Weekly Notes 2025 W04-W05

I am writing the first draft of this at 35,000 feet in the air, on my way back to Bangalore. I have not been able to write my notes for the last two weeks due to travel and a general lack of energy.

I apologize for such a long wall of text - I didn’t have time to write a short one

Week 04

Week 04 started well, but then I quickly slipped into a dark place with lots of confusion. Everything just felt like too much, and I was unable to gather myself.

I took Thursday and Friday away from work, but it didn’t help much since I spent most of that time just sleeping.

Running & Training

Even with all that, I managed to stick to some training:

Total Mileage: 29.9K

BMF Race Day

On Sunday, the 26th, I ran the Bangalore Mountain Festival (BMF) Half Marathon at Avati, Bangalore.

I completed it in around 3h27m. This was my third HM, and first trail HM. The course was very challenging, but I really enjoyed every bit of it. I started out strong and spent some of my head start taking photos (zero regrets). It was very chilly and foggy, even at 7 in the morning when we flagged off.

The course was a 10.5K loop that you needed to complete twice for 21.1K. The course runs over four hills and a lake. There are some asphalt roads, but the majority of the course was trail and off-road. There was a significant elevation gain (about 250m over 10K), but the climb was not technical.

I enjoyed running uphill and felt quite good during the first lap, but the last hill before completing the lap was quite difficult, and I mostly walked. I was too drained by the time I began my second lap, and in the second half, I ran where I could but mostly walked, finishing just before the cutoff.

After each race, I want to write a race report, but I end up procrastinating. Maybe this week, I’ll finally write one for BMF, Inshallah.

I highly recommend BMF to every beginner runner in and around Bangalore. Even just walking the course is worth it.

Week 05

On Monday, I was away from my regular work with my colleagues at a client’s premises. I conducted a small workshop on film development using Caffenol.

At BAT, we build what we call a Cabinet of Curiosities, this can be used to learn and understand the concepts of science and engineering through devices like old analog cameras, Gramophones, etc. As part of this, I put together a small analog film development kit.

Participants made some images using an old Agfa Synchro Box camera and then developed the film using coffee powder and vitamin C. We had some decent images - not bad for 70-year-old tech. Here is a walkthrough of the Caffenol process.

Tuesday and Wednesday were mostly spent trying to work as much as possible before I left for Bihar for another one of our educational projects.

We spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in Muzaffarpur.

My colleague, Srinidhi, did most of the heavy lifting here. I was mostly manning the camera and helping with some electronics and technical aspects of our training.

I am really happy with the educational work we do at BAT. I am thankful to have a team who have their hearts in the right place, and who want to make an actual impact rather than just doing things that bring in money or look flashy. However, this work is hard labor and takes a real toll on both physical and mental health.

We traveled to Patna on Saturday.

Sunday morning I went on a run along the Patna Marine Drive. I cut short my run to a 5K as it was too late and sun was up.

I spent my Sunday afternoon and evening at the Bihar Museum. I highly recommend their café, Potbelly. They have an amazing menu. I tried their Keema Gugni and was floored. The idea of adding meat to Gugni felt like a work of culinary genius. We need more snacks that are not just carbs or deep-fried carbs.

For dinner, I had their Champaran mutton and sattu parantha, which was amazing too.

I didn’t spend much time at the museum because I started late. I only visited Exhibit Room A, which had prehistoric, pre-Mauryan, and Mauryan exhibits. I spent quite some time looking into the eyes of a life-sized Buddha. Srinidhi pointed out some peculiarities with earlier Buddhist sculptures, and how they are different from our conventional understanding of Beauty and masculinity.

I also saw some Harappan seals and toys. Each time I look at a Harappan/IVC exhibit, I get excited. It feels amazing to think of people from about 8,000-5,000 years ago who spent time making toys. Through this act of creation, I feel connected with all of human history.

We are a species that always wants to create and build for the joy of it.

Running & Training

Monday: Strength training

Tuesday: WoD

Saturday: 5K in Muzaffarpur - amazing experience

Sunday: 5K in Patna along Marine Drive. I had planned a 10–15K but heat + unfamiliarity made me rethink that fast.

Total weekly mileage: ~10K

Carrying My Coffee Setup

I carried my coffee setup with me on this trip for the first time. I think it is worth every gram of lugging around. I used the hotel kettle for hot water. This is going to be a constant fixture in my travel bag henceforth.

One day, maybe I’ll be a member of the Mile High Aeropress Club too - who knows? :P

Tech & Random Thoughts: Remix.run & RSS Feeds

I have also been daydreaming about rewriting this blog using Remix.run. I have been eyeing Remix for quite some time. I selected Remix for our team to build a SaaS tool because of the high praise I heard from developers I respect (And I also did some more reading)

A lot of old-timers compare it to Ruby on Rails - although I have not used RoR. I haven’t had much time to explore Remix yet, apart from the basics, so maybe this is the right project.

I wrote about the features I want in the blog here.

I have been thinking a lot about RSS as a form of social media. I also had similar ideas last year.

What I am thinking of is not really social media but focuses more on discovery. The answer to the problem of “How do I find other people who write from people I already follow?"

Webrings exist. I also like Thej’s blogring. But this means each website has to implement it in a certain way - the UI/UX of it. I want something where the website’s responsibility is to act as a source of data - the way I consume this can differ (e.g., I want a feed of your following, so any new person you add to your list, I can get them).

I think we already have open tech that acts as part of conventional social media. We already have emails to act as DMs. We can reshare things in our own blogs to act as resharing. I like Scripting News, where Dave uses it like a social media feed - but I don’t like how it looks on my feed reader.

I think the issue here is rather with RSS reader UI/UX. Maybe I need to find a way to rebuild this UI with some underlying standards. Let people publish however they like, and I can consume it in a neat social media feed kind of way. But then I can re-share and like it in this particular way that is just RSS and can be consumed by others? (Simon and a few others already do it, using their link blog) And have a standardized the webring feed/list act as a way to discover new people, and also let that be a feed too?

I feel like I am reinventing the wheel somewhere here, and also don’t have a clarity with these ideas. I need to think about this more, rather than just an hour-long furious typing session at 35,000 feet in the air.

Please write to me at rohitfoss00 at g m a i l . c o m (Yes, I am yet to set up my emails on this domain) if you have any ideas, any prior art you are familiar with, or anything that is vaguely relevant.

Until next week.