SARATH THARAYILSARATH THARAYIL
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Building thoughtful software, writing notes, and shipping experiments across data, AI, and the web.

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© 2026 Sarath Tharayil/IST --:--:--

Sarath Tharayil

v.  learning · noticing · becoming

I build things with data and code, usually end-to-end. I ship side projects at odd hours, care a lot about how things feel to use, and tend to go deep on whatever has my attention. Lately that's been AI systems, and ideas that don't sound terrible.

About me
RECENT WRITINGAll posts
The Gift of Other People's Inner LivesMarcus Aurelius was anxious and not sure he was doing it right. He wrote it down in 175 AD. You can feel it tonight. On books, music, and the miracle of minds reaching across time.
May 17, 2026
Everything You Are Came From Someone, Nobody is Self-MadeYou did not build yourself. The list of people who shaped you without knowing it is longer than the list of people who tried. On invisible architects, and why you are one too.
May 16, 2026
Beauty Has No Right to Exist. And Yet Here We Are.Beauty should not exist. There is no clean evolutionary story for why organised air makes you cry, or why a mathematical proof feels elegant. And yet here we are, a species that decided some things are beautiful. On what that means.
May 15, 2026
We Are Not Made for This World. We Conquered It Anyway.A love letter to humans. We are not fast, not strong, barely built for this world. And yet we are in every part of it. I am proud of every single one of us.
May 14, 2026
CURRENT OBSESSION
Metis-An always-on trading dashboard that watches the market, alerts me when my criteria are met, and can autonomously buy and sell shares on my behalf.read more◆Metis-An always-on trading dashboard that watches the market, alerts me when my criteria are met, and can autonomously buy and sell shares on my behalf.read more◆
Metis-An always-on trading dashboard that watches the market, alerts me when my criteria are met, and can autonomously buy and sell shares on my behalf.-read more

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2026.05.17
The Gift of Other People's Inner Lives

SUMMARY:

Marcus Aurelius was anxious and not sure he was doing it right. He wrote it down in 175 AD. You can feel it tonight. On books, music, and the miracle of minds reaching across time.

TOPICS:

Personal

AUTHOR:

Sarath Tharayil

READ POST
2026.05.16
Everything You Are Came From Someone, Nobody is Self-Made

SUMMARY:

You did not build yourself. The list of people who shaped you without knowing it is longer than the list of people who tried. On invisible architects, and why you are one too.

TOPICS:

Personal

AUTHOR:

Sarath Tharayil

READ POST
2026.05.16
A word I hadn't heard in years, until today

TOPICS:

LanguageEveryday
EXPLORE
2026.05.15
Beauty Has No Right to Exist. And Yet Here We Are.

SUMMARY:

Beauty should not exist. There is no clean evolutionary story for why organised air makes you cry, or why a mathematical proof feels elegant. And yet here we are, a species that decided some things are beautiful. On what that means.

TOPICS:

Personal

AUTHOR:

Sarath Tharayil

READ POST
2026.05.14
We Are Not Made for This World. We Conquered It Anyway.

SUMMARY:

A love letter to humans. We are not fast, not strong, barely built for this world. And yet we are in every part of it. I am proud of every single one of us.

TOPICS:

Personal

AUTHOR:

Sarath Tharayil

READ POST
2026.05.12
The Universe Might Be Running on Four If-Statements

SUMMARY:

How a bored Cambridge mathematician invented a game with four absurdly simple rules, accidentally broke the idea of complexity, and spent the rest of his life regretting it.

TOPICS:

MathComputer SciencePhysics

AUTHOR:

Sarath Tharayil

READ POST
2026.05.11
You Should Betray Your Friend. Here's Why You Probably Won't.

SUMMARY:

Why two perfectly rational people always make the worst possible choice together, and what that reveals about climate, war, and human cooperation.

TOPICS:

Game TheoryMathSociety

AUTHOR:

Sarath Tharayil

READ POST
2026.05.11
Uber's Founder Coded from a Cliff in Varkala

TOPICS:

TechStartupVarkala
EXPLORE
2026.05.10
One Sphere, Two Spheres: The Theorem That Broke Geometry

SUMMARY:

In 1924, two mathematicians proved you can decompose a solid ball into five pieces and reassemble them into two balls of equal size. No stretching. No scaling. Completely rigorous mathematics. Here is how, and why it works.

