DEV Community: random

Nevertheless, stratospher Coded!

random — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 17:02:20 +0000

My most recent achievement was…

Seeing the view from the other side. When you spend time and energy to the code you love, they take a form that can surpass your wildest imaginations. And it's super addicting. You'll want more.

Advocating for myself looks like…

Putting myself first - spending time and energy to things that truly matter to me.

My biggest goal is…

I want to live exploring new roads and trying new things. And I want to always keep learning and building stuff.

My advice for allies to support underrepresented folks who code is...

All of you are super amazing! You can be everything you are meant to be.

How bitcoin works?

random — Sat, 19 Jun 2021 07:39:07 +0000

What is Bitcoin?

Electronic payment system
A conduit by which 2 parties can transact over internet ( say Alice and Bob)
A bitcoin transaction b/w Alice and Bob basically amounts to a specially constructed sequence of numbers that Alice will send over to Bob. And this will be done entirely over the internet. These numbers will have certain mathematical properties that make it hard for someone to defraud the system.
Alice can do this in 2 ways:
1. Install a special software = bitcoin client
2. Work with a 3rd party service that will handle these mechanics for her.
But in either case, the client or the service will generate these numbers for Alice. And Bob will also be using a software or using a 3rd party service that will take these numbers and allow him to do something else with those numbers. (for example, Bob can buy something else on his own or he can trade these numbers for real money and so on)

Why even accept Bitcoin?

After all, bitcoin is just a bunch of numbers. What intrinsic value could it possibly have?
Bitcoins actually have value and there are more and more people accepting bitcoin these days for transactions.
The value of the bitcoin is going to be derived from the faith you have in the value of what you can procure with that bitcoin.

Why even bother with Bitcoin?

Privacy - transactions can be done without divulging real world identity.
Open - anyone can make a bitcoin transaction. Only thing to do to get started is download the special bitcoin client(or 3rd party service).
Decentralised - when u do a transaction, there is no bank that gets in between the transaction.

How Bitcoin works?

Bitcoins transactions are not like traditional coin transactions.They are more like a global ledger.
In a transaction from Alice to Bob, Alice has to specify how many bitcoins she wants to allocate to Bob. She can also specify how much change she's going to get. And there can also be a transaction fee.
A transaction fee is basically an incentive for other nodes in the network to help Alice in essentially validating some of the details of this transaction for Bob.
Now Alice will take these transaction details and apply what's known as a digital signature to these transaction details.
A Digital Signature is the mathematical analog of a traditional signature. It really binds Alice's identity(her identity within the bitcoin system) to the details of this transaction. And this binding is done in a cryptographically strong way.
The details of this transaction once it takes place are going to be broadcast out to all the nodes in the peer-to-peer network that represents bitcoin nodes.
Now Bob when he receives it over the peer-to-peer network, he'll probably sandy check some part of the transaction. For example, he might check whether the numbers workout correctly. And he's going to have some mathematical assurance because of some of the cryptography involved that some of these claims are accurate - Alice has the bitcoins which she claimed to possess and she's expressed an interest to assign those bitcoins to him. But he won't know whether Alice has tried to transfer those same bitcoins to anyone else over the course of time or maybe just prior to that point.
This problem of Alice trying to spend bitcoins twice is known as "double spending".
This problem is handled via a specific set of nodes known as the bitcoin miners.
They take all the transactions they see and compiles them into a transaction block. So it's basically a recording of the previously unrecorded transactions.
So if you think of a single transaction as a ledger item, you could think of a transaction block as representing an entire page in the ledger book.
The bitcoin miners will also include in this block, a special transaction that is just meant for themselves to basically reward themselves for the effort of doing this mining.
A transaction block will also contain an encoding of the previous transaction block, so there's going to be some level of continuity.
Bitcoin miners will also include a specially crafted sequence of numbers associated with these transactions and these sequence of numbers is known as a "Proof of work".
It's called "Proof of work" because it's something that is really hard to generate, something that requires a lot of effort to do and that kind of makes it hard for just anybody to get involved with bitcoin mining. It requires that they really exhibit or exert some computational effort basically in exchange for getting this extra reward of a payment and also in exchange for getting this transaction fee that they're going to be promised by Alice to engage in this sort of work.
Because each transaction block contains information about previous transactions, what you end up having is not just a single block, you end up having a chain of transactions known as "transaction block chain"
As soon as bitcoin miner is able to construct a transaction block chain containing all these unrecorded transactions, and this proof of work, it'll broadcast the details of that chain out to all of the nodes, all of the peers in that peer-to-peer network for bitcoin.
Once the newly broadcast chain gets verified and meets the right properties the nodes on the network are just going to start using it and they're going to append new transactions blocks to that chain.
They are going to take anything that hasn't yet been processed and start incorporating it into the transaction chain that was broadcast out by the node who came up with the proof of work correctly.

