Sarath Tharayil
v. learning · noticing · becoming
I build things with data and code, usually end-to-end. I ship side projects at odd hours, care a lot about how things feel to use, and tend to go deep on whatever has my attention. Lately that's been AI systems, and ideas that don't sound terrible.
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SUMMARY:
Marcus Aurelius was anxious and not sure he was doing it right. He wrote it down in 175 AD. You can feel it tonight. On books, music, and the miracle of minds reaching across time.
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Sarath Tharayil
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You did not build yourself. The list of people who shaped you without knowing it is longer than the list of people who tried. On invisible architects, and why you are one too.
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Sarath Tharayil
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Beauty should not exist. There is no clean evolutionary story for why organised air makes you cry, or why a mathematical proof feels elegant. And yet here we are, a species that decided some things are beautiful. On what that means.
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Sarath Tharayil
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A love letter to humans. We are not fast, not strong, barely built for this world. And yet we are in every part of it. I am proud of every single one of us.
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Sarath Tharayil
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How a bored Cambridge mathematician invented a game with four absurdly simple rules, accidentally broke the idea of complexity, and spent the rest of his life regretting it.
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Sarath Tharayil
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Why two perfectly rational people always make the worst possible choice together, and what that reveals about climate, war, and human cooperation.
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Sarath Tharayil
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In 1924, two mathematicians proved you can decompose a solid ball into five pieces and reassemble them into two balls of equal size. No stretching. No scaling. Completely rigorous mathematics. Here is how, and why it works.
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Sarath Tharayil
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Someone picks a card from nine, buries it in the deck, and you deal four chaotic piles counting backwards from ten. The sum of what lands face-up tells you exactly where the card is. Every single time. Here is why the deck has no choice.
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Sarath Tharayil
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In 1742, Goldbach wrote Euler a letter with an observation so simple a child could understand it. No one has proven it since. Here is the 280-year story of the conjecture, the man who came closest in a boiler room under a kerosene lamp, and what it costs to chase an unprovable truth.
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Sarath Tharayil
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Google used to ask job candidates what they'd do if shrunk to the size of a coin and dropped in a blender. The math says jump out. The physics says you're dead either way. Both answers are wrong for interesting reasons.
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Sarath Tharayil
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A Russian mathematician picked a fight with God in 1906 and accidentally built the mathematical engine behind Google, ChatGPT, nuclear weapons, and card shuffling. The story of Markov chains and the strange power of forgetting.
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Sarath Tharayil
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In 1968, a scientist built a perfect world for mice: unlimited food, no predators, no disease. The colony was extinct in five years. What Universe 25 reveals about density, identity, and what happens when survival becomes too easy.
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Sarath Tharayil
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How political propaganda, algorithmic manipulation, and neurobiology combine to hijack belief, and what it actually takes to break free.
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Sarath Tharayil
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A step-by-step interactive guide to 1NF, 2NF, 3NF, BCNF, 4NF, and 5NF with real SQL and transforming tables at every stage.
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Sarath Tharayil
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How India quietly became the source of 40% of America's generic drugs, 60% of the world's vaccines, and one of the most important forces in global healthcare. A fifty-year story of bold laws, brilliant scientists, and one audacious phone call.
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Sarath Tharayil
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A deep look at the real neuroscience and psychology behind why ambitious people consistently fail to act on their own ambitions. Hint: it is not laziness.
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AUTHOR:
Sarath Tharayil
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The smart television sitting in your living room is a continuous surveillance device. This is how it works, which brands do it, what they earn from it, and how to make it stop.
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AUTHOR:
Sarath Tharayil