TOPICS:

MathematicsPhilosophy

AUTHOR:

Sarath Tharayil

READ POST
2026.05.09
Position 44: The Card Trick That Does the Maths Itself

SUMMARY:

Someone picks a card from nine, buries it in the deck, and you deal four chaotic piles counting backwards from ten. The sum of what lands face-up tells you exactly where the card is. Every single time. Here is why the deck has no choice.

TOPICS:

MathematicsPsychology

AUTHOR:

Sarath Tharayil

READ POST
2026.05.08
The Pearl on the Crown: Mathematics' Most Dangerous Simple Question

SUMMARY:

In 1742, Goldbach wrote Euler a letter with an observation so simple a child could understand it. No one has proven it since. Here is the 280-year story of the conjecture, the man who came closest in a boiler room under a kerosene lamp, and what it costs to chase an unprovable truth.

TOPICS:

MathematicsScienceHistory

AUTHOR:

Sarath Tharayil

READ POST
2026.05.07
You Have 60 Seconds: The Physics of Being Tiny

SUMMARY:

Google used to ask job candidates what they'd do if shrunk to the size of a coin and dropped in a blender. The math says jump out. The physics says you're dead either way. Both answers are wrong for interesting reasons.

TOPICS:

ScienceEngineeringPhysics

AUTHOR:

Sarath Tharayil

READ POST
2026.05.06
The Equation That Deliberately Forgets Everything

SUMMARY:

A Russian mathematician picked a fight with God in 1906 and accidentally built the mathematical engine behind Google, ChatGPT, nuclear weapons, and card shuffling. The story of Markov chains and the strange power of forgetting.

TOPICS:

MathematicsTechnologyScience

AUTHOR:

Sarath Tharayil

READ POST
2026.05.05
The Mouse Utopia That Chose Extinction

SUMMARY:

In 1968, a scientist built a perfect world for mice: unlimited food, no predators, no disease. The colony was extinct in five years. What Universe 25 reveals about density, identity, and what happens when survival becomes too easy.

TOPICS:

PsychologyScienceSociety

AUTHOR:

Sarath Tharayil

READ POST
2026.05.04
Propaganda, Dopamine, and the Collapse of Reason

SUMMARY:

How political propaganda, algorithmic manipulation, and neurobiology combine to hijack belief, and what it actually takes to break free.

TOPICS:

PoliticsPsychologyTechnology

AUTHOR:

Sarath Tharayil

READ POST
2026.05.03
Database Normalization, From Chaos to Clean

SUMMARY:

A step-by-step interactive guide to 1NF, 2NF, 3NF, BCNF, 4NF, and 5NF with real SQL and transforming tables at every stage.

TOPICS:

DatabasesSQLLearning

AUTHOR:

Sarath Tharayil

READ POST
2026.05.03
Kerala has its own calendar, running since 825 CE

TOPICS:

HistoryCalendar
EXPLORE
2026.05.02
The Pharmacy of the World

SUMMARY:

How India quietly became the source of 40% of America's generic drugs, 60% of the world's vaccines, and one of the most important forces in global healthcare. A fifty-year story of bold laws, brilliant scientists, and one audacious phone call.

TOPICS:

IndiaPharmacy of the World

AUTHOR:

Sarath Tharayil

READ POST
2026.05.01
Why You Dream Big and Do Absolutely Nothing

SUMMARY:

A deep look at the real neuroscience and psychology behind why ambitious people consistently fail to act on their own ambitions. Hint: it is not laziness.

TOPICS:

Psychology

AUTHOR:

Sarath Tharayil

READ POST
2026.05.01
Your TV Is Taking Screenshots. Here Is Exactly What That Means.

SUMMARY:

The smart television sitting in your living room is a continuous surveillance device. This is how it works, which brands do it, what they earn from it, and how to make it stop.

TOPICS:

PrivacyTechnologySecurity

AUTHOR:

Sarath Tharayil

READ POST