Home on Gautam Narula

Migrating This Site from Wordpress to Hugo

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 14:23:35 +0000

I set up this site in 2012 as a Wordpress site. I did so because I was familiar with Wordpress, and teenage me was not familiar enough with web development to try homerolling it. Wordpress was easy enough to setup and had many themes and plugins to choose from, but it also came with many downsides:

slow and bloated, even when I installed caching plugins since this site is mostly static
had to pay for hosting unless willing to use branded domain (eg myname.wordpress.com)
constant security issues, to the point where I had to install plugins to prevent frequent DDOS and malicious login attempts

With my latest hosting term about to expire, I finally was pushed to do what inertia had stopped me from doing before: migrate the site to a static site generator (SSG). A SSG is a framework that creates a “static” site – that is, a collection of web pages with virtually no dynamic content rendering. There’s no admin login, database calls, or anything else– instead of a full fledged webapp, we just have pregenerated html pages. The result is that page sizes are much smaller, there are far fewer http requests, and annoying things like layout shifts as content loads don’t really happen. Static sites load much, much faster than WordPress sites!

The Expectation Effect: Using Mindset to Improve Your Life

Sat, 27 Apr 2024 14:23:35 +0000

Disclosure: this post contains affiliate links, meaning if you click the links and end up buying anything from Amazon, Jeff Bezos chuckles and diverts a small percentage of your purchase from his “Jeff Cowboy Outfit“ fund and sends it my way, at no additional cost to you. Thanks for supporting the site!

I recently read The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Transform Your Life by David Robson. This is a summary of the most useful, actionable takeaways.

My Blitz Game Against MVL, the Reigning Blitz Chess Champion

Thu, 24 Nov 2022 19:27:11 +0000

A few months ago I got to play a blitz game against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, the reigning World Blitz Chess Champion, as a prize for being the last one standing in a 35 board simultaneous exhibition (where I missed a forced draw, agh!). I never thought I’d get to play a world champion, and am grateful to MVL and the Marshall Chess Club for making this possible.

Below is the video of game with a live 2D board; pgn and analysis will be added to this post sometime between now and the inevitable heat death of the universe.

Gautam’s Cold Brew Recipe

Mon, 30 Aug 2021 18:07:46 +0000

Disclosure: this post contains affiliate links, meaning if you click the links and end up buying anything from Amazon, Jeff Bezos diverts a small percentage of your purchase from his “Jeff Goes Back To Space 🤠" Fund and sends it my way, at no additional cost to you. Thanks for supporting the site!

Lore #

As I have studied the art and craft of making good coffee (seven different brewing devices and counting!), I found cold brew to paradoxically be the most difficult one to nail down. In terms of technique, cold brew is by far the easiest to make: just throw some coffee grounds in water, put it in the fridge, and then after some time take it out and filter out the grounds. No fancy barista skills needed! But unlike other brew methods, which usually had a relatively narrow range of recommendations and a general brewing consensus, cold brew recipes online are all over the place in the following dimensions:

Time Trouble Misery

Sat, 10 Jul 2021 03:26:49 +0000

When I was a teenager, I was notorious at the Atlanta Chess Club for getting into time trouble. I’d play a game with 30 minutes per side and struggle to not lose on time, eventually forced to blitz out a flurry of moves without thinking as the final minutes and seconds slipped away on my clock. This same problem persisted at longer time controls too: 45 minutes per side, 60 minutes per side, 90 minutes per side, even three hours per side—I’d still run short on time!

My Experience with Senator-elect Warnock

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 14:57:40 +0000

I waited until today to post this because I believe democracy was on the ballot in the Georgia Senate runoff races. I wanted Senator-elect Warnock (and Jon Ossoff) to win. Now that he has, I want to share my experience with Senator-elect Warnock from nearly a decade ago.

In 2015, I wrote Remain Free about my friendship with death row inmate Troy Davis. The book covers the events that took place from 2008 – 2012, including Troy’s controversial execution in 2011 despite serious doubts about this guilt. Senator-elect (then, just Reverend Doctor) Raphael Warnock was the eulogist at Troy’s funeral.

