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    <title>Arsh Jameel</title>
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    <description>Recent content on Arsh Jameel</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Blog #12 | Revisiting India</title>
      <link>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog12/</link>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jan 2025 12:20:42 -0500</pubDate>
      
      <guid>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog12/</guid>
      <description>Hello everyone, you are officially reading the first blog of the year!
There&amp;rsquo;s not much news for me to share with you all, although I wish I did. However, if you&amp;rsquo;ve been up to date with some of my old blog posts, you must know that I underwent a minor cosmetic surgery last summer. But what you all might not know is that the procedure was performed in India.
I didn&amp;rsquo;t say this at the time because I was afraid my professors would assume I was on an extended summer break if they had come across my blog, but considering how so many of them don&amp;rsquo;t even bother checking their inboxes, I&amp;rsquo;d be surprised if they would even remember my name, much less finding out about my blog.</description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Hello everyone, you are officially reading the first blog of the year!</p>
<p>There&rsquo;s not much news for me to share with you all, although I wish I did. However, if you&rsquo;ve been up to date with some
of my <a href="../blog1">old blog posts</a>, you must know that I underwent a minor cosmetic surgery last summer. But what you all
might not know is that the procedure was performed in India.</p>
<p>I didn&rsquo;t say this at the time because I was afraid my professors would assume I was on an extended summer break if they
had come across my blog, but considering how so many of them don&rsquo;t even bother checking their inboxes, I&rsquo;d be surprised
if they would even remember my name, much less finding out about my blog.</p>
<p>Well, regardless, the reason I am saying this is because I&rsquo;m going back to India for a follow-up surgery. It is a small
procedure meant to remove a device they put in me to provide some structural support to my face.</p>
<p>The procedure will not cause any noticeable changes to my appearance, and will hopefully be followed by a quick
recovery. I&rsquo;ll be flying back home by the end of the month, allowing me to catch up on my classes without falling too
far behind.</p>
<p>Additionally, there is a job fair on my campus in February. I have had my eyes on this event since last November, and I
am planning on finishing this online full-stack course I told you all about before I fly back home.</p>
<p>I hope updating my resume with some of the projects I&rsquo;ve completed to showcase my skills will make me more attractive
to the recruiters there.</p>
<p>Whether or not I end up getting a job, setting this deadline for myself can prove to be extremely beneficial since
I can spend the rest of my semester working on larger projects with my newfound skills, so I am excited regardless of
the outcome.</p>
<hr>
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      <title>Blog #11 | New Year&#39;s Reflections</title>
      <link>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog11/</link>
      <pubDate>Tue, 31 Dec 2024 16:39:19 -0500</pubDate>
      
      <guid>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog11/</guid>
      <description>Hello and welcome to the last blog of the year!
I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday. In just a few hours we will enter into 2025!
I&amp;rsquo;d like to congratulate all those who achieved great things this year! One of the greatest achievements is reaching the end of the year alive and well. For many of us, these holidays can be extremely beneficial for resting and trying to catch up on all the new trends we are noticing in the tech industry.</description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Hello and welcome to the last blog of the year!</p>
<p>I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday. In just a few hours we will enter into 2025!</p>
<p>I&rsquo;d like to congratulate all those who achieved great things this year! One of the greatest achievements is reaching the end of the year alive and well. For many of us, these holidays can be extremely beneficial for resting and trying to catch up on all the new trends we are noticing in the tech industry.</p>
<p>In case it isn&rsquo;t obvious, I have resumed my webdev journey. Just a few minutes ago, I published a simple sketchpad on GitHub that allows users to create pixel art. It isn&rsquo;t anything crazy, but it is a cute little app and I am proud of it! You can check it out <a href="https://arshjameel.github.io/Sketchpad/">here</a>.</p>
<p>So many of my friends are also spending their holidays working on different technical skills. If I didn&rsquo;t have this excitement of working together and I didn&rsquo;t know that they were also working I would have thought that I was wasting my holidays. I just hope 2025 is the year I, and all my friends, get exciting opportunities in Co-op internships. If not, at the very least, I hope to fill my resume with as many skills and projects as I can.</p>
<p>My friends are all so hardworking, and I want to express how grateful I am to have the friends I have because they keep me motivated to achieve greater heights! I don&rsquo;t have many of them following my GitHub, but I&rsquo;d like to give a shoutout to those who do below, so I suggest all those reading this blog to go ahead and follow them too:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/adam-rebello">Adam Rebello</a></li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/aniqueali17">Anique Ali</a></li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/danielyonkeucheunko">Daniel Yonkeu</a></li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/ksmavai">Kshitij</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Once again, I&rsquo;d like to wish all those reading this blog to have a very happy New Year!</p>
<hr>
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      <title>Blog #10 | Christmas</title>
      <link>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog10/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 23 Dec 2024 08:37:18 -0500</pubDate>
      
      <guid>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog10/</guid>
      <description>Hello everybody!
Sorry for suddenly disappearing for a month, but I&amp;rsquo;m finally back! I had to take a sudden break to prepare for my final exams. Now that I&amp;rsquo;m free for the next 2-3 weeks, I don&amp;rsquo;t have any excuses to miss any deadlines for publishing new blog posts.
I will continue making updates on my webdev progression as usual. I will also be posting an article soon, describing the scheduling simulator that I had been working on last month for my operating systems course.</description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Hello everybody!</p>
<p>Sorry for suddenly disappearing for a month, but I&rsquo;m finally back! I had to take a sudden break to prepare for my final exams. Now that I&rsquo;m free for the next 2-3 weeks, I don&rsquo;t have any excuses to miss any deadlines for publishing new blog posts.</p>
<p>I will continue making updates on my webdev progression as usual. I will also be posting an article soon, describing the scheduling simulator that I had been working on last month for my operating systems course.</p>
<p>The next blog will be posted next weekend as usual, and until then, I wish everyone reading this a very happy Christmas! I hope you all enjoy these holidays with your family and take some well-deserved break from work and school!</p>
<hr>
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    <item>
      <title>Blog #9 | Serving the Dining Philosophers</title>
      <link>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog9/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 25 Nov 2024 09:04:34 -0500</pubDate>
      