Reference:

Khan Academy

Bitcoin 101

random — Mon, 14 Jun 2021 08:09:12 +0000

I've been reading up on bitcoin lately and I'm super pumped up by the ideals it advocates for - economic freedom (A new kind of money that is fair and open).

Some things which I found particularly fascinating:

"One money for the whole world". Shouldn't we all measure value the same way no matter where we live?
Protects against inflation - only 21 million bitcoin will ever exist. ( what happens if there are so many people that it isn't sufficient? )
It's in our hands and we control it. No 3rd party banks.
Private keys are used to identify us. No other identification like name, phone or address required.
It's keeping money safe for the future.(talking about decades - currently lot of spikes due to uncertanity)
It doesn't exist physically. It's virtual.
Bitcoin is designed for everyone.
Bitcoin has a lot of potential - invented just 12 years ago.
New digital currency for the whole world that is universally accessible and politically neutral.

Each bitcoin can be subdivided into 100 million units, each called a "satoshi" (singular) or "satoshis" (plural).

3 questions before accepting digital money

Can I trust that the money is authentic and not counterfeit?
Can I trust that the digital money can only be spent once (known as the “double-spend” problem)?
Can I be sure that no one else can claim this money belongs to them and not me?

History of Bitcoin

Satoshi Nakamoto combined prior inventions like b-money and HashCash to create a completely decentralized electronic cash system that does not rely on a central authority for currency issuance or settlement and validation of transactions. He used a distributed computation system (called a "Proof-of-Work" algorithm) to conduct a global "election" every 10 minutes, allowing the decentralized network to arrive at consensus about the state of transactions. This elegantly solves the issue of double-spend where a single currency unit can be spent twice.

Bitcoin wallet

bitcoin wallet: bitcoin system :: web browser : HTTP protocol
just like we have many web browser brands like Safari, Firefox we also have various bitcoin wallets.
bitcoin wallets(based on platform) - desktop, mobile, web, hardware, paper
bitcoin wallets provide a mnemonic phrase(12-24 English words) which are selected randomly by the software, and used as the basis for the keys that are generated by the wallet. They are used to restore all the transactions and funds in the wallet in the case of a lost mobile device, a software bug, or memory corruption.

Reference:

Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas M. Antonopoulos - an absolutely thrilling beginner friendly book. I've incorporated material from the 1st chapter in the book here.

Nevertheless, @stratospher Coded in 2021!

random — Tue, 09 Mar 2021 16:34:05 +0000

My most recent achievement was…

It's really hard to pick 1 achievement - I've made so much progress these past few months and I'm really proud of every single one of them.

Deep Focus on getting better at coding - I've said no to a lot of stuff which occupied my time - managing clubs, conducting events etc.. It was a tough but obvious decision for me since I really want to get better at coding and creating software that people will love.
Tracking my #100DaysOfCode in #devjournal
Started my first Tech Internship! It's something I've been looking forward to for a long time. It's hard juggling the internship along with semester work especially during exam time. But I'm proud of pulling through and making programs I didn't know existed by myself.
Gave my first tech talk! It was a post coding-contest analysis. It was nerve racking for me and I was really scared if I'd mess it up. But it went perfectly and I was able to learn so much. Teaching someone is so much different than simply coding. I had to put in a lot of effort to figure out the most time efficient and space efficient solution.

