Blog & Writing Thoughts & Stories

Technical articles, tutorials, and research notes. Random thoughts, adventures, and things I've learned along the way.

Pinned AIClaude CodeObsidianProductivityAutomation

I Turned My Obsidian Vault Into Claude's Brain (And It Took Less Than a Day)

My Obsidian vault and Claude Code were living completely separate lives. So I connected them: 20 slash commands, auto session summaries, git-backed notes, live MCP. The whole thing runs on plain text and took an afternoon.

Read More →
Pinned RAGAILessons Learned

Building a RAG System for Large Text Files: Lessons from the Trenches

I tried to build a search tool that only returns exact quotes from uploaded text files. What followed was a crash course in free-tier limits, dependency hell, and knowing when to stop.

Read More →
Pinned DatabricksSQLData EngineeringOpinion

Why I Moved from SQL to Databricks (And Never Looked Back)

A practical look at what made me switch from traditional SQL workflows to Databricks: the good, the painful, and the game-changing.

Read More →
AILLMPipelineOCRRAG

Building a 160-Chapter Knowledge Base with Free LLMs and OCR'd Reference Books

How I turned 3,000+ pages of scanned reference books into 160 structured tutorial chapters for under $1. The solution: a multi-model editorial pipeline, local OCR extraction, and Claude Code as the orchestrator.

Read More →
Data VizBest PracticesDesign

Dashboard Design That People Actually Use

Lessons from building dashboards that stakeholders actually open more than once. Hint: less is more.

Read More →
ETLData EngineeringTutorial

The Data Pipeline Nobody Talks About: ETL in the Real World

ETL sounds simple in theory. In practice, it's where data engineers earn their battle scars. Here's what I've learned.

Read More →
AIAnalyticsProductivity

How AI Tools Changed My Analytics Workflow

From writing SQL to letting LLMs help me debug pipelines: how AI assistants have become part of my daily toolkit.

Read More →
RoboticsSLAMTutorial

Getting Started with SLAM for Autonomous Navigation

A beginner-friendly guide to Simultaneous Localization and Mapping: the algorithms, the math, and how to actually build one.

Read More →
LLMAIResearch

Fine-tuning LLMs for Domain-Specific Tasks

Practical lessons from fine-tuning language models: when it works, when it doesn't, and what I'd do differently.

Read More →
RoboticsSensorsPython

Building a Real-Time Sensor Fusion Pipeline

How I combined LIDAR, IMU, and camera data into a single coherent stream for a robotics project.

Read More →
EmbeddedOpinionCareer

Why Every Engineer Should Learn Embedded Systems

Understanding hardware makes you a better software engineer. Here's why, and how to get started without buying a single board.

Read More →
TravelFoodStories

Street Food Diaries: My Top 5 Cities

From Bangkok's night markets to Istanbul's kebab stalls — ranking the cities that fed my soul (and my stomach).

Coming soon
MusicProductivityFun

Building the Perfect Coding Playlist

The science (and art) behind playlists that make a 4-hour coding session feel like 45 minutes.

Coming soon
CookingLifestylePersonal

Why I Started Cooking as a Hobby

How experimenting in the kitchen became my favorite way to decompress after a long day of debugging.

Coming soon
HikingIrelandTravel

Weekend Hiking in Ireland: A Beginner's Guide

The trails, the views, the rain — everything you need to know about hiking around Dublin and beyond.

Coming soon