Writing
Every piece on this site, newest first.
2026
Science
The Kalman Filter: Guessing Well From Noisy Sensors
The Kalman filter blends a model's prediction with noisy measurements to estimate what a system is really doing, and it has quietly steered everything from Apollo to today's drones.
Science
CORNET: Testing Robots and Networks Together
CORNET runs network and robot simulators from one config, making cyber-physical systems research easier to run, reproduce and compare.
Stories
The ₹36 Lakh Lesson: Winning 70%, Losing Everything
I won seven trades out of ten for six years and still lost ₹36 lakh. Here's how, and how I'm climbing out.
2015
How-tos
Setting up a PPP interface with a GPRS shield on a Raspberry Pi
Two files, a chat script, and a stable device name, so a Telit GPRS shield can bring up ppp0.
2014
Stories
The Hope Project
In 2014 Mr P. Suresh asked for a loan so Gnana Jyothi Public School could repair its building. The appeal was fully funded.
2010
Stories
My first interview
An Army interview, an orange shirt, a seven-hour wait, and an answer I regretted on the way out.
Stories
I want to live, Mommy
A letter in a child's voice, written after the child did not get to be born.
How-tos
Google Transliteration
Type in English and read the word in Telugu, Hindi, Tamil, and other languages, from Google Labs and from the offline IME.
Science
Incredible white
A short list of names and phrases that begin with white, from a butterfly to a kind of noise.
Science
Brain facts
Weight, speed, oxygen, and a few other numbers for an ordinary human brain.
Science
Brain drain and brain gain
Skilled people leave one country and arrive in another. One side calls it a drain. The other calls it a gain.
Science
Technology — the best of 2009
Four machines that stood out in 2009: two netbooks, a pocket camcorder, Windows 7, and a MacBook Pro.
Stories
Encounter
A paper presentation, a girl named Ashwini, and a conversation that ended when the events were cancelled.
2009
Stories
I will preserve these moments
The evening I won my first paper presentation, and what the work had tasted like.
Essays
How Mahatma became Mahatma
A short note on why Gandhi's name travelled farther than his own country.
Essays
Attitudinal problems
An attitude is a label we put on behaviour we dislike, and naming the behaviour works better than naming the attitude.
Essays
It's all a game
A short argument about meat, money, trust, and why being cheated is treated as the worse offence.
Essays
Let's get it started
I waited too long to start the blog, then a presentation and a thin downline taught me what I had actually been missing.