Advocating for myself looks like…

Not feeling bad for saying No to opportunities that don't align with your goals
Self-care. I feel relaxed and in control when I make time for working out or doing something else I enjoy no matter how pressurising a situation appears.
Being my own biggest cheerleader.

My biggest goal is…

I want to spend my life always building, learning and experimenting with new tech and spreading my love for tech to help people. I also want to be self sufficient and get a tech job that aligns with my goals.

My advice for allies to support underrepresented folks who code is...

Keep going! All of you are doing a wonderful job and are exactly where you have to be - creating and weaving a unique story that the world has never seen before. Keep doing your best and you'll eventually fall in love with your own beautiful story and you will be proud of it.

Until next time,
Bye!
@stratospher

#Week 8/14 : 100 Days Of Code

random — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 04:39:13 +0000

Day 50

Have you ever felt restless and full of nervous excited electricity circulating through your body? You cant't think of anything else except the problem in hand. No matter how much you force yourself to you end up thinking on how you can optimise your solution and creating backups in case this solution fails. You can't even sleep in peace. You think you've hit a solution - and then some random error pops up - and now validating your model accuracy is going to take another half a day.

Day 51

I've rectified all the errors and I'm letting my model train. I'm also forcing myself to do something else and not fall into a 1 dimensional thought space centred on the model. I really hope it works. Please work.

It worked. Yay. We assess the performance through a confusion matrix which can be confusing to read.😂

These are the current stats:

- 55550 failures it classifies as failures
- 7880 failures it doesn't classify as failures (I'm worried about this)
- 575561 non failures it classifies as non failures
- 9 non failures it classifies as failure

Day 52

I published my tableau story. It really appeals to your visual neurons. I'm making slides for a post-contest analysis of a few coding problems. It's day after tomorrow.

Day 53

Making the slides is taking so much longer than I imagined. Teaching someone is way harder than simply coding. I'm stuck with wiggle sort.

I can come up with an O(NlogN) solution. But they want an O(N) solution with O(1) Extra Space.

Day 54

The presentation went well ok I guess(25 mins). It'll be uploaded on YouTube soon. But I tried my best. I'm particularly proud of the slides I created. I'll face it after the exams lol.

I also finally found a solution for wiggle sort which was understandable in O(N) and that didn't do virtual indexing tucked away in a leetcode discussion thread. Talk about underrated.
wiggle sort
I loved the simplicity in the author's solution.

Day 55

I had a meeting with the end users of the power BI dashboard. I also got approved for study leave. Exams start in less than 1 week and there's so much to study. I'm not getting the mood to study. It still feels really far away.

I have 6 subjects to tackle and have 6 modules in each subject.

Modules	Theory of Computation	System Software	Microprocessors	Data Communication	Graph Theory	Soft Computing
1
2
3
4
5
6

It's all empty now. :(
Hoping to finish a minimum of 21 modules by next Friday.

Day 56

Time flew really quickly. I'm at the halfway mark now. I have to take a break from 100 Days of code till my exams get over since my exams don't align with the purpose of why I started 100 Days of Code.

I applied for Outreachy Internship also. I will know if I made it through on March 15. I hope my initial application gets accepted. My exams go on till March 18.

Until next time,
Bye!
@stratospher

#Week 7/14 : 100 Days Of Code

random — Mon, 15 Feb 2021 04:16:00 +0000

Day 43

I'm a little stressed about tomorrow - I promised to build a preliminary model. My model takes too much time to train and follows a data driven approach. Machine Learning isn't as simple as I thought 😂 - there's an intuition which can be developed only with practise. I read up more research papers here.

I also did a few easy leetcode questions:

Floyd's Cycle Detection Algorithm
Right view of a binary tree

Day 44

Yay and Ugh :( Visit got postponed to the day after. I didn't finish making the model. I made 1 more power BI visual which will help display the excel tables as it is. We can select particular rows and columns to display as we choose. Semester exams looming in the horizon.......How will I manage exams and ML models?😂

Day 45

Started learning microcontrollers for semester exam. We have to learn about the 8051 microcontroller. Microcontrollers are single purpose devices with RAM,CPU,ROM,I/O and timer all on a single chip. There are soo many bock diagrams to learn by heart:(

I also made another visual using Tableau which shows a block diagram relationship of various entities.