      <guid>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog9/</guid>
      <description>Happy Monday!
Over the last week, my partner and I have made significant progress on our OS assignment. He is mainly responsible for the written part of the assignment. He has a better conceptual understanding of the course, so although I was primarily responsible for the coding part of the assignment, he has helped me debug my code for the scheduler simulator so that it behaves in a conceptually accurate manner.</description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Happy Monday!</p>
<p>Over the last week, my partner and I have made significant progress on our OS assignment. He is mainly responsible for the written part of the assignment. He has a better conceptual understanding of the course, so although I was primarily responsible for the coding part of the assignment, he has helped me debug my code for the scheduler simulator so that it behaves in a conceptually accurate manner.</p>
<p>The second part of the assignment was a little bit of a headache and required us to go to the prof&rsquo;s/head TA&rsquo;s office every day to understand if we were on the right track. This part required us to implement a system where 5 processes would be able to run concurrently in an efficient manner.</p>
<p>To solve the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_section">critical section problem</a> and the <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/34510/what-is-a-race-condition/34550#34550">race conditions</a> caused by it, we implemented a basic semaphore acquisition system that resembled the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dining_philosophers_problem#Problem_statement">“dining philosophers” problem</a>. We then implemented a protocol that behaved similarly to a bounded waiting system where we made sure that if a process was denied a semaphore the first time, the next time it must be able to acquire that semaphore without fail, further solving issues of livelock and deadlock.</p>
<p>It is a little different approach from most people, as they might usually try to implement <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dining_philosophers_problem#Dijkstra's_solution">Dijkstra&rsquo;s solution</a>, but math and programming are about problem solving, and each problem can have multiple solutions, so as long as we come up with a solution we are good!</p>
<p>Except for the part 1 report which discusses and compares the scheduling algorithms with each other, I was able to finish off all the coding parts pretty quickly, giving me lots of time to prepare for finals week.</p>
<hr>
<p>This brings us to our plans for this week:</p>
<ol>
<li>Finish off the Part 1 report from my OS assignment</li>
<li>Start revising some material from my OS and RTOS course for the finals week</li>
</ol>
<p>As you can see, my plans for this week are pretty chill since there&rsquo;s no high stress work remaining anymore. Hopefully, this will help me fix my sleep schedule again (which I accidentally messed up because of the OS assignment ¯\(ツ)/¯ ).</p>
<hr>
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    <item>
      <title>Blog #8 | Simulator Update - Scheduling and Concurrency</title>
      <link>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog8/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 18 Nov 2024 09:21:16 -0500</pubDate>
      
      <guid>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog8/</guid>
      <description>Happy Monday!
Another two week break! Sorry about that. A lot has happened since my last post. As I mentioned previously, I have been working on building a scheduler simulator. The program expects a list of processes to run with their trace information as input, does stuff, and then gives us two output files. One shows at what time each process undergoes a state transition, with its old and new state, and the other output file shows at what time a process was allocated/deallocated a memory partition, along with how much total and usable memory space remained in the system.</description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Happy Monday!</p>
<p>Another two week break! Sorry about that. A lot has happened since my <a href="../blog7">last post</a>. As I mentioned previously, I have been working on building a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduling_(computing)">scheduler simulator</a>. The program expects a list of processes to run with their trace information as input, does stuff, and then gives us two output files. One shows at what time each process undergoes a state transition, with its old and new state, and the other output file shows at what time a process was allocated/deallocated a memory partition, along with how much total and usable memory space remained in the system.</p>
<p>The difference between the two memory spaces was that the former counted the internal fragmentation within each memory partition. Although that sounds complicated, the solution was much easier than expected. Again, I would love to explain further, but others are working on this assignment, which means I might risk plagiarism accusations if I post my solution on the internet.</p>
<p>Of course, I will do that eventually, with a complete explanation of how the program works, once my course finishes, but until then you all will have to wait patiently! As of last Friday-ish, you could say I have finished that project, with a decent implementation of various scheduling algorithms such as &ldquo;first come first serve&rdquo;, &ldquo;shortest job first&rdquo;, and &ldquo;round robin&rdquo;. I am now only waiting for example outputs from our course professor, after which I can fine-tune my program to behave as expected. However, until then, I can not &ldquo;fix&rdquo; my program, if I do not know what is wrong it.</p>
<p>There is a second part to this assignment. We are asked to extend our program to simulate concepts such as concurrency, shared memory and semaphores, which means the final implementation of this program will include two simulators. I recently reviewed the textbook to learn these concepts and have a rough idea of what I am supposed to do. This is what I will be working on over the next week.</p>
<p>This operating systems course is probably the highlight of this semester. I am really enjoying this course and hope all of my readers feel the same by reading my blogs on it. I will hopefully return next Sunday or Monday and continue to give more updates on my progress. Thanks for reading!</p>
<hr>
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    <item>
      <title>Blog #7 | Transitioning to C&#43;&#43;</title>
      <link>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog7/</link>
      <pubDate>Sun, 03 Nov 2024 19:13:54 -0500</pubDate>
      
