This story is a part of Hacker Noon’s Meet the Writer series of interviews. The series is intended for tech professionals contributing the most insightful Hacker Noon stories to share more about their writing habits, ideas, and professional background (and maybe a hobby or two).
So let’s start! Tell us a bit about yourself. For example, name, profession, and personal interests.
Hi there! My name is Branislav Đalić and I’m a self-taught software developer with over 10 years of experience across different IT industries. Over time I matured as a chief technical officer and now a co-founder of a small startup. I studied philosophy, practiced martial arts, had a metal band (I know.. sigh) and even tried myself out as an amateur young actor once or twice. Since then my personal interests are mostly revolving around blockchain, machine learning and information security.
Interesting! What was your latest Hacker Noon Top story about?
The last article was a project that was stuck in a drawer for too long. I remember reading somewhere that in today’s world an average person has to remember approximately between 100 and 200 passwords during their lifetime. Unfortunately, password managers don’t actually solve this problem, they just add a way to store all those garbled characters that somehow prove to the computer it was really us behind the keyboard.
The story was following an experiment to see if our inherent typing styles can be used to uniquely verify our identity in a similar way as handwritten signatures do. Right now, we are using fingerprints, face recognition, iris scanners etc., but there might be other less intrusive sources of uniqueness to exploit for this purpose, like keystroke dynamics.
Do you usually write on similar topics? If not, what do you usually write about?
I usually write on topics that I get inspiration by either from IRL problems, books on different approaches or simply some practical challenges that I wanted to solve in retrospective. That being said I fully enjoy the freedom of letting my curiosity pick the topics for me. It is never boring in computer land!
Great! What is your usual writing routine like (if you have one?)
Unlike my professional routine, my writing routine is loosely arranged around my free time, and that is mostly at night when everyone else is asleep. If I have to sum up my routine in one sentence it would be: “Coding during day, writing during night”.
Being a writer in tech can be a challenge. It’s not often our main role, but an addition to another one. What is the biggest challenge you have when it comes to writing?
When I write I try to take the reader alongside for a ride as I develop the idea in my mind. The biggest challenge for me was and still is keeping the reader engaged and as curious as I am on the subject.
What is the next thing you hope to achieve in your career?
That’s a hard question. Let’s say that I hope to keep delivering helpful perspectives on the ever changing field of technology and its applications as it shapes the world around us. Also I hope to invite more minds to think outside of the box as we face more and more complex problems in the future.
Wow, that’s admirable. Now, something more casual: What is your guilty pleasure of choice?
Black coffee and black olives, but not mixed together 😀
Do you have a non-tech-related hobby? If yes, what is it?
Playing guitar and making music is definitely something that’s stuck with me from the early days. Working on music helps me relax, provides a nice distraction for my thoughts and a way to get around burnouts in my day to day life.
What can the Hacker Noon community expect to read from you next?
More practical examples and DIY tutorials on decentralized tech like IPFS, WebTorrent, Blockchain and Machine Learning!
Thanks for taking the time to join our “Meet the writer” series. It was a pleasure. Do you have any closing words?
If you want to change the world, you need to read the source code first.
