Hello! Welcome to my personal website. I am Harshit Sethi. I am a 18 year old, first semester, college student, a self-taught AI, Data Enthusiast, Equity Trader, Technical Writer. Currently, I am working on improving my AI skills, my website, projects, equity portfolio. In my free time, I like to document nature(especially felids[^1], wild plants), read non-fiction literature on a various topics.
This site was designed from the ground up, without any template or static site generator, with strong emphasis on privacy and minimalism. It is 100% open source(Content: CC-BY-SA-NC, Code: Apache). It doesn't uses JavaScript, cookies, unnecessary media and is free from advertisements, trackers and pop-ups. It works perfectly even without CSS. Here I post about technology, finance, lifestyle, philosophy and related things.
Everything here is Safe For Work(SFW). I will never use profanity or include NSFW media.
Before the age of 5, there isn't anything much I can talk about. It's mostly really negative experiences which I won't share. Other than that I managed to survive a feral cat bite that happened when I was in crib. I started education at just 1.5 by going to a childcare until admissions opened. At the age of 2, I ran away from a school before taking admission into pre-nursery at another school. At the age of 3, I had to do pre-nursery again in another school, which ate my "early bird advantage" and dragged me down to those who started at "normal age". I also collected stones a bit but later stopped.
At the age of 5, I started collecting coins, notes and got my first gold medal in overall academics.
At the age of 6, I got another gold medal, gave my first public speech at school, was forced to play a role into school annual function and continued coin collection.
By the age of 7, I started teaching myself English. I learned it through many sources including newspapers, books, writing, reading a dictionary, watching non-fiction television channels including History TV 18, Discovery, Animal Planet, Nat Geo etc. Learned about firecraft including firepit, boiling, roasting plant material, pottery, blacksmithing(didn't practice due to improper equipment), realizing that dry leaves aren't really dry. Served as discipline manager for whole academic session, started long distance cycling(total 10Km + a day), despite being underweight(BMI less than 13)
At the age of 8, I almost amputated my finger while trying to
open an electronic with a knife. I still have wound of this. I also
started teaching myself basic theoretical electricity. I wrote my
own note titled how to make electric formulas
.
At the age of 9, I started focusing more on stationery, software side of technology, using only J2ME phones. Won a mental maths quiz and an English poem recitation competition in school. Started volunteering by counting, curating donations at a temple, where my father held voluntary managerial position.
By the age of 10, I had shaped my interest in finance,
technology, felids/nature, stationery collection. I had negative
experience with all of them but that didn't stop
me. Rather they had an opposite effect. I started taking
my stationery collection seriously. I also introduced this hobby,
trading, written communication using obscure words, tabletop games,
hidden pockets and bills to my classmates. I had collected
227 sharpeners, over 150 pens through both trading,
purchasing and deterring thieves on the basis of that maths teacher
considered me her "favorite student", gave me Smart and Cool
:smile:
on
official report card.. I also played the front role in school
annual function, again forcefully admitted, but had privilege of
being only student excluded from makeup(skin whitening powder),
because I am already pale, and wearing my own jacket(because
according to teachers it looked good). Also scored
96/100 in environmental science
At the age of 11, I gave up on stationery collection and also personally donated it to poor students who passed an oral test. Debunked the existence of paranormal beings, a popular topic of discussion, by writing a note employing both philosophical and scientific arguments. Forced to do another role, of a camel herder and coconut seller, but my partner considered the role of camel "inferior", falsely accused me of "favoritism", hence he did not come on that day, so I had to herd a random, costumesless student which prevented us from winning. I also started writing small bat scripts using Exagear, Wine layer for Android.
At the age of 12, I began teaching myself basics of Linux, Python and cybersecurity, and started using it for my day to day computing needs and for automating repetitive tasks. I used Termux because I didn't have a computer. silver medal from Science Olympiad Foundation.