The Best Openings for Rapid Chess Improvement

Tue, 29 Dec 2020 00:00:55 +0000

Last updated: August 30, 2021

The Queen’s Gambit has given rise to a new generation of chess enthusiasts. How to Get Good at Chess, Fast’s traffic quadrupled between October and November 2020, and Lichess traffic jumped 10% in that same span. To all the new and reengaged chess players, welcome!

As part of this surge of interest, many new players have sent me questions and comments on openings. What opening do I choose? Is the reason I lose because I don’t want to memorize as many openings as my opponents? What do you think about [insert opening here]?

Major General R.N. Chibber

Sat, 21 Nov 2020 22:02:49 +0000

My grandfather passed away last night, at the age of 86. I only met him three times — the summer of 1998, when I spent my fifth birthday at his house in Jammu; a week or two in 2006, when I was 13; and last in 2018, when his illness had progressed to the point where we could no longer have conversations.

What a Death Row Inmate Taught Me in the Days before Black Lives Matter

Mon, 21 Sep 2020 11:51:00 +0000

It’s not just the police. The entire justice system is broken. #

I was 15 years old when I met Troy Davis, a Black death row inmate, in 2008. Troy was convicted of the 1989 killing of Mark MacPhail, a white off-duty police officer, in Savannah, Georgia. In the decades after his conviction, seven of the nine trial eyewitnesses—all of them Black—recanted their testimony. Their sworn affidavits painted a chilling picture of police coercion, harassment, and intimidation. In Savannah, which was once a purgatory for kidnapped Africans before they were sold into slavery, the case deepened simmering racial tensions. As Troy put it, “The police were rounding up Black men in Savannah, threatening them and demanding information on me.”

New York in the Time of Coronavirus

Tue, 31 Mar 2020 01:59:14 +0000

NYC in the Time of Coronavirus

Both the city and the state of New York had their first confirmed case of coronavirus on March 1. In the following weeks, NYC rapidly transformed into the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States¹.

I thought I’d share a few photos of what it’s been like.

It started with (literal) half-measures, like restaurants being required to operate at no more than 50% capacity on March 12, the same day Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a State of Emergency.

Eight Years Ago

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 00:14:25 +0000

Eight years ago today, Troy Davis was executed. And four years ago today, Remain Free was published.

I still remember the night of the execution: Wednesday, September 21, 2011. I was a freshman. I had just finished my very first college exam and left Myers Hall to hop in my little red Chevy, which sputtered and struggled to get me down to Death Row in Jackson, Georgia. I remember the thousands of protesters—and the dozens of counter protesters. It was a chaotic scene—laughing, screaming, crying, praying, acrimonious chants battling each other and harmonious chants sung in unison. I remember when the riot police arrived, the prickly sound of their tasers in action, the officers downing a man who crossed the line, the muscular arms hauling him off into the back of the van while helicopters whirred overhead.

Book Reviews

Sat, 08 Sep 2018 15:07:03 +0000

I’ve started writing book reviews to force myself to interact more critically with books I read, as well as more easily recommend books to my friends and readers. Rather than writing negative reviews of bad books, I only write reviews of the good ones.

Fiction

Nonfiction

The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Transform Your Life — An investigation into the scientific use of positive expectations to improve your life.

Judging the 2018 Georgia Author of the Year Awards

Tue, 04 Sep 2018 22:41:36 +0000

I was a judge for the 2018 Georgia Author of the Year Awards (GAYA). For Best Memoir, I selected This Gladdening Light: An Ecology of Fatherhood and Faith by Christopher Martin.