      <guid>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog7/</guid>
      <description>Happy Sunday!
It&amp;rsquo;s been a while since I wrote my last blog post. As much as I&amp;rsquo;d like to talk about all the great things I&amp;rsquo;ve done while I’ve been gone, the reality is that the last two weeks haven&amp;rsquo;t really been that great, to be honest. In fact, It’s been quite stressful and full of bad choices, but that is fine since I have learned from my mistakes.
The most recent assignment given to us in our Operating Systems course has pretty much destroyed whatever love I had for C.</description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Happy Sunday!</p>
<p>It&rsquo;s been a while since I wrote my last blog post. As much as I&rsquo;d like to talk about all the great things I&rsquo;ve done while I’ve been gone, the reality is that the last two weeks haven&rsquo;t really been that great, to be honest. In fact, It’s been quite stressful and full of bad choices, but that is fine since I have learned from my mistakes.</p>
<p>The most recent assignment given to us in our Operating Systems course has pretty much destroyed whatever love I had for C. I have been trying to recreate the assignment in C++ in the last two days and so far it&rsquo;s been a much better experience trying to write code that is more efficient and maintainable. At this point, I&rsquo;m just angry at myself for never using it sooner. There is of course a bit of a learning curve transitioning from C to C++, but what little I have implemented has managed to impress me quite a lot.</p>
<p>Our final assignment makes us use all of the concepts we have learned so far to implement a program that simulates a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduling_(computing)">process scheduler</a> which simply prints a certain output in a certain order based on the type of given input. In layman&rsquo;s terms, you can think of a scheduler as a traffic policeman who stands at an intersection and manages the flow of traffic to prevent congestion and maintain order. Depending on several factors, he decides which lane has more priority and is allowed to drive, and which lane doesn&rsquo;t.</p>
<p>In the example of an operating system, the scheduler simply does the same job to decide which process is allowed to run and for how long before it must be interrupted to allow another process to run. Depending on how one may design their scheduler, there may simply be no interrupts and a process can be allowed to run to completion. There are various ways to implement a scheduler that can perform its tasks in different ways.</p>
<p>I&rsquo;m considering implementing this assignment in C++, and I&rsquo;d love to talk about it once I complete it. This course has really made me appreciate low-level programming and how computers are built and work at their most fundamental level. I believe information like this can definitely help someone write more efficient code for large projects to improve overall system performance, and I&rsquo;m really grateful I have access to this information considering how rare it can be to obtain, especially if someone is teaching themselves all of this stuff.</p>
<p>As always, I&rsquo;m excited to welcome this new week and hope to continue learning new things!</p>
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    <item>
      <title>Blog #6</title>
      <link>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog6/</link>
      <pubDate>Sun, 20 Oct 2024 20:08:06 -0400</pubDate>
      
      <guid>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog6/</guid>
      <description>Happy Sunday!
Reading week is finally here, and as always this week has been super hectic. As mentioned in the previous blog, we&amp;rsquo;ve had two midterms and two assignments. I also had a lab session which I had to miss because of the extremely disorganized exam schedule given to us. But, I won&amp;rsquo;t complain. The week is finally over and it&amp;rsquo;s time to relax and catch up to any backlogs and strengthen academic foundations.</description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Happy Sunday!</p>
<p>Reading week is finally here, and as always this week has been super hectic. As mentioned in the <a href="../blog5">previous blog</a>, we&rsquo;ve had two midterms and two assignments. I also had a lab session which I had to miss because of the extremely disorganized exam schedule given to us. But, I won&rsquo;t complain. The week is finally over and it&rsquo;s time to relax and catch up to any backlogs and strengthen academic foundations.</p>
<p>I have also been revising HTML/CSS fundamentals over the last 2 days and have been banging my head against the wall trying to make sense of <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/CSS/CSS_layout/Flexbox">Flexbox</a>. I have finally reached a point where I am confident with the fundamentals, which means I can now tackle the biggest hurdle of my life &ndash; JavaScript.</p>
<p>I&rsquo;ve been trying to practice webdev for a long time so I&rsquo;m happy that I finally have free time to do so. However, we&rsquo;re gonna take our time with it and not rush things as I also have to focus on academic coursework as I mentioned earlier.</p>
<hr>
<p>This week will be really pivotal for me if I catch up to my backlogs; otherwise, I will have to continue struggling until the end of the semester. As such, here’s my plan for the following week:</p>
<ul>
<li>Read through lecture slides and assigned textbook for my operating systems course and also start the assignment given to me and my assigned partner for the same course.</li>
<li>Go through lecture slides for any other course if needed and prepare for my midterms that are scheduled after reading week.</li>
<li>And obviously, learn the basics of javascript</li>
</ul>
<p>Just because it&rsquo;s reading week it doesn&rsquo;t mean I have to start getting lenient on myself. This week is going to be really busy just like any other week, and I am excited to welcome it!</p>
<hr>
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    <item>
      <title>Blog #5</title>
      <link>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog5/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 14 Oct 2024 08:07:31 -0400</pubDate>
      
