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WRITEUPS
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Building in Public: What Just Shipped on This Sitesite-updates
Jun 8, 2026·3 MIN
◆Jun 8, 2026
Building in Public: What Just Shipped on This Sitesite-updates
A quick walkthrough of everything I just added to saraththarayil.com — weather card, lab simulations, guestbook, console commands, navbar overhaul, and a few other things.The Rules That Broke India's CitiesIndia
Jun 7, 2026·22 MIN
◆Jun 7, 2026
The Rules That Broke India's CitiesIndia
India builds rockets and runs global software. Its cities can't build a footpath. This is the story of how three policy decisions, made in 1898, 1956, and 1962, engineered the dysfunction of the Indian metropolis.How Google Maps Finds Your Route, and Why a 66-Year-Old Idea Still WinsComputer Science
Jun 6, 2026·8 MIN
◆Jun 6, 2026
How Google Maps Finds Your Route, and Why a 66-Year-Old Idea Still WinsComputer Science
In 2025, mathematicians proved that Dijkstra's 1959 algorithm isn't the fastest way to find a route. Then someone actually built the new one. Dijkstra won anyway.Something Jammed Europe's GPSSpace
Jun 5, 2026·9 MIN
◆Jun 5, 2026
Something Jammed Europe's GPSSpace
For seven years, something kept briefly killing GPS signals across an entire continent. In 2026, a team of researchers finally found out what.I Vibe Coded in a Job Interview. Then I Over-Engineered It.Technology
Jun 4, 2026·10 MIN
◆Jun 4, 2026
I Vibe Coded in a Job Interview. Then I Over-Engineered It.Technology
How a 30-minute fuzzy search task in a live interview became a search engine running 21 parallel algorithms, a live signal panel, and a full diagnostics modal.Building Vasthavam: Accountability in Kerala's Media and PoliticsCivic TechSERIES
Jun 2, 2026·2 PARTS
◆Jun 2, 2026
Building Vasthavam: Accountability in Kerala's Media and PoliticsCivic TechSERIES
Why I am building a civic technology platform to fact-check claims, track news credibility, and hold politicians accountable in Kerala.I Let a Team of AI Agents Write 30,000 Words While I WatchedAI
Jun 1, 2026·8 MIN
◆Jun 1, 2026
I Let a Team of AI Agents Write 30,000 Words While I WatchedAI
How I used /teamwork-preview in Google Antigravity CLI to orchestrate parallel agents that expanded 106 advanced AI concept pages, caught their own mistakes, and delivered a 30,000-word knowledge base.// MAY 2026
Always Falling. Always Missing.Science
May 31, 2026·8 MIN
◆May 31, 2026
Always Falling. Always Missing.Science
Astronauts on the ISS are not in zero gravity. Gravity up there is 90% as strong as on the ground. So why do they float? Because they are in a permanent freefall, and they keep missing the Earth.The 1064/364 Bitcoin Theory: Genius Pattern or Beautiful Coincidence?Bitcoin
May 30, 2026·9 MIN
◆May 30, 2026
The 1064/364 Bitcoin Theory: Genius Pattern or Beautiful Coincidence?Bitcoin
There is a theory circulating in crypto circles that Bitcoin follows a perfect 1064-day bull, 364-day bear cycle. The numbers line up suspiciously well for the last two cycles. Here is what the data actually shows, and why you should be excited and skeptical in equal measure.The Staircase That Looks StraightMathematics
May 29, 2026·6 MIN
◆May 29, 2026
The Staircase That Looks StraightMathematics
A square, a diagonal, and a staircase that refuses to get shorter no matter how many steps you add. This is the staircase paradox, and it is trying to teach you something important about limits.The Accounting Trick That Turns State Failure Into Economic GrowthEconomics
May 24, 2026·16 MIN
◆May 24, 2026
The Accounting Trick That Turns State Failure Into Economic GrowthEconomics
India is the world's fastest-growing major economy. Part of that growth is your school fees, your hospital bill, and your air purifier. Here is how the design of national accounting quietly rewards the state for failing you.The Linguistics of Putting Women in Their PlaceLanguageSERIES
