Karthikeyan A K’s blog

Why Does the GNU/Linux Community Have Crack People?

2026-09-28T00:54:00+05:30

This is my open question to the GNU/Linux community. You people are supposed to be intelligent, but you seem to be crack. Why?

I wrote a cool utility that marries the shell and LLMs — one of the oldest pieces of software paired with the newest. It’s called esh. You just type in plain English, and the LLM translates it to shell commands for you. I posted it on r/linux, and people trashed it. I gave replies, but rather than reply back, they complained to the moderators.

This should be science, not politics! I thought GNU/Linux groups were a scientific endeavour, never a political one. It’s okay to say I made trash, but when I counter it, counter my counter — if you’ve got the guts. Don’t be a coward!

As shown in the Reddit thread, maybe people just don’t know the power of LLMs. There seem to be a lot of luddites, even in the tech community — a lot of people who don’t know about LLMs. I’m a bit appalled by their ignorance. So okay, look at this:

❯ esh -x "what type of files are present in the Pictures directory?"

Maybe you’re a GNU/Linux guru and you know exactly what to type into the shell, and I don’t. But then why do I need to know it in 2026? The above gave me a lot of results, so I refined it as shown:

❯ esh -x "what type of files are present in the Pictures directory? Just list the unique types."
find ~/Pictures -type f -exec file -b {} \; | cut -d: -f2 | cut -d, -f1 | sort -u
Run this command? [y/N] y
cut: stdin: Illegal byte sequence
 "CREATOR
 "GoodFon.ru"
 [none]x[none]
 [TIFF image data
 MPEG ADTS
Apple binary property list
Apple Desktop Services Store
ASCII text
data
empty
EPUB document
GIF image data
GIMP XCF image data
JPEG image data
Matlab v4 mat-file (little endian) d
Matlab v4 mat-file (little endian) R
PDF document
PNG image data
RIFF (little-endian) data
SQLite 3.x database
SQLite Write-Ahead Log
SVG Scalable Vector Graphics image
very short file (no magic)
XML 1.0 document text
Zip archive data

Bingo, I got it. Even if you’re a GNU/Linux guru, I bet it would have taken you, say, 10-15 seconds to type the command above — you might make mistakes, things might need correcting, and so on. You’re human: biology, made of molecules, slow. I use electrons and photons — fast, the fundamental matter that builds this universe. Duhhh!

I am really surprised that GNU/Linux people don’t see that.

Autonomous Business Intelligence

2026-09-19T20:26:00+05:30

Hello all, I have a bunch of highly naturally intelligent Data Science interns. We do have work to do every day, but we have automated it with A.I, so there is almost no work.

So in order for us to make more money, I want to create a business intelligence platform where everything is automated: A.I will read your data, do research, tell you how your business should be run; and if a “Yes” button is pressed, it will run it. And yes, it will even handle the accounts, marketing, payroll and blah blah. It will be a 100% automated ERP, costing a fraction. Thanks to moderm AI advancements.

It will be like Injee, my tool for front-end developers, which seems to know in advance what you will do. Though Injee is not A.I, it’s pure logic.

There is a catch: my company Numerical Works, no matter how much data it has, it won’t be enough. I want to meet business owners and leaders so that I can automate their businesses with A.I. They will get these benefits:

Automated business intelligence.
Since they supported us early, the software will be available to them at a very low rate.

If your business needs to be automated near 100%, please call or message me: WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, or +91 8428050777.

Warning

As of now, I am not sure if this automation stuff will become a success or not. I am sure it will reduce your work drmatically, apart from that, nitendo. One should have a flexible enough brain to embrace failure. But yup, I can assure you, this approach is a far sane method than consulting an astrologer and worshipping your gods.

Rust halved our computing bills

2026-09-05T16:01:00+05:30

I run a small data science company called Numerical Works. Like many businesses, one of our clients approached us. Like any other business, this one too likes to know what’s happening in their business as well as how global forces are affecting them.