      <guid>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog5/</guid>
      <description>Happy Monday!
Welcome to another week. We have two midterms and two assignments, back to back. So fun!
Putting that aside, the past week has been really interesting so far. We are learning about operating systems, and despite my medical leave, I&amp;rsquo;ve been able to catch up fairly well. I can&amp;rsquo;t promise that I am perfect in the theory, but it has been interesting to know about how computer systems really work from the inside.</description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Happy Monday!</p>
<p>Welcome to another week. We have two midterms and two assignments, back to back. So fun!</p>
<p>Putting that aside, the past week has been really interesting so far. We are learning about operating systems, and despite my medical leave, I&rsquo;ve been able to catch up fairly well. I can&rsquo;t promise that I am perfect in the theory, but it has been interesting to know about how computer systems really work from the inside. The midterm syllabus is fairly simple as well, with the content going over what interrupts are, and how they organize the different processes in an operating system via CPU scheduling, and how you can create (or terminate) more of them. There&rsquo;s also another midterm for an introductory course to real-time systems which teaches us embedded programming.</p>
<p>These are by no means very difficult courses, but they help to satisfy the curiosity of anyone wanting to learn how computer systems operate at their most fundamental levels. Not to mention, I found an amazing person as my new teammate for my operating systems course, and I am excited to work with him on future assignments after my midterm exams. So far, the past week has been pretty good, and it makes me optimistic for this one.</p>
<hr>
<p>My plans for this week are as follows:</p>
<ul>
<li>Finish off all midterms</li>
<li>Finish of all assignments/deliverables</li>
<li>Start practicing webdev again</li>
<li>Start some projects in the C language to further my understanding and fluency.</li>
<li>Start working on future assignments.</li>
</ul>
<p>All in all, it is going to be a pretty busy week, and I hope whoever is reading this is as excited to welcome it, as I am :D</p>
<hr>
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    <item>
      <title>Blog #4</title>
      <link>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog4/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 07 Oct 2024 20:15:55 -0400</pubDate>
      
      <guid>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog4/</guid>
      <description>Hello Hello, and a very happy Monday!
It has been so long since I have written my last blog. So, where have I been? Did I forget about my website? Did I get lazy and break my promise of writing a new blog each week? No, certainly not.
To start off with, I have finally started attending my classes in person after having to stay indoors for basically all of September.</description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Hello Hello, and a very happy Monday!</p>
<p>It has been so long since I have written my last blog. So, where have I been? Did I forget about my website? Did I get lazy and break my promise of writing a new blog each week? No, certainly not.</p>
<p>To start off with, I have finally started attending my classes in person after having to stay indoors for basically all of September. As such there was a ton of work to catch up to, to transition back to &ldquo;normalcy&rdquo;. I knew I wouldn&rsquo;t get any time off for myself as a result, but I never expected I would be working non-stop for nearly an entire month. Things are still a little hectic, but at least I have some time to start writing blog posts again. So let&rsquo;s get to it!</p>
<p>Firstly, the biggest thing that has been on my mind for the last month is this networking event I am planning on attending this week. I don&rsquo;t have any real work experience, no notable personal projects, and I don&rsquo;t even have proper dress pants to go with my semi-formal outfit. In fact, I downloaded LinkedIn for the first time today while on the bus! I am so unprepared! However, this is exactly what excites me. Here is me, a dumb college student who knows nothing about the world, about to shake hands with seasoned industry professionals. I may be a nobody, but my presence in this event alone will prove to be extremely beneficial to me as it will expose me to corporate culture for the first time. Who knows, the next time I attend an event like this, my familiarity with how these things work might help me communicate better and actually make networks that stick.</p>
<p>Second on the list is obviously my academic work. There have been a ton of things I have experienced over the last week alone. Professors with an attitude, antisocial teammates that do not communicate properly, dealing with a falling out with said teammates and having to search for new people to team up with, catching up on coursework to prepare for upcoming midterms… it&rsquo;s… a lot. But, hopefully, once this networking event is gone out of the way, I can go all in on studying for any exams and assignments that might come my way in the next month.</p>
<p>There is also obviously an elephant in the room. My progress with WebDev. How&rsquo;s that going? Well as much as it is embarrassing to admit, I have yet again failed to continue working on my WebDev journey, and might not make any promises to reverse that for the next two weeks so I can prepare for the midterms I talked about earlier. However, I shall still make efforts to get back into it. If there&rsquo;s one thing I learned while preparing for this week&rsquo;s networking event, is that I am very behind most of my peers, and I do not plan on keeping things that way. There are a lot of things different about this semester, I can feel it. I just need a breather, and then I can make a comeback.</p>
<p>I do apologize if this week&rsquo;s blog post is a little different than usual, but I promise we&rsquo;ll be back to normal next week. So stay tuned! ;)</p>
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    <item>
      <title>Blog #3</title>
      <link>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog3/</link>
      <pubDate>Sat, 14 Sep 2024 23:15:55 +0530</pubDate>
      
      <guid>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog3/</guid>
      <description>Happy Saturday!
It&amp;rsquo;s been a very interesting last week. Let&amp;rsquo;s talk about it.
Firstly, my request for a 4th course for this fall semester was accepted. I was able to promptly register for it as soon as I was given permission. So far this course doesn&amp;rsquo;t seem all that difficult. It reminds me of a probabilities course I took back in Winter. That was a much harder course and I hope it has prepared me sufficiently for the course I am taking right now.</description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Happy Saturday!</p>
<p>It&rsquo;s been a very interesting last week. Let&rsquo;s talk about it.</p>
<p>Firstly, my request for a 4th course for this fall semester was accepted. I was able to promptly register for it as soon as I was given permission. So far this course doesn&rsquo;t seem all that difficult. It reminds me of a probabilities course I took back in Winter. That was a much harder course and I hope it has prepared me sufficiently for the course I am taking right now.</p>
<p>Aside from that, I&rsquo;m still somewhat afloat with my attempt at staying up-to-date with the other 3 courses I am taking currently. The biggest contributor to this has been the detailed notes I&rsquo;ve been taking from the lecture slides provided. As for the lab work, I am still trying to coordinate with my TAs as I am having difficulties with the installation and usage of the simulation software / IDEs required. The biggest factor preventing me from doing this is the lack of TAs themselves. Apparently, the TAs for one of my courses haven&rsquo;t been decided yet, which means I might miss some of my deadlines by the time a TA is assigned for my class. I&rsquo;m not really sure what I am supposed to do in this situation, but I&rsquo;ll try figuring something out I guess.</p>
<p>Lastly, I want to be honest in my journey of career and life development, and so as a way to stay accountable, I want to say I haven&rsquo;t worked on webdev since last week. It&rsquo;s honestly quite disappointing considering I was very excited coming across a course that would help me get started with this. However, because staying up-to-date with my courses while I am on medical leave is pretty stressful by itself, I haven&rsquo;t gotten the time to work on any side projects. Hopefully, the coming week should bring me lots of free time to be able to do exactly this.</p>
<p>With that being said, let&rsquo;s plan what we want to achieve by the next weekend:</p>
<hr>
<p>Plans for next week:</p>
<ul>
<li>Join any lab groups that I haven&rsquo;t joined yet and figure out a way to work on them remotely. Similarly for any assignments due that need to be completed with a team.</li>
<li>Try contacting any TAs for help regarding the previous point, and contact a prof directly for the courses whose TAs aren&rsquo;t assigned yet. Similarly for any help regarding the installation of necessary software / IDEs for such lab work.</li>
<li>Better manage time so I can set aside more time to practice webdev.</li>
</ul>
<hr>
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    <item>
      <title>Blog #2</title>
      <link>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog2/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 09 Sep 2024 14:02:13 +0530</pubDate>
      
