Officer | reciffO

Hitting "Mute" on the Ocean Engg professors' brain

2008-08-23T13:29:00.001+05:30

Ah...I'd have just loved to do that. Seriously !! on all those 4 profs who blabbered on and on in the 40 x 4 odd classes i had in that department.. and made me listen to 75% of those.. ! read on

TMS: The brain's mute button
The Michael Bay Verizon FiOS Commercial we're parodying is all over YouTube.
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) isn't only used to turn off the speech center of the brain, as depicted in the video accompanying the Daily Telegraph article that John highlights in this episode—it's also useful in therapeutic contexts. For example, it can be used to treat depression.
Naturally, Gawker Media sci-fi blog Io9 does its best to imagine the most dystopian way this treatment could possibly be used. The psychiatrist behind Corpus Callosum recently posted a good roundup of what's new in TMS.

Am sorry..but that damned sciam-monitor website doesn't tell me an obvious way to embed that video here.. Please go there and see the video for yourself.

Don't forget to list the people whom you would like to use this upon !

Pani Puri !!

2008-08-20T09:31:00.001+05:30

Ah.. a presentation on Pani Puri won some prize for the best slide show at Slide Share

Panipuri - an Introduction to perfection in food design.

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: pani puri)

just can't wait to have one.. will try making it rather.. !

via How to Change the World (thro Rahul Roy Chowdhury's google reader shared items)

Technology Shift

2008-08-20T08:42:00.001+05:30

A nice slide show on technological shifts. Face those facts. But all those predictions seem nonsense to me. See it for the first few slides and once the predictions start.. forget it.

| View | Upload your own

via Developing Innovation

Some interesting olympics videos

2008-08-18T14:56:00.001+05:30

Some truly interesting videos from the olympics of yesteryears !!

Kerri Strug wins a gold for the US team women gymnastics in a do or die situation..limping to the spring board... (let me not spoil the moment by describing it in mere words)

1996 Altanta Olympics - Kerri Strug's Gold Medal Vault

Eric Moussambani of Equatorial Guinea swims alone in the first of the 100m free style heats at the 2000 Sydney olympics.. hats off to him and for those who sponsored him to come up to this big stage to participate and booooooo to the laughing crowd and the taunting commentators ...

The Dream: Roy and HG on Eric 'The Eel' Moussambani

Do you know of other interesting videos ? Please include them in the comment.

via The Best Article Every day

Finding paths through the World's photos

2008-08-18T08:55:00.001+05:30

Interesting stuff.. !! They take photos of a location from Flickr and create a 3D rendering out of that to create paths that take you from one photo to another !! Impressive stuff.. !

Interesting to know that a person of my own batch from IITD is involved..

link via Blogoscoped

Why craze for IIT's ?

2008-08-15T22:44:00.002+05:30

Why this craze for IIT's ? Do they actually want/like to learn all the technical courses in all its mathematical rigor ? No ! Does India have enough jobs to employ people with the skill sets that IITs produce ? No ! Do people from IIT's actually take up careers in their core field ? No !! Correct me if I'm wrong here... If you have 100 people running a factory/enterprise/whatever try running it with 100 IITians !! most likely it fails to be a success. You need people who can design stuff/take decisions etc.. you also need people who can understand these designs and effect them. Any successful enterprise needs all kinds of engineers (not to forget other kinds of people)If everyone understands that any one kind are just different and not qualitatively better/worse than others, there should be no problem.

Quantum Mechanics - An Introduction by Julian Schwinger

2006-08-20T20:58:00.000+05:30

Suddenly (but not without reason) I decided to drop the course OOPS and take Quantum Mechanics by Arvind instead. I remember almost nothing of the first course in .. hold your breath.. Chemistry.. that I did on Quantum Mechanics. My discussions (actually rather than discussions.. it has nearly always been me asking questions and Aswin ending up giving a long lecture) with Aswin on theoretical physics (usually Cosmology.. but many times on other aspects of Physics too) have always enthused me to take some courses on basic theoretical physics. However this is the first concrete step that I am taking in that direction. I hope to do atleast 2 more .. Classical Mechanics and Statistical Physics before I complete my Dual Degree here. Ok.. now coming to the subject matter of this blog.

The intro that I read in this book is easily one of the most coherent, simple and enlightening pieces of text that I have read. At the end of each para.. I would sit up exclaiming WOW !! and my mother would keep running in asking what happened ?? This was the situation at my home yest !! After reading it you really feel as if you've understood the whole of Quantum Mechanics, not to mention Quantum Field Theory and Quantum Electrodynamics. Of course I know I've not.. but you just feel so after reading it. I doubt if I would be able to read the book during the sem given my tight schedule. I would rather stick to Sakurai and Feynman and read this later. He starts off defining what is a "Causal" and "Deterministic" theory at the same time clearly differentiating between the two. Then he goes on to describe the two limiting cases of classical behaviour namely the Discrete and Continuous models and how they are unified. He then gives the example of the wave and particle nature of light to illustrate the above point. Then he goes on to describe the "atomistic" and "statistical" nature of microscopic phenomena using the example of Atomic spectra for the atomistic nature and the classical electron beam interference experiment for the statistical nature. After describing the theory of Measurement, he goes on to say why we can't measure the properties of an object at the microscopic scale without disturbing it because of the atomistic nature of things and why we can't correct for those measurements because of the statistical nature of things. This piece was particularly cool !! Using the above arguments he goes on to describe Quantum Mechanics as a Causal but only Statistically Deterministic theory. After this I did not understand everything as I had understood what he had said so far. nevertheless.. I shall make an attempt to tell something. He starts off on Symmetry describing particles using wavefunctions, particle creation operator and how all these result in the creation of "Quantum Field Theory" unifying the two limits of Classical Physics models already described. Then he goes on to describe how developments in technology helped them create higher energies to study particle interactions which resulted in the field of "Quantum Electrodynamics". Though the last particularly difficult to read, I really enjoyed reading a major part of the Intro. It will go a long way in making me ever more attentive in my Quantum Mechanics class and learning more about wonderful subject.

Browsing through his life history, you can find that Schwinger was an outright genius. His first physics paper was at 16 and his Ph.D at 21 with claims that he actually completed his thesis at 18 itself !! I can hardly wait to learn more about Quantum Mechanics to fully appreciate his achievements. (btw does anybody know of this guy..apparently a 15 year old M.Tech student at the CSE dept in my insti.. working in Cryptography under Pandu I saw him on Times Now yest and want to know more about this rare specimen in my insti)

Finally a fluid mechanics blog

2006-07-28T13:22:00.000+05:30

Finally after some searching thanks to me registering with Technorati I found this blog. Seems to be pretty cool. Fluid Mechanics, Turbulence, PIV.. satisfied ??. here comes more.. Python, Scipy !! ............. Cool !!

http://alexl.wordpress.com/

Do check out the Image gallery in his blog http://alexl.wordpress.com/fluid-mechanics-around/
Found this interesting link there.. http://www.efluids.com/efluids/pages/gallery.htm will take quite some time to see through all those pics

Photos !!

2006-07-28T10:21:00.001+05:30

Ah !! Photos are becoming my favourite.. I am more and more beginning to look into Photo blogs. Whoever said these words is a God !!

A Picture is worth a thousand words !!

Infact.. I might start one myself..One thing is for sure.. Until I start a photo blog.. I request you all to use this http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/ to modify this page appropriately and block all images and show only their urls.. Otherwise.. browse through at your own peril !! Of course I mean wasting your bandwidth !!

Coming to this blog http://bestofmadhukar.blogspot.com/ !! The words used to describe them were better than the photos themselves !! I would have put more more images.. had my performancing plugin worked for blogger. It worked for wordpress. and I don't know why it didn't work for blogger. Hence I had to write through the shady (read: too many frills, too slow) interface of blogger and that's the reason for so few images

The Distance

Where Colgate meets the Champion Tyes store

The foundations of prosperity

Liquid gold

The generation gap

I am thinking of switching over to Wordpress.. I am fine with the template they provide and hope that they offer better ones in the future and more importantly better cutomization. Categories is too important a feature missing here. Is anybody from blogger listening ??

btw.. does anybody know how to auto rescale images in Performancing.?? Of course I can manually edit the image urls to do that.. but I would be very grateful if peformancing had a feature and I knew it. . !!

Eye - Brain bandwidth

2006-07-28T09:39:00.000+05:30

How Much the Eye Tells the Brain from PhysOrg.com

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine estimate that the human retina can transmit visual input at about the same rate as an Ethernet connection, one of the most common local area network systems used today. They present their findings in the July issue of Current Biology. This line of scientific questioning points to ways in which neural systems compare to artificial ones, and can ultimately inform the design of artificial visual systems.

[...]

link via Krishworld

F-Spot.. the latest photo management application for GNOME

2006-07-24T14:14:00.000+05:30

http://f-spot.org/Main_Page

I saw this in LFY (dunno which month) recently.. Atleast the screenshots and the features listed seem to be pretty impressive.. The only problem .. requires Mono.. !!

Will give it a try as soon as I get back to Chennai.. which will be the next Monday btw. I should be on the train now next week !!