Day 46

Went to demo the model which didn't finish training. They are really nice, friendly and supportive people and gave me suggestions to improve my model.

Correct the window_length and other parameters to consider data for past 2 weeks
Make a new feature that will give the probability of equipment failure and test. This seems like a good suggestion. I wonder how we do that though? I have to get it done by day after.

The oil refinery is like science fiction. Everything's so beautifully constructed in perfect geometrical equilibrium with so much metal everywhere. It's very unlike what I imagined.

Day 47

Learnt more about 8051 microcontroller. Checked out cumulative and exponential moving average. Agreed to take a session on a few coding problems...wait..did I just agree to do that? Meh! It cant be that hard.

Day 48

Did more work on exponential moving averages. I selected 4 features and decided to take the percentage change of the features...I need to make a probability formula that would predict the failure.

Day 49

I couldn't make a probability formula which accurately captures the relationship for failure. I'm exploring other options now. I came across an amazing python library sktime designed especially for working with time series. I loved it.

One major difference is the way you pass input into the functions of this library. Normally we pass dataframes as inputs. Here each row is the Dataframe is an array.

     X
[,,,,,] 
[,,,,,]
[,,,,,]

Until next time,
Bye!
@stratospher

#Week 6/14 : 100 Days Of Code

random — Sat, 06 Feb 2021 17:36:48 +0000

Day 36

Wrapped up all submissions for my Design project course.

Working with Unity was a good experience. The only problem was the high GPU requirement lol.I scraped through though.

Brackeys is an amazing channel for learning Unity!Turing machine quiz this week - so learnt that.

Day 37

System Software Lab Exam happened. We had to implement a 2 pass macroprocessor with unique label generation and also round robin process.

I did some more of Datacamp's Time Series course. I read a tweet about the need to include more factors into the Stock Market's Time Series Model for real world prediction. I wonder if it's the same for ADA prediction?

I listened to an absolutely amazing Lex Fridman Podcast on AI and Physics with Max Tegmark. It was an eye opener for me - AI's biggest threat to humanity is that we don't properly understand the neural networks and a lot of technology trusts user privacy and all on the neural networks. They discussed about how the physics pattern of thinking can help counter these as it focuses more on ofai(old fashioned ai), discovering new laws of physics, Aliens and so much more.

Day 38

I learnt how to use Tableau for getting data insights. It's great for creating visualisations - I love the story feature which lets you create a hybrid between powerpoint and dashboards. But working with Microsoft Power BI feels more intuitive for me. It has more features for formatting the data and getting it to the whatever form you want.

And I only completed 56% of January Leetcode challenge - last week took it's toll on me. But yeah - It's way better than doing no Leetcode. I solved 4 questions with concepts involving greedy approach, mathematical observations and bit manipulation. I found the C++ STL for sets really awesome.

Day 39

More data analytics and visualisation. I created a Tableau story and Power BI dashboard for the same data set. Reached 'Man who didn't look right' in 'Atomic Habits'. The part that stuck with me is:

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate" - Carl Jung

Started leetcode Feb challenge. Learnt basics of greedy technique.

Day 40

Started working on next ML use case - it's for forecasting equipment failure. Unfortunately, it's real world data set and not a toy data set. They don't have a column which we should predict like in Kaggle. Instead they have given us the maintenance logs and we have to infer from there? We have to do lot of data cleaning too.

Day 41

I spent the day researching for similar use cases. I think this comes pretty close to what I want:
https://github.com/Azure/lstms_for_predictive_maintenance
I read a lot of research papers too about predictive maintenance and it's pretty fascinating. My biggest challenge right now is :

Data cleaning
Making the target column

Day 42

Found some really cool python functions to make data into the form I want:

# if u r reading from many csv files
li=[]
li.append(df)
li.append(df)
frame = pd.concat(li, axis=1)

# if Date is in this form 01-JAN-15 00:01:00.0 and we need to convert to python date time
frame['Date']=frame['Date'].str[0:7].astype(str)+'20'+ frame['Date'].str[7:].astype(str)
frame['Date'] =  pd.to_datetime(frame['Date'], format='%d-%b-%Y %H:%M:%S.%f') 

# for setting a value in pandas data frame when a condition is satisfied
frame.loc[(frame['Date'] >= dt.datetime(year=2015,month=1,day=1)) & (frame['Date'] < dt.datetime(year=2015,month=1,day=2)), 'is_failure'] = 1

Bye!
@stratospher

#Week 5/14 : 100 Days Of Code

random — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 04:03:46 +0000

Day 29

Database lab exam - all lab exams should be conducted online. I am so dependent on the internet to help me recollect all syntaxes.