At the age of 13, I started making mods for GTA: SA mobile version. While I did not like video games, music back then either, but I liked tinerking. It had huge set of resources and it was possible to create mods without a computer. I created my own group for computer, cybersecurity related discussions, that gained over 100 members, and I started learning about finance, stocks, cryptocurrency.
At the age of 14, I started a YouTube channel. I closed it after I got strike on a video where I taught how to make and execute prank bat "viruses" on Android using Exagear and another strike for using copyrighted SFX in my botany video. Taking advantage of Covid-19 lockdown, resumed long distance cycling. Made a profit of around $13 in cryptocurrency, and another $105 in crypto demo account, but as I was a minor at that time, I was not able to withdraw it. So I started focusing more on programming, trading equities in demo account.
At the age of 15, I created two groups and my own Telegram Bot, introduced weekly non-fiction reading threads. One on Telegram for computer and cryptocurrency discussion that gained over 150 members and 50 more from collabration with a Russian group. Another one on my own private web chat platform. Made my first pull request in open source project, and also did very first contributions, pull request number 9, 10 to Free Media Heck Yeah Project. Started, with opening balance 1,500, earning by facilitating in-game micro transactions for others with closing balance of 10,000. Started learning about internet privacy and security. After gaining enough knowledge about it, I began taking steps to protect myself including deleting all my identities, groups, turning off JavaScript, using a VPN.
At the age of 16, I started relearning about nature, wilderness and preparedness. Including organizing my Every Day Carry(EDC), supplies in machine readable JSON format, identifying local flora, felids, creating a primitive compass using only one stick, two pebbles and astronomical knowledge. Convinced my father to open an equity trading account for me, and I started investing my savings into low expense-ratio ETfs and few individual stocks. In less than 6 months, I was able to make a profit of around 10%. Uploaded my first project, a password manager, my website, not this one, 26+ point critique of Tor, on Github. I also started relearning about reverse engineering. Most of my reverse engineering projects were done in Windows XP, DOS, some in Mac OS 9. As seen in the screenshot, I managed to bypass the key verification of MS Office 97 only by using Borland Turbo and Notepad in Windows XP. Other things I reverse engineered are old J2ME software, firmware for my Awesome J2ME project, Android apps for removing unnecessary bloatware, permissions. Scored 95/100 in grade 11 Information Technology, which is highest score in whole session, across all sections.
Age of 17 was a transitory period whose reward I received by the age of 18. I learned about lot of things, improved my knowledge of psychology, philosophy, world religions, local cults. Hardened my setup by creating an Iptables based killswitch script that automatically extracts, allows IPs, ports from Openvpn config, blocking rest, sandboxing etc. Made many decisions including making list of over 120 universities to avoid, what exams to take, what programming career should to pursue, how should I handle legal matters after turning 18 and more. Successfully resisted against psychoactive "medicine" for chronic insomnia, help gain weight, and some other false diagnosed mental illnesses including paranoia, trauma, which was diagnosed on basis of challenges I faced, not on how I feel about them, in favor of a holistic approach, which worked to a great extent. Despite that, I bought a custom built laptop, and customized it further. Created a Matrix group and related scripts, that gained over 200 members. Conducted an empirical study to objectively measure influence in Matrix group. Released Awesome J2ME, which gained over 65 stars, over 5 contributors and passed all 33 checks in first pull request. Gained intermediate knowledge of nutrition, C++ and released NutritionCLI, and DietCLI a blazingly fast, cross-platform nutrition tracker that completes full run including calculating, printing in 001s not just parsing. See the benchmark at Kaggle. Created debit-credit-deducer, a C++ program to deduce whether a transaction is debit or credit. Scored 94/100 in grade 12 Information Technology exam, and 82 in economics exam, despite not having economics subject in grade 11. Recived ceritificate of apperciation from a technology university.