May 24, 2026·3 PARTS
◆May 24, 2026
The Linguistics of Putting Women in Their PlaceLanguageSERIES
How languages engineer gender hierarchies through vocabulary. A deep investigation into semantic derogation, gendered vocatives in Malayalam, and the feminist movements reclaiming language from the inside out.Your Boarding Pass Is a Credential. Stop Posting It.Security
May 23, 2026·15 MIN
◆May 23, 2026
Your Boarding Pass Is a Credential. Stop Posting It.Security
The barcode on a boarding pass contains your passport number, home address, frequent flyer balance, and a precise schedule of when your house will be empty. Here is the full technical breakdown.Why Is the Sky White in Kerala but Blue in England?science
May 23, 2026·9 MIN
◆May 23, 2026
Why Is the Sky White in Kerala but Blue in England?science
The physics of why tropical skies look washed out while temperate ones stay deep blue. A story about particles, humidity, and light.The $400 Royal Oak That's Changing EverythingWatches
May 22, 2026·11 MIN
◆May 22, 2026
The $400 Royal Oak That's Changing EverythingWatches
AP and Swatch dropped colorful pocket watches for $400 and watch Twitter lost its mind. Here is the full story: the Royal Oak's wild history, the legal crisis nobody talked about, and why this collaboration is smarter than it looks.The Wheel That Became a GodHistory
May 21, 2026·14 MIN
◆May 21, 2026
The Wheel That Became a GodHistory
A chakram is a razor-edged steel ring that Nihang warriors could throw 100 meters at 1500 RPM. The same object, in Hindu cosmology, severs the ego, eclipses the sun, and exists as a conscious deity. The story connecting those two things is stranger than either.The Calendar Kerala Has Been Keeping Since 825 CELanguage
May 20, 2026·5 MIN
◆May 20, 2026
The Calendar Kerala Has Been Keeping Since 825 CELanguage
The Kollam Era is a solar calendar specific to Kerala, in continuous use for over 1,200 years. Its year is not borrowed from any pan-Indian system. It begins every August when the sun enters Leo.The Beautiful Fact That Everything EndsPersonal
May 19, 2026·4 MIN
◆May 19, 2026
The Beautiful Fact That Everything EndsPersonal
You have already forgotten most of your life. That might be exactly right. On memory, impermanence, and why endings are not the enemy of meaning.On Being Seen: The Ancient Need to Be WitnessedPersonal
May 18, 2026·5 MIN
◆May 18, 2026
On Being Seen: The Ancient Need to Be WitnessedPersonal
Why do we take photos of beautiful things we are already looking at? On the ancient need to be seen, what it costs when we are not, and why paying attention is one of the most generous things you can do.The Gift of Other People's Inner LivesPersonal
May 17, 2026·5 MIN
◆May 17, 2026
The Gift of Other People's Inner LivesPersonal
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.Everything You Are Came From Someone, Nobody is Self-MadePersonal
May 16, 2026·5 MIN
◆May 16, 2026
Everything You Are Came From Someone, Nobody is Self-MadePersonal
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.Beauty Has No Right to Exist. And Yet Here We Are.Personal
May 15, 2026·6 MIN
◆May 15, 2026
Beauty Has No Right to Exist. And Yet Here We Are.Personal
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.We Are Not Made for This World. We Conquered It Anyway.Personal
May 14, 2026·7 MIN
◆May 14, 2026
We Are Not Made for This World. We Conquered It Anyway.Personal
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.The Universe Might Be Running on Four If-StatementsMath
May 12, 2026·10 MIN
◆May 12, 2026
The Universe Might Be Running on Four If-StatementsMath
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.You Should Betray Your Friend. Here's Why You Probably Won't.Game Theory
May 11, 2026·9 MIN
◆May 11, 2026
You Should Betray Your Friend. Here's Why You Probably Won't.Game Theory
Why two perfectly rational people always make the worst possible choice together, and what that reveals about climate, war, and human cooperation.One Sphere, Two Spheres: The Theorem That Broke GeometryMathematics
