How It Feels [through Glass]

Curious case of Cisco AnyConnect and WSL2

One thing Covid has taught me is the importance of VPN. Also one other thing COVID has taught me while I work from home is that your Windows Machine can be brilliant as long as you have WSL2 configured in it. So imagine my dismay when I realized I cannot access my University resources while being inside the University provided VPN client. Both of the institutions I have affiliation with, requires me to use VPN software which messes up WSL2 configuration (which of course I realized at 1:30 AM). Don't get me wrong, I have faced this multiple times last two years (when I was stuck in India), and mostly I have been lazy and bypassed the actual problem by side-stepping with my not-so-noble alternatives, which mostly include one of the following: Connect to a physical machine exposed to the internet and do an ssh tunnel from there (not so reliable since this is my actual box sitting at lab desk, also not secure enough) Create a poor man's socks proxy in that same box to have my ow

Immersive Payment: Second Update

This is the second update to the Immersive Payment project update under the Grant For Web Fellowship. You can read the last report here: https://blog.rabimba.com/2021/05/immersive-payment-first-update.html Background Technically, WebXR is a device API that makes it possible to distribute VR/AR experiences over a web browser. It is broadly used to describe web based VR/AR experiences. The web is the biggest platform, able to reach almost every device and balance the power with app stores through permissionless innovation. However, there’s a major issue holding the ecosystem back from growing: monetization. There’s a reason why 99% of WebXR apps look like prototypes, it’s because indie creators struggle with finding ways to capture value. More polished experiences like Mozilla Hubs and Frame usually have the backing of a large entity, so they can survive. While many of the apps on the front page of Oculus Store net millions in sales, apps on the startpage for Oculus browser (#1 app) c

FirefoxOS, A keyboard and prediction: Story of my first contribution

Returning to my cubical holding a hot cup of coffee and with a head loaded with frustration and panic over a system codebase that I managed to break with no sufficient time to fix it before the next morning. This was at IBM, New York where I was interning and working on the TJ Watson project. I returned back to my desk, turned on my dual monitors, started reading some blogs and engaging on Mozilla IRC (a new found and pretty short lived hobby). Just a few days before that, FirefoxOS was launched in India in the form of an Intex phone with a $35 price tag. It was making waves all around, because of its hefty price and poor performance . The OS struggle was showing up in the super low cost hardware. I was personally furious about some of the shortcomings, primarily the keyboard which at that time didn’t support prediction in any language other than English and also did not learn new words. Coincidentally, I came upon Dietrich Ayala in the FirefoxOS IRC channel, who at

RK's Rambling

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