Below is my submission statement:

Disillusioned by the “artificial light spread by industrial Christianity,” Christopher Martin is in search of a new theology. Through a spiritual pilgrimage consisting of treks amid the Appalachians, unsuccessful backyard gardening, and (above all else) the births of a son and daughter, Martin’s faith is renewed by “the God I met in my children…a God who could be human.” Steeped in the physical and political environs of the American south and spiritually inheriting from both Thoreau’s Walden and Ray’s Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, This Gladdening Light is a poignant, lyrical, and heartfelt expression of the divinity within our planet and ourselves.

Speaking at The Moth NYC and Boston Public Library in June and July

Thu, 14 Jun 2018 23:15:49 +0000

I’ll be speaking at two upcoming events:

The Moth Mainstage in Brooklyn on June 21, 2018 at 8 PM.

“Between Life and Execution: The Troy Davis Story and its Impact on Capital Punishment” at The Boston Public Library, Rabb Hall, 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 01226, July 7, 2018 at 2 PM.

Hope to see you there!

Naveen and Troy

Tue, 10 Oct 2017 02:51:30 +0000

Today is the one year anniversary of my father’s sudden and unexpected death. It’s also the birthday of Troy Davis, my friend who was executed on death row in 2011 and whom I wrote Remain Free about. These were the two most influential men in my life, so I thought I’d share a few words on their relationship.

Both my father and I were moderate supporters of the death penalty in 2008, before we met Troy. So when we first heard about Troy’s case, we were both skeptical of this death row inmate’s claim of innocence—for me, it was because I had this naive, childlike faith in our justice system and institutions; for my father, I think there was a certain cynicism that that led him to distrust people by default, and who less trustworthy than a convicted cop killer?

Speaking at The Moth Mainstage in Salt Lake City

Thu, 18 May 2017 19:28:43 +0000

I enjoyed speaking at the Moth in Boston so much that I’m doing it again! This time, I’ll be at The Moth Main Stage in Salt Lake City on May 30. Tickets are available for purchase at https://themoth.org/events/the-moth-mainstage-in-salt-lake-city

Speaking at the Moth Main Stage in Boston on April 27

Sat, 22 Apr 2017 19:31:19 +0000

I’ll be speaking at The Moth Main Stage in Boston on April 27! Tickets are available for purchase at https://themoth.org/events/the-moth-mainstage-in-boston-3.

Future Writing

Fri, 20 Jan 2017 03:36:45 +0000

Whenever I think of something to write about, I note it down and sketch a brief outline. It’s a pretty long list, because I’ve written very little since I completed Remain Free in 2015. In early 2021 I began writing regularly again. Here are the next few pieces I’ll be posting:

Various articles on rapid chess improvement
- I’ve written three posts on chess improvement, all focused on the idea of maximizing improvement while minimizing effort. They’ve all been well received so I’ll be writing several more, and splitting them out to rapidchessimprovement.com to avoid this turning into a chess website,
A Framework for Making Better Decisions
- Over the past several years, I’ve developed a system for making major decisions that centers around three key pillars: bottleneck analysis, prioritizing long-term over short-term, and maximizing flexibility. It’s worked really well for me. This essay will share that system and examples of decisions I’ve made using it.
How to Stay Secure on the Internet
- A “leveled” guide to avoid identity theft, hacked accounts, malware, etc. when browsing the internet aimed at both technical and non-technical people. Check off all the steps at each level, then move on to the next one. Ideally this shrinks the advantage someone like me, who works in tech, has over a regular person in protecting their data and privacy.
Lessons from the Wilderness
- After some hardships such as the unexpected death of a family member and an unexpected breakup of a long relationship, the trauma “shocked” me into some major positive changes–most visibly, losing 70lbs over 11 months while gaining strength, significantly improving my career prospects, and learning how to be more open and vulnerable. This is summation of what I learned during the process of “Queer Eyeing” my life. It’s pretty personal, but I hope sharing it would be helpful to others going through similar difficulties
Capital or Capital Punishment
- An argument that automation and globalization are concentrating wealth–and thus freedom–in the hands of those who own capital at the expense of labor, because capital earns exponential returns while labor earns mostly linear returns. Thus your only path to freedom is becoming part of the capital/owner class, so I outline specific methods on how to do that. If you’re more interested in reading about actual capital punishment, I’ve written a fair bit on that too.