I opened up a Datacamp account! And it's awesome. I really love their courses. I just wish it was free lol.

I made a few data visualisation graphs on Power BI to help me understand the data better.

Day 30

WOW! 30 days already. Today was also focused on generating power BI reports. I made 3 graphs:

Line graph showing daily fuel consumption in heater
A Pie chart showing monthly consumptions
A tree map showing different blocks and units within the blocks.

I had an onsite internship visit and had to demo the 3 graphs and the ADA prediction Colab notebook. It was less overwhelming this time. I ended up watching Biden's inaugural ceremony in the evening even though I'm not an American citizen. ;)

Day 31

I found out many cool tricks on Power BI reports in YouTube. I sketched out a few representations of data I'd like to make in my notebook. It was fun.

Day 32

Got sidetracked into making this.

An unexpected change of plans. I mustered up the courage to attend a Group Discussion(GD). Can't say I enjoyed it. I don't like interrupting someone when they are speaking. But apparently in a GD we need to do that. Meh! Well, I'm more confident now - I can't imagine a future GD being worse than this.😂😂 Practise makes a man perfect after all.

But it was a change from my usual routine and a new experience.

I also demoed my Power BI visualisation. I loved it and so did everyone else. 😊😊😊

Day 33

There's a free 3 month subscription of Datacamp for students by GitHub Education! Yay!!! I'm so happy...I can finally consume their amazing content....

I decided to complete their 'Introduction to Deep Learning in Python' today. I have implemented deep learning concepts in my projects but I want a more conceptual understanding of everything that's going on inside the neural networks. And this course has turned out awesome. It's very like the Kaggle courses - they teach you some small capsule concepts and then ask us to implement it.

Done!

stratospher

@icy_stratospher

I just completed the course "Introduction to Deep Learning in Python"! datacamp.com/courses/introd… via @DataCamp

11:57 AM - 23 Jan 2021

Day 34

Sundays are my all time favourites. I revised a bit of Dynamic Programming. I tried to improve efficiency of my current ML model by changing the number of neurons and the architecture. It takes 5-6 mins to train the model. I'm also having a lot of fun exploring Datacamp. I'm hooked onto many of their courses.

Day 35

We had to record our project presentation for Design project and it turned out to be a white elephant.

We designed a Virtual Reality based training plan for control room operators in the boiler feed water plant using Unity engine. That was the easy part.

The hardest part was recording it - 4 of us from different locations held a meeting on zoom and after 5 attempts of presenting the project(each attempt sometimes lasting 10 mins and sometimes >40 mins), finally succeeded in getting a satisfactory recording. We still need to work on the project report and poster tomorrow. 😣😣

I just want to code.🥺
Bye!
@stratospher

# Week 4/14 : 100 Days of Code

random — Tue, 19 Jan 2021 02:17:40 +0000

Day 22

I've noticed that my productivity curve is diminishing recently. I get distracted more easily and start scrolling through Dev or Twitter or read cool blogs. Anyways, I set time limits for social media apps and I plan to allot time slots and get work done.

I did some problems related to modulo arithmetic.

Make it fit in int range using %(10^9+7)

Day 23

I revised basics of Dynamic Programming and did the Alphacode question. Next week's going to be a tough one - there's lots of events crashing.

We have placement training series for starters - everyday 2 hours for next 1 week. I scheduled my MLH technical interview for Monday. It's with Kunal Kushwaha - one of the founders of Code for Cause. I never thought I'd get to actually meet him. I'm a bit nervous and very excited. I really appreciate the work put in by Code for Cause for democratising Computer Science Education. Final Lab project due in 1 day - we have loadssssss left to doooo. Better get on with it.

