The coursework starts from the very basics and takes your level up gradually. I really like the way Dr. Filip Bar engages with us in live classes and breaks down complex ideas into manageable tasks (mind maps are one of the strategies he has sharpened us on). The program cut through all of the buzzwords initially and began with exactly what the foundations of learning Artificial Intelligence are. I express my deepest gratitude to be chosen for such a prestigious and rigorous program, and for the fact that I learned so much. I am excited to work on my research topic during the research phase. Some of the blogs in the coming months will focus on my research and what I have been working on there. Stay tuned for that.

As of now, I am not able to figure out how I can optimize my blogs nicely so that the viewers can engage with comments without internet bots spamming my comment section. One more thing which I am thinking to work on is a weekly newsletter subscription, where I will try to provide some things which I find profound, interesting, and useful. Stay tuned for whenever that happens (probably sometime in the future).

Whenever I study math or physics, I like how people from centuries back could think of profound ideas. This really strikes me when I realize that there wasn’t proper documentation of much of the past work in their field of study. Even if there was any, it wasn’t accessible to all. Collaborating was a novel thing back then. You don’t know which great mathematician had already proved a conjecture somewhere during the Bubonic plague, just waiting for his death to arrive and for the proof to get lost amidst all that was happening.

There was no proper notation for an entity, no proper definitions to work upon, and limited resources to develop something meaningful. One narrative that a string theory student shared with me was that he believes people back then discovered so many things because most of them were as intelligent as we are, and the problems they worked on were very fundamental. His stance was very firm that the work we are doing is much harder than what people 600-700 years ago did, and it is also so complicated that we are not able to acknowledge most of the breakthroughs that take place, and hence feel that the progress is not very foundational or rapid.

Let us conclude by working on an example. Consider Artificial Intelligence, how much of a technological advancement it is, and how much it will impact humanity at large. Some people think that it is equivalent to “discovering the wheel,” whereas there are equally contrasting opinions that say this is all a “bubble” soon to burst. I think of it as another once-in-a-century technological invention but not a reinvention of the wheel. I am definitely sure that AI will have a huge impact on how human civilization develops in the coming centuries, but is that all? Probably not. Think about when calculators were developed; they were one of the most fascinating pieces of technology someone could get their hands on, and people also started thinking it was the end of mathematics or computation as a career. The same was true for computers; people thought they would take over jobs. But what happened? They created significantly more jobs than they replaced. I also have such an opinion about Artificial Intelligence. It is definitely not something to think of as a “bubble,” but rather a tool to learn and use in your workflow as efficiently as possible.

this blog is made so that the admin’s blog streak doesn’t break.

For taking away value from this blog. Here are some educational videos that the admin suggests (may/ may not have watched it himself)

Lately, I have started waling explicitly for thinking. I discovered it myself that whenever there is some problem that I want to solve or a issue that is not being resolved, walking is one of those activity which always leaves me with a net positive. I used to walk in evening for 30 – 60 mins before my exams and realised that it was actually beneficial as compared to 6-8 hr stretch of studying. This time was prlimariy used to think how the current task in hand can be resolved better, what could be a better strategy, and so on. Later, I discovered that on internet there is a well known community of thinkers who walk voluntarily in search of profound ideas and mental clearance. The benefits of this are immediate. You find yourself in a better condition both mentally and physically. Primarily it resets your productivity bar so that you can work with the same intensity, with a better plan and strategy. Apart from the productivity aspect, it somehow allow us to think in a completely different way as compared to when we are on our desk, office, or bed. This is why people online often report that walking is a crucial part of someone’s scientific carrer.

blog 10: Emacs Org Mode

Table of Contents

• 1. Initials
• 2. What is Org Mode?
• 3. What is Org Roam   
• 4. Is it good?
• 5. How you should begin with Emacs

1. Initials

As mentioned in learning doom emacs that I have started using Emacs as my primary text editor. I wanted to dedicate a separate blog regarding the same. So for starters, Emacs is, be definition, a text editor (but trust it is a complete OS in itself, yet to reach that stage). It is an advanced tool which allows you to navigate your computer files easily, document your learnings and knowledge base (Org Mode), create documents of different type, program, send email, surf internet, and most of anything you can imagine could be accomplished by following a reddit post instruction from an unknown stranger who teaches you how to attend zoom on Emacs( I am optimistic that it must be possible )

2. What is Org Mode?

Emacs has a tool called Org Mode , which doesn’t have a full form but I like to call it as Organizing mode ( as far as my use case is concerned ). This tool allows you to make to-do list, schedule deadlines, make effective notes, document any knowledge that you encounter on your journey within Internet. As of my current work flow, I use emacs to schedule any deadlines that I have to meet, any TODOs, Note making for any learning, write this blog, funsies, etcetra. I am very confident that I might not be the best person in the world to describe this application to you, but as someone who has the experience to installing it from scratch and integrating it into my daily workflow, I believe this blog can act as a trigger for a chain reaction or a rabbit hole which leads you to actually installing this piece of software, and who knows get your productivity to a next level. But for people at large, here is a video that I recommend for absolute beginners to know about what Emacs is and also a separate video on what is Org Mode.

