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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[FEVER TRIP]]></title><description><![CDATA[Silent Observations]]></description><link>http://fvrtrp.com</link><generator>GatsbyJS</generator><lastBuildDate>Sun, 07 May 2023 13:04:50 GMT</lastBuildDate><item><title><![CDATA[How I rewrote Sesh (2.0)]]></title><description><![CDATA[It’s been almost 2 years since the last blog, and I have good updates now to show on sesh:
First, sesh has reached 2.0. It has been built to…]]></description><link>http://fvrtrp.com/sesh-appjourney-3/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">http://fvrtrp.com/sesh-appjourney-3/</guid><pubDate>Sun, 07 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded>&lt;p&gt;It’s been almost 2 years since the last blog, and I have good updates now to show on sesh:
First, sesh has reached 2.0. It has been built to be almost completely modular, and it’s been the most compressed since launch.
Last blog, I was talking about making it minimized, bundled and automate the build process. All the 3 things are now done.
I’m using webpack to build, minimize and automate the build. It’s neat. The output always ends up in the dist folder, and I just need to upload a zip of that to the store when ready. I’m using webpack’s watch mode to automate rebuilding.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h1&gt;ui, themes:&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Lately (meaning just the last month-ish) I have picked up design again, and its evident in sesh’ latest form. The settings page has been redesigned, from ideas that appeared in my head since I had been thinking about design for a while. It has some interaction too, and some animations. It’s what I wanted for now. It’ll do for now. It might look like an overkill too, but that’s alright.
I redid the movie posters theme, since the old one wasn’t what I initially wanted to do. The current one isn’t either, but it’s cute.
There’s a new google earth theme, that loads beautiful images from google earth on each new tab, and did not add much to the bundle size, since I only had to store the image ids (4 digit, some 1000 of theme) in an array, and set the src to google’s own server. Neat.
I’m thinking of adding snake/tic tac toe/chess kinda themes that work offline, just because it sounds cool, but we’ll see. I want to make them on canvas API, and that requires some time investment.
Oh, the next theme might actually be an analog clock; it’s been on my mind for a while, so all that’s left is design and figuring out how to implement it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h1&gt;code:&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;p&gt; I ditched lazy loading the css for each theme, since I couldn’t figure out how to bundle them that way. Apart from that, there hasn’t been much that went on, on the javascript side. Figuring out webpack was fun, and I’ll try to find more ways to minimize the size of this code till I’m really happy about it.
I switched styling to use SCSS, made possible with webpack, and since processing it is only a dev dependency, there’s no overhead on performance, and the code is neater, and less prone to unintentional style changes.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h1&gt;blog:&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Overall, I’m planning to blog and document more of this as I progress; I think it’s cool what I’m doing, and others might as well.
Not just sesh, but I’m planning to document and blog my journey through engineering and code; it’s cool, and there’s no downsides to it as far as I can see.&lt;/p&gt;</content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[How I made Sesh (0.3)]]></title><description><![CDATA[Sesh 0.3 is sesh reconstructed from the ground up, both design, and engineering. With sesh0.2, I only managed to add one light theme, and…]]></description><link>http://fvrtrp.com/sesh-appjourney-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">http://fvrtrp.com/sesh-appjourney-2/</guid><pubDate>Sat, 11 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded>&lt;p&gt;Sesh 0.3 is sesh reconstructed from the ground up, both design, and engineering. With sesh0.2, I only managed to add one light theme, and one more dark theme (which doesn’t look good as I now see it).
The motivation is for sesh0.3 was two fold:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ol&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Engineering - coding the app from the ground up, with reusability and modularity in mind.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Design - Making the customization simple, diverse and modular.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Let’s dig a little deeper into what I mean, but I’ll first detail what sesh is supposed to be, again:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h1&gt;Sesh - Beautiful new tab&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Customise your new tab pages to be beautiful, and minimal.
Sesh can be customized in three ways: theme , content, and utilities.
&lt;em&gt;Themes:&lt;/em&gt; Vanilla (which is essentially barebones sesh from 0.2), ninja, film reel (a new theme which loads a random movie poster from a curated list, and has a fancy animation when you hover on the poster, zen (a new theme which loads soothing colours and animations)
Content: date-time, nihilist quotes, bookmarks, a custom user message, or nothing.
Utilities: showing bookmarks shortcut on screen, showing pinned bookmarks on screen. I eventually want to have scripts in utilities, that run every time a new tab is opened.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h1&gt;Design, deeper -&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I wanted to do away with the shabby and amateur design from the previous versions. That came first. Not everything needs to be bold and big. Almost every component of sesh went through a fundamental redesign. And then I ditched all the themes from before and designed 2 new ones. I have a lot of ideas for the zen theme, and will keep adding new themes if and when they strike as being worthy of addition.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h1&gt;Engineering, deeper -&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The thought that drove me to redo all the code from scratch was to make sesh entirely modular. Each theme, each content, and each utility needs to be plug n play. This makes it really easy to add a new feature/theme to sesh. The engineering part is almost done. Another task accomplished with this version was reusability. Common functions were turned into hooks so other parts, and new features can use them with just one line of code. One task that I’ve been contemplating, but haven’t started is bundling-minimizing-automating the build process.