Day 24

Spent the entire day coding a social media web app using Nodejs + React + PostgresSQL ..... literally the whole day!

It was kind of fun. I still have loads left to do though. Comment module, populate in sequelize (if it's even possible) and hopefully there will be time to deploy it.

I'm feeling really bad - I should have allotted time for everything and not focus 1 dimensionally on something...

Day 25

I attended RTC's Motivating Career Session. It opened my eyes to a lot of new things about the Tech industry and finding a workplace that resonates with you. I 'blogged' it out here to leave a lasting impression. Spent the rest of the day working on the web app. It's almost done except I'm unable to render comments on the screen - when I make changes in code and run it comments get displayed, other times no changes. Why??

Day 26

Got my next assignment for the internship. I have to demonstrate 2 reports in both power BI and tableau in 3 days. Next week's gonna be tight.

I had my social media web app demonstration today. It went well for a 3 days project. But so many more features could have been added. Did today's Leetcode challenge - it was about priority queues.

Day 27

Sunday was a very relaxing day. I just did a few unfinished Leetcode challenges related to array maximums and pentatope numbers. Tomorrow is my big interview day. So I'm going through the code which I submitted.

Day 28

Had my MLH interview. Idk. I prepared too much and it did't go as well as I had expected. I really really need to improve my communication skills and be able to talk freely to a person.

I did today's Leetcode challenge - it was about finding how many pairs of numbers sum to k. Tomorrow I have my Database lab exam. I just went through my notes quickly. I've seem to have forgotten most of it.😅

Hoping that the next week turns out more productive,
Bye!
@stratospher

How to use a Dictionary API

random — Mon, 18 Jan 2021 04:31:32 +0000

Hey!

Step 1: Get the words

I manually scraped tough English words from the internet and stored it in a json file.

Step 2: Finding a dictionary API

I used the Merriam Webster Dictionary API
Understanding the API seems a bit intimidating..Let's make a request with the API and check out the json response we receive: https://www.dictionaryapi.com/api/v3/references/thesaurus/json/umpire?key=yourkey

So at the topmost level we have 5 keys -

I. meta

The key refers to metadata(a shorthand representation of data) and gives a shorthand representation of the word. It contains:
1. "id" - the word itself (here, "umpire")
2. "uuid" - universally unique identifier ( a string)
3. "src" - source data set (like collegiate thesaurus)
4. "section" - indicates section (alpha - alphabetical, geog - geographic etc..)
5. "stems" - other words which stem from this word - lists all of the word's variants - querying the API with this word would also return the same response
6. "syns" - synonyms

II. hwi

means head word information
"hw" : string headword

III. fl

means functional label
tells grammatical function(noun, adj etc..)

IV. def

groups together all sense sequences and verb dividers(transitive/intransitive)
1. sseq - sense sequence contains a series of senses

sense - a unit which contains all content relevant to a particular meaning

dt - defining text is an array which contains:

["text", string] - string is definition of word
["vis", [{object}]] - verbal illustration is an example sentence and each object may contain the members:

"t" : string text of verbal illustration

V. shortdef

a highly abridged version of the main definition section, consisting of just the definition text for the first three senses.

That's all for now.
Bye!
@stratospher

Starting your career in tech!

random — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 04:21:47 +0000

Hey!

I attended an absolutely amazing session by RTC - "Motivating Career options" and would love to share my favourite parts of the session and the deep impression it left on me.

Your crystal ball is cloudy - It's unrealistic to plan out your next 30 years when you are in college. Focus on getting started.
The world is changing and so many new opportunities will open up. Self driving cars, data science etc.. were unimaginable 30 years ago.
Stay informed, educated, open-minded, nimble and adaptable.
Every industry has tech needs.
Entry level options in tech. Some of them include:
Corporate structure:
Network
Be a risk taker and explore unusual paths and learn forever!

We were divided into groups based on our personality types. I got paired up with an amazing person from Florida. Both of us were ISTJ type and we had a lot in common especially how we liked to organise stuff. We had fun talking about our differences though ;) - how different our countries were and the career paths available in both the countries. I had a lot of fun listening to her views on life - how she plans her day, keeps journals, uses calendars, the importance of a clean desk and workspace and a desk near the window.

