This Thanksgiving, I finally purchased my own camera! I had been saving up for a few years, and I ended up purchasing a Canon EOS 60d. Since I bought the new camera, I am now starting a Tumblr blog to track my progress in photography with my new camera, starting from the pictures I will take on Thanksgiving onwards. Check it out at http://kamladi.tumblr.com

//WARNING: random multi-paragraph musings approaching…

As my high school years come to a close and I slowly approach college, I’ve recently felt the need to explore alternative ways to organize my life. It started last week, when I began typing up some study guides to help review for finals. I began to wonder- Would I go all digital with my notes in college? Would I become one of those guys who types up notes during lectures, and organizes them for future reference? Honestly- I hope not. While I am amazed by recent advances in note-taking technology, like syncing with Google Docs, wiki pages for sharing notes, etc., I personally feel like I need that pen/pencil to paper action. It helps me connect with what I’m understanding, in a way that using a computer never will. Even if I got some fancy Wacom tablet and digitally scribbled notes into the computer, staring at the computer to study is not something I look forward to.

Additionally, with all the integrals, modeling sketches, formulas, and symbols I use in my Calculus and Physics notes, I’ve started to get annoyed with the lines on notebook paper. Imagine having to enter all of these into a computer! My Calc teacher found a solution- He works out his problems on blank paper. I’m really tempted to try this out. Not only will I no longer be restricted by such thin lines, but the thickness of blank printer paper, for instance, would prevent ink from pens from bleeding through to the next page. How practical is that!

And what would I do with all these class notes once I have finished a course in college? At home, I currently keep a drawer filled with hanging file folders to organize papers for each class. At the end of each year, I hold on to important pages from each class, and store them in plastic containers. Why do I keep such random items like my second AP Calculus AB test? What might be best solution would be to scan in only the most vital notes as PDFs, and drop them away in some folder on my computer or online.

Ah, well. No need to worry about the details of college academia while I’m still trying to study for High School tests. Wait, don’t I have a final exam to review for…..?

A few weeks ago, I finished the completion of my trash/recycling/composting enclosure for Keys School in Palo Alto, CA. It stores bins for each type of waste, and lists the items that can go in each bin on the doors. I am going to place it in the lunch area of the school, so kids can throw away their foods scraps in the composting bin rather than the ordinary trash cans they used to have.

I started construction early in the summer, getting volunteers from Boy Scouts, school, my friends, and just about anybody who stopped by our home while we were working. We basically built a rectangular frame of 2×4′s, and drilled plywood panels on each side. We put wheels on the bottom, and three rounded rectangle shaped holes as openings for people to dispense things in. It was really cool to be able to put my hands to work, designing and building things. To plan out what my project was going to look like, I made a scale model by folding index cards into mini 2×4′s and plywood. After what seemed like a billion revisions of my project proposal, I began cutting, drilling together, sanding. and painting the wood.

Check out my Project Proposal and Final Write Up for more info!

I’m trying out this new service called “Flavors.me”, which lets you create a webpage which gathers all your data from different social media websites, like Facebook, Last.Fm, Digg, Delicious, and more, in a very streamlined, aesthetic way. I really want to figure out how they do it, but it’ll take some time. What’s cool is that in the process of building it, I have found myself signing on to new social networking sites, such as SoundCloud, Delicious, and Last.fm. Don’t know what I’ll do with the last one, since I already use Pandora, but Flavors.me doesn’t have support for Pandora yet. We’ll see.

In the meantime, check out my Flavors.me site!

"Pinstripe" © Leela Amladi

Yeah, you read that right. This is the amazing work my sister does when she is “fooling around”. Isn’t it awesome? She basically took different colors of vinyl tape and stretched them across a small canvas. She’s planning on making one or two more to complement it.
~Kedar

Hi! This post marks my first entry into my new blog. I spend a lot of time surfing the web and seeing what’s new in the world. So most of my blog posts will be quick notes about what I’ve been looking at: what YouTube videos I’ve seen, what news articles I’ve found interesting, some pictures I’ve taken, and more.

Hope you enjoy it!

~Kedar