      <guid>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog2/</guid>
      <description>Happy Monday!
We&amp;rsquo;ve made it to another week! I may have delayed making an update for a day or two, but it&amp;rsquo;s the thought that matters. ;)
Continuing from last week&amp;rsquo;s progress report &amp;mdash; I have recovered my campus email address as I said I would, allowing me to contact my professors and other coordinators. This has led to one bad news and one good news.
The thing is, I would usually take 5 courses a semester, but I thought of taking 4 courses this time since I would be focussing on my post-surgical recovery.</description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Happy Monday!</p>
<p>We&rsquo;ve made it to another week! I may have delayed making an update for a day or two, but it&rsquo;s the thought that matters. ;)</p>
<p>Continuing from last week&rsquo;s progress report &mdash; I have recovered my campus email address as I said I would, allowing me to contact my professors and other coordinators. This has led to one bad news and one good news.</p>
<p>The thing is, I would usually take 5 courses a semester, but I thought of taking 4 courses this time since I would be focussing on my post-surgical recovery. The bad news is that I&rsquo;ve applied to my courses late, which is causing me a little difficulty in registering for that 4th course. The worst case scenario would be that I would have only 3 courses this semester, but hopefully, that should not cause any academic disadvantage for me in the future, other than slightly increasing my workload in a different semester.</p>
<p>The good news is that the medical leave I had requested after my surgery has resulted in my professors giving me permission to study and participate in their classes from the comfort of my home. Considering how much time I usually waste in commuting, this would hopefully allow me to better focus on my studies. Aside from this, the following are the previous week&rsquo;s highlights.</p>
<hr>
<p>Weekly report:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>The decision regarding my request for the 4th course has been pending for the whole week.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I&rsquo;ve been permitted to study and work on my labs from home.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I have made a small project that scrapes information from a CSV file and projects the information on a graph. Working on this project helped me revise some data analysis skills for the first time in almost 2 years.</p>
<p>It&rsquo;s nothing worth showing off, although I hope this has helped me build some foundation for machine learning skills if I ever decide to go down that path.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I have started an online course to help me learn full-stack development. I&rsquo;ve always thought of society&rsquo;s obsession with ML/AI as a type of &ldquo;shiny object syndrome&rdquo;, with the majority of its fans being non-technical influencers and their followers.</p>
<p>Although it has its use and its progress should be monitored closely, I feel traditional roles such as web development are still just as important, and shouldn&rsquo;t be ignored.</p>
<p>Not to mention what one learns in University is so out-of-touch with someone&rsquo;s roles in a proper work environment, I decided to turn to online courses while I still have time before my first internship.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<hr>
<p>Plans for next week:</p>
<ol>
<li>Speaking of shiny object syndrome, I seem to be suffering from such a case as well. My decision to learn full-stack development was followed by quite a bit of hesitation, as I was unsure as to what project I wanted to spend the next 4 months on. Since this is the one idea that seems the most possible to act on, I plan to stick to the webdev course I mentioned and hope to make some progress in it.</li>
<li>I want to try setting up the software needed for the lab work in my uni courses. I&rsquo;ve been having some trouble figuring out the process but hopefully, a TA should help me out.</li>
</ol>
<hr>
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    <item>
      <title>Blog #1</title>
      <link>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog1/</link>
      <pubDate>Sat, 31 Aug 2024 19:35:12 +0530</pubDate>
      