Voter Deception on Georgia’s Ballot Initiatives

Tue, 08 Nov 2016 23:28:50 +0000

I noticed this when I voted for the first time in 2012: Georgia’s ballot initiatives, which are typically amendments to the state constitution, are frighteningly biased in their wording to push voters into voting yes.

Here are the ballot initiatives, verbatim¹, for 2016, which Georgians are voting on as I type these words:

**Amendment 1: **

Provides greater flexibility and state accountability to fix failing schools through increasing community involvement.

Five years ago

Wed, 21 Sep 2016 16:50:00 +0000

Five years ago today, my friend Troy Davis was wrongfully executed. One year ago today, I published Remain Free to share his story.

In that one year:

Remain Free beat out a New York Times bestseller written by a US president for the Georgia Author of the Year Award
Remain Free has been featured in NRI Pulse, India New England News, Khabar Magazine, and the Sunday edition of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Khabar Magazine, and India New England News
I’ve spoken at MIT, Cornell, UGA, Georgia State, Kennesaw State, high schools, Amnesty International groups, and CreativeMornings Boston (with a few more to come!)
I’ve met and talked to incredible people from all walks of life who share a passion for reforming our justice system, ranging from the parents of other teenagers who’ve befriended death row inmates to rappers, fashion designers, entrepreneurs, and everything in-between.

To mark the one year anniversary of the publication of the physical copy of Remain Free, the one many of you made possible, I just published the Kindle version so people all over the world can read it. As with the physical version, all profits will be donated to the Innocence Project. And of course, the book can be read in serialized from for free on remainfree.com

Coming of Age on Death Row

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 03:35:48 +0000

CreativeMornings Boston has posted my talk from May 2016, titled “Coming of Age on Death Row”. The teaser:

** I fight to live so you can remain free**

What happens when the realities of a suburban teenager and the world’s most well-known death row inmate collide? The answer involves secret phone recordings, a maximum-security prison, bizarre interpretations of the Eighth Amendment, a tense confrontation with a Supreme Court justice, and an unlikely friendship that would alter the future of both involved

Speaking

Mon, 30 May 2016 12:59:29 +0000

I primarily speak about the Troy Davis case, the death penalty, issues in the American criminal justice system, my personal experiences befriending a death row inmate during my teenage years, and the process of funding/writing/publishing Remain Free, etc.

Upcoming Events

There are no upcoming events at this time.

Past Events

“Between Life and Execution: The Troy Davis Story and its Impact on Capital Punishment”, The Boston Public Library, Rabb Hall, 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 01226, July 7, 2018.

Now

Mon, 30 May 2016 05:44:06 +0000

Inspired by Derek Siver’s Now Project, this page describes what I’m working on now:

Working at Stitch Fix as a data scientist
Migrating this site from WordPress to a statically generated site
Hosting regular Nick Cage movie nights, where the movie is typically chosen by RNG
Hosting pizza beta test nights, where I share my experiments with different pizza styles and techniques with a hungry crowd (see my pizza Instagram!)
Practicing my latte art and espresso pulls with my home machine, intending to reach barista-level art and espresso (if not their speed at cranking them out)
Working my way back to a Wilks score/coefficient of 300+ after recovering from an injury
Visiting four national parks in 2024
Working on my chess, to surpass my peak 1952 US Chess Federation Elo rating I got back when I was a teenager before I quit playing
Studying various ML topics, in particular LLMs
Writing a new essay or blog post roughly every two months (quite a bit behind on this one!)
Reading a new book roughly once a month — most recently I finished The Expectation Effect

Remain Free Book Discussion on May 16, in Boston

Sun, 15 May 2016 04:04:28 +0000

I’ll be hosting a Remain Free book discussion and signing at Trident Booksellers (338 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02115) on Monday, May 16, at 7:00 PM! I’ll be reading several excerpts from the book and discussing the events within those excerpts in more detail, as well as the process of writing the book. Trident is Boston’s largest independent bookstore and they’ve got great food as well, so I hope to see you there!