Photo in the News: Mouse Rides Frog in India Monsoon

2006-07-21T17:48:00.000+05:30

Read the rest of the news here.. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/07/060705-mouse-frog.html

link via Sowmya

Abdul Kalam's son will not have reservation...!!! Funniest headline ever !!

2006-07-20T08:59:00.000+05:30

I am sorry and accept that I have not been quite closely following the happenings in the Quota issue....and hence this seems a surprise to me..

AFAIK.. the creamy layer clause wasn't there in the first place..

http://ibnlive.com/news/no-quota-for-children-of-prez-judges/16104-3.html

I don't know why IBNlive decided to highlight the fact that children of the President are excluded from the reserved category, when the last paragraph seems to be affecting a million more people. And what a comedy to have put Abdul Kalam's photo.. who isn't married in the first place.. !!!

Children of President, Vice-President and judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts fall under the 'creamy layer' among OBCs under the criteria fixed for exclusion from reservation in civil posts and services.
As per the criteria announced on Wednesday, children of members of the UPSC and State Public Service Commission, Chief Election Commissioner, Comptroller and Auditor General of India and persons holding Constitutional positions of this nature also fall under the creamy layer category.
Under the criteria, persons having gross annual income of Rs 2.5 lakh or above or possessing wealth above the exemption limit as prescribed in the Wealth Act for a period of three consecutive years are also excluded.

My Pune Trip !!

2006-07-19T18:21:00.000+05:30

Well.. let me tell you what I was expecting from the trip !! A ride on the Pune Express highway was what I was expecting !! I had heard too much about the highway to take it lightly. But junta here told me too high a price for a trip on that highway.. and deciding that it wasn't worth 300-400 bucks.. I decided to go by train itself. I started at 16.30 (on 14th July 2006) from IIT Powai and took the train at 18.00 from Dadar. The train slowly chugged along and reached Kalyan at 19.00.. and I am like .. "What the hell ? !!" I had reached Karjat in an hour from Dadar the previous Sunday. But the good news was that I got a seat at Kalyan (where some n junta boarded the train and it became really crowded)

    Got down at Pune at 22.00 and the worst part was that I had spent 65 bucks to come to Pune from Mumbai and was going to spend a 100 to just go to my Perima's place in Pune from the station !! Sadly I saw a 100 bucks fly out of my pocket. I would have waited for buses had it been my house.. but it was Perima's house.. and I didn't want to keep her awake too long. Actually I prefer buses in a new place bcos of 2 reasons.. One it keeps stopping at many places.. whie the conductor keeps shouting the bus stops and thus I get to know more about the place.. and the more important and obvious reason being.. the economy of bus fares.

Finally I saw my Perima after 12 years... and my cousin and his wife popped in after an hour. I had a good meal and slept. The description of events on Saturday (which included a visit to a bowling arena and a Pub !!) would require another blog.

Finally I started my journey back to Mumbai on Sunday at 11.30 am. The best way to come to Mumbai from Pune is to go to the Asiad bus stand and buy tickets there. There's a bus every 15 mins and if you take the deluxe buses (which cost 155 bucks btw), they are only half full most of the times.

   Now for the ride.. It was pleasant.. My only crib was that I didn't see any highway for atleast an hour from Pune. I started to think about VP's brother's marriage that I was supposed to be at in Chennai. I had missed it only bcos of my project which didn't seem to be going anywhere. Soon my thoughts were taken over by the toll gate that I saw after Dehu road.. Whoah..!! They charge a cool 120 bucks for a car and around 300 bucks for a bus !! Pple say it saves you 2 hours on the highway and the savings you make on the Petrol and more than enough to justify that charge. !! Whatever.. it didn't matter much to me .. atleast not at the present.

It stopped for a while near the place where people going to Lonavla were supposed to break off from the highway. Had my lunch of 2 Vada Pav there.

    Now sit back and enjoy the photos I took on the highway..!!

I would have loved to be on that highway for some more time.. but alas.. Mumbai beckons..and by 15.30 I was at Dadar. And I had almost forgot that I had to visit Kmap on Sunday. I called him and went to his house. Lotsa photos there too.. but.. that would require another blog !!

Lonavla Trip !!

2006-07-18T10:51:00.000+05:30

As soon as I came back from this trip.. my Gmail status message was..

"From Feet itching to Feet aching.. and trust me ..feet aching is much better than feet itching..Finally a Lonavla trip"

That was the kind of desperation for going out under which I made this trip !! Ok.. now let me get to the details

We (Santhosh, Vadivelan and myself) started off from IITB at around 6 am.. It's not everyday that you get to wake up at 4 am rite !! The weather was pretty cold.. !! btw the trip was on 9th July 2006.

After having a Chai !! at Kanjurmarg.. we got to Dadar and met up with Chetan, MRP and Sumith. The train started off at 7 am. Getting into the train I broke my Chappal.. which I had feared all along. Anyways I didn't care much !! Chetan had brought some Puran Poli from his house and we also ate some biscuits and Omlette. The train journey was quite lovely after Karjat.

Got down at Lonavla at 9.00 am.

Go out and no prizes for guessing whom you meet first..The auto drivers.. ever ready to take you for a sight seeing trip for 400 bucks.. I remembered seeing Charukesi Ramadurai's blog and insisted on walking.. or finding a bus.. But sadly the next bus was only at 10.30 and we ended up taking 2 autos to the Bushy dam !!

Man !! Bushy dam was quite an experience !! The crowd was ecstatic.. the only problem was that you would run into a totally drunk person at nearly every step :(.. otherwise.. it was too good !! Next time you go there .. remember to go early. atleast not after 9.30.. Otherwise .. you ain't enjoying anything !! You'll lose your temper and joy in the crowd !!

We decided to drench ourselves fully.. (Tip: Next time you go there.. do not take anything along except your room Key chain or something..if you have an optic sensor at home.. even the better) The only problem was that atleast one guy had to stay back to guard our items !!

After getting fully drenched ..we dried ourselves up.. while looking at the dam in awe !!

Then we treated ourselves to the best drink available.. the great "Garam Chaaya".. and believe me.. we extracted every bit of it's first word from it..even from it's glass !!

Then we made our way up the waterfall.. MRP found it a little too much.. and stayed put down !! He really missed the fun part !!

The look of the waterfall was just amazing !!

Standing in the waterfall.. you felt as if a thousand pple are pelting heavy stones at you !!.. you really can't stand in that waterfall for more than 5 secs.. I spent most of the time inside the waterfall !!

Man.. I will not get such an experience anywhere in the near future !! Then we got down..It's only after you get down that you realise how high you've been !!

Then what..?? Grub..?? what else ?? So we went to the nearby hotel and hogged... I literally mean it.. after such a nice trekking session.. it was the perfect remedy..Though I would have preferred one more Chaaya.. it wasn't available in that hotel.. and we were preoccupied with our immediate plans after coming out !!

Finally we decided to catch an auto back to the station and decide our next course of action from there !! But the crowd had picked up by then (it was around 2.00 when we came out of the hotel !!) The traffic was moving slow.. and we could pick up some shots in between.. esp the lake !!

Then.. came the news of Shiv Sena riots breaking out in Dadar.. all buses to the city were cancelled.. and the last train was at 19.00..Not deciding to take risks we booked the 16.40 Deccan Express to Bombay !! Then we had some Chikki and some Chai..again !!

There was about a hour and a half left for the train.. we spent a considerable time at the Chikki shop and then moved to the station to find that there was a long queue standing for the 1 general compartment bogey to be attached at Lonavla !! Hats off to Santhosh and Vadivelan for getting us all proper seats in that train.. !! and ya.. to the train driver for making that mistake of stopping the train 2 m just too ahead of the usual place !! That was enough for us to get seats..!!

As usual.. the view from the train was just too good !!

Now.. Vadivelan found out that our tickets had crumbled in his wet pocket.. We had a tough time reassembling them !!

We three of us got down at Thane and came back quietly to IITB.. without tickets !! So our Lonavla trip was finally over.. I was too tired to watch the Fifa World Cup final !! So I went and watched the last 2 sets of Federer-Nadal and went to sleep.. to realise the full meaning of my status message to be the next morning !!

Cool Photo.. ain't it !!!

2006-07-14T12:26:00.000+05:30

That's a cool photo.. supposing that it's real and not morphed !!

link via Astronomy.com

Mumbai blasts - Help

2006-07-12T13:36:00.000+05:30

Register at http://www.indianblooddonors.com/

Or call up any of the hospitals listed here..

http://www.karmayog.com/lists/bloodbanksmumbai.htm

May all those pple involved in these blasts be punished.. !! There would have been atleast 120 pple in each of those compartments.. If the entire compartment has blown up (including the roof of the station in one case) I wonder if anybody survived at all !! The current number of 200 seems too small to me.. and at the same time.. imagining 120x8 pple dead seems too horrifying !!

I am just wondering.. why I never react to blasts in Kashmir.. and suddenly all this enthusiasm to help.. when it occurs in the place I live.. It's gotta be 2 factors.. either bcos it's the place I live.. or..I just got used to the fact that blasts do occur in Kashmir

btw.. I did register at that site.. and I am calling up a blood bank soon ..!! Damn my mobile phone charger !!

thanks for the link at Nanopolitan.. Otherwise I would have never got the numbers of so many blood banks !!