The aim is to minimise the js, html, css and put them in the build folder, to reap dividends
In app size. I’ve started looking at the best and reliable ways to do this. Webpack/gulp look like the best options so far.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Everything being done in this version will make sesh easy to update and deploy in the future, and at the same time I can use this framework for future extensions, so that’s neat.&lt;/p&gt;</content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Get these things straight in your simulation hypothesis]]></title><description><![CDATA[Well, you have taken the cooler route; you believe we live in a simulation. You believe in the other kind of God; a nerd genius either by…]]></description><link>http://fvrtrp.com/simulation-hypothesis/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">http://fvrtrp.com/simulation-hypothesis/</guid><pubDate>Sat, 15 May 2021 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded>&lt;p&gt;Well, you have taken the cooler route; you believe we live in a simulation. You believe in the other kind of God; a nerd genius either by will or chance sparked the right connections and here we are, billions of years later.
Assuming we got it right till that part, here are some thoughts that might help shape your narrative.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h1&gt;The earth is not the center of it (or, you are not special)&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Many assume the simulation is like an enclosure/zoo, and the creator is watching us specifically.
You might think we’re the most advanced/developed civilization out there, and naturally the simulator has a special interest in us.
I see no difference between the people who believe that God created us humans special, and you. No, unfortunately we’re not at the center of it all this time, okay?
The creator does not check in occasionally to see how you’re doing, there are billions of us, humans and otherwise, in just this one puny planet. Imagine the scale at which the creator operates, and look at you.
You do not matter, and your theory falls out the moment you assign a special place for us in it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h1&gt;Humans are not the center of it (or, you are not special)&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Again, thinking if we’re reaching some kind of pinnacle in terms of where we are headed is absolutely naive. You are not at the verge of something truly breaking. We are yet to crack multi planetary habitation, and you assume we’re so close to meeting the simulator? How obscene.
Think of our planet as a speck of dust on a beach. Again, your theory cannot place our planet at the center of it. We’re cogs of a gigantic machine. Maybe we can one day cause enough disruption to make the creator check what’s going on, but not yet.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h1&gt;Glitches are not going to be what you want&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Another common assumption is that the simulation is like a VR experience, or something intangible like a video game/program, and any probable bugs could be found if you think this way.
I would say the simulation, like a dream till you wake up, will be real. Don’t take my word for it, you can feel it right now. None of this is fake, right?
There are no bugs in the simulation because, us being part of the whole thing, means these are features. This is just how it works. And unless the glitch happens without defying our current models of physics (and the ones we make conclude from this new observation), it’s always just how it’s supposed to work.
The simulation will continue, glitchy or not, and we will live through it assuming this is exactly how it should work.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h1&gt;There’s no end game - it won’t end with you meeting the creator… He is living in a simulation too.&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Let’s say that one day, you just manage to barely contact the creator. He sees you making a ruckus in his program; his AWS server starts generating high bills (as Geohotz joked) and a few fruitfalls later, we develop a channel and a language to communicate with.
Granted, it will be monumental for us, but probably not for the creator.
Who says he himself is not part of another simulation? And that there are no other simulations inadvertently kickstarted by him?
Are you inadvertently making a simulation right now?
The end game, always is that either it’s an infinite series of universes encompassing the smaller ones, or somehow it loops into the first one at a point.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Our perception of space, time and matter is still very nascent; so hey, who knows maybe one day your computer overheats and you find little minions making their way out of it.
Or maybe it was just bitcoin mining.&lt;/p&gt;</content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[How I made Sesh Part I]]></title><description><![CDATA[This will be a series talking about my process making an app.
I quite like creating apps or utilities from scratch, and I felt documenting…]]></description><link>http://fvrtrp.com/sesh-appjourney-1/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">http://fvrtrp.com/sesh-appjourney-1/</guid><pubDate>Mon, 26 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded>&lt;p&gt;This will be a series talking about my process making an app.
I quite like creating apps or utilities from scratch, and I felt documenting them would be a good way to check how short I have fallen with respect to the original vision behind it, and see common patterns, fallacies and all that jazz.
So let’s get started with sesh, an extension I made for Google Chrome.
The link is &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fvrtrp.com/sesh&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.
The idea was to have a not too boring page on my Chrome everytime I open a new tab.
I’m a sucker for minimalism, dark mode, customization yada yada so I thought of putting my recently bubbling ui-ux experience to good use. And the results are not too bad for a first time project of a respectable scale.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h1&gt;development wishlist&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I wanted some things incorporated into the development process, as well as some customization options for the product.
