Weekly Overview#
Very good week. Stuck to the new plan of focusing on lesser number of subjects and going deep into them.
3rd November 2025 - Monday#
Summary#
- Study:
- - Low level/Systems
- - Artificial Intelligence(AI)
Reflections and Remarks
- Did some rearranging in my room. Got new speakers, set those up.
- Tried installing a new linux kernel, configuring, etc on a new VM. Will come in handy in the future.
- Did some changes in my daily plan according to observations from last week. This week I plan on sticking to lesser number of subjects and going deep into them. Mainly for linux kernel development and other low level stuff.
- I looked into Gate syllabus for EE(Electrical engineering) and EC(Electronics and Communication engineering) for post grad courses as I am getting serious about hardware now. I will explore more about the topics taught in these courses and will make a decision whether to sit for this exam in 2027 or not(I might just do it for the fun of it). If I end up joining some post grad course, my main goal would be to meet like minded people and smart folks. I don’t care much about the degree itself.
- Overall, Okish day. Some procrastination but health wise it was good. Got a really good workout in the evening.
4th November 2025 - Tuesday#
Summary#
- Study:
- - Low level/Systems
- - Artificial Intelligence(AI)
Reflections and Remarks
- Got a lot of studying the linux kernel done today from the Robert Love book, very good so far. Completed 2 chapters. Also, created the notes for the kernel as blog posts on this website’s notes section. Need some more time to finish the notes for both the chapters.
- Learned a lot about the kernel and low level systems in general.
- Plan for next 2 months
- Finally, decided to go all in on hardware and low level stuff from now on. At least, for the next 2 months.
- Will work on other things like AI, Blockchain on the spare time. Will definitely continue with the math as it is the universal subject.
- I might write the 2027 Gate exam for one or two of these domains (as Gate allows for dual papers): ECE, EE, CSE. I am leaning more towards ECE and EE as they have more hardware related topics and I am getting serious about hardware now.
- AI is ok, it just doesn’t excite me as much as low level stuff or building real world systems with hardware does. I might come back to it later.
- Project wise, apart from very small projects, I will focus on building a few very good projects in the hardware and low level domain, like embedded system projects, kernel drivers, OS development, etc.
- Programming languages to focus on: C, C++(if needed), Rust, Python (for scripting and small tools).
- Starting tomorrow, I will follow this new plan. Looking forward to it.
- Overall, good day. Felt productive and motivated.
5th November 2025 - Wednesday#
Summary#
- - Math
- - Linux Kernel
- - Embedded Systems
- - Any other subjects/projects
Reflections and Remarks
- Math: Continued on Linear Algebra: Went deep into dot products. Updated notes accordingly.
- Linux Kernel: Mostly note updating as there were a lot of older notes for Ch 1-2 of the book. Most of it is complete. Little work still remaining.
- Embedded Systems: Started my 2 month plan: Starting with Embedded systems and focusing
entirely on ESP32. Did some
idfsetup and experimented with the hello world code to learn about some basics of development on ESP32. - Overall, good day, very productive and a good start to the new plan.
6th November 2025 - Thursday#
Summary#
- - Math
- - Linux Kernel
- - Embedded Systems
- - Any other subjects/projects
Reflections and Remarks
- Overall first half of the day was good. The second half, I procrastinated a lot. I did not feel like working during the 2nd half at all or do the workout. So, I just took the rest of the day off. Will try to do better tomorrow.
- Linux Kernel:
- Pretty good day for the Kernel study.
- Studied in depth things like process management, threads, etc - finally feel I am near low level systems.
- Took notes on the website notes section.
- Note taking on the website - feels very slow when you make notes as you are reading. Notes were very thoughrough but the read then make notes thing is getting very boring. Need to think about some other approach for note taking. It is important to take these notes.
- Nalnda:
- Finally, started working on this long pending task. Will not do all in one day will just work like 1-2 hr a day for next 2-3 days to complete this, as I don’t want it to interfere with my other plans.
- Just need a stripe checkout on FE and the BE for the same. I would have done it faster but the code left by old devs is a mess. Good progress today though.
7th November 2025 - Friday#
Summary#
- - Math
- - Linux Kernel
- - Embedded Systems
- - Any other subjects/projects
Reflections and Remarks
- Linux Kernel: Mostly worked on old pending note taking. Man, need to speed this up, taking too long.
- Embedded Systems:
- Started new course on ESP32. Decided need a course, as I am very new to this and figuring out everything on my own is getting really boring. Course seems good.
- Not a productive day. Very demotivated and did not wanted to work. Still got a few things done. Hope tomorrow is better.
8th November 2025 - Saturday#
Summary#
- - Math
- - Linux Kernel
- - Embedded Systems
- - Any other subjects/projects
Reflections and Remarks
- Linux Kernel: Continued with the process management in the kernel(book, ch-3). The book is outdated as the current kernel version is a bit different than described in it. So, for everything I read I had to go to the latest kernel source code and check if anything changed. This did slow me down a bit, but I am guessing as I do more of it I will get better at it. Also, since the book is very large, I will need to speed up my reading, note taking process. I plan on doing like 5 pages a day from now on, I have estimated that this will take around 4 months to finish the book at this pace. Let’s see how this goes.
- Math: Continued with Linear Algebra, finally completed the old notes on dot products from multiple sources(loved this one). Started some study on cross products as well, will continue tomorrow. Math is getting quite interesting now, I might do more of it. Man, math was so boring in school/college, I wish I had good teachers back then. Actually, I had some good teachers, but due to my father’s transferable job I had to change schools a lot, so I never got to stay in one place long enough. Oh well.
- Embedded Systems: Did some course work on ESP32. Good progress, but it seems very basic so far. Hoping it gets better. Need to read the book as well. Will do that tomorrow.
- Overall, good day. Felt productive and motivated. Afternoon workouts are better for me it seems.
- I need to do all the math and linux kernel study in the early morning as I need my evenings free for exploring newer stuff in whatever thing I find interesting, or it will get boring doing the same thing everyday. I will try to do the math and kernel study(which is basically book reading and note taking, for now) in the morning 1 and 1/2 hours each(I guess). Let’s see how this goes.
9th November 2025 - Sunday#
Summary#
- - Math
- - Linux Kernel
- - Embedded Systems
- - Any other subjects/projects
Reflections and Remarks
- Math: Did good amount of math. Really happy with my progress in math today. Followed the 1 1/2 hrs rule. Went great.
- Linux Kernel: Pretty good progress here as well. Read 5 pages without stopping, then went deep into each concept one by one and created notes. Good progress.
- Embedded Systems: This was not that great. Procrastinated a lot here. But still got some work done, which is good. Being a perfectionist, I tend to not give myself much credit for small wins, so I will not do that here. Small wins are important.
- Good day overall. Felt productive and motivated. Evening took some time to relax, watched some TV shows. Good day. Ready for the week ahead.