Feet beginning to feel itchy.. !!

2006-07-02T20:36:00.001+05:30

4 weeks of boredom.. has finally had an impact on me.. I am beginning to want to go out.. More and more..I have had like 10 days off as Saturdays and Sundays.. and yet.. I sort of properly made use of only one day.. The rest were just wasted. (ok.. I did visit some of my relatives.. and also a family friend of mine.. a mourning in whose house.. caused me to visit them thrice.. [:(] ) ..) But apart from that.. nothing.. Just one visit to a shopping mall.. that too quite closeby.. I've not even set my foot upon South Mumbai.. and I've decided enough's enough !!

The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes "sight-seeing" - Daniel J. Boorstin

..was a quote that I saw at this person's blog, but I've decided that.. I'll start off as a tourist and then graduate to a traveller as I go along.. Atleast the expectations of a tourist will start to move my feet.. Then probably.. I can think of becoming a traveller.. BTW.. That was a blog I discovered recently.. Great indeed.. I just envy that person.. Ok.. envy.. may not be a good word to describe my emotions.. but I hope to become atleast a part of what she is .. !! The lack of company.. is causing a lot of troubles..!! But as the above quote says..I must go in search of people I guess... and they'll be company.. I just need to be well-informed.. just so that.. I don't end up in the wrong company.. to find holes being drilled in my pocket !!

Earth .. the place we live.. From Big to Small to Tiny to Immaterial

2006-06-29T21:51:00.000+05:30

This is really nice.. Seeing the first photo makes you believe how big earth is !! and the even by the second one you're more than convinced that the earth is just a tiny thing really and seems immaterial as compared to the rest..Wow !! Really cool.. sets you off on one of those persistent philosophical thoughts on Why are we here ??

from http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm

Link via Selva

Books books books..!!

2006-06-27T16:38:00.000+05:30

The evenings are so boring here at IITB.. First week --> I finished off 3 of the 4 Michael Crichton novels that I brought from Madras.. I had expected them to last the full intern... and the next week.. I finish off the other novel as well Now. what to do.. Naresh comes to the rescue.. by lending me his 'Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman' Trust me .. don't ever miss a chance to read that book.. I had almost forgot that he was a prof somewhere down the line.. !! Man what a person he has been !! And then.. couldn't stand it.. I borrowed "One night @ the call centre" from my roommate.. and read it 4 hours flat.. Actually.. it was quite interesting..atleast worth whiling away your time.. but not worth a purchase I guess.. even at 95 bucks !! Now.. I purchased this.. will do some serious reading I guess !! ..That will keep me occupied I guess.. But I saw a book that I had wanted to read for a long time.. So I bought this one as well !! .. Hope these two keep me occupied for the rest of the intern !!

Salary Theorem..!! Hilarious.. and no%s*&s^ !!

2006-06-08T09:38:00.000+05:30

Only solution for peaceful TN !!

2006-06-07T19:07:00.000+05:30

Got it in one of those many forwards....LOL !!

Yay !! Picasa for Linux !!

2006-06-01T16:41:00.000+05:30

I am actually quite happy with Gwenview, but certain features in Picasa just outbeats Gwenview..

Picasa for Linux

Finally Picasa for Linux.. Most importantly .. Debs available.. Uses Wine though.. that's OK.. no probs.. err.!! . not tested it yet.. My comps all packed up.. ready to take a breather for 2 months.. my stay at IIT Bombay.. dunno how it's gonna affect my blogging.. (as if I blog very much now.!!) update from bombay: Picasa works great on linux..No hassles in installation or usage.. Great to have it back after 1.5 months !! Ah.. now I don't have to go to windows everytime I need Picasa !!

This is too cool.. Thottal Poo Malarum !!

2006-05-24T22:44:00.000+05:30

Link via Sowmya

Calvin's ball with my cousin !! 103 NOT OUT !!

2006-05-24T18:52:00.000+05:30

Met up with my 9 year old cousin Vikram after quite some time !! phew.. !! turned out to be quite an experience !!

First thing that happens when you enter his house.. (i had gone with my parents) There's a huge cry and roar !! "Peripa vanthachu !! (obviously my father !!)

And then there's a proud display of his cricketing skills.. (he has been attending some T.T and Cricket camp..) . and then his drawings of various cricketers..

And then.. he shows how good he is at the Keyboard (obviously has been attending classes.. and Chitappa already possessed a Yamaha Keyboard !!).. but unfortunately ends up missing the tune all the time.. gets frustrated (again a huge cry and roar !!) and gives up trying to play it properly..

And then to pacify him.. i decide to play cricket with him !! Divya (his elder sister) joins in as well

This is the main part.. He gets 10 wickets.. whereas I get only one. . his rules..!!

The score is 1/1.. and then he scores 2 runs.. (the batsman's crease at the bowlers end is only half way up the pitch..!! again his rules !!) and then the score becomes 10/1.. (again.. his own way of accounting.. )

And then.. he loses 5-6 wickets.. still.. the score remains at 15/3.. nice na.. he loses wickets..but gains runs instead !!

And then.. frustrated.. he ends up at 20/10.. my target is 21..!!

i decide to take left hand bat (obviously to give him advantage !!).. but to no avail.. the deliveries are so wide I can't even give him an opportunity of a "bowled" or a "catch" (btw one pitch catches are out for me !!) I can't leave deliveries to get out.. he's not that young as well.. frustrated.. I become run out at 18 . and you must see the sense of achievement on his face.. and again.. a big cry and roar..!!

Next match.. I get to bat first..!! I don't even score 10.. but my score is fixed at 99.. his way of accounting..!! (he had already decided to score a hundred in the next innnings .. so how can that be changed !! ??)

So the brave man starts off.. his desperate attempts at scoring boundaries always end up in him getting clean bowled.!!.. Score 1/4 ..(actually I was suprised he told this.. I thought he would tell 40/2 or something !! ) then I teach him something . obviously to bat. !!.. and then.. he scores 4-5 boundaries.. and then.. he declares himself winner. !! at 103 Not Out !!

Cha.. missed my digicam dearly..His last pose .. at 103 N.O was not something to be missed !! and so were the other moments when he lets out those loud cries.. !!

Later Divya tells me of his heroic achievements at the Club (as he puts it) where he apparently scored 145 not out with around 70 odd fours and 100 odd sixes !! wonderful na !!

After all that.. he settles down for a fundaes session on how to solve the Sudoku by yours truly..!!

Of course most of the things that I did were very similar to that anybody would have done with a 9 year old.. but my fun part was in oberving his "loud cries " and his moments of Joy and most important of all.. in playing Calvin's ball with him !!

Had nice fun.!!. hoping to visit him again this friday !!

Bush again..!!

2006-05-20T22:31:00.000+05:30

That bushcalendar.com was nice.. This one seems to come near that.. pretty good..

Old Memories !!!

2006-05-19T19:16:00.000+05:30

CUTE !!! Come on accept it.. I atleast "WAS" cute !!!!

My TVS School I-Card..!!! Whoah !!! It's been Nine years since I left Madurai.. it just seems like 2-3 years..!!!

Reservation Issues - Frontline

2006-05-14T18:19:00.000+05:30

I am beginning to love this magazine. The "April 22 - May 5" issue had a series of 5 articles on the reservation issue (that was the cover story), each discussing various aspects ranging from the sociological and historical perspective to the Legal issues involved. Too bad I read these too late. But I guess it's OK ! !

http://frontline.in/fl2308/index.htm

Logical step by P.S. Krishnan This one discusses The socio-historical and constitutional perspective and imperatives of the proposed Bill So... the history of reservations.. dates back much before what I actually thought.

The process of reservation in education began in 1902 in the small princely state of Kolhapur, for Backward Classes - covering the present BCs, SCs and other non-Brahmin castes that are not in the post-Constitution lists of BCs.

An important Legal point.. it's not just economic backwardness that the government is targeting at but something else..

The Mandal judgment also held that, for purposes of inclusion in lists of SEdBCs, economic backwardness/poverty is relevant only if and when it arises from social backwardness, and that economic backwardness per se is not a criterion for identification of a class as backward in accordance with the Constitution. In view of this definitive judgment, it is futile and ignorant to argue that Backward Classes should be identified only on the basis of economic criteria or individual poverty. That is not the constitutional scheme. In fact the Supreme Court struck down the clause added by the Congress government in 1991 to the National Front government's order of 1990 providing 10 per cent reservation for the "economically poor".

But that's one point that I fail to understand. If a Dalit is poor and wants to study .. he'll be helped.. but if a Brahmin wants to study.. he won't .. (atleast that's what this picture seems to convey).. I can say with confidence that the temple priests today are not very well off.. infact I myself know people who are miserable and my own father has helped them. So why are they not entitled to reservation.. just because they supressed the "lower castes" so many years ago.. is it necessary to subject them to this treatment..??? I feel they are no different from the people that the government is trying to "rescue" today.. The same old story.. Mandal did suggest much more than just reservation.

