Posts on Madhav Kumar

Spartanburg Deserves a Flag

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

“…there is a broader layer of top-down municipal efforts that serve to create a specific civic identity. If you ask us, the best place to start is a good flag.”

– 99% Invisible City

Like many others, I was introduced to the world of vexilology by Roman Mars and 99% Invisible. Recently, I was reading the 99% Invisible City and came across this quote and it re-sparked my interest. Which leads me to the point of this post: Spartanburg deserves a flag.

Daily Puzzles

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a big fan of exercising the “little grey cells” as Hercule Poirot calls them. I’ve played my fair share of daily puzzles but recently have settled into a pretty fixed routine. It was pretty tough for me to find resources on these so I figured I’d share out my routine and other puzzles I play less regularly.

Stars#

Stars by Inkwell Games is your classic N-Star Battle. In this case, N = 2. The goal is to place stars so that each region, row, and column have 2 stars each. Stars cannot touch each other, including on diagonals.

On Failure

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

When I started this blog this year, I had a goal of writing one post a week. I completely failed to do that. This post will be the 17th one this year so I’m sitting at a ~33% completion rate. Not my best work.

I’m not here to feel bad about this though. Failing is cool.¹ Sometimes. I really believe that failing is a skill. With all skills, the only way to get better is to keep practicing. Every failure is an opportunity to learn. Every failure means that I at least tried. I’d prefer to fail a thousand times and succeed once than never try something new or challenging.

Spartanburg City Crash Rate Analysis

Sun, 27 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

About a month ago, I wrote a post analyzing the Place:Non-Place ratio of Downtown Spartanburg. Much to my surprise, it was posted on the Spartanburg subreddit and people found it interesting!

I do this out of my own curiousity and desire to solve problems for fun. The fact that I can connect to others through that is a delightful cherry on top.

To the matter at hand. As I was finding the data for that last post, I stumbled upon SCDOT road data. I had recently read about the Strong Towns Crash Analysis Studio and wondered if I could use my burgeoning GIS skills to do something similar for the roads within Spartanburg City limits. If we can identify places that have a crazy high number of crashes, then we can prioritize fixing them and making our city safer! Should be pretty straightforward right?¹

Spartanburg Place:Non-Place Ratio

Sun, 29 Jun 2025 10:39:03 -0400

I recently read about Places and Non-Places and thought it would be fun to try it out on Downtown Spartanburg.

Results#

I calculated a Place:Non-Place ratio of 0.91:1 (47.55% place) for Downtown Spartanburg. This shows slightly more land is used for Non-Places than Places as represented by this map:

Caveats#

First, a few caveats. This is a very rough estimate. I created the map using a combination of hand-tracing and the publicly available data of the parcels in Spartanburg.¹ As a result, not all of the Places/Non-Places line up perfectly.

Six Things I Love

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

It’s June, so we’ve hit the halfway mark of 2025. In the spirit of reflection and review¹ I’d like to share six things I’ve experienced this year that I love.

WhatWillMakes - How I Built a Mechanical Calculator #

This video came out in December of 2024, but I only discovered it this year. This video was made specifically for me. Will not only creates a mechanical calculator primarily out of wood, but also offers a historical analysis of the calculator itself. He analyzes the socioeconomic conditions that led thinkers like Leibniz to commission skilled craftspeople to actually build the machine and embeds his own experiencing designing and building the calculator within that.

Distribution of the Daniel Morgan Trail System

Sat, 17 May 2025 11:01:54 -0400

About a month ago, I was speaking to Liv from The Walking Spartan about, unsurprisingly, walkability and bikeability in our city. In passing, they mentioned being interested in finding the distribution of the Dan across our city council districts. The conversation moved on, but the idea sat with me for a while.

I’ve been sick for the past two days, so instead of working I thought it would be fun to try to figure this out.

Creative Fuel

Mon, 12 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In the last three years, I’ve re-discovered my love of reading. As a kid, I was a voracious reader.¹ Slowly the amount that I read for pleasure dwindled. When I was in high school, I read maybe 3 books a year for fun. By the time I was in college, that dropped down to at most 1.

What drove me back to reading was actually a desire to sleep better. There’s a general consensus that limiting screen time before bed will improve you sleep with the recommendation being no screens 2 hours before you go to sleep. So what better to do in that time than start reading?

30 Part II: 30 is U

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I recently turned 30 and wrote a silly post about converting 30 into different bases.

The idea came when I was trying to understand why we consider turning 30 to be significant. We celebrate other ages because they mark some cultural or legal transition. Bar and bat mitzvahs, quinceañeras, and sweet sixteens are considered to be coming-of-age ceremonies. In America, 18 and 21 are legally significant because they mark legal adulthood¹ and legal alcohol consumption, respectively.

30

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I turn 30 today. To celebrate, I thought it would be fun to write a script that ouputs the number 30 in the first 30 bases.

convert_base.sh#

#! /bin/sh

if [ "$2" = 1 ]; then
    result=$(printf "%0.s1" $(seq 1 $1))
    echo "$result"
    exit 0
fi

number=$1
base=$2
result=""
while [ $number -gt 0 ]; do
    remainder=$(( number % base ))
    if [ $remainder -lt 10 ]; then
        result="$remainder$result"
    else
        letter=$(printf "\\$(printf '%03o' $(( remainder + 55 )) )")
        result="$letter$result"
    fi
    number=$(( number / base ))
done

echo "$result"

Explanation#

A couple of things worth noting:

Weeding

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Spring has arrived and our yard is full of life again. With the blooming of everything we have planted also comes everything we did not plant. Weeding is a necessary and laborious practice. It is also rather monotonous and offers space for uninterrupted thought. While weeding recently I could not help but think about our relationship with the practice itself. If I were a 17th century French philosopher I might call this “Meditations on Weeding”.