Keynote Address at the Cornell International Affairs Conference VI

Wed, 23 Dec 2015 08:51:39 +0000

Good evening. Before I begin, I’d like to thank the Cornell International Affairs Society for giving the opportunity to speak to you all tonight, and for organizing this wonderful conference.

Tonight, I want to tell you a story. It begins when I was 15 years old, on September 3, 2008, in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. I received a phone call from a friend. He was an intern for Amnesty International, a human rights organization I had never heard of. He told me about this man on death row in Georgia named Troy Davis. Troy Davis was convicted in 1991 for the 1989 murder of a police officer in Savanah, Georgia. There was no gun, no DNA evidence. Instead, his conviction rested primarily on nine eyewitness testimonies. In the years that followed, seven of the nine eyewitnesses recanted their testimonies. Many of them said the police coerced or intimidated them into testifying against Troy Davis. Despite all this evidence that he may be innocent, Davis was going to be executed in just 20 days.

Remain Free: A Memoir

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 20:05:13 +0000

On this day, four years ago, Georgia executed my friend, my mentor, my uncle, Troy Davis. I believe he was innocent. Today I’m officially releasing Remain Free, so the world doesn’t forget who he was or the truth of what really happened.

I wish you all could’ve met him. My greatest hope with Remain Free is that, through the hundreds of recorded conversations, letters, and in-person visits that make up this book, Troy’s voice shines through and you get a sense of who he really was.

Remain Free Preview II: Death Row

Thu, 17 Sep 2015 18:37:00 +0000

Death Row

This is a preview from Remain Free, which will be released on September 21, 2015.

Remain Free Preview I: Phone Call

Wed, 09 Sep 2015 17:08:24 +0000

Phone Call

This is a preview from Remain Free, which will be released on September 21, 2015.

September 3, 2008.

I was watching TV when the phone call came.

“Hey, it’s Sahil. Do you have a second to talk?” Sahil was a childhood friend a few years older than me. While his parents and my mother had been friends for decades, he’d never called before. Why now? He lived too far away to see regularly, and we’d drifted apart over the years. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen him.

Remain Free

Sat, 05 Sep 2015 08:18:57 +0000

I’m thrilled to officially announce the publication of Remain Free, a book I’ve spent three years working on. It will be released on September 21, 2015. I’ll answer a few commonly asked questions here. I answered other questions in a Reddit AMA I did when I first announced the book back in 2012.

What is Remain Free?

Remain Free is a memoir about my relationship with Troy Davis, a well-known death row inmate who was executed in 2011 despite serious doubts of his guilt. I believe he was executed innocent.

Five Ideas for the Future

Sat, 01 Aug 2015 08:32:59 +0000

Lists predicting future innovations are pretty common these days. There are usually a few recurring themes, like artificial intelligence, personalized medicine, and the “Internet of Things.” This list is five ideas that could make a big change in the future but haven’t really been explored yet.

The Sharing Economy of Goods

The sharing economy is an economic system where an individual’s (or group’s) excess resource is provided to another individual (or group) that needs that resource. My favorite example Is Airbnb, a company that helps people with excess rooms rent them out to travelers in search of accommodations.

Computer Science Should Be Two Separate Majors

Wed, 29 Jul 2015 06:33:31 +0000

I college, I majored in Computer Science and Political Science. The poli sci kids could be divided into two camps—the people who wanted to go to law school (60 percent), and the people who wanted to get into politics (40 percent). Similarly, there was a divide in CS—the people who wanted to become software engineers (80 percent), and the people who wanted to become computer scientists in some form (20 percent). The aspiring computer scientists often double majored in CS and math.

Two Years Ago

Wed, 31 Dec 2014 02:33:59 +0000

This post was originally published on September 21, 2013 at www.remainfree.com.

