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, including my own works.
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.
Evidence images are not displayed inline due to lack of space
and to speed up loading. Those linked in autobiographies are not linked here. You can jump to account of specific age by
appending "#age-n" to the URL. Where {n: 1 - 18}. Or you can use
POSIX SH get-random-auto-bio-account
script, which I personally use. It Returns HTML of random
account from short-autobiography and renders it.
Before the age of 2, 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". Learned about technology including installing third party apps, Bluetooth, web browsing etc. I also collected stones a bit but later stopped in favor of plants. Also learned writing in English, Hindi, Punjabi, sorted in order of proficiency that time.
At age of 4, I did my first shallow water swim. Expanded my knowledge of technology, using only J2ME phones and slow internet connection. I utilized various methods including overnight, bulk downloads and keeping device in open area. 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.
At the age of 5, I started collecting coins, notes and got my first gold medal in overall academics, which was also first possible gold medal as before that, there were no awards. Almost amputated my finger while trying to open an electronic with a knife. I still have wound of this.
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. Started climbing trees and practicing jumping. It should be noted that I did not jump out of sake of it, but for a practical necessity, such as travel, retrieving ball, playing hide and seek etc. I employed proper techniques such as hanging to reduce distance. I also did not try rolling or back flip, despite an unsolicited advice of a self proclaimed expert, because I knew a roll technique he was teaching could break the neck, which is way worse than breaking limbs; my jumps weren't really that high which warranted a roll; possibility of pebbles on ground.
At the age of 7, I 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 < 13)
At the age of 8, I started teaching myself basic
theoretical electricity. I wrote my
own note titled How to Make Electric Formulas
. Convinced
my parents to stop sending me to tuitions which led to increase in
grades, freedom, decrease in costs. I haven't taken any
tuition since then.
At the age of 9, I started focusing more on stationery, software side of technology. 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, A1 in oral exams of all 3 languages, despite
being forced to take Sanskrit, instead of Punjabi, till age 13, due
to lack of choice by school.
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. Served as discipline manager, first bencher, time tracker for whole session of maths class. Because maths teacher, different from previous one, didn't have a watch and considered me her favorite student. Also helped her in a business deal with my father. 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, Programming and cybersecurity, and started using it for my day to day computing needs and for automating repetitive tasks. Started from Java, but switched to Python a month later. I used Termux because I didn't have a computer. Received silver medal from Science Olympiad Foundation. Got featured in front page of school magazine, not for medal. Created a digital wallet and started earned ₹700 through referrals, micro tasks, quizzes and some real money mini gaming. Avoided getting bitten by a rabid dog by kicking it and washing off saliva from trousers.
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, from all over the world. Started learning about finance, stocks, cryptocurrency. Scored 88/100 in science(bio, chem, phy), despite being forced Sanskrit again with an unfavorable male teacher, who broke the "streak of favoritism", by unfairly targeting me.
At the age of 14, I bought my own phone, for online classes, after plenty of research, and debloated, customized it on first day. 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 daily, long distance cycling, continued despite accident with a car. 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 three 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, 9 members all female. Another one on Signal, for teaching my classmates. 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 purging all my identities, groups, accounts, turning off JavaScript, LUKS full disk encryption, using a VPN 24X7, though I used it earlier too but not always on. Bought a used, dead, 32 bit, 1 Gb ram computer and solely repaired, upgraded, fine tuned it to purpose as daily driver. Scored 90/100 in grade 10 English(Advanced). Made correct decision by choosing commerce stream over medical, engineering, despite no previous experience, pressure from parents, friends, and former teachers. But in the end, I had last laugh. [^6]
Age of 16 was true transitory period unlike 17, I set earlier. I started relearning about nature, wilderness and preparedness. Including organizing my Every Day Carry(EDC), supplies in machine readable JSON format, standardizing dates, format of notes, journal, encrypted cloud backups using Rclone, identifying local flora, fauna, creating a primitive compass using only one stick, two pebbles and astronomical knowledge. Learned about major Abrahamic religions, local cults, philosophy, mathematics(modified SDL approach), nutrition, pharmacy. Did my first lacto-fermentation, of Solanum Nigrum. Wrote a note categorizing fluids on based of their relationship with heat and force based of previous experiments. Recovered from a huge data loss caused by power outage during partitioning a LUKS encrypted partition. 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%. Learned about XMR(Monero) algorithm , experimented with test net and mining. Uploaded my first project, a password manager, my website, not this one, 26+ point critique of Tor, on Github. Created a Micro editor plugin to insert current dates in ISO 8601 format and various other Vim customizations. Started learning C++, relearning about reverse engineering, electrical engineering through use of simulators. 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. Became favorite student again, of multiple teachers, despite completely new teachers, subjects, students, and other school relationships which I won't detail. Scored 95/100 in grade 11 Information Technology, which is highest score in whole session, across all sections. Served as monitor in computer lab, for whole session. Helped students, teachers in technical tasks. Served in English lab too, due to my constantly highest scores in pronunciation and essay writing, reading exams
