There are topics where caste is traditionally invisibilized/erased. Thanks to social change, people are able to stand up and assert and call out caste in many such topics these days. When that happens, the typical savarna response is to call it "unscientific".…

Clickbait aside, this is a description of how I upgraded an old Peertube instance multiple versions Free Software Community of India has a peertube instance at videos.fsci.in. It was set up originally in 2018 and upgraded last in 2021. It was not just a tech…

Google recently announced that it’ll be forcing developers to register with government identity cards on their platform to be able to distribute Android applications anywhere. I came across keepandroidopen.org in FSMK’s chat group today. So I quickly composed…

On the FSCI wiki there were some old pages which were erroring out even though it had page history entries. This is how I fixed it. In the last couple of days, I’ve been doing some maintenance work on FSCI Wiki. First I upgraded the mediawiki version, then…

An invitation to join a safe space for learning programming (hopefully towards a social purpose) Programming (coding, software engineering, or development, whatever you call it) is a very useful skill. Almost like cooking. If you have been looking for a safe…

Heard about HTTPS record and want to set it in OctoDNS. You can now! SVCB is a new type of DNS record that’s like CNAME but with more powers. It is defined in the Service Binding and Parameter Specification via the DNS RFC. HTTPS record is a specifically…

The room was cold and lit by artificial lights. It was in a large building in a corner of the city unknown to 10 year old Manu. He has tried everything — resisting, pleading, crying, shouting — to no avail. First they made him unconscious. Mercy! Then they…

I do not see armchair activism as a pejorative. It can be a valuable form of activism.

Here’s how I do CI/CD without all the fuss You need only one thing for Continuous Integration - a working test suite.
You need only one thing for Continuous Deployment - automatic database migrations.
And you need only one thing for rolling out your own CI/CD…

I built an extension for mediawiki to prevent spam sign-ups. This is the story I’ve been working on building a wiki for health (including its social determinants) in India. In that process I’ve been fighting spam by installing various extensions (including…

How I migrated old services of Swathanthra Malayalam Computing to a new server saving software (and money) When web based software get old, people stop caring for them. Shiny new alternatives become commonly used. The old ones are forgotten. One day you’ll…

It was past 10 PM when Shubhangani, Swathi, and I stepped into Goobe's Book Republic in Church Street this Tuesday. We had met at 6:30 PM in Blossom Book House and had been chatting non-stop all of the night. We had had Blini Creamy Mushroom and Blini Chicken…

"People believe in god because there are things that frighten them beyond their control and the idea that someone is there to look after them gives them hope and stability".




Growing up as an atheist, I've heard this argument from several people who wanted…

Of late, I have started seeing a pattern around the responses people have to mental health issues.



The first time someone talks about their mental health issue(s), people are incredibly supportive. They are like "Incredibly brave of you to share this"…

I read the book "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus" long ago. There's one chapter or so in the book that talks about how women talk about problems and how men try to "fix" them immediately, and how, often, it is not a solution that's needed, but just…

Day 1 of being a revolutionary person working inside the system



I saw injustice being meted out by the system today.



I decided to stand up against it.



I was thrown out of the system.