For development: minimal size, so I opted to write the code in vanilla js/css. The current size stands at some 47kb. v3 of the app will be way lesser than this. I wanted to write modular code, so it could be split into files that could be later added, removed or tweaked on demand, you know…modular. I think I have half succeeded in it so far.
Another bigger thing was to take a top-down approach to decision making and coding. I tried to wean myself from dashing into selectors and callbacks without first understanding how the current work helped with the overall vision. That’s pretty rare for me, since I always usually end up writing and rewriting and hammering my head when stuff doesn’t work, and I don’t know why I coded it in the first place.
The same approach was strived for in the ui-ux development pipeline too. Idea, requirements, (measly) research, wireframing and prototypes, yeah that’s the way. You would cringe in disappointment if I showed you how the first prototype looked.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h1&gt;ui-ux wishlist&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Dark mode was first. Can’t have white light blinding me at 4am.
Minimal content on screen. Wanted to create a soothing ui and minimalism was a priority.
A bookmarks browser with a tree view and useful functionality:
I wanted to have bookmarks search, a double-click-to-open-all-items, a right-click-to-open-random-item functionality right from day one. This idea was to be its own extension, but hey it finally saw the light of day this way.
Theming/customization:
Even I don’t have the same mood on different days, so I wanted to make different types of themes for different minds. However, this hasn’t met my expectations yet, and will be radically overhauled since the current themes look samey with different accent colors tacked on.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h1&gt;the initial beta toil&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It took about a month of late night planning and coding to get the initial version shipped finally. The most frustrating part of it all wasn’t the development, but publishing it to the Chrome store; there’s a lot of kinks that had to be straightened there, including an accidental removal of my extension by its algorithm.
However, the code after 0.1 wasn’t what I originally envisioned, and there was a lot of room to optimize and clean up.
the 0.2 version fixed some of this, and the theming issues I mentioned before, and 0.3 will be leagues better.
The development itself had barely any struggle or roadblocks, nothing that couldn’t be sorted out with google.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h1&gt;mankind is introduced to sesh&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;p&gt;That line pretty much sums up the anxiety I have when sharing something with people. Although my LinkedIn isn’t super popular, this was the first time I was sharing something I had so dearly made with the network. What if people laugh at it? What if it looks so silly to the outside world? What if the design is too amateurish? were some of the recurrent thoughts haunting me. But these were just jitters that had to be disregarded, since the only way to get better at something is by seeing new perspectives, and feedback. What you do withe feedback is then upto you. So, I did it, and hey it had 7 subscribers that weren’t me by the next week.
My friend Shameer even called me to discuss the app and offered some insightful thoughts and suggestions so that’s a big win.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h1&gt;0.2 rises&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I will write about 0.2 in the coming weeks, what it set out to do, and what it ended up doing. As I stated, making observations here I think is a great idea to show others or the future you, the ideas or the method or the events of how a product shaped up.&lt;/p&gt;</content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[What's a fever trip?]]></title><description><![CDATA[Inception It’s 4AM. Here I am; sleepless, on a bed in a strangeland, on a getaway.
This is the last day. Tomorrow, I will get on a bike and…]]></description><link>http://fvrtrp.com/what is a fever trip/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">http://fvrtrp.com/what is a fever trip/</guid><pubDate>Sat, 13 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><content:encoded>&lt;h1&gt;Inception&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;p&gt;It’s 4AM. Here I am; sleepless, on a bed in a strangeland, on a getaway.
This is the last day. Tomorrow, I will get on a bike and travel for a grueling 7 hours in the sveltering sun and return to the monotony of every day.
Why am I here again? Oh yes, I wanted to get out of the rut, build an impeccable routine, and try to get back in the game of being amazingly productive and creative. Not much came of it, but right now, right here, I’m having an out of body experience. Yeah, the most critical night when I need to get some sleep to be the most attentive the next day, and these ideas start creeping into my head instead of nightmares. God, I’d love instead for some ghosts to pop up in front of me when I open my eyes (not that it didn’t happen the same night earlier). I need to buy a domain right now, and I mean right now, before the sun rises. Yes. Let’s do this.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I wanted fvrtrp.io, but that’s way too expensive for what it will achieve. Okay, let’s go with fvrtrp.com. Maybe it has better readability for lay people, and have a better appeal overall.
But what will go on here?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h1&gt;What will happen here?&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I will have to build a kickass website. This will collate all my past works, and I need to blog regularly; the design has to convey the philosophy of my work, and my approach to software. It has to reflect what I am.
And it has to be kickass.Yeah.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h1&gt;The philosophy&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Fever trip has always been about making sudden, sketchy, mostly dubious judgement calls and taking an initiative to follow it through. This will effectively be that. It’s about the instinct to do sometning cool, maybe not really menaningful but really cool. I will try to actively blog here, documenting my endeavors in coding and engineering. Maybe along the way I will learn and reflect more as an upshot.
Cheers.&lt;/p&gt;</content:encoded></item></channel></rss>