
["If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_a_tree_falls_in_a_forest) This is a popular philosophical question that is a pretty interesting talking point in conversations. While the original question mostly starts discussions with two major views pertaining to an objective view and subjective view, I am mostly thinking about this question in terms of our personal expression and actions we take in our day to day life. Specifically, our current social media habits and how our desire and tendency to share our activities on social media affect the activities itself.

To be more concrete, imagine when you planned for that last trip you took with your friends or family. How would the decision of going for a trip would have been impacted given that you wouldn't be allowed to share about it. Back when social media was in it's infancy, we traveled, and shared what was happening in our life. But now that social networks and sharing online has become ingrained into our socio-cultural behaviors, a lot of what we do and say is a direct and indirect result of our tendency to share on social media.

Personally, after the passing of a loved one, I've been reluctant to post anything on social media. Initially, the reason was grief. As time passed, I found it easier to stay off of social media. I didn't have to think about sharing anything online and that freed me from having to think of clever captions or how I could capture the moment for the sake of posting. I do feel that I should have shared more instead of being radio silent for so long. Most of my friends are far away from me physically, and the doomscrolling of social media and occasional sight of posts are what remind me of their existence. Now that I've not been posting anything, does that mean I am a mere memory for them. It's a good medium of catching up to everyone online, even though in it's worst form, it dictates our lifestyle and major life decisions.

Getting back to the first question, but within the social media context, having not posted anything on social media and thus not being viewed by others, has my actions have had any consequences, good or bad, given there was noone there to witness them. A similar analogy can be made for the topic of acts of kindness. Does helping a homeless person must follow sharing the act of kindness or is the satisfaction of doing a good deed should be enough. Are you kind or a showoff? one can be both, it doesn't have to be black and white. If the appeal of showing off fills a few more empty stomach, then who am I to complain. Right?

Well, the problem is with precedence. It is not what one does when the cameras are on, but after that when there are no spectators and no one to appreciate the act. Cause even in this technology filled world, the cameras are mostly off, and it matters more what one does after the cameras are gone, when one has to make a choice to help. Will they check for a camera or just pass a slice of bread to a person in need?

Sorry that wasn't the conclusion I was hoping for. I was trying to connect all that with how I've worked and learned so many amazing things in silence, without the need to show off, although ironically, this post is a way of showing off how I've not been showing off. So let's get to the actual point. After joining a job as an engineer, I've been learning web dev and playing with new AI tools that have emerged in the past year. Even though there is not much time in a day, a few hours here and there amount to a lot, and with low expecatations I've managed to explore and complete a few side-projects / experimentations.

So in no particular order, here's a random list of things I've done, which I would like to elaborate on and link to in the future.

- Color Pallette generator in python colab notebook
- Disco diffusion image generator style explorations
- Stable diffusion early adoption and exploration
- Dreambooth training for portraits and styles in stable diffusion
- Running LLAMA 7B model in 4 bit using GPTQ method in Colab notebook
- Fast.ai course and notebooks exploration, fast.ai for coders course
- Davinci Resolve video editing, custom effects, titles, editing tricks research
- Ali Abdaal Youtube course
- Obsidian, Second Brain, Personal Knowledge Management, Notion
- Advanced Prompting for chatGPT to explore different usecases
- created a few portraits of my dad using dreambooth and painting styles
- using twitter to stay updated on the latest of AI and generative AI
- twitter offline bookmark viewer

honestly, I've been exploring a lot and not really giving any projects enough time to mature or be good enough to share as a blog post. But the ideas and topics are there, and with enough cleanup, each of these points are worthy of blog post on their own.

I'm excited to explore more topics especially in the field of AI. A recent audio generation model called BARK has piqued my interest. I used Descript service last year which had impressive voice cloning ability, and now BARK model shows a similar capability while being more advanced and open source. I need a way to strucuture my research and write more on each topic to solidify my understanding and create and share something of value. For now, my posts are doomed to be long and roughly drafted. Cause you know what, I would rather have long verbose writing on my blog than a supposedly clean piece of thought in my brain which has a history of vanishing rather quickly in the busyness (business?) of life.


Radio Silent on Social Media, On Expression, Projects and Interests


Ever since I started learning programming and web development, I wanted a site of my own. I dabbled with blogging in the past with wordpress and other solutions, but didn't feel the sense of ownership I wanted.
This site built with code I wrote myself is my mark on the internet, that I have full control over. And here's why every aspiring developer or creator needs to have a site of their own.

# Build in Public

Learning and working on side projects in isolation can get lonely quickly, instead build in public. Do not restrict yourself to sharing the final polished product and share the W.I.Ps and issues you encounter. Who knows, maybe someone else with a similar problem in the future may benefit from your approach.

```js
function BlogImg({ src, alt, layout }) {
  // const getMeta = (url, callback) => {
  //   const img = new Image();
  //   img.src = url;
  //   img.onload = () => cb(null, img);
  // };

  // // Use like:
  // getMeta('https://i.stack.imgur.com/qCWYU.jpg', (err, img) => {
  //   console.log(img.naturalWidth, img.naturalHeight);
  // });
  return (
    <div className="flex justify-center">
      {/* <ExportedImage alt={alt} src={src} layout="fill" objectFit="contain" /> */}
      {/* produced square images with unnecessary padding. */}

      <img src={src} alt={alt} className="max-w-md" />
    </div>
  );
}
```

# Your Digital Garden

A digital garden is a space on the web where you can sow seeds for ideas that can develop over time as you grow. It is based on a popular movement with the same name that encourages people to share and promote their work on their own space. I was particularly inspired by [A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden](https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history) by Maggie Appleton. Your site is your digital garden, an archive and a place to express yourself on the internet with complete control.