We pondered on topics I've never actually thought of:

Top 3 things I like to do:

Learning new things, Building/trying out new tools/tech
Reading books/blogs - well anything
Being organised

What do you do when you feel in groove:

I absolutely love what I do and try to perfect that activity to my best ability.
I don't get sidetracked and am fully focused. I even forget about eating food.😂
I'm in a good mood and happy and proud of what I did.

Ideal work environment:

It would be really great if I could work in a mixture of a remote and office environment.
I would love working in a supportive group on challenging projects where I can learn lots of new things.
Secure workplace where I can be financially independent.

3 essential items you look for in a job:

Security
Career Advancement
A sense of Accomplishment

Top 3 objectives of first job:

Security + Financial independence
Tech environment where I can learn lots and lots
Not too much pressure

I felt really happy after the session! The world is full of possibilities.

Bye!
@stratospher

#Week 3/14 : 100 Days of Code

random — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 02:42:20 +0000

Day 15

Going beyond goals - building a system that can last a lifetime

I really wish our college would tell us the agenda for the day beforehand - I especially hate it when they call us at random and ask us to demonstrate our lab progress. I have to keep checking all notifications to see if I'm called. Today morning was lost in such anticipation. ughhh...

I had a virtual meet for my internship - went well. I need to improve my communication skills though.

Day 16

Finished off yesterday's and today's Leetcode challenge. It feels nice to start the day like this. I learnt more about bitwise operations. They are pretty efficient!

//check if number is odd/even
if(N&1==0){
    //I'm even
}

//check if number is power of 2
if(N&(N-1)==0){
   //I'm a power of 2
}

//flip i-th bit
N=N^(1<<i)

//check i-th bit
if(N&(1<<i)==0){
    // bit is unset
}

// the power of XOR
x^1=~x
x^0=x

//Shift operators
N<<i is N*(2^i)
N>>i is floor(N/2^i)

I spent the evening reading Power BI documentations.

Day 17

Started off with Adhoc problems. Read some more of James Clear's Atomic Habits. Especially liked:

Outcome based goals and Identity based goals. 3 layers of behavioural change - Outcome->Process->Identity. We should rise to the level of our goals - not sink to the level of our system. Let's make our system better.

Did today's #Leetcode challenge. A 7 day streak - yay! Faced repercussion of a tough choice I made - I hope all the choices I make will someday make sense and help me reach places I'd love to be at.

Day 18

I couldn't explain code (2 pass macro processor) that I wrote many months ago - I looked at it today morning and still.....Why?? Maybe I was a bit pressurised. I explained the other programs though - for systems lab.

I also did Leetcode daily challenge and tried deploying a website to Heroku.

Day 19

I did 2 Adhoc questions today - they require very logical choices and I found it hard to arrive at such choices. Dry running with examples helped.

I published my first Leetcode contest analysis. The last 2 problems were tough for me and it took some time to comprehend it. Both were applications of binary search. The last one was about finding Longest Increasing Subsequence and it was pretty cool!

I have to get back on track with my internship tasks.

Install windows
Do a power BI vs Tableau comparison
Do some Kaggle

Day 20

I wasn't very productive today - but it's a Sunday! Leetcode's word ladder question got me intrigued and I spent the whole morning implementing BFS. All test cases passed and yet a TLE.
I attempted Weekly Contest 224 - I could solve only 1 question fully. Baby steps. There's next week.

I had a meeting with my teammates for a website project. The organisers aren't providing us with enough data. I installed windows and power BI. And Guess what - Excel is paid on windows.

Day 21

I spent the day exploring SQLAlchemy - a database toolkit for python. I spent a good amount of time getting my Google Colab notebook to connect to my local Postgres database. There's an option to locally connect the Google Colab notebook - but then it just acts as our local Jupyter notebook. I wanted to run the functions on cloud and access the local database - I guess it's not possible.

I stumbled across a fantastic ML community which discusses ML related research papers - Machine Learning Tokyo. I really want to find time and read the research papers which they discuss - I hope I can understand something.😅

Take care,
@stratospher