The Mandal Commission contained many recommendations in addition to job reservation. It also recommended reservation of seats in educational institutions (apart from recommendations on land reforms, land distribution, tenurial reforms, cottage and small industries, training, economic development, rural development and so on). Reservation of seats in educational institutions had already been implemented long back in the peninsular States, and subsequently by some other States, but not by the Centre.

This was a point which I failed to understand initially.

There is an argument that shows its head whenever there is a proposal to give reservation to SEdBC (and SC and ST). This is that what these communities require is not reservation in higher education but good education from the earliest stages. The argument makes it appear as though the SC, ST and SEdBC categories have no interest in pursuing good education. But the fact of the matter is that these communities are as conscious of the need for and thirsty for good education as any other community. But it is beyond their reach on account of the role most of them are cast in by their birth.

Another very important point

.. what is now proposed to be done is at the least 12 years late. Nobody should have been taken by surprise, for after the Mandal judgment this was bound to come sooner or later. It is not really a bolt from the blue. All along, the National Commission for BCs, national and State conferences of BCs, and Members of Parliament have been calling for this.

The basic premise is that reservation of jobs without reservation in education is illogical, for the latter is necessary to prepare the ground for the former. Not providing for reservation in any sector/part of education is an admission that the Government of India does not intend to ensure fulfilment of reservation in jobs in the sector of employment related to the sector of education in which reservation is not provided. There should be no mismatch between the percentages of reservation of jobs and reservation in education.

This article by examining the history of reservation actually pulls the sting out of the protests that accuse politicians of pulling vote banks.This has been in existence since long and many upper caste people at the helm (including Nehru) themselves have felt the need for reservations to bring about a social equality.

An impression is sought to be created by some learned commentators that the SEdBC/OBC/BC groups are not a legitimate constitutional category for reservation or that reservation for them is an after-thought owing its origin entirely to the electoral and personal ambitions of one or the other politician. Neither the history of reservation from the beginning of the 20th century nor the specific provisions of the Constitution justify these abominable suggestions.

Southern record A point to be noted.. the southern state's reactions have been much more subdued.. Is it because of our inherent nature or because of the reservation system working for good here and we getting used to it.. I somehow believe in the latter and agree with the authors.

THE controversy over the proposed Bill to introduce reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC) in educational institutions has been characterised by a number of arguments against the proposal. Broadly, they have been that "reservation militates against merit and excellence" and that it harms "the interests of other communities, especially the economically weaker sections among the upper castes". There is also the fervent contention that the system of reservations does not actually help the weaker sections among the OBCs and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (S.C. and S.T.) since the benefits are cornered by the affluent among them. The sum total of the arguments is that reservations in institutions of higher, professional education such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) would be nothing short of a sociological disaster.
Ironically, this line of reasoning has been most vehemently advanced from regions that have no real or concrete exposure to reservation in the education sector. This includes the majority of North Indian States. In contrast, in the four South Indian States as well as in Maharashtra and Gujarat, which have had varying degrees of experience in this regard, the opposition is marginal or absolutely nil. The overwhelming opinion among people in these States, and even in "excellence-pursuing" academic circles, supports the principle and practice of reservation. More important, the system seems to have got so embedded in the education sector in almost all these States that the reaction is notably balanced.

Political consensus by V.VENKATESAN This article has an interesting point which I thought I must bring out...

On August 7, 1990, the then Prime Minister V.P. Singh announced the government's acceptance of the Mandal Report in Parliament, reminding the nation that the Constitution envisaged that socially and educationally backward classes (SEBCs) be identified, their difficulties removed and their conditions improved in terms of Article 340 (1) read with Article 14(4) as well as Article 16(4) of the Constitution. The government decided to adopt, in the first phase, the castes common to both the Mandal list and lists prepared by a number of States, and introduced 27 per cent reservation for the SEBCs (the constitutional term for OBCs) in services under the Government of India and PSUs.
The reservation policy of 27 per cent for OBCs, V.P. Singh announced, would not be extended to educational institutions, and that it would continue for 10 years at the end of which it would be reviewed, even though the Mandal Commission had recommended reservation in educational institutions and a 20-year duration for the policy.
Why did V.P. Singh depart from the Mandal report? Was it aimed to stop the snowballing of the popular agitation against his announcement? Or did he think it was more important to consolidate the gains of reservation in public services than introducereservation in educational institutions, which were likely to fuel students' protests?
An answer to this may perhaps be found in the Mandal report itself: "An essential part of the battle against social backwardness is to be fought in the minds of the backward people. In India, government service has always been looked upon as a symbol of prestige and power. By increasing the representation of OBCs in government services, we give them an immediate feeling of participation in the governance of this country."
With the onset of the era of liberalisation and minimal governance, the erstwhile symbol of prestige and power might have lost its sheen; hence the increased stakes in the seats in professional educational institutions which offer opportunities for a successful career in the private sector.

And finally last but not the least.. There's one point in reservation that I have never understood.. My understanding of reservation is that the government is trying to make the actual numbers in any place equal to the demographic fractions prevailing there.. Fine.. no probs.. but why should the people who have reservations get in through the unreserved category as well.. Aren't you actually blocking people who don't have reservations by this way.. ????

The best Physics Lab report that I have ever seen

2006-05-11T20:56:00.000+05:30

Really LOL !!! can't say anything else..

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~kovar/hall.html

link via Nanopolitan

Reservation Issue.. a journalist's experiences and views

2006-05-11T19:22:00.000+05:30

The Experiences of a journalist who covered the "Reservations" issue both now and then.. An interesting read. Anirudh Bhattacharyya's Blog At first he puts down the most common reactions to the "r" word..

The Congress, in its present avatar as the lead party of the many-headed UPA, is attempting to make political capital out of reservations. And the focus is on the IITs, the IIMs, NGOs, and jobs in the private sector. So, the party that once protested Mandal finds it convenient to mine it for near-term electoral gains in 2006.
And, frankly, this could be terrible timing. Corporate India is surging ahead, foreign investors are glorifying the Indian economy. So, the reaction to the political posturing from representatives of Indian companies at a business conference in Chicago was understandably tentative.

So, this is all wrong, right? Maybe not.

And then he unleashes everything that reservation is about in a nice and crisp manner..

The Government is nudging industry to wake up, to absorb the reality of the social mix India is. If industry doesn't respond quickly, the underlying message seems to be, they may just be forced to comply with a sarkari diktat.

Well.. all I can say is that I liked the last few words..

As for me, I hope that 16 years later, I don't have to deal with the word "reservations" unless it's to take my wife out to dinner.

This one sweeps all the Reservation issues to the background... Life at stake!!

2006-04-27T07:39:00.000+05:30

http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=179502 This one story beats all reservation issues.. and what's worse.. this was told to me by a German... i just can't believe the fact that an IIT Almunus was involved as well. The most horrible thing that i have ever seen. Actually when i was discussing with my friend on this issue, i was saying "God knows what they'll do next...prob some Agni Pravesh or something...!!! " .. and you know how my friend reacted to this. "about that walking on fire...if you were to insinuate that this were a necessary step to clearing iit-jee, junta in andhra woiuld readily consign their children to the flames, if needed " Well I guess that "Andhra" was just to share his thoughts.. no personal mockery meant.. but I some how feel that statement was true (neglecting andhra)..anyways..Although the article states that no parent was involved in this.. I am sure... many would take a cue from this and go on.. and make their children do the same..God save them.. !!! poor pple.. What's next !!! ???

My first experience of "GETTING UP IN THE MORNING TO FIND A MONKEY IN MY ROOM"

2006-04-22T07:31:00.000+05:30

Ya.. I seriously mean it.. Ever had such an experience.. I don't know what IIT Madras has in store for me.. But this is certainly exciting (slisha scary as well) TJ woke me up at 6.45 on this beautiful day.. I had just finished 2 exams yesterday.. And Venkattraman was to come to my room only at 8.30 am.. so I thought I'll crash for some more time .. so where's the mistake. ?? I left my door open.. i.e I didn't latch it.. I never realised that 45 minutes passed away so soon.. I got up to some noise inside my room.. TJ generally has the habit of checking mails in another persons room.. and I saw some vague figure near my comp.. I just thought it must have been him and woke.. and lo and behold..!!! I had my "ancestral relative" sitting right in front of me.. (you expect me to take a pic and show you in this situation.. NICE TRY.. my life at stake).. It was coolly sitting in front of the comp.. (i dunno lokking for what.. I had no edibles in my room..!!) I gave it one look.. and I don't know what it's look at my eyes meant.. ( I mean never before have I seen a Monkey sit on my chair.. !!!!!!!! ) I just rushed outside only to find another one.. and this time giving me scary looks.. and opening up it's teeth..!! Gosh !! I was at my wits end.. !! I just came back into my room.. went behind the door (obviously keeping it open expecting the monkey inside to get out).. and thankfully.. it did what I expected.. Whoah..!!! my legs are still trembling !!!! This was indeed exciting but a bit scary.!!! Hush..!!! Don't tell this to my Mom.. I told her in January that I have been chased by them atleast 5 times. From the time I got my mobile ..she has been calling me every now and then.. just to verify that nothing untoward has happened.. If I tell her about this incident.. then what happens next .. well I myself don't know what's gonna happen. .