As for this site, here is the stack I used to build it:
[image](https://images.footlocker.com/is/image/EBFL2/C7329007)

## image using `<BlogImg />` component

<BlogImg alt="Sandesh Rajbhandari"
unoptimized="true"
src="https://www.farinasmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Blogging.png"
/>

- Hosting : Netlify
- Front-end : Next.js
- Backend : Next.js with locally stored Mdx files
- Markdown to HTML : MDX-remote library
- Styling : TailwindCSS

### image using basic markdown

![testCaption](https://www.farinasmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Blogging.png)
The site was based on the project structure of [leerob.io](https://leerob.io) site along with tag system implementation based on [Tailwind CSS Next.js Blog Template](https://github.com/timlrx/tailwind-nextjs-starter-blog)


testing components and markdown image

Learning new things is powerful in this age of new technologies. I usually explore and learn the latest software and tools being developed in AI and machine learning field to see if there is anything I can use in my day to day life. However, with the excess of information, I seem to struggle with remembering what I have learned in the past. To solve this problem, I started looking into different learning techniques. Anki came out as a reliable means to do this. However, preparing anki notes is a hassle with Anki's interface, especially as the number of flashcards grow. So, I looked into easing this process.

## Installing Obsidian to Anki

Please refer to the docs for installing the plugin for obsidian and configuring Anki to work with the plugin
https://github.com/Pseudonium/Obsidian_to_Anki
After you configure it, you can prepare notes in the required format.
You can change the format of the notes to convert to Anki flashcards with Regex code in plugin settings.

## Obsidian to Anki

At first I prepare question answers in Obsidian, sometimes by scraping from different sources, and sometimes by manually typing them in. By default Anki has an interface to add flashcards one by one, but this takes more time. Obsidian has a commmunity plugin that lets you transfer notes in specific formats to Anki as flashcards. I use the following Heading format, but you can explore more formats in the plugin docs.https://github.com/Pseudonium/Obsidian_to_Anki

```md
#### What is the height of Mt. Everest?

8848m
```

use the following format to specify tags and target deck for the flashcards in the text file.

```
FILE TAGS: tag1 tag2
TARGET DECK: Deck1
```

if the target deck is not present in Anki, it creates the deck when you first click the Obsidian-to-anki icon. then you have to reclick it. nothing happens when you reclick it because there is no change in text file. so press enter or add/remove text and then click the Obsidian-to-anki icon. On successful creation of the flashcards from the Obsidian note, you will see the commented id of the note.``
here is a sample text file after flashcards are made from the notes.

```
FILE TAGS: tag1 tag2
TARGET DECK: Deck1

#### What is the height of Mt. Everest?
8848m

```

quality of life hack, so adding hashes infront of each question is a hassle, so I write the notes without them. then I run a python script to add 4 hashes infront of each line with a question mark in it. then I export them to Anki. The code reads from a text file and copies the modified text with heading/hashes into the clipboard. I paste it to obsidian.

```python
import codecs, pyperclip
outputString = ""
with codecs.open('readme.txt', encoding='utf-8') as file:
#with open('readme.txt', 'r') as file:
    for line in file:
        #print (line[len(line)-3])
        if '?' in line:
            outputString = outputString + "##### " + line
            #print('#' + line)
        else:
            outputString = outputString + line
            #print(line)
    pyperclip.copy(outputString)
    #print ("Output: \n" + outputString)
```

Anki is a powerful learning tool that uses spaced-repitition to remeber things long term. Using default Anki interface to create flashcards is a hassle, so I use Obsidian to create question answers in bulk and transfer them to Anki in one click using a powerful community plugin.

How I use Obsidian and Anki to remember things


Ever since I started learning programming and web development, I wanted a site of my own. I dabbled with blogging in the past with wordpress and other solutions, but didn't feel the sense of ownership I wanted.
This site built with code I wrote myself is my mark on the internet, that I have full control over. And here's why every aspiring developer or creator needs to have a site of their own.

# Build in Public

Learning and working on side projects in isolation can get lonely quickly, instead build in public. Do not restrict yourself to sharing the final polished product and share the W.I.Ps and issues you encounter. Who knows, maybe someone else with a similar problem in the future may benefit from your approach.

# Your Digital Garden

A digital garden is a space on the web where you can sow seeds for ideas that can develop over time as you grow. It is based on a popular movement with the same name that encourages people to share and promote their work on their own space. I was particularly inspired by [A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden](https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history) by Maggie Appleton. Your site is your digital garden, an archive and a place to express yourself on the internet with complete control.

# Online Portfolio

While CVs and resumes are one of the standard way to share your skills and qualifications during job searches, a personal site can act as a one stop shop to showcase your projects and values. Writing about the industry you work in can also help to cement yourself as a proactive member of your respective industry. Especially for software engineers and web developers, it is a good idea to invest in a site.

# Just Get Started

If your are a technically savvy person, invest time in building a site from scratch. However, it can be daunting to get started for non-technical folks, so rely on simple pre-existing tools like Wordpress, Squarespace or Notion to hit the ground running. Again, let me point you to [Digital Gardening for Non-Technical Folks](https://maggieappleton.com/nontechnical-gardening), the article elaborates on the options currently available.
As for this site, here is the stack I used to build it:

- Hosting : Netlify
- Front-end : Next.js
- Backend : Next.js with locally stored Mdx files
- Markdown to HTML : MDX-remote library
- Styling : TailwindCSS

The site was based on the project structure of [leerob.io](https://leerob.io) site along with tag system implementation based on [Tailwind CSS Next.js Blog Template](https://github.com/timlrx/tailwind-nextjs-starter-blog)


A personal website won't make you rich or famous, but be a place to build in public and showcase projects for your portfolio

Hi, I'm Sandesh. 👋

Engineer, Creator

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testing components and markdown image

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