May 10, 2026·11 MIN
◆May 10, 2026
One Sphere, Two Spheres: The Theorem That Broke GeometryMathematics
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.Position 44: The Card Trick That Does the Maths ItselfMathematics
May 9, 2026·12 MIN
◆May 9, 2026
Position 44: The Card Trick That Does the Maths ItselfMathematics
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.The Pearl on the Crown: Mathematics' Most Dangerous Simple QuestionMathematics
May 8, 2026·20 MIN
◆May 8, 2026
The Pearl on the Crown: Mathematics' Most Dangerous Simple QuestionMathematics
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.You Have 60 Seconds: The Physics of Being TinyScience
May 7, 2026·17 MIN
◆May 7, 2026
You Have 60 Seconds: The Physics of Being TinyScience
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.The Equation That Deliberately Forgets EverythingMathematics
May 6, 2026·20 MIN
◆May 6, 2026
The Equation That Deliberately Forgets EverythingMathematics
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.The Mouse Utopia That Chose ExtinctionPsychology
May 5, 2026·19 MIN
◆May 5, 2026
The Mouse Utopia That Chose ExtinctionPsychology
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.Propaganda, Dopamine, and the Collapse of ReasonPolitics
May 4, 2026·34 MIN
◆May 4, 2026
Propaganda, Dopamine, and the Collapse of ReasonPolitics
How political propaganda, algorithmic manipulation, and neurobiology combine to hijack belief, and what it actually takes to break free.Database Normalization, From Chaos to CleanDatabases
May 3, 2026·15 MIN
◆May 3, 2026
Database Normalization, From Chaos to CleanDatabases
A step-by-step interactive guide to 1NF, 2NF, 3NF, BCNF, 4NF, and 5NF with real SQL and transforming tables at every stage.The Pharmacy of the WorldIndia
May 2, 2026·13 MIN
◆May 2, 2026
The Pharmacy of the WorldIndia
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.Why You Dream Big and Do Absolutely NothingPsychology
May 1, 2026·14 MIN
◆May 1, 2026
Why You Dream Big and Do Absolutely NothingPsychology
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.Your TV Is Taking Screenshots. Here Is Exactly What That Means.Privacy
May 1, 2026·20 MIN
◆May 1, 2026
Your TV Is Taking Screenshots. Here Is Exactly What That Means.Privacy
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.// APRIL 2026
The Country That Got Lucky With Two LettersEconomics
Apr 30, 2026·17 MIN
◆Apr 30, 2026
The Country That Got Lucky With Two LettersEconomics
In 1995, a bureaucrat assigned the internet suffix .ai to a tiny Caribbean island. Nobody cared. Then ChatGPT launched. Now Anguilla is abolishing taxes.How Your Wi-Fi Can See Through WallsSecurity
Apr 30, 2026·26 MIN
◆Apr 30, 2026
How Your Wi-Fi Can See Through WallsSecurity
The Wi-Fi router sitting in your living room can, with the right software, detect your presence, track your movements, estimate your body pose, and identify who you are. No camera, no sensors on your body, and it works through solid walls. Here is exactly how that works, and what you can do about it.A River Runs Through This WebsiteDesign
Apr 29, 2026·4 MIN
◆Apr 29, 2026
A River Runs Through This WebsiteDesign
There is a river in the footer of this website. Literally. Here is what it is, where it comes from, and why I put it there.Why Things Work Badly, Strangely, or Unexpectedly in Modern LifeTechnology
Apr 28, 2026·11 MIN
◆Apr 28, 2026
Why Things Work Badly, Strangely, or Unexpectedly in Modern LifeTechnology
Modern life is full of things that feel broken but are not, things that feel designed well but were not, and things that were designed for something else entirely and just never left. A philosophical walk through why the world is like this.The 465 MW Hole Kerala Dug For ItselfIndiaSERIES
Apr 27, 2026·3 PARTS
◆Apr 27, 2026
The 465 MW Hole Kerala Dug For ItselfIndiaSERIES