      <guid>https://arshjameel.com/posts/blog1/</guid>
      <description>Happy Saturday!
Welcome to my first blog. For long-time visitors and friends, this certainly isn&amp;rsquo;t my first post.
I have written a few long-form essays in the past, but have noticed it takes me a long time to collect interesting ideas and experiences to document them in an essay format.
I had also gone through a minor cosmetic surgery a while ago. I won&amp;rsquo;t be giving many details about this online for the sake of my privacy, however, the recovery phase requires me to be on a liquid diet until the end of September.</description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Happy Saturday!</p>
<p>Welcome to my first blog. For long-time visitors and friends, this certainly isn&rsquo;t my first <em>post</em>.</p>
<p>I have written a few long-form essays in the past, but have noticed it takes me a long time to collect interesting ideas and experiences to document them in an essay format.</p>
<p>I had also gone through a minor cosmetic surgery a while ago. I won&rsquo;t be giving many details about this online for the sake of my privacy, however, the recovery phase requires me to be on a liquid diet until the end of September. This further contributed to my sloth lifestyle, causing me to be unproductive for many consecutive days.</p>
<p>To fix such issues, I have decided to write weekly journals/blogs where I document my general progression in my career and life. This would not only allow me to contribute to my website more frequently but would also help me be more accountable for my lifestyle choices and give readers of my blog a better idea of who I am as a person.</p>
<hr>
<p>With that being said, let us begin discussing our first weekly report:</p>
<ul>
<li>I have modified the look of this site and have better organized the different types of content throughout my site to improve the UI.</li>
<li>I have been able to finish working on <a href="https://github.com/arshjameel/TweetGen">TweetGen</a>, <a href="https://github.com/arshjameel/QuoteGen">QuoteGen</a>, and <a href="https://github.com/arshjameel/PyVault">PyVault</a>. Three different personal projects which I have been working on simultaneously for the past one or two weeks, and have uploaded them all on GitHub.</li>
<li>I have passed all courses I had taken in the summer, which helped me fix my CGPA after it had taken a dangerous hit due to my negligence during the winter semester.</li>
<li>I have been able to properly workout today for the first time since my surgery, despite still being on a liquid diet.</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p>Plans for next week:</p>
<ul>
<li>Continue focusing on my post-surgical recovery and be more consistent with my workouts.</li>
<li>Try recovering my campus email address which was locked for some reason, and finally enable 2FA on it, which I have been neglecting to do so for a long time.</li>
</ul>
<hr>
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    <item>
      <title>The Courage to Be a Fool</title>
      <link>https://arshjameel.com/posts/fool/</link>
      <pubDate>Sun, 21 Jan 2024 10:55:45 -0500</pubDate>
      
      <guid>https://arshjameel.com/posts/fool/</guid>
      <description>To be a fool is to appear intellectually inferior to others and make bad judgments, to the extent people around you cringe. However, some people are quick to judge who the fools are among them. They call those taking risks foolish until their gamble pays off. Suddenly they go from being foolish to being geniuses.
Honor is important. Having self-respect and wanting others to respect you is a very natural desire.</description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>To be a fool is to appear intellectually inferior to others and make bad judgments, to the extent people around you cringe. However, some people are quick to judge who the fools are among them. They call those taking risks foolish until their gamble pays off. Suddenly they go from being foolish to being geniuses.</p>
<p>Honor is important. Having self-respect and wanting others to respect you is a very natural desire. And so the biggest risk you can take is to put your honor on the line. There are so many people out there who are afraid to take risks. Afraid they would be considered foolish. But that&rsquo;s how you grow.</p>
<p>It is boring being the smartest in the room. There is a sense of peace of mind, not taking yourself so seriously, not being afraid of being hilariously wrong. The day you stop what people think of you is the day you start learning about the world around you.</p>
<p>They say you either win, or you learn. Learning from failure helps you grow, so why not speed up the process and fail repeatedly? The quicker you figure out all the wrong answers, the quicker you know which ones are correct. And consequently, the quicker you grow. [1]</p>
<p>There&rsquo;s a quote attributed to Confucius. I&rsquo;m not good with history and I certainly can’t translate Chinese to English, so I don&rsquo;t know how accurate it is, but the quote is something like “The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.”</p>
<p>Sometimes you can be in a class and raise a hand to ask a question. You can feel time stopping and the entire universe looking in your direction listening carefully to your question, whose answer should be “obvious” and something you “should’ve known.” You might sense people laughing at you. Making fun of you for clarifying a doubt. It can be intimidating. But who cares?</p>
<p>It does not matter what others think. With enough apathy towards their opinions, one might just become completely ignorant about them. That ignorance is powerful and allows you to do things that a person afraid to harm his reputation could never think of doing. [2]</p>
<p>Having the courage to fail and be mocked leads to growth. When you grow, you find yourself better prepared for life. All those afraid to ask questions, all those who might have laughed at you, will naturally be left behind. Time is the greatest filter. With enough consistency and curiosity, you outperform others, and they can never see it coming. To them, you’re just a guy that asks foolish questions and makes a lot of mistakes.</p>
<h1 id="nbsp"> </h1>
<p><strong>Notes</strong></p>
<p>[1] Failure is not the only factor for growth, you also need humility, which is why I stress so much about not being afraid of mockery. Failure can often end in embarrassment, but when you are not afraid of mockery, you can quickly recover and learn from what you did wrong, as opposed to those who get their ego hurt and refrain from trying new things again.</p>
<p>[2] What I meant here was being ignorant to the idea that you were being “foolish”. From your perspective, you’re just asking an innocent question, not knowing others are mocking you for it. It is also how most end up taking big risks in their career, ignorant about the challenges it causes them. If they overcome those challenges, they are pushed to the top of the ladder in their field. But, if they would’ve been aware of the challenges beforehand, they might’ve not even started.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Thanks</strong> to Ali El Shennawy for suggestions and for reading drafts of this.</p>
<hr>
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    <item>
      <title>Passion and Perseverance</title>
      <link>https://arshjameel.com/posts/passion/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 25 Dec 2023 18:07:13 -0500</pubDate>
      