At Age of 17, I learned about lot of things, improved my knowledge of psychology, nutrition, politics, philosophy, evolutionary biology. Hardened my setup by creating an Iptables based killswitch script that automatically extracts, allows IPs, ports from Openvpn config, blocking rest, sandboxing, using Vim as only editor, local LLMs etc. Made many decisions including making list of over 120 universities to avoid, what exams to take, what programming career to pursue, experimented with different programming career, how should I handle legal matters after turning 18, created a genealogy tree with 100+ nodes, and more. Learned about various equity related strategies through paper trading, backtracking, refined mine one, moved from ETFs to individual stocks. Also reached around 16% profit. Successfully resisted against psychoactive "medicine", by debating psychiatrist, 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, including improving my method of mindfulness meditation, of sun bathing, diet, which worked to a great extent. Despite that, I bought a custom built laptop, and customized it further. Switched to wet shaving with a double edged razor, instead of cartridge. Created a Matrix group(Fanclub) 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 70 stars, over 5 contributors and passed all 33 checks in first pull request, got featured in multiple sources including Hackclub. Started lacto fermenting nuts, legumes for increased bioavailability, but later stopped after learning about habitats of pathogens, though I never faced any consequences. Laid foundation for professional life at 18, by creating logo, username, resume, accounts. Started learning about full stack web development. Released NutritionCLI, and DietCLI a blazingly fast, cross-platform nutrition tracker that completes full run including calculating, printing in 001s not just parsing. 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 and having 6 mandatory subjects instead of 5, preparing for unrelated subjects(Mathematics, English, CS, Aptitude, Science) for entrance exams, and not attending any tuitions, barely going to school. Recived ceritificate of apperciation from a technology university.
At the age of 18, I started my professional life as "HstSethi". Achieved legal freedom. Created this website, online accounts, projects, three memoirs, resume, LaTex resume template, No Frills dotfiles and associated manifesto, and an educational, tech group, on the first day of college., and reported 10+ errors in study material. Created another unofficial group, even before start of previous college, which gained 11 members. Continued improving knowledge of psychology, politics, nutrition. 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 110 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(minimum 85% reservation was there) 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 enrolling myself into an open university, due to low fees and high freedom. Applied my knowledge to single-handedly renovate(20+ improvements) my own property, survive winters and intruders there, including a sexual molestation by a "hijra", which I survived through jumping through moving tuk tuk, assertiveness, lying and recording evidence. Later raised voice regarding the neglect in LGBT communities leading to unbanning of word "hijra". Tested and reviewed two pepper sprays in real life conditions(no protective equipment, both close and long range etc). Doubled my capital within a month of writing my financial autobiography. Became Self Made, Equity Lakhpati, 100,000 at market value, within 3 months of writing. 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). Uploaded 5 wild, including 4 toxic, plants specimens, and got awarded with "Research Grade" label on of three toxic ones. 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 plan.
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. While I do mention some important ones, I stress on how I overcame them.
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, journal, todo list, school awards, topics of books, screenshots, chat logs, recordings, bookmarks(important source), bank history, browser history, OSINTing myself, digital forensics, config and data files, legal documents, even music etc.
For example, a method I used recently. I was recalling a specific song that was being played during an event. I knew that during that time, the song was newly released and was playing everywhere. I searched on YouTube and checked the release date of song. I used that, along with other clues, to deduce the year of the event. While I don't listen to music intentionally, I was often forced to do so due to environment. I use similar method with book topics, software release etc.
But few of sources have been lost with time. Some evidences were never recorded. 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. And data loss at 16.
Still think my autobiography is fake? Well you can challenge me and win rewards. 100 rupees for proving any of my claim false(Did not happen at all), 150 rupees for proving the opposite of what is claimed, ie net loss instead of net profit. Public apology and your name will be permanently listed here. This only applies to this article, not to any other opinion, idea expressed by me.
All claims must contain the following metadata: year, evidence, how you obtained the evidence, why you think it's false.
Failure to adhere to any of the requirement will permanently disqualify you. You can make unlimited claims, hence earn unlimited money, but getting your two claims proved wrong will also permanently disqualify you.
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), biology(evolutionary, nutrition), business, culture(genealogy, language, history, religion).
Things I dislike[^4] are: Fiction(art, video games, music, movies, "true" crime, comedy, documentaries, novels, self-help, ...). Consumerism(foodism[^5], pet culture, modern web, email notifications, news, psychoactive substances, ...). Irrational behaviour(anti-intellectualism, profanity, arguing on the internet or with fools, inherent or group based inferiority or superiority...)
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. I can understand English, Punjabi, Hindi, Multani(verbal), Haryanvi and can use a translator, so feel free to express yourself.
Fingerprint: D921 11B3 4556 7FB6 9040 C648 2E58 3E92 BF75
68C1
Since this website does not have a comment section of it's own, I use Github issues as comment section. Each post has it's own issue where you can share your thoughts. If you do not wish to comment there then you can email me your comment, and I will post on your behalf.
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No worries if you can't help me financially. You can still show your support by giving my projects a star on Github, connecting with me on LinkedIn, sharing my works with others and in many other ways.