Kerala's 2026 power crisis starts nine years ago with four contracts, a procedural shortcut, and a regulatory body that decided rules matter more than electricity. Here's how the state lost 465 MW of cheap baseload power and then spent two years failing to get it back.Why Different AI Models Excel at Different TasksAI
Apr 26, 2026·11 MIN
◆Apr 26, 2026
Why Different AI Models Excel at Different TasksAI
Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, and Perplexity all feel meaningfully different to use, and that is not random. Their architectures, training data, and system-level design push them toward genuinely different strengths. Here is what is actually going on under the hood.All Of This I Did, Without YouPersonal
Apr 24, 2026·9 MIN
◆Apr 24, 2026
All Of This I Did, Without YouPersonal
Gerald Durrell's love letter to Lee McGeorge, July 31st 1978. I first heard it read by Tom Hiddleston in LettersLive and have not stopped thinking about it since.Probably Means Something Different to EveryoneLanguage
Apr 21, 2026·10 MIN
◆Apr 21, 2026
Probably Means Something Different to EveryoneLanguage
A phrase like 'unlikely' can mean 10% to one person and 35% to another. This gap has been documented in CIA memos, medical guidelines, and climate reports for over sixty years. The data is stranger and more consequential than you might expect.Adding Typefaces to Render Beautiful Malayalam LigaturesLanguage
Apr 20, 2026·1 MIN
◆Apr 20, 2026
Adding Typefaces to Render Beautiful Malayalam LigaturesLanguage
All seven Malayalam fonts available on this site, with live previews. Six are from the Rachana Institute of Typography.Building a Personal Archive for the Language I Think InLanguage
Apr 19, 2026·3 MIN
◆Apr 19, 2026
Building a Personal Archive for the Language I Think InLanguage
The old proverbs, the quirky observations, the things that only make sense if you've lived in Kerala. A place to keep them before they expire.Your Zodiac Sign is not What You Think It IsIndia
Apr 19, 2026·9 MIN
◆Apr 19, 2026
Your Zodiac Sign is not What You Think It IsIndia
On tropical and sidereal zodiacs, Earth's 26,000-year wobble, and how the Malayalam calendar and Western astrology quietly drifted apart from each other.The Struggle Is Real, and That's the PointCareer
Apr 17, 2026·6 MIN
◆Apr 17, 2026
The Struggle Is Real, and That's the PointCareer
Ben Horowitz wrote the leadership book I wish existed before I ever had to make a hard call. Notes on The Struggle, radical honesty, and why protecting your team from bad news is the worst thing you can do.The Court That Proved the Textbook RightIndia
Apr 14, 2026·9 MIN
◆Apr 14, 2026
The Court That Proved the Textbook RightIndia
India's Supreme Court banned an NCERT civics chapter for saying the judiciary can be corrupt. The chapter quoted their own sitting Chief Justice. What followed made the chapter's point better than the chapter ever could.How India's North-South Divide Was BuiltIndiaSERIES
Apr 11, 2026·3 PARTS
◆Apr 11, 2026
How India's North-South Divide Was BuiltIndiaSERIES
The North-South divide isn't geography. It's the result of colonial land systems, a disastrous freight policy, and radically different bets on human capital. Here's how two Indias were made.My Friend Wrote About Love and LanguageLanguage
Apr 10, 2026·7 MIN
◆Apr 10, 2026
My Friend Wrote About Love and LanguageLanguage
Yahvi compared love to language , how it evolves, gets forgotten, and takes on dialects over time. Here's what that made me realise about the people I've lost fluency in.// MARCH 2026
Kerala Assembly Election 2026 InsightsIndiaSERIES
Mar 26, 2026·3 PARTS
◆Mar 26, 2026
Kerala Assembly Election 2026 InsightsIndiaSERIES
A quick breakdown of how I built my Kerala election reference tool, what the model uses, and where it can be wrong.Be Delusional, What If It Actually Works Out!Career
Mar 7, 2026·3 MIN
◆Mar 7, 2026
Be Delusional, What If It Actually Works Out!Career
A short note on useful delusion, public embarrassment, and why betting on yourself is often less ridiculous than it looks.