      <guid>https://arshjameel.com/posts/passion/</guid>
      <description>When it comes to the mindset required for making money, people can usually be grouped into three categories. Let&amp;rsquo;s say we have groups A, B, and C. Group A are those that say money does not matter or that it is bad to want a lot of money. Not only are these people hypocrites, but they are the stingiest of the rest.
When you entertain their idea and ask them to quit their job, they will make excuses, because deep down they know money is, in fact, important.</description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>When it comes to the mindset required for making money, people can usually be grouped into three categories. Let&rsquo;s say we have groups A, B, and C. Group A are those that say money does not matter or that it is bad to want a lot of money. Not only are these people hypocrites, but they are the stingiest of the rest.</p>
<p>When you entertain their idea and ask them to quit their job, they will make excuses, because deep down they know money is, in fact, important. It is all a cope because they have a job they don’t like, but they’re too insecure to admit this.</p>
<p>They spend their whole life afraid to spend even a single penny, in hopes they can save just enough money to escape from their nightmare, which is their job. Those who realize the hypocrisy of the first type of people come under group B.</p>
<p>Group B adopts an ideology that is the polar opposite. They say things like “only money matters, and nothing else.” or “money makes the world go round.”. They think that as long as you have a high-paying job, the money can make up for everything you sacrificed, no matter what it was.</p>
<p>But what if that is not true? What if what you sacrificed did matter? And what if it determined how much money you’d make? Here’s a thought experiment. Imagine you have two choices. One is a six-figure job with great benefits and pensions. The other requires you to be broke for 10 years until you suddenly make billions. Which do you choose?</p>
<p>The latter may be the obvious choice, but it is not possible until one has a passion for the work. Group B not only lacks passion, but the self-belief to bet a decade on an uncertain future as well. This is where you have group C.</p>
<p>If groups A and B are two extremes in a spectrum, then group C is at the dead center. They realize that money is important and that there is nothing wrong with monetizing their hobbies, but also understand that it is controlled by external factors such as happiness, which can not be sacrificed. [1]</p>
<p>As a result, they will naturally outperform groups A and B and leave them in the dust, because even if they are broke for 10 years, they will continue to persevere as long as they are happy and working on their passion, and when it is time to reap the benefits, society will reward them handsomely for their work.</p>
<p>Amazon was founded in 1994, Tesla was founded in 2003, and OpenAI was founded in 2015. Bezos, Musk, and Altman spent decades on their companies before they became rich and famous. They had belief in themselves to bet on an uncertain future for an uncertain amount of time. That’s passion.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, many in STEM fields lack passion, making their dreams small and repulsive. The world is changing rapidly and we need people with ideas that are larger than life. [2]</p>
<p>Why even spend so much time and effort when you live in a world where people can be rich just by dancing on TikTok? Alternatively, why work on a hobby for free when you can monetize it and feed your family?</p>
<p>When you have passion and a desire for competition, you can persevere and outperform others, and as a result, positively contribute to this changing world. [3]</p>
<h1 id="nbsp"> </h1>
<p><strong>Notes</strong></p>
<p>[1] I want to clarify that seeking money and happiness are two different goals. One does not necessarily lead to another. Group A runs away from money in search of happiness, but since food, water, and shelter have a price tag, all they get is misery. Since group B sacrifices happiness for money, they hate their job, which in turn makes them hate their life. Group C prioritizes both goals and as a result, can make them work in parallel to each other. When you have a job that makes you happy, it feels like play. No one likes working 24x7, but wish they could play and enjoy all the time. When you have work that feels like play, you can&rsquo;t help but outperform the one that does the bare minimum for a simple paycheck.</p>
<p>[2] As someone pursuing computer engineering, I often come across people who look down upon programming. They disregard the beauty behind it and reduce it to a means to an end. Yes, clever programming can make you money, but if that is your only intent, you can spend the next 40 years of your life in web dev, making fancy animations for websites that will be read largely by LLMs in the near future.</p>
<p>[3] We have seen a lot of new technology over the last couple of decades, and although it is very exciting, sometimes it can get a little scary, especially when you have a small minority of people behind closed doors making decisions for the large majority. Protests and status games can only help you so much. Only when you decide to compete can you truly ride the bandwagon of change without fearing for your safety. It is for this reason it can be necessary to actively contribute to the market instead of just being a slave to someone else&rsquo;s vision of the world.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Thanks</strong> to Yazan Moghrabi for suggestions and for reading drafts of this.</p>
<hr>
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    <item>
      <title>How to Stop Overthinking</title>
      <link>https://arshjameel.com/posts/overthinking/</link>
      <pubDate>Wed, 29 Nov 2023 22:16:45 -0500</pubDate>
      