Our team set to work, and we started modeling the business and the immediate world around it. Coming up with models was not difficult, but these models need to churn huge amounts of data. These models need to change themselves as and when they diverge from reality. This required a huge amount of compute. We first used Clojure to model the world. But soon the Java start time and stop time became a huge cost. It was then that we decided to move to Rust. And my God, it was a really great decision.

The speed of our algorithms improved by one hundred and fifty times. Since that was just a small part of a huge ecosystem of tools we developed for this business, we weren’t able to reduce the computing bill by \(1/150\), but we did reduce the computing bill by more than half.

Personally, for me, it was an eye-opener. Similarly, for data analysis, we switched from Pandas to Polars. A lot of data analysis is first done by humans and then transferred to machines. So even then, the speed improved by 20x.

Another shocking discovery that we made was Bun. Compared to Node, it seems to be really fast, as it’s written in Rust. We can create apps & dashboards for our clients, and no matter how big it becomes, it compiles almost instantly (most of the time), or at least within a few minutes, if it’s a humongous project.

Unlike Python, Ruby, or Clojure, Rust is not an easy language. The first three languages I mentioned make the human the master of the computer. Rust makes a human a slave to the computer. A human must understand the internals of the computer so that he can program efficiently. But then, at Numerical Works, the scale of work we do and the amount of data we crunch for every client is humongous. Paired with AI, I think Rust can give us very good results, even without us breaking a sweat, as it’s the AI that is going to write the code, and we humans supervise it.

The technology behind Rust is great. I never thought somebody would dream of a language that needs no garbage collection. I am also very passionate about ClojuRust, a port of Clojure written in Rust. Clojure, according to me, is the best language for data analysis. Currently it runs on Java, which is a product of Oracle, so I’m not so fond of it. When it gets ported to Rust, we will break out of the shackles of the evil. Plus, our own experience with Java and Rust in terms of performance has made us vouch for Rust.

I’m not sure if I can steer my whole company towards Rust, but if that happens, I’ll be very happy.

Nithya Amirtham Sucks - Can’t believe it’s a Chennai Restaurant

2026-08-30T19:42:00+05:30

I once visited Nithya Amirtham. It wasn’t more than two months ago. I feel that though the employees behave well, the restaurant kind of sucks. I’m talking about the taste. I’m just surprised it’s a Chennai restaurant.

The first thing is that the food was really bland. In Chennai, you can’t expect that kind of food. In fact, Chennai is near Andhra Pradesh. It’s not even near Kerala, and this is a relatively spicy city despite its cosmopolitan nature.

I thought it was a Bangalore restaurant. In Bangalore, yes, the food is bland. It’s kind of tailored to the Western palate. They add sugar to sambar, which is a sin in Chennai. So I never expected it to be a Chennai restaurant.

If it’s a Bangalore restaurant, it’s okay; you can expect the food to be bland. Maybe it’s their culture, or maybe they can’t digest spicy food. So, yep, in Bangalore the food is bland.

I ordered Poori Masala and Masala Dosai, and I was dismayed by the masala in it. In Chennai, we expect the masala to be masala—spicy, right? In Bangalore, I don’t think it’s that spicy, but I saw a white poori masala, the same was in masala dosai, that was totally not spicy. Not even to level three on a scale of one to ten. And I really thought this was a Bangalore restaurant.

I should say the chutneys are okay. I think I was offered three different chutneys. One is white, another is green, and another is orange. So they are okay, but the sambar was not great. I think there was sugar in the sambar, and this is the hallmark of Kannada food.

To its credit, the coffee was good. I would expect such coffee in Tamil Nadu. The hygiene in the restaurant was far above the average eateries in Chennai, and hence that was excellent.

The restaurant had self-service, which I’m not so fond of, and the portions were small. The restaurant had a good token system. So you buy it, you wait for your turn, and you get the food.

It’s not only that the food portion was small; even the side dishes, like the for dosas and poori, were very small in portion. And I wouldn’t expect this in a high-quality restaurant.

Finally, the bill. That was reasonable. Maybe they are keeping the bill reasonable by offering very small portions, and eliminating service staff. I have a feeling that this restaurant was built for ulcer patients or people with some kind of stomach disease who can’t handle even moderate spice.