At the age of 18, I started my professional life as "HstSethi". Created this website, online accounts, projects, three memoirs, resume, LaTex resume template, No Frills dotfiles and associated manifesto, and an an educational, tech group, on the first day of college. Started focusing on specific set of skills including AI engineering, technical writing and finance. Volunteered at Models Limited Public Beta at Github. I also reached 25% profit in equity, over 80 stars on Github, over 850 followers on LinkedIn, completed Hacktoberfest 2024 with 6 pull requests accepted, including 4 in top 5 highest starred projects. Gave CUET-UG, got 865/~8000 rank in IPU CET BCA 2024 without any kind of reservations or formal education, but I could not attend due to financial issues. None of the subjects I studied in high school were evaluated in exam. Switched two different universities, rooms before settling in current college and renovating my own property. Digitalized The Foolish Dictionary into various machine readable formats. Proposed the idea of converting old academic works to modern mathematical notation. Released PearTok, a full stack P2P token transfer app in Go, JavaScript. Released InMobPrefix, dataset charts, AI models of prefixes of mobile numbers, that got featured in Awesome OSINT(20K+ stars). Got awarded with "Research Grade" label on my wild plant specimen. Doubled my capital within a month of writing my financial autobiography. Coauthored an AI ethics article. Reported 4+ errors in major journalism platforms on various topics including nuclear energy, zoology and grammatical errors. Created a dataset of compounds of solanum nigrum and related species. Released specification, scripts for authoring structured, machine readable lists in Markdown. Open sourced my IOT, real time financial info device startup idea.
While this autobiography may give a picture that my life is a bed of roses, it's far far from truth. I have faced, and still face, many challenges, but, just like personal successes, I have not mentioned them here, even though they could amplify my success, and raise donations. Because: I don't see any merit in crying or swiping the victim card; I don't wish to traumatize people; it is hard to explain objectively; this site is SFW; my challenges are also a reason behind my success.
Some people have asked me, how did I write this autobiography? Is it all from memory? The answer is not a simple one.
As this autobiography is a result of connecting, fact-checking thousands of sources. I have used my own memory, a lot of sources, and shared many as "proofs" whenever feasible. My other sources are asking others, my old handwritten written material, my notes, school awards, screenshots, chat logs, recordings, bookmarks, bank history, browser history, OSINTing myself, digital forensics, legal documents etc.
But few of sources have been lost with time. One such source was a magazine which my school published, on which I was featured on multiple times. Some of my digital sources were lost after I realized the importance of internet privacy at age of 15.
That was just a start. I strongly believe in self directed[^2], lifelong learning. I am continuously learning new things, learning from my previous mistakes. I do not solely focus on technology and finance. I also do have knowledge of various other topics including philosophy(epistemological skepticism, truth, aesthetics as spectrum[^3] naturism, asceticism(as a means to end, not the end in itself), pragmatism, individual and objective achievements, existentialism, political philosophy), psychology, nature(preparedness, wilderness, first aid, botany, felids), nutrition, business, religion, history, culture(genealogy, language, history).
Things I dislike[^4] are: Fiction(art, video games, music, movies, "true" crime, documentaries, novels, self-help, ...). Consumerism(foodism, pet culture, modern web, email notifications, psychoactive substances, ...). Irrational behaviour(anti-intellectualism, profanity, arguing on the internet or with fools, ...)
For more information regarding my finance journey, checkout my free financial autobiography From Coins To 25% In Equity At 18: My Financial Autobiography. In it I share, how a coin, stationery collection hobby paved my way as an equity trader, making 25% profit in equity at the age of 18, on his own.
For more information regarding my online leadership, privacy journey and groups I have created, check out my free memoir 5 Lessons From Founding Tech Groups + Memoir.
For more information regarding how I do my computing, what softwares do I use, what I do not and why not, scripts, dotfiles and manifesto, check out my No Frills Dotfiles project.
Do you have any suggestion, question or just want to chat? Then feel free to contact me through mediums given below. If you are sending a confidential message then please consider encrypting it using the PGP key provided below.
Fingerprint: D921 11B3 4556 7FB6 9040 C648 2E58 3E92 BF75
68C1
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