Troy Davis was executed two years ago today.

I woke up shortly after sunrise. Today was gameday in Athens, Georgia, and as I hustled out of my apartment I saw families sprawled among dozens of red UGA tents, chatting excitedly and huddling around the television in anticipation of the big game. A few children were tossing a football back and forth, while a group of teenagers cackled as they played cornhole. There wasn’t time to join the festivities. I was already running late.

Imagining a Better Facebook

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 15:02:20 +0000

Today is February 4, 2014, exactly one decade after a nineteen-year-old Mark Zuckerberg launched thefacebook from his dorm room. Today, the company is worth over $150 billion and has over 1.2 billion active users. I joined Facebook in late 2007. Back then, Facebook was fun. I’d waste hours on the site writing statuses, scrolling through my newsfeed, and messaging friends. But these days, I don’t enjoy using Facebook. Many of my friends don’t like using it either. Although they’re still active Facebook users, most of them find Instagram and Snapchat more enjoyable.

Play Like Picasso

Sun, 05 Jan 2014 12:02:38 +0000

I was rummaging through old files on my computer and came across my primary college application essay, “Play like Picasso.” I remember staying up late one night in what must have been November 2010 and writing it in about an hour. Surprisingly, almost nothing was changed in the editing process. The essays were to be roughly 500 words–this clocks in at 547.

Play like Picasso

I can’t draw. I really can’t draw. My drawing abilities haven’t changed since I was five years old; they consist of crudely constructed androgynous stick figures with smiling or frowning faces. My painting and sculpting abilities are equally uninspiring, and early childhood summers spent in weeklong art camps failed to improve my aptitude. Perhaps this early realization of my lack of artistic talent directed me to nontraditional avenues of creative expression, and it just so happened that one of these avenues was chess. I immediately took to the game, playing almost daily with my father when I was five years old, losing every time but entranced with its possibilities. I became more and more involved, joining my school chess club, playing on the internet and in tournaments, and excitedly bringing my chess set to sleepovers at my neighbor’s house.

How to Get Good at Chess, Fast: A simple, step-by-step guide to rapid chess improvement

Sun, 24 Nov 2013 23:46:24 +0000

Edit: This article on chess improvement was unexpectedly popular, reaching #2 on Hacker News and being linked to on LifeHacker. Thanks for your patience as I work through all the comments and emails I receive.

There are many misconceptions about rapid chess improvement. In this post I’m going to lay out a simple but effective way to get good at chess, fast.

This system is based on lessons learned from my own chess improvement and from coaching others. The good news is that you can become better than the vast majority of other players with minimal but targeted effort.

FAQ About My Name

Mon, 29 Jul 2013 19:30:57 +0000

I get a lot of questions about my name. Here’s a handy list of answers to soothe your inquisitive mind so you can finally sleep at night.

How is your name pronounced?

“Gotham,” like Gotham City from Batman.

Wow, that’s really cool!

That isn’t a question.

Is it really pronounced like that?

I often hear this question. Indians or people of Indian descent assume I’m “Americanizing” the pronunciation of my name because they’ve heard a different pronunciation. Non-Indians assume I’m not giving them the “authentic” pronunciation because it would be too difficult to pronounce.

What Javier Taught Me

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:38:17 +0000

In March, I traveled to Costa Rica. The purpose of the trip was to gain a better understanding of how globalized surf culture and surf tourism impacted the country and its people. We spent a week speaking to locals and foreigners, exploring towns and villages along the Pacific coast, observing conservation efforts, meeting with community leaders, and discussing what we saw. I could write a lengthy post about everything I learned.¹But there was one event that stood out from the rest of the trip. It was a conversation with a man named Javier.

How to Eat Dinner with Barack Obama

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 05:29:59 +0000

When I was a kid, my favorite TV show was The Simpsons¹. During the commercial breaks I often saw ads for contests associated with some product, i.e. “Mail in the box top from your bran flakes to be entered in our $10,000 sweepstakes!” While the ads avoided running afoul of any illegal lottery rules by including a “no purchase necessary” clause in the fine print at the end, the hope was that you buy more of their product to be entered in the sweepstakes.