Tamil Nadu has voted Christian terrorists into power.

2026-08-14T15:43:00+05:30


John Christian Devavaram Prabhakar - A Christian Terrorist

I was very proud of my state Tamil Nadu and its Dravidian culture. The entire India fell to BJP and this weird religion of Hinduism which is based on no truth, while Tamil Nadu chose the path of rationalism and voted Dravidian governments into power. I’m not saying Dravidian parties are uncorrupt. They are extremely corrupt. Maybe they taught India what corruption is, but at least over here, there is no religious difference. Though there is caste, it is kept to a minimum, and people feel ashamed to say their caste openly. Though atheism is not a hundred percent successful in Tamil Nadu, it has shaped the society to become much better and more dependent on science than religion. This is one reason why Tamil Nadu is pulling ahead of the other states, even though at independence, Tamil Nadu was pathetic.

We are very successful in keeping BJP out of power. Though BJP does have an MLA, I think. But in that process of trying to eliminate Hindu terrorists, we have turned a blind eye to Christian terrorism and have let lot of these terrorists in.

I’m not talking about Maria Wilson, the violent minister in TVK who went to his relative house trashed people, and now preaches the gospel of Jesus in the assembly. I am talking about the Tamil Nadu assembly speaker, who is a devout Christian and who opposes abortion.

Christians do not know science. They don’t know that a fetus is not as conscious as a fully born baby. Because of their ignorance they oppose such stuff. They simply don’t know how to respect the rights of women. According to most terrorists, a society should be patriarchal, women should be made slaves right in their own homes, so that men could enjoy the grace of God.

The argument that the fetus is life is as good as the argument that every grain of rice or wheat you eat is a life too. It is life. Literally it is life. But it’s not a conscious life and Christians don’t know how to distinguish between conscious and unconscious life.

Just because something has been told in the barbaric book called the Bible, they just abide by it. You simply can’t change them. The only thing you can do is to destroy them. I urge all Tamilians to destroy this Christian terrorism.

We simply can’t afford certain terrorist groups around the world to infiltrate our territory and take away the freedom women have here. This will bring tremendous pressure on families, where women play a key role. This will weaken women. A weakened woman will mean a weakened family. A weakened family means loss of revenue. A loss of revenue means a lack of standard of living for us.

I wish Tamil Nadu becomes one of the first states in India to truly eliminate religion, but I don’t see it happening anywhere. We simply aren’t trained enough to think scientifically. We don’t even know why we follow what our parents told us to do. So ignorant we are.

We need a drastic change in education so that we can understand ourselves. We need to be trained in such a way to identify our own ignorance, seek knowledge, and update ourselves so that we can eliminate the poison called religion. Unless that happens, we need to battle these foolish forces. And since these foolish forces bring in comfort, like liquor brings in comfort to a human, they’ll be very good at making society intoxicated rather than making it sober and productive. It’s a tough battle ahead.

Notes

Tamil Nadu Speaker joins anti-abortion rally, sparks massive row

include_server, a development server for include pages

2026-08-13T23:31:00+05:30

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Notes

I think I created a jamstack framework

2026-08-08T22:35:00+05:30

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Notes

North Indian Samosas Suck

2026-08-02T22:20:00+05:30

I have spent most of my life in Chennai. I’m a foodie, and I love samosas. Here in Chennai, and across Tamil Nadu—or even across South India—samosas have a spicy filling. It tastes great, and we have a thing called thalippu (தாளிப்பு) put into it. It consists of ingredients like mustard seeds and dal fried in oil, which are then mixed with the potato masala and stuffed into the samosa. It makes it really flavorful.

I don’t think I’ve eaten many samosas outside Tamil Nadu. Outside the state, I’ve eaten plenty of Pani Puri, dosas, and other local foods, but not many samosas. That’s because the ones I’ve eaten in North India suck.