3. What is Org Roam?

This is an extension to the Org Mode, which I have no clue of what it could be used for other then making these cool 2D/3D Node connection og all your notes in Org Mode to visualize your Notes at large, and once it become large enough, you can start calling it your second brain ( and the graph really visualizes one ). The first image is my current Second Brain in Development contrasted with a Org-Roam Node connection of someone who has used it for years.

4. Is it good?

yes.

5. How you should begin with Emacs?

Just install it. Don’t overthink this step if you are really someone who wants to learn to use it. Just watch a youtube tutorial which guides you through the installation and get started. Learn some basic keybindings which allow you to navigate to your files, create them or delete them. Now look for a tutorial on Org Mode( if that is something that you want to try out ) and start implementing that in your daily work flow, even if in small ways (everything counts). You want write an essay? Use Emacs. You want to code? Look for tutorial on how you can do so, use emacs. You want to journal or make notes?Use emacs. The use cases are infinite, but you need to figure out what specifically you need to get done with this software.

Author: S. Atharva

Created: 2025-10-07 Tue 00:32

This is a short blog on my views on Elon Musk’s work ethic.

Elon Musk has been my idol since I got to know him (5-6 years ago) and even now, he is among the people I aspire to learn from. I am fond of his first-principles thinking and his work ethic. Also, the amount of impact that he is having in the space, electric vehicle, internet connectivity, and many more industries.

Today, I want to particularly talk about his work ethic and why I think it is not meant for everyone. Elon Musk’s work ethic here means a working style where you “go all in,” in terms of Gen Z lingo. This means if there is something to be achieved, then no matter what, you have to do all that is required to achieve that. Working odd hours, being low on sleep, high productivity, and all the other buzzwords.

I personally believe that if you have such a work ethic, then you should just go and work, and in most cases, it will be absolutely amazing for you. But in my case, as in the case of many others, this is not what really works. Trust me when I say this, I have tried to mimic Elon’s work ethic in my daily life and, in a nutshell, it is chaos. It isn’t productive (maybe pseudo-productive), nor is it very sustainable if you don’t belong to that very small subset of people.

What I have figured out through trial and error that works for me is to block out time for everything that needs to be completed. Also, while I talk about this, it doesn’t matter whether you work late till 4 AM or wake up at 3 AM for a productive morning; what matters is what you produce. For a long time in my life, I believed that being an early bird is surely a way to a successful life, as portrayed by many parents. This, of course, isn’t completely false; I myself still wake up at 5 each morning. But does it mean I sleep early? Nope. I sleep at 12-1 AM. Then how am I alive? I sleep for 2 hours in the afternoon, easy. Does this imply how successful (or a failure) I will be? Absolutely not. It is something that just works for me. Can Elon follow the same routine as mine and still thrive? Probably not.

So, on a closing note, a good practice while you figure out your work ethic is to stay organized, plan in advance, and do what you said you would do.

blog 8

Table of Contents

• 1. Understanding AI
• 2. Background
• 3. Read Books
• 4. Break the concept down to atoms
• 5. Don’t use LLM or GPT for every usecase

1. Understanding AI

2. Background

It’s been almost four weeks since I became a student in the Beyond AI Research program by Thinking Beyond, and it has reshaped the way I think about Artificial Intelligence and how someone like me, who is completely new to this domain, should approach it. This post is a replacement for the continuation of the blog where we discussed the Hinge Loss function because I realized that the previous entry wasn’t a great post, especially in its choice of topic. This will be a reflective blog where I will reflect on this journey and share some tips I learned along the way. Here we go.

3. Read Books

This has to be one of the key lessons I took away from Prof. Filip Bar, who was our instructor and mentor for this program. He mentioned that attending AI YouTube courses or programs like this one will make you think you are learning, but it is all just on the surface level. Sure, watching a 12-hour PyTorch course would be beneficial to some extent, right? It sure will. But how far have you “understood” it? I am not suggesting removing all digital sources for learning (that would be one of the most terrible ideas of this century), but to start using textbooks as your primary source for knowledge intake (even a digital PDF or documentation will be just as effective).

4. Break Concepts Down to Their Atoms

Okay, maybe the title is a bit of an exaggeration, but the key idea is that for any given topic, you need to break it down into smaller pieces to understand it to a level beyond which it becomes insignificant for your task. For example, if I had to study EMG, I would have several subtopics like: What is EMG? How does it work? How do we process the signal? How do we amplify these signals? Why do we amplify them? What is amplification? And so on (if necessary).

5. Don’t Use LLMs or GPTs for Every Usecase

This is something which I have personally learned the hard way. Since the advent of AI GPTs in November 2022 (ChatGPT), I have used them for everything: writing emails, LinkedIn posts, image generation, idea generation, essay editing, help with homework, and everything else you can imagine. And guess what all of this led to? A dependency on AI for every task to the point that whenever I tried to think something on my own, I found it very difficult.

All this needed to be changed. The change was slow but gradual. It began last year when I started typing my own LinkedIn posts and has continued to now, where I am trying to improve my writing skills by drafting a blog every day.

I am not 100% convinced that humans are getting replaced by Artificial Intelligence anytime in the near future. People like my past self are the ones digging their own graves for this pseudo-replacement. If there is one piece of advice that you should take away from this post, it is to get as much valuable knowledge as you can, as fast as you can (a sentiment I’ve adapted from one of my math instructors).

Author: S Atharva

Created: 2025-10-05 Sun 00:09