Hi!
I am Kaustubh Maske Patil. I am 21 years old. I was brought up in Latur in Maharashtra, India. This is where I’ve spent most of my life. Recently though, I have moved to Bangalore. I am a half-nerd half-cool kind of person. In my nerd persona, I like math and visualizations, and I am very good at programming. In my not-so-nerdy alter ego, I enjoy bike rides, music, and lame jokes. I am also not half bad at chess. I used to play much more as a teenager, and I’ve had my scalps back in the day. I don’t play competitive tournaments anymore because of how stressful they are, but you can still find me hanging out at casual chess meetups once in a while.
I don’t know why I enjoy programming. I think I don’t enjoy programming per-se. It is the things that it enables me to do that are much more enticing to me. Things like writing this blog and hosting it on my own server. Ah, did I mention that I self-host my software? I do. Self-hosting is another hobby that my programming skills enable for me. Sometimes, I just create websites for fun. I rickroll, make websites with cute cat gifs, or build some remake of an old random game. Most importantly for me though, programming allows me to make things more interesting. I used to get very bored at school (who didn’t?), and studying was no fun. But whenever it has come to programming things, I’ve always found the push to put in the effort, strangely enough. As a result, me, now, as a 21 year old, am interested in the same math and physics that I couldn’t be bothered to learn in high school.
Speaking of school, I’ve never been to a physical college. I wanted to skip college entirely and learn in my own ways. I really like the idea of unschooling. It goes well with my own beliefs. Around a year ago though, I decided that I should start an online degree and I did start one in computer science. As accepting as the tech community is of engineers without degrees, it closes (or makes it harder to get through) a few doors such as academia, international work visas, or higher education. For someone like me, I know that my beliefs could be wildly different in a couple of years or maybe more, and I don’t want the decisions in my past to be a blocker for more fun later in life. In a better world, I would’ve been fearless and carried on naturally. For the time being though, I think this is a very good trade-off for me. I get to keep a degree and I need to invest only about 20-30 hours in a semester. Maybe 50 sometimes, but that is still like only a week for six months of coursework.
I’ll keep adding to this section as I think of more things to write. If you want to know what I’m up to now, take a look at my now page.