AI and AC

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

AI is like AC.¹ This is not a hot² take, but a reformulation of an idea you’ve likely seen many times already.

The internet is awash with blogs, podcasts, and videos on the costs and benefits of using or not using AI. Recently, vibe coding has been the hot new thing. We’re now seeing stories of engineers lamenting the atrophy of their coding abilities as they’ve offloaded the responsibilities of writing code to their LLM of choice.

Building a Fence for Our Garden Bed

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Every spring, we try to grow some vegetables, fruits, and/or flowers in our garden. Every spring, our local deer feast on our vegetables, fruits, and/or flowers.¹

In previous years we tried deterrents and repellents like Irish Spring soap, marigolds², and ultrasonic repellers. The ultrasonic repellers had the best results, but sometimes the deer figure them out.

We also tried makeshift guards and cages built with whatever we had on hand. These were more effective. However, they were prone to falling over in storms, annoying to move, and an eyesore.

Common Threads: Use Friction Strategically

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Common Threads: Use Friction Strategically#

This is a part of a series called “Common Threads”. My goal is to bring together ideas from different sources I interact with and synthesize them into a post as a means of learning in public. See the introductory post for a slightly more in-depth explanation of what this is and why I’m doing it.

Fibers#

Definition#

Outside of the ideal scenarios of physics problems, friction exists.¹ This is not a good or bad thing, it simply is. Every time we do something, there is some resistance we must overcome. We can use this strategically. Reduce friction for behaviors you want to encourage. Increase friction for those you want to prevent.

Common Threads: Planning is Good, Doing is Better

Sat, 22 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Common Threads: Planning is Good, Doing is Better#

Fibers#

Definition#

“Everybody has plans until they get hit for the first time.”
– Mike Tyson

Common Threads: Think Big, Build Small

Sun, 16 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Common Threads: Think Big, Build Small#

This is the first in a series I’m calling “Common Threads”. My goal is to bring together ideas from different sources I interact with and synthesize them into a post as a means of learning in public. See the introductory post for a slightly more in-depth explanation of what this is and why I’m doing it.

Fibers#

Definition#

To extend Swizec’s brick layer metaphor, we must know we are building a cathedral and we must build it brick by brick. When building a product, we want to work in small batches. Small batches are easier to verify. They allow us to deliver value to users faster. But, we must never forget that we are building a product, not just a set of features. Each small batch should aim to be aligned with goals of the company¹ and the product we are building.

Common Threads

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction to Common Threads#

I consume a lot of content¹, primarily books, blogs, and podcasts, about software engineering. I think about all of it often and try to implement some of the concepts into my workplace.

As I spend more time thinking about the ideas I’ve been exposed to, I’ve begun to notice some commonalities between them. I’d like to crystallize these observations in a series I’m calling “Common Threads”.² This is partly to compile and share information but mostly to help me keep track of things and be able to reference it in the future.

Self hosting TT-RSS with docker-compose

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

How to self-host Tiny Tiny RSS with Docker Compose#

Get a server#

There are a lot of options for where you host your instance: a Raspberry Pi, an old laptop, a VPS, NearlyFreeSpeech, etc. I trust you to make that decision for yourself based on your needs, technical ability, and financial situation.

I chose to go with an AWS EC2 instance purely because I am familiar with the platform through work and already had an account set up for some personal projects. I am considering switching over to NearlyFreeSpeech in the future, but for now this works.

Hello World

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Why start a blog?#

I’m starting this blog partly to become a better writer and communicator. I have so many ideas rumbling around in my head. The only way I’ve found to make them cohesive is to write them down.

I use Obsidian for all my notes. So I could just use it as a journal and only write to myself. There is absolutely value in personal writing.

I don’t want to just write for myself though. I’d like to share my ideas out loud. I left almost all social media¹ in 2020. It’s hard to recreate the feeling of blasting out half baked ideas into tweets without Twitter.² I have no desire to go back, but I do wish to release my thoughts somewhere besides my poor partner’s ears.³

Posts on Madhav Kumar

Spartanburg Deserves a Flag

Daily Puzzles

Stars#

On Failure

Spartanburg City Crash Rate Analysis

Spartanburg Place:Non-Place Ratio

Results#

Caveats#

Six Things I Love

WhatWillMakes - How I Built a Mechanical Calculator#

Distribution of the Daniel Morgan Trail System

Creative Fuel

30 Part II: 30 is U

30

convert_base.sh#

Explanation#

Weeding

AI and AC

Building a Fence for Our Garden Bed

Common Threads: Use Friction Strategically

Common Threads: Use Friction Strategically#

Fibers#

Definition#

Common Threads: Planning is Good, Doing is Better

Common Threads: Planning is Good, Doing is Better#

Fibers#

Definition#

Common Threads: Think Big, Build Small

Common Threads: Think Big, Build Small#

Fibers#

Definition#

Common Threads

Introduction to Common Threads#

Self hosting TT-RSS with docker-compose

How to self-host Tiny Tiny RSS with Docker Compose#

Get a server#

Hello World

Why start a blog?#

WhatWillMakes - How I Built a Mechanical Calculator #