Building a Multiplayer Elo Rating System

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 19:10:35 +0000

Most games today, even well-funded and established games, have terrible ranking systems. For example, tennis’s ATP ranking system is based on “points”, which are awarded by participating in select tournaments in the previous 52 weeks. The system is needlessly complicated and somewhat arbitrary, and does not directly take strength of opposition into account. The upper echelons of Halo and Call of Duty online rankings are, according to a friend, often populated with mediocre players who just play a lot of games, a result of a system that rewards sheer quantity of play over quality of results¹. I played high school quizbowl, and the system for ranking the teams was subjective and fairly arbitrary. The top 20 or so teams were fairly accurate because people knew who the best teams were, but beyond that it was guesswork based on unreliable metrics². This is where Elo ratings come in handy.

Using Data to Improve Your Chess

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 03:27:02 +0000

Through methodical, data-driven analysis of your tournament results, you can quickly break through chess plateaus

When I was 16, I went on a hiatus from competitive chess. Although I would occasionally play in tournaments for fun and out of habit, I stopped actively training and sure enough plunged in the rankings. But by early 2012, I had grown frustrated with losing and was ready to come back. I was ready to return to rapid chess improvement. I spent all of January studying and playing training games, and I registered for a four round tournament in early February.

Chess

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 22:25:54 +0000

National Champion! K-6 unrated winner at the Supernationals III with a score of 7/7 (2005)

My dad taught me how to play chess when I was five years old. When I was seven, I joined my school’s chess club and found I had a knack for the game, and through playing I quickly rose towards the top of the rating ladder. The game stuck with me long after many of my chess club friends had abandoned it. I enjoyed the mix of creativity, intuition, memory, and logic that chess required. By scholastic standards I joined competitive chess fairly late, a few months before my 12th birthday, but I improved quickly. By the time of my 15th birthday, I was strong enough (~1950 USCF, roughly the top 5% of competitive players) that it was conceivable become an official chess master before I graduated high school. Alas, I got a bit burned out from playing so frequently (I’d often commute over an hour each way on school nights to play tournaments, and would come back home with my homework incomplete and only five or six hours left before I had to wake up for school), and I became distracted with my improving social life and greater involvement in the Troy Davis campaign. My tournament frequency plummeted, my ranking dropped, I stopped training, and I never really returned from hiatus. I still plan on becoming a master (or beyond) some day, but until then I’ll have to content myself with peaking at 16.

Writing

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 22:25:21 +0000

The earliest selection of my writing I have is a story I wrote in kindergarten about going to McDonald’s, illustrated with stick figures and a crayon-colored rendition of the iconic golden arches. I’ve written a bit since then, and on this page I’ve listed my more notable writing.

I still have many unfulfilled writing ambitions (a novel, a pizza-themed travelogue, a collection of essays, a collection of short stories, a book on an interesting-yet-undercovered historical event), though it may be another decade before I actually get started on any of them.

Software

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 22:24:32 +0000

I wrote my first program when I was nine years old. Using JavaScript and HTML, I built a simple browser calculator. I then began using my newfound skills for evil at school by creating prank JavaScript dialog boxes warning of an “impending virus” that required restarting the computer. My teachers were not amused, and almost banned me from using the computers. The next year I paid my debt to society by helping the school design a website for researching career options.

About

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 22:11:26 +0000

Gautam (pronounced Gotham”) Narula is an author, machine learning engineer, and data scientist. He is the author of Remain Free, a memoir detailing his friendship with death row inmate Troy Davis and years working on the case while exploring the issues that plague the death penalty and our criminal justice system. Remain Free won the 2016 Georgia Author of the Year Award.

He attended the University of Georgia, where he studied Computer Science and Political Science as a Foundation Fellow and National Merit Scholar, and was an alternate for the 2013 Thiel Fellowship.