This site is now on: polarhive.net PSA: I got a new domain name. A new email address and setup a small VPS this week. I am done with my exams and will be pursuing a Bachelor’s in CS this August. Here’s my new /PGP key: 0x78DBFBE8B325A5A9 A short vacation I went on a short 2 day trip to my hometown in Kerala. Here are some pictures: I logged the whole journey on OpenStreetMap and contributed to Towercollector A couple of posts ago I had blogged about OSM, de-googling my phone, exclusively using FOSS apps on my phone....

If you’re into the FOSS/tech ecosystem; you’ve probably heard of ‘GitHub’ GitHub, now owned by Microsoft is a web-based social coding platform for everything “open source”. At least that’s how I feel they brand it. After the Microsoft takeover there has been a significant increase in traffic with new users joining the platform. Isn’t it ironic that GitHub itself isn’t open-source? Oh, it’s on GitHub so your project must be open-source right?...

This week, I’ve been contributing to OpenStreetMap — a collaborative free software project that aims to create a free, editable map of the world Unfortunately, not many people have heard about OpenStreetMap & it’s usecases. It powers Snapchat’s — Snap Map, DuckDuckGo, Brave Search, Wikipedia & much much-more. I have blogged about making the switch to FLOSS software, degoogling, digital minimalism on my phone, the importance of decentralizing & owning our digital-tools....

I’m back from the dungeons! I haven’t posted in ages I haven’t blogged much this year. I just turned 18 a couple of days ago Everything is back to normal, C0VID is a thing of the past. Practical exams, school work piling up, my final exams fast approaching — this year is going to be a huge turning point in my life. Times flies so fast, I’m officially an adult now!...

I don’t use Spotify, Apple Music, et al. DRM’d content is a big no-no. I don’t consume any kind of DRM these days. Most likely like you: I have a ~/Music folder on my laptop. Yours is probably empty, but I like to keep my music collection offline, available any day I want. I keep music cached on my disk as long as I need it. Songs get archived periodically every few months, if I have a change of taste....

The news you consume isn’t going to affect you in any way. You’ve probably forgotten what you read last week. I’ve blogged about it a few months ago ~ You are What You Eat Today, the only way I get updates is via RSS feeds. RSS stand for — Really Simple Syndication. RSS feeds are portable, extensible, light on network resources. I’ve also conveniently blocked regular HTML+JS sites in my browser as an experiment; more on that later....

From Arch to Void GNU/Linux After months of running Arch. I have finally decided to distrohop again. This time I’m trying Void Linux an interesting, indie-distro that my friend recommended to try. Unlike the majority of distros — which blatantly skin Ubuntu / fork Debian. Void is built independently, so it has it’s own package manager. The XBPS package ecosystem. The lack of support for systemd rejoice systemd haters! Flatpak is supported, if needed....

What do you understand when you hear the word hack? Hackers, ah yes scary people. Nerds in-hoodies who live in shady places? Mashing fancy green text into terminals? Thanks to movies & coverage by the media — hacking in the modern world probably means someone who is skilled at breaking into/hijacking computers I bet you’ve often heard catchphrases like: ‘Keep your data safe from hackers’ ~ le VPN shilling YouTubers ‘Hackers leak classifed — Government documents’ ‘Can you hack my Instagram account?...

Remember 2021? or Should I say 2020? I guess nothing much has changed in the world. The world battles the pandemic. Although people aren’t panicking this year compared to last-year. Our dependence on proprietary software still disgusts me. Thanks to TikTok: our average attention-spans have reduced. I for one, made better use of my time in 2021 than in 2020. Remember that blog post I penned a year ago? Time to reflect I’m pretty satisfied with the goals I challenged myself with in that post....

Things that add value to your life It’s an aesthetic, a vibe, a mindset that I swear by! The rule: seemingly simple–the comprehension? There are N different ways that you can–add value to your life, buying everything you need, in the hope that one day it might be useful to you. Refuel on caffeine, energy drinks staying up late night. Start fasting for days, weeks give up, get back to the same old binging habits & then call it ‘minimalism’....