North Indian samosas do have a potato filling, but they lack spice. They aren’t flavorful. It just feels like boiled potatoes stuffed inside a crispy fried wheat crust. That’s it. These samosas only come to life when you pair them with North Indian chutneys. One is green and made with mint and coriander, I think. The other is red and made with a lot of sugar. In North India, they break up the samosas, add these two chutneys, and serve it to you. That’s what adds the flavor. By default, there is no flavor in their samosas.

The first samosas I remember eating were from Grand Sweets and Snacks (Gandhinagar, Adyar). They are still some of the best I’ve ever had. Whenever I go to Gandhinagar, I buy samosas from there. The taste is almost exactly the same, although the size has reduced. It was a pleasure eating them, and whenever we visited Grand Sweets and Snacks, we used to get free prasadam in donnais (leaf bowls) too.

Very few samosa outlets today match those of Grand Sweets and Snacks. In fact, I should say “almost none” because frankly, I haven’t tasted anything better since.

Similarly, South Indian cooking is spicy, so naturally, the samosa masala is spicy too. You don’t need any accompaniments to eat it; it has a naturally spicy and flavorful stuffing.

I don’t think samosas should just be there to complement other flavors. For example, take the chana samosa, (its a North Indian dish) where you break up the samosa and put it in chana masala. In that case, the samosa and potato are only there to absorb the flavor and add texture.

For a South Indian like me, a samosa should have “all batteries included.” It is not a dish that merely accompanies other dishes; it is a dish in itself. A king on its own. It should have an empire of flavors. Hence, to me, North Indian samosas suck.

I’m happy that Stack Overflow is almost dead

2026-07-24T15:14:00+05:30

Look at the graph above — that’s what AI has done to Stack Overflow. AI has absorbed all this knowledge and compressed it. It can answer us far better. And unlike people on Stack Overflow, AI is not corrosive.

I am happy that Stack Overflow is dying and will soon die out. Whenever I ask questions, someone on Stack Overflow will say this is a stupid question. Whenever I post an answer, I get downvoted. Stack Overflow was a toxic place. Well, people just like to abuse other people. Somehow this place became very popular and became almost the only place where people could ask questions and get answers.

Why Are Tech Groups Toxic?

I don’t know why tech groups are toxic. I have been in the tech industry for more than twenty years, and I feel that this industry is dominated by psychopaths.

For example, I used to take part in a group called ILUGC, which stands for Indian Linux Users Group Chennai. Even if I sent a mail, they would say a mail should only be sent by following thousands of rules. I never understood why. One thing I gathered was that the group was dominated by psychopaths.

There was also another group called Chennai.rb (Chennai Ruby). It was a Ruby programming group, and all of a sudden they just banned me. I still don’t even know the reason why.

Even today, there is a group called the Tamil Linux Users Group. We do have a forum, and posting in it is super difficult. The moment you try to post, you need to follow so many rules — you can’t send links and things like that. Yet they claim it is a forum where people can share stuff.

It’s weird. I think these tech institutions are built by sadists just to see how much they can control others.

Working in One of Their Companies

Once I managed to get a small gig at a company run by a person from the Indian Linux Users Group Chennai. That guy was an ultra sadist. He wanted us to work all night. He got offended by small things — for example, if I placed my car keys on the table, he didn’t like it.

Do I hate these people? I’m just fascinated by their brains. I think their DNA needs to be sequenced and their brains preserved, so we can avoid such humans being born in the future. Maybe CRISPR will help edit out the genes that create psychopaths.

Why Do Psychopaths Rise to the Top?

I don’t know why psychopaths rise to the top of the industry. Maybe it’s due to the Dunning-Kruger effect. People who invest money in the IT industry simply don’t know much about IT, I think. So they listen to the person who promises the most and claims to know the most. Naturally, psychopaths fit this bill. They live in an illusory world and don’t even know what they don’t know. One thing they do know is that by beating people down repeatedly and abusing them, they can get the work done.

A normal person would listen to others, try to understand their feelings, and work with them. For psychopaths, only the goal matters. Building a lasting relationship and being truthful means nothing to them.

That’s why I think Stack Overflow, ILUGC, and other groups should die.

Master Agile. Save ₹100,000 on PMP certication.

2026-07-14T14:05:00+05:30

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