Reservation issues

2006-04-11T15:54:00.001+05:30

This piece (from Nanopolitan ) hit me like hell !!! I never thought along these lines before..!!! Some of the television anchors have started off on `preserving the brand equity of the IITs' angle. This is an argument that I always find infuriating. All these decades, while the government went about funding the IITs and the IITs went about their business, nobody took any major notice of the IITs. Suddenly, in the era of L-P-G (liberalization, privatization, globalization), when it is established that here is a GOVERNMENT institution that did exceedingly well (for whatever reason), the private sector boys would like to claim it as their own. The brand equity argument is one way to do it, denying the public institutional character of the IITs etc., treating them as if they were some private sector enterprise, that set about achieving some corporate mission. None of them would ever have had the patience for anything like the IITs or the IIMs. In the case of the IIMs, matters have been pushed to a point, that their corporate interests on their boards, is virtually trying to takeover these institutions and subvert their public character. True... I didn't realise this because I was on this side .. I feel like I have been enlightened or something !! But does that mean IIT's give up what they have been and behaving like other PSU's ??? A debatable point.. but certainly not by me !!!!! I am not talking on this.. as long as I don't get a concrete idea as to how people are suffering under discrimination...How many people are affected by this ?? and it's effect..!! If my own friends (Aswin and Kmap ) can't stand what I have been blabbering all along (more due to wrong choice of words though), I wonder how would I have escaped hurting others.

Quotas in IITS !!!!!

2006-04-03T22:43:00.000+05:30

I was bit by this in Anna Univ.. escaped it when I wrote the JEE.. (yes the reservation for SC/ST's did exist.. about 22% ..but unfortunately..or fortunately.. not many came..atleast that's as far as I know ) Now... for OBC's.. BC's.. the figure rising to a staggering 50 % and what's worse.. from what I see in the media.. caste based reservation for Profs..!!!!!!! Gosh..!!!!! .. does Arjun Singh have anything inside his brain.. or is it all just mud.. or is he being compelled..Don't they like anything good surviving for some time.. Arey IIT's are not Oceans.. where you put any kind of junk.. and it'll still not make a difference..Even Oceans will react after some limit... See Prof. P.V.Indiresan reacting here. A TOI post here.. whoever wrote it.. and this is the most frightening.. it says the law could have been modified to accomodate the reservations the upcoming academic year itself.. An recent IBN Live post here.. Reader speak at IBN LIVE - here and here I accept again.. large scale politics and economics still doesn't make sense to me.. I'll never be able to understand the basic requirement for reservations.. and probably it does make sense on such a large scale and is helping people out there.. but my personal experiences have been otherwise..Most of whom I have met from the these castes have never shown an interest in Academics.. (not to mention many from my own..so am not differentiating or discriminating anybody here) So my whole point is make it just merit based.. and as some body pointed it out in IBN Reader speak.. spend the very same money that the government plans to spend here on improving infrastructure in the primary and secondary levels. I personally feel the basic difference between the IIT's and the other colleges.. is it's faculty and students.. basically the people who run it. The moment you spoil that.. the quality is sure to come down.. already the faculty are complaining as to the reduction in the quality of students who are being admitted.. we are all exam trained.. have absolutely no interest in Academics.. (except for a select few. and I just hope I am one of them) and want to get work done without putting in effort.. which is equivalent to violating the second law of thermodynamics.. just not possible boss..etc etc etc.. and I feel many of these arguments are valid.. you can't expect them to teach some body who is not interested in learning .. And here in IIT Madras.. gult gumbals, tam gumbals, northie gumbals are already taking shape.. though there is some cross interaction.. these gumbals are beginning to affect our lives more deeply.. be it the politics of student elections.. or the ever popular Shaastra and Saarang Core and Co-ordships.. This will only add to the fire.. and it's very easy for a politician to catch up to this discrimination which is bound to happen some where or the other.(no system is perfect).. and make a big hue out of this. And finally.. if Prof. P.V.Indiresan feels reservations are not correct.. then I feel happy that my view is not likely to be wrong.. though the reasons given may be different or outright foolish.. !!!!!

Some cartoons that I liked in the Hindu

2006-04-01T08:42:00.000+05:30

Two of the cartoons that I liked in the Cartoonscape section of The Hindu.. The list is very short because I don't read it everyday.. infact rarely.. This one was on the state of the members in the LS and RS !! http://www.hindu.com/2006/03/18/stories/2006031899991200.htm And this was todays cartoon on the Nuclear Deal and the US Law makers trying to change the course.. !! Dunno if really represents the situation.. but this was just too good. http://www.hindu.com/2006/04/01/stories/2006040199991000.htm And talking of cartoons.. I am reminded of this particular one.. though it's not a cartoon.. Aswin introduced me to this site bushcalendar.com ..It's a series of famous (or infamous as you may like to call it ) statements made by bush during his term.. They are available as a calendar (infact there are apparently 7 of them) and can be purchased... so that you can wake up daily to one of those quotes..Those quotes.(No I seriously mean it .. they don't deserve any lower status) !!. ha ha (sorry still can't stop laughing !!) simply too good..(LOL !! The best one is on the front page) Don't miss the opprtunity to go through the sample pages whenever possible..

Koramangala and Kizhkattalai.. some comparisons

2006-03-30T13:09:00.000+05:30

IBNLive : Bangalore: A city united in its woes This is getting interesting.. I am using this set of articles by CNN-IBN to write my observations of similarities that exist between Koramangala and similar places in Chennai itself. I have myself visited this area (Koramangala).. and I very much agree that this is much more posh and hi-funda compared to the other areas that I visited in Bangalore. And more importantly .. it's the area that generates so much income by virtue of Sofware exports that it will figure prominently even on the National Map because of it's ability to earn foreign exchange. Take similar areas in Chennai.. say the Industrial Estate in Guindy.. or even better.. the Industrial Estate in Kizhkattalai (dunno if some body would have even heard of it.. but that's where my Father's factory is..) And it's a better case because I know what happens there directly. One might wonder what's the connection between Koramangala and such industrial estates.. But I feel that even though their scales are not even comparable, their contribution to the Indian Economy is much the same in principle.. But take their downsides..The roads are downright bad.... I have seen better ones in some odd village in Erode..Now if that area is an industrial estate.. just imagine the revenue that the government gets out of it.. (even after the owners devise all ways to evade taxes)..and not to forget the officials' dealings under the table !! .. I feel it's enough to give the area back atleast a road..one good road.. And won't this move actually improve the area and attract more investment.. One might argue that the job of the goverment is to be a nonlinear system.. taking from one place and giving it to other places so that other places develop equally well.. I am very naive in this aspect of large scale economics and have given up trying to understand them anywhere in the near future.. but what I am saying, I feel, is just basic common sense in Business..My Father cries for every paise of tax that he pays .. not because he loses his hard earned money ( and I mean it ..I know how much my Father sweats it out for the money that he earns) but because he doesn't even get basic facilities in return. And the owners have every right to demand better facilities.. Forget the owners crying for all this.. Let's see things from the point of view of officials.. The officials have every reason to do this (giving better facilities to these people) because these industries have massive growth potential..since they are still in their infancy. A simple facility like a good road.. might for all you know double the economic output or even better..start off a few more companies in that area.. (and on the lighter side.. though it's a serious issue.. increase the value of the "under the table dealings" as well..!!!!!) I urge the officials to think BIG !! and MORE IMPORTANTLY THE OWNERS OF SUCH INDUSTRIES TO USE THEIR MUSCLE (what ever little that they have) TO ACCELERATE DEVELOPMENT BOTH IN THEIR INTEREST AND OTHERS.

IBNLive : IAF Jaguar packs more firepower

2006-03-28T18:35:00.000+05:30

IBNLive : IAF Jaguar packs more firepower Am I becoming some brand ambassador for CNN-IBN..? Well I myself don't know..? It's feed is continously flashing on my desktop.. and hence the recent spate of blogs on it's articles.. These guys are very good at creating great hypes out of nothing.. Is another pilot in the back seat going to create so much of a difference.. so that it'll strike the fear Of God and the Air Force in the heart of the enemy. Fine I accept it does make a huge difference.. but all this is definetely too much... I used to enjoy these Discovery channel programs on airplanes...There'll be some stud level background music ... something like dudduddudddudd....and then "THE F117 Night Hawk" and then the presenter will talk as if that all the other planes are nothing compared to that.. and then the same thing about the next airplane as well.. But now .. after 3 years in the Aerospace dept.. and more importantly.. 3 months of elementary aircraft design..it seems so surprising and what's more .. funny ..that I really watched these programs.. Well now one can understand the difference between a 10 year old wanting to emulate A.P.J.Abdul Kalam and somebody like me trying to do so.. I guess.. I'll never get excited about these things the way I used to .. In one way I feel happy that I have progressed in that aspect.. and who knows .. I may even achive more.. but I really miss those days... when such trivial things used to excite me a lot. (after reading the article I felt that there was very little coherence in my post.. but who cares)

IBNLive : B'lore highway to success jammed

2006-03-27T12:41:00.000+05:30

IBNLive : B'lore highway to success jammed Atleast some of this is what I experienced at Bangalore last May. Starting at 6.30 am in the morning to avoid the rush.. and one day I got delayed by 1.5 hours (making my journey time twice as much) just because I started half an hour late. Of course they suggest Public transport.. but that was the entire problem for me. The Buses were very good... (I mean relatively new).. but their schedule was horrible.. esp on my route.. you miss one and then wait for hours on end to get the next one. My observation was that Bangalore doesn't really need those high funda bus stands that it currently has..!!!!!!! (atleast within the city!!!!!!!).. the buses move at a snails pace..!!!!! and the passengers would be much better off getting down wherever they want.. !!!!!!!! (just kidding.. but the bus stands there are much better organized than here in Chennai.. although the service is uncomparable.. (Chennai will win hands down) And it did rain quite a bit during my stay there.. and those days were the worst.. I took a terrible 5 hours to reach home that day.. starting at 4 pm and reaching home at 9.00 pm.. whoah.!!!! I still have that day's ticket in my pocket.. !!! what an experience that was.. !!!!