      <guid>https://arshjameel.com/posts/overthinking/</guid>
      <description>As a person who tends to overthink a lot, believe me when I say most of your fears will never happen in life. They are just excuses that come from your insecurities, and your inability to reason correctly. Success comes from laser-like focus, and there’s no distraction greater than your own thoughts.
Most people read “distraction” and think of TV or scrolling on social media, but what I am talking about is “work” that isn’t really work, or in other words, it is distraction disguised as work.</description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>As a person who tends to overthink a lot, believe me when I say most of your fears will never happen in life. They are just excuses that come from your insecurities, and your inability to reason correctly. Success comes from laser-like focus, and there’s no distraction greater than your own thoughts.</p>
<p>Most people read “distraction” and think of TV or scrolling on social media, but what I am talking about is “work” that isn’t really work, or in other words, it is distraction disguised as work.</p>
<p>A couple of months ago, I was convinced I had to write the lecture notes for my class in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown">Markdown</a>. I was convinced it was a superior method of note-taking as I had more control over how my finished notes would look as a PDF. I spent so much time beautifying my notes that a few months later I received the fruits of my labor. A final grade of C.</p>
<p>It is easy to say to not be like me, but everyone has had moments in their life where they wasted their time on the wrong thing. I had some of my friends who spent the majority of their freshman year partying and hanging out.</p>
<p>The usual thought process was like this. I&rsquo;m meeting new people, therefore I&rsquo;m networking, which means I&rsquo;m gaining leverage for my career, therefore I&rsquo;m working, and therefore I’m not wasting time. They are stubborn that this is the case until they get multiple F’s and have to repeat a whole year.</p>
<p>The world is competitive, and your biggest enemy is yourself. It is very easy to overthink and get distracted focussing on the wrong thing. However, these thoughts do not exist by themselves.</p>
<p>Thinking is like watching a movie. The movie doesn’t watch itself, it needs you to be watched. Your thoughts are projected on an imaginary screen in your head, and they need you to be watched. You can either focus on watching those thoughts in your head, or you can turn off the TV and focus on what’s in front of you. When you do this, most of time you realize the solution to the problem you are facing is much simpler than you initially thought.</p>
<p>This is also why it is important to limit what ideas you consume and from where. When you have a thousand people telling you a thousand things about what you are and aren’t supposed to do in life, it can get very overwhelming and can hinder your ability to make the right decision.</p>
<p>The less voices there are outside your mind, the less there are voices inside it. Once again, turn off the TV in your mind, and focus on what&rsquo;s immediately in front of you. The answer is much more simpler.</p>
<p>You don’t need to beautify your notes, you don’t even need notes. You can still ace your exams if you can just understand the lecturer to a good enough magnitude. In fact, that is exactly what I do nowadays in my classes. Similarly, you don’t need to network to get leverage. You just need to get good and show people that you’re good, and if you’re good enough, they will want to be around you all the time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Thanks</strong> to Yazan Moghrabi for suggestions and for reading drafts of this.</p>
<hr>
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    <item>
      <title>About Me</title>
      <link>https://arshjameel.com/about/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      
      <guid>https://arshjameel.com/about/</guid>
      <description>about</description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>My name is Arsh Jameel, but you can simply call me Arsh. I am currently pursuing an undergraduate degree at Carleton University in Computer Systems Engineering.</p>
<p>I have always been a creative person, but was too nerdy for painting, so was naturally attracted to the world of programming and the idea of how I could create <em>anything</em> and was limited <em>only</em> by my imagination.</p>
<p>This desire for creativity also manifested itself in other soft-skills such as reading, writing and working-out for similar reasons. I saw my mind and body as clay that I could mold as I saw fit.</p>
<p>I decided to build this website so I can share my knowledge and experience with the world and give back to society whatever it has given me.</p>
<hr>
<h2 id="connect">Connect</h2>
<p>I am always looking for new opportunities to collaborate with others, and I am always eager to learn new things. If you have any questions or suggestions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me on email: <code>arshjameel.pm@gmail.com</code></p>
<p>You can also find me on my socials linked below to get in touch with me.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/arshjameel">GitHub</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/ArshJameel_/">Twitter</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.instagram.com/arshjameel_/">Instagram</a></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<h2 id="portfolio">Portfolio</h2>
<ul>
<li>My latest software projects -&gt; <strong><a href="/projects/">Projects</a></strong></li>
<li>My long form essays -&gt; <strong><a href="/tags/essays/">Essays</a></strong></li>
<li>My weekly blog -&gt; <strong><a href="/tags/blogs">Blogs</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p>My essays touch on various topics. I often discuss technology, philosophy, religion, self-development, or basically anything I find interesting.</p>
<p>My blog is a weekly series where I post updates about the general progression of my life and career.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Subscribe to my <a href="/index.xml/">RSS</a> feed to stay up to date with all my writings.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<h2 id="terms-of-use">Terms of Use</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Please note that you&rsquo;re welcome to reuse my content in your work, provided that you kindly include the original link in your citation.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Your support in linking to the original URL helps me track usage and ensures that readers have access to the source material. Thank you for respecting these terms.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<h2 id="disclaimer">Disclaimer</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Opinions expressed on this website and all subdomains (<a href="https://arshjameel.com">https://arshjameel.com</a>) are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer, neighbors, or family.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Always consult qualified experts or professionals in the relevant fields before making serious financial, medical, or other critical legal decisions. The content on this website is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be the used as the sole basis for making such decisions.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>While I strive for accuracy, I make no warranties or representations regarding the content&rsquo;s accuracy, completeness, or suitability for specific purposes. Use this information at your own risk.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<hr>
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    <item>
      <title>Personal Projects</title>
      <link>https://arshjameel.com/projects/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      
      <guid>https://arshjameel.com/projects/</guid>
      <description>This page showcases a list of projects developed by me over the course of my career, in no particular order.</description>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<h2 id="pyvault">PyVault</h2>
<p>GITHUB: <a href="https://github.com/arshjameel/PyVault">https://github.com/arshjameel/PyVault</a></p>
<ul>
<li>A simple GUI password manager built with python.</li>
<li>Encryption is provided with the &lsquo;cryptography&rsquo; library.</li>
<li>All information is securely stored and managed in an SQL database, protected by a master password.</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<h2 id="tweetgen">TweetGen</h2>
<p>GITHUB: <a href="https://github.com/arshjameel/TweetGen">https://github.com/arshjameel/TweetGen</a></p>
<ul>
<li>A GUI application that scrapes a given Twitter username&rsquo;s last 50 tweets and then allows the user to cycle between them in a random order.</li>
<li>Scraping is done using the &rsquo;ntscraper&rsquo; library which bypasses any API restrictions by using Nitter instances.</li>
<li>To be strictly used in an academic manner.</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<h2 id="quotegen">QuoteGen</h2>
<p>GITHUB: <a href="https://github.com/arshjameel/QuoteGen">https://github.com/arshjameel/QuoteGen</a></p>
<ul>
<li>A sister app of TweetGen.</li>
<li>Original app was modified to behave as an FYP by automatically fetching the last 10 tweets of preset, hardcoded, Twitter accounts in a random order.</li>
<li>Instructions to modify preset accounts are given in the repository&rsquo;s <a href="https://github.com/arshjameel/QuoteGen/blob/main/README.md#how-to-modify">README</a> file</li>
</ul>
<hr>
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