IBNLive : Boring chat? Excuse is an SMS away

2006-03-21T17:47:00.000+05:30

IBNLive : Boring chat? Excuse is an SMS away Very clever indeed.. but aren't we degrading ourselves by doing such things.. trying to make something that should be directly told in the face like this.. and worse.. all in the name of innovation Never mind.. I'll never understand the need for such things (if they do exist) unless I come to such situtations..Today.. I would rather prefer to say straight in the face and come out.. (accepted.. easier said than done)

Indifference and Lack of interest in Academics

2006-03-11T11:51:00.000+05:30

I see many an example of this happening around me. Infact more of this rather than not (atleast that's what I infer from what I see). An indifference towards academics. Whenever one sees a person reading more than what has been taught in the class or something totally unrelated to any of the courses he/she's taking, the first question that pops up is invariably.."Putting enthu..eh!" or "Project work..???? under whom da ??" or "Why are you unnecessarily putting fight da ?? What's the point ?? ". The last question will come up if the answer to the 2nd qn is negative. Seriously let me ask you one thing...do you chat with friends in a gumbal to practise for a GD in an interview.. (if you do.. then something's seriously wrong.. I suggest you had better visit a psychiatrist !!!).. Isn't it for one obvious reason.... FUN .. Why do everybody forget this when it comes to Acads.. Can't reading anything related to Acads be fun.. ??? Why not.. ??? Why do everybody consider Acads and fun "ends apart"... I sometimes get irked by this.. I know it's the Academic system to blame.. I can tell you that I myself don't know where I would have landed up.. if it had not been hammered into my head that IIT is the place in the world to be.. infact so much so that .. even after they (mean my parents) had given up after my failure in my first attempt to get in.. I didn't ... Most people land up here because of such hammering and not because of an real interest in sciences or engineering.. I accept it's tough to get an interest in these fields when you don't have an exposure to it before you come here... But my humble request to those who don't find this (academics) interesting is that... Please don't deter and demean others' interests.. esp hard found ones..I mean people jump over so many things before they find something like "Love at first sight"

Kannthil Muthamittal

2006-02-26T20:48:00.000+05:30

Another one of those Mani Ratnam .. do I say classics.. Everybody played their part well.. but what I liked the most was the story and of course Simran. Never seen her act better.

Cycling alone on the road at 12.00 midnight

2006-02-14T00:25:00.000+05:30

Ever cycled alone or with somebody at 12.00 midnight with the cold air blowing at your face.. Played football at that time.. Stayed up till 5 am on the terrace trying to capture Saturn using your Webcam.... Might sound weird to many.. but the first in the above list is something that I get to do every now and then when returning from the Library... and the others not so often (would love to) but yes.. atleast once... Was just wondering.. how many people get to enjoy such things ??? Whoah I am just enjoying my life here at IIT Madras !!!

Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics

2006-02-14T00:03:00.000+05:30

The first article of this particular yearly Journal or Book (call it whatever you want) is usually on a historical note.. say the life of a great guy in Fluid Mechanics or some institution.. Some times the amount of work done by some people is so much that their works are reviewed in the form of a series...(e.g G.I.Taylor) This particular thing in the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics just attracted my attention.. I was just browsing through all the issues in my Library looking for review articles on Turbulence for my term paper.. when I hit upon this.. This is likely to keep me occupied for quite some time...

Mani Ratnam

2006-01-29T10:25:00.000+05:30

A Gem of Director.. A got a penchant for watching more Tamil movies (esp. romantic ones) last december.. and thats' when I saw Alaipayuthae for the first time.. I just fell in love with that movie. I watched Ayutha Ezhuthu again.. and then many other movies... I recently saw Iruvar and Mouna Ragam again.. and was wondering why I like all these movies.. But it was only recently (today) that I realised that all these movies were made by the same director.. MANI RATNAM I really feel ashamed to know this so so.. early.. but I guess it's OK. And Agni Natchathiram .. another movie that I liked very much... again.. Mani Ratnam.. Hats Off to this Director.. whose Nayagan got listed among the top 100 movies of the century by the TIME Magazine..no wonder..

Saarang - Day 2

2006-01-26T23:00:00.000+05:30

Saarang Day 2 was great..

The morning events passed by without much notice.. (Sadly.. no participation.) I watched the Light Music Solo event for some time.. My friend Kumar was participating and sang the song "Ae Ajnabee" from Dil Se. One girl sang "Suttum Vizhi Chudar thaan.. Kannamma.." from Kandukondaen.. that was brilliant. Even Kumar appreciated it. Then I visited the Classical Music Instrumental.. Most of them played the Violin.. Then ofcourse "Jam".. it was fun at the beginning but became boring later on.. it's called Jam... but junta don't allow others to talk even for 10s continuously.. Then I went to watch the extempore finals in the evening.. I still can't stop laughing.. But the Shankar Ehsaan Loy show more than made up for all these.. It was partying all the way.. I still feel dizzy an hour after the show.. We hardly sat on the ground.. He made us rock till the end.. Mahalakshmi Iyer dazzled us (atleast me) with her voice.. Amazing.. the way she took her voice to very high levels.. Shrinivas came in for a cameo.. Overall as I said.. I still feel dizzy..

Saarang - 2006

2006-01-25T17:56:00.000+05:30

I was very much against Saarang at the same time last year.. But now my views seem to have changed quite a bit.. Of course I wouldn't spend all my time.. arrange stuff and get Saarang going. (shame on me to say this staying in IIT Madras) Instead this year I have decided to enjoy it just as any guy with a 4 day holiday break.. Now that is great isn't it.. The first day in Saarang..

I participated in Creative writing thanks to Kumar
I visited debate prelims.. nothing much.. just saw the topics..
Stayed in the Classical Music Vocal Solo area for the rest of the time.. Listened to many of my own friends for the first time.. My already existing interest (or rather wish I should say) in learning the Mirudangam was strengthened..
Chalked out the plan for the next couple of days.. (Photography workshop esp..)

Mahab's visit

2006-01-22T15:21:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I had gone to Mahabalipuram along with my friends Aswin, Arun and Dr.Suresh. The purpose of the visit was simple, to go to darker skies for Astonomy observations. Dr.Suresh had a 10" Meade Schmidt Cassegraine Telescope and a 8MPX Digi Canon SLR, a Philips ToUcam (webcam) and a laptop... and more important of all.. a resort in Mahabalipuram (one of his relatives owns it).. We went in a Tata Estate from here. Reached there by around 9.30 pm after having dinner. On the way we could see more and more stars (i.e the sky getting better) as we travelled every km. The Orion - Sirius region looked brilliant even through the car window. Then it took us around one and a half hours to get the scope in action (Aligning the telesope became a problem). We started off at 11.00 pm thinking we have atleast 2 full hours before the moon rises. Unfortunately it was not to be so and the FOG played spoilsport. The corrector plate of the Telescope was full of dew in less than 30 minutes. And then Arun came with the idea of using the powerful lamp that Dr.Suresh had to heat up the dew. We had partial success in that. Then Dr.Suresh got some tissue paper and cleaned the plate. But it was never at it's best. A lesson to learn I guess... Then we tried many objects. We tried seeing arbitrary open clusters using the scope's goto and both Aswin and Arun got a taste of what I got the other day at Dr.Suresh's home (7-8 clusters in less than 4 minutes.. impossible by any means in a telescope without a goto). We tried a lot to catch atleast one globular, but in vain (hey.. the sky was so brilliant that the Orion Nebula looked like a very Dense Globular through the "30 x 60" Bino that we had). Coming to galaxies.. we tried the Leo Triplet in vain. The best (and the only one) that we saw was M81 (a galaxy that we put a lot of fight to see through our telescopes but in vain) But the dew settled again. Now we were sort of starting to give up. Time was already 1.30 am. The moon was well up and DSO's (Deep Sky Objects) were out of the question. Dr.Suresh said we'll give a try at Webcam imaging of Saturn. So we tried. And we did get a good image (stacked later). Time was around 2.15 am now. Then in about five minutes the FOG became very intense. The visibility came down to less than about 10m very fast. We decided "THAT'S IT". We could have come prepared for the dew, but defy not for this kind of fog. This was way beyond any precautions that could have been taken. (My 5MPX Nikon Digicam couldn't take pics properly because the lens was getting covered with water). We had to give up our dream of a solo pic of each of us with the scope. We packed up and went to our room. After going to the room we decided to stack up the images and see how our only good work of the night looked like. The comp was hanging hajaar and after some time of fundaes putting by Arun and Dr.Suresh we gave up on that too. Leaving Dr.Suresh in the room we decided to pay a visit to the beach. The resort was on the shore. After about 30 minutes of Photo session (I would rate it amongst the best of the times that I spent there.. We really got some good pics) amongst us we came back and slept at around 4.30 am. We got up in the morning at about 9.00 am. It was good to see the resort in daylight. A complete contrast. It looked really beautiful. We had our breakfast by the shore (first time experience for me). Then we packed our bags and left for Chennai. Overall it was a very memorable experience. But I would like to go there again some time with better preparation against this damned dew and do some good astrophotography.

Management jobs

2005-12-27T19:21:00.002+05:30

Something that I don't like about Management jobs and people who do such jobs. You can't fix a Hi-Funda name for every trivial thing that you do. It's not you can't, but sounds idiotic to me.

Bibtex

2005-12-09T16:50:00.000+05:30

This seems to be a very good database for maintaining a record of the papers that one has read. I can introduce addtitional fields without disturbing the way in which the references will be displayed in Latex. I am only about 40-45 papers old, and I am already feeling a need for such a thing. I just don't understand how my profs work without this. Mama (my prof) said he used to attach notes to the papers using Gem-clips. But in this era, where one cannot afford to print all papers, this is surely necessary. I have written a small one liner in awk to convert the citations from given format of comma separated values to the bibtex format. (Has a lot of problems for instance the code wont work when multiple authors are separated by commas) awk 'BEGIN {FS="," ; RS="\n" ; x = 1} ; {print "@article{"x","} { print "title = {"$1"}," } {print "author = {"$2 " },"} {print "journal = {"$3" },"} {print "volume = {"$4" },"} {print "number = {"$5 "}," } {print "year = {"$6 " },"} {print "pages = {"$7 "}," } {print "}"} {x = x + 1} ' file.txt >> output_file.bib

All I can say is this works. It may look very untidy at the moment. You can change the Field splitter, Record splitter. You can change the order in which the entries appear. And ya most important of all, you can change the order in which the entries are read from the file. This is the most uselful part since all the citations from a particular source look the same. All you need to do is get the citations from that particular source as a text file and then allow awk to work on it after suitable modifications of the above code. The keys are numbered numerically from 1 to the last entry. You can (rather should) rename it later.

There are softwares like Pybliographer, Kbibtex, Jabref (Java based for Windows users) which can be used to update the database, write notes on selected papers for future reference, link them to the pdf's that you have for immediate reference, and most important of all export your references in formats like pdf, html, xml and so on

Springer and it's Book Series

2005-11-13T09:44:00.000+05:30

Springer Verlag or Springer is undoubtedly the best publishing house that I have seen so far, atleast as regards Engineering and Applied Mathematics. It's just too good. I look at any "Yellow" book now a days with a lot of respect. One nice concept that they have is the concept of a "Series" on a given topic. A casual search on the series with the keyword "Computational" yielded me 56 series, 2230 books& CD-ROMS and around 107 journals. Of course I am interested only in CFD for the moment. So I have "bookmarked" only the relevant books as I considered it. My bookmarks.html is available in my website. Springer Series in Compuational Physics Springer Series in Computational Mathematics The above series are my favourites. However a large number of issues seem to be missing from the first one. (infact only the two volumes by Flectcher are listed there) The famous book by Canuto, Hussaini et al on "Spectral methods in Fluid Dynamics" belonged to this series. Another blog on some of the other books in the other field that I am interested in "Asymptotics and Boundary Layer theory" later.

Life at IIT

2005-10-21T14:35:00.000+05:30

This is in reply to a discussion at Nanopolitan. Nope, IIT is not like school. It's not about being regular to class, taking down notes and all that stuff. It's about discovering your true area of interest. Not all (infact I can confidently say most) join Computer Science Engg or Electical Engg because they love it. You have an exposure to so many new areas. I am a student of Aerospace Enng at IIT Madras and apart from Aerospace I am also interested in Control Theory, Digital systems, Analog circuits, Operations Research, Listening to physics lectures from my friend Aswin on General Relativity, Cosmology, Quantum mechanics and anything related to physics, Differential Equations and Asymptotic analysis in Mathematics, Astronomy (infact we have an active Astronomy club) Open Source Software (yes I run Debian GNU Linux on my computer), Politics and the list goes on. All this just for the fun of it. This is one place where you have academic freedom like no other place. No worries about your future. Read what you feel like reading. Your CGPA is not everything. People went on to do a Ph.D in Political Sciences after doing their B.Tech in Metallurgical Engineering from here. Many people get into Physics, Management, IT, Economics etc. It's all about discovering your true area of interest. Some people miss that opportunity and realise it later.

Test for wardenship at IIT Madras

2005-09-10T14:36:00.000+05:30

http://www.iitmadras.org/corner/2005/sep07/ Prof. Devendra Jalihal seems to be an interesting character. I am not able to stop laughing, seeing his "options" even after reading them over and over again. Godavari must be really gifted to have such a warden. Not that my warden Prof. G.Srinivasan is bad. He is really good. But I haven't seen him crack jokes like this.

The Indian Education system

2005-09-09T17:36:00.000+05:30

It is nothing short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiousity of inquiry; for what this delicate little plant needs more than anything, besides stimulation, is freedom. -- Einstein Well that may not have been said by Einstein, but it doesn't matter. I have always had a problem with these articles on the current education system. One guy in his article would point out the problems and faults that it has. The other guy would say how his daughter went through the stress before and after her X th board exams. What's the point in saying "Ya, there's a problem" all the time. Of late the articles turned to giving suggestions. But even them, they weren't concrete. Initially I liked reading such articles. Then I got bored. It is just like Politics you know. Saying the same thing in a million different ways. What does Bush do today. Keeps saying terrorism everywhere he goes. I formed the impression that nothing is going to change, atleast in the near future. My idea is that, the current system of education is basically to enhance literacy. No more. This system is not structured in such a way that an artist or a designer or a historian or a journalist would stand out in a crowd. And ya may be mathematicians would stand out, but even that is a rarity. Seriously I don't see any other reason why I am in IIT. That I got really interested in Aerospace is another matter, but with a good system of education who knows what I would be doing now. So it isn't worth much more than helping you develop rote memory. Though education boards are trying to change it, there seems to be a lot of inertia. The problem will obviously not be with the students, but with the teachers. I recently learnt that Kerala has introduced a radically new system of education at the primary level. The following articles are pretty good. Though the one by the CPI(M) may have political aims, it's pretty good otherwise. http://www.flonnet.com/fl1615/16150880.htm http://www.indiatogether.org/2004/may/edu-grading.htm http://www.pr.com/press-release/1128 I never thought it would come so soon. Though detecting artists, designers, historians, journalists may still be difficult, this is a welcome change.

"Is this going to work? You are supposed to teach 20 to 25 children and there is double that number in my class. I am over 40, and they expect me to play 'aana' (elephant) and the 'frog in the puddle' before a group of second standard children!"

- Teacher to headmistress at a government primary school, in the presence of this correspondent.

But such statements fighten me. I just hope the teachers don't ensure that poor results are the outcome to change back to the old system. And that the system goes through the initial inertia it might face.

General notion of the US in Indian households

2005-09-07T19:46:00.000+05:30

My mother told me that my friend, who is an year senior to me, had gone to the US very recently to pursue higher studies. It seems that his mother told my mother that he did not study as "hard" as I did during his +1 and +2, but still ended up going to the US, and hence I need not have studied "hard". This shows that the notion in her mind is that going to US is the ultimate aim of every student and that if you are able to achieve it by simpler means then it is not worth putting in more effort. It was a similar response that I recieved my from my mother's elder sister, having "sent" both her sons to the US, when she came to know that I got an admission in IIT Madras. Even more aggressive was the response when I told her that me going to the US or any other country would depend on the field that I am going to specialise in and that if there are good professors in India who can guide me further in that field in Universities that have the required facilities, then the US or any other country would only be a secondary option for me. By saying this I presume that the very reason any body wants to pursue higher studies in the US, should be because there are not many colleges and Universities in India that can boast of facilities that are comparable to the ones that US Universities have in their field. There is nothing wrong in going abroad for higher studies if you stand to gain by education there and you help either "SCIENCE" or "INDIA" grow by doing it. My friend TJ's comments on this is another way of looking at it (will link it in another few days). But "Going to the US" should defy not be anybody's ultimate aim. This mindset of my friend's mother is, I think, prevalent among the majority of the population who's sons or daughters are in that age group. (The point is that I was awake on one particular night till about 2 a.m or so and his mother saw me "studying" through the window, and that's it, my mother was considered to be forcing me to study at odd times and that she was "torturing" me. Little did she realise that I was doing nothing more than writing an assignment to be submitted the next day at school and that I had slept for three hours as soon as I came from school)

Archanas at temples - Status show off or Belief in God

2005-09-07T18:57:00.000+05:30

I some how feel the Archanas in the Temples today are more of a status (mostly economic) show-off, rather than belief in God. I am not debating about whether God exists or not. Whenever I go to temples (which is a rarity and so my entire statement may be wrong) , I find that the talk among women is mostly about what sarees they wore or what necklaces they wear, and among men it is about where their son or daughter has gone for higher studies or their place of work. What is more important is people talking at home about the kind of "Archanas" or "Vadamala sevai's" that the other family did and that they should also do it as soon as possible. I have overheard this in many families (atleast ten including my own). And I live in Nanganallur, which is regarded as a temple town. Is this is a status-show off or are people foolish enough to believe that they are serving "God" by doing such things. And your status in temples is judged by the amount which you tip the pujari there everytime. It is generally in the hotels that we hear of such things. Not many actually notice these things. This brings into light another question. By how many percentage points can literacy in India be increased if money spent on such things, is inturn spent on sponsoring a child's education. I say that the money can go through all corruption, bribery and all that stuff and still literacy in India can be imporoved by fifty percent.

The Hindu : Metro Plus Chennai : Small acts of blindness

2005-09-05T11:52:00.000+05:30

http://www.hindu.com/mp/2005/09/05/stories/2005090500250100.htm This article really brings out the daily acts of kindness which are well within our reach but what we fail to do. This is true atleast with me. I realised that I don't know the name of my Security and the guy who delivers my Newspaper. I had better find that out soon.

India needs energy, and the US

2005-09-03T18:34:00.000+05:30

http://www.rediff.com/news/2005/sep/02sg.htm A very good article. I find it amusing that when the country is ridden with so many internal problems of Caste, Religion, Corruption, Literacy the higher officials find time to actually go behind strategic interests in the region. I am not saying that what they are doing is wrong, but that they are doing a great job. It is difficult to do a good job of both at the same time. But afterall that is what stragetists and diplomats are meant to do. I would be very happy if they just brushed aside the US warnings and cared only about security of the gasline in Pakistan. It wouldn't be a very good policy to follow this, but still I have my own "hopes"

India mocks at the US

2005-09-03T18:18:00.000+05:30

However others might consider, I see it that India is mocking at the US by pledging $5mn dollars to the US Red Cross reilef. Way to go India!!!!!!!!!! http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/sep/03katrina.htm On the other hand the same money could have spent wisely on Primary Education and all the other pressing concerns of India.

How to establish a scientific theory

2005-09-01T10:38:00.000+05:30

I found this interesting blog on the above topic. http://chutneyspears.blogspot.com/2005/08/how-to-establish-scientific-theory.html An interesting read.

Line up at IIT, entrance exam to get simpler - The Economic Times

2005-08-28T10:39:00.000+05:30

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1211896,curpg-2.cms This is real bad stuff. I guess the media is just hyping up the actual scene. Nobody would like to see the standards of IIT's to be reduced. They could base it on 12th syllabus, but still make it tough. I don't understand the problem with the current setup. May be the poor aren't able to compete due to this unfair competition. Whatever move the Govt makes, let it be a wise one.

Chaltha Hai Attitude and India's development

2005-08-15T19:47:00.000+05:30

This is in response (Not a reply, but I was enthused to write this by seeing his blog) to my friend Kumar's post on the ways in which an Indian citizen can help his/her coutry. The educated people have a lot more responsibility on their shoulders as compared to the illiterate ones. Those belonging to the former category should lose this "Chaltha Hai" attitude and those belonging to the latter should switch over the former category. The concepts of compassion and mercy should be thrown away when it comes to business. This is the main reason India is found lacking when it comes to quality. The idea to excel in whatever you do and always want the best must be developed in every individual. When I call up my cable operator that my cable is cut, he just replies, "Yes, It has been cut, What can we do?" The newspaper guy "Sir, I had some personal problems. This will not happen on most days, But I cannot assure you that it won't happen" . And my parents tell me "That's how it'll be. What can he do , Paavam" It is this Paavam attitude that I want people to get rid of when it comes to business. How do I care if he falls into a pit while delivering newspaper or while repairing the cable. All that I know is I pay him some amount for doing something, and that he should do it. That's all. That's the way it should be ideally (that's according to me). It's a similar story in the govt organizations. So, people do not take up responsibilities. Whether it comes to keeping your time, delivering newspaper, or whatever. I have heard that doctors abroad have a lot of responsibility when it comes to the treatment of their patients. Just one misjudgement and their career as a doctor is gone. To give an example that India is indeed changing in this direction is the Airtel ad that I saw recently. You don't get your phone repaired within four hours of registering your complaint, you pay a 100 bucks less in your next bill. May have a lot of clauses, but still this seems to be the right direction in which India will have to move to achieve it's dream of being a developed nation. For our elders, Indian products have always been inferior when compared to "foreign goods". Precisely the reason why one can see so many "Foreign goods" shops here. They are apparently never out of business. This frame of mind has carried over to the later generations as well. Such a frame of mind is bad, but it didn't have any repurcussions as long as our country's economy was protected. In todays world of open markets (unless you have the power to dictate terms and remain a closed economy), one has to match world standards when it comes to quality to even be in the race for the top. Otherwise you simply DIE. That's it. The law of nature "survival of the fittest" holds here. The "Chaltha Hai" attitude again comes to the Foray here. Quality is not delivered because it is not expected. Tell me a customer who demands a car that runs for 50 years without any problems. The marketing manager will just ridicule you if you ask him this. It is not that such cars do not exist (e.g Mercedes Benz). Such quality is just not expected and hence not delivered. My view is that only when concepts like "Customer is the King" "Quality and then Price" come into business and the "Chaltha Hai" attitude is totally abolished will India realise it's dream. These are apart from the things that my friend put in like abolition of religion and religion based prejudices etc.

IIT Madras, Saarang and TRASH

2005-08-15T19:36:00.000+05:30

My views on Saarang were amply reflected in today's article in the Hindu regarding how much of trash it generates. 3.5 tonnes!!!!!!!!!!!!. Read the entire article here. http://www.hindu.com/2005/08/15/stories/2005081515770500.htm I know it is shameful to talk such things about my own institute, but really can't help it.

India - US Nuclear deal

2005-08-12T12:22:00.000+05:30

I found these Rediff articles particularly good. They are interviews of Former Deputy NSA Satish Chandra. The US has not fully delivered - http://www.rediff.com/news/2005/aug/11inter1.htm World doesn't know how many bombs we have - http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/aug/12inter1.htm I am very bad at remembering names. Let's see if I start to remember a few of these names by blogging.

Astrology and Science

2005-08-11T19:16:00.000+05:30

Tell me one theory in Science where the exact logic behind it is fully known. Right from our birth we go through various stages where we learn various theories. We satisfy ourselves by saying that we have understood the logic behind it. But if we keep questioning some points in that theory then it boils down to saying that "That is a fact" and there is no more explanation. So basically, we evolve through various degrees of logic before we finally come to a stand still and then there is no more explanation. We stand to accept that as a fact (atleast for a period of time until some one digs deeper) Astrology is not much different. My friend Aswin says that the astrologers use very old data. Accepted, their data is outdated. Let their predictions be wrong. So that means that, the usage of the same methods today is wrong. But how can that totally refute the very basics of Astrology. And one more thing, people didn't make laws for astrology and then leave it there. That too was developed as a Science. The conventions were different those days and everything was referred to as a "God". There were people who constantly worked on it increasing it's predictive capabilities. They didn't sit dumb. By they I refer to the various scholars of the yesteryears. Astrology didn't develop in India alone. The science simultaneously and independently (or so I know) developed elsewhere as well. But the principles of prediction are so similar. How do we account for that. I learnt some principles of Astrology without questioning it's fundamentals. I was wrong in that. But there is so much of Science and Mathematics in it. The age-old principle of teaching was "You believe what the Teacher says, then you question it and learn more" or so I believe. The principles of Prediction are so vague and loose that it is not correct to base the predictions on only one factor. You can't relate predictions to one or even a hundred factors and get some statistical data from it saying "this is no better than chance" I wouldn't read or believe any of those. When you question those principles it is equivalent to questioning a Physicist "What do you think is the grand Unfied theory today?" Today's Science is not enough to check the validity of astrological predictions. That doesn't mean that you don't question it. But the fact remains that you can't get answers which is so for many scientific problems. Another point that I would like to make is about those weekly daily or yearly predictions. I really tell you. That is just not Astrology. Stop quoting them as examples where Astrology has failed. Today, Astrology has gone into the hands of wrong people and they are exploiting it to their benefits. Say there are 12 Billion people on earth. How can a billion people have the same predictions. Just doesn't make sense. All these sciences or so called "sciences" of astrology, Vaasthu Shaastra and so many more are as far as we know very very vague. As far as I believe we are not able to accept it because of the circumstances under which we have grown. I am not able to answer anybody who at the end of a very long fight asks me "O.K tell me one guy who always predicts correctly" There are no Astrologers like Physicists or Mathematicians. That, there is so much of Science in Astrology or that it developed simultaneoulsy elsewhere or that the principles are similar doesn't answer the question. But we must accept the fact that we do not know much about it, and unless somebody comes to know more about it, we (who don't know anything) shouldn't comment on it's capabilities.