29 December 2007

Still and Chill

Alps from my Window

It was a very clear day after so many gloomy-foggy days. Alps, which is 80 miles from Munich was visible from my room. StillAfter so many days, today even the temperature was high - zero degree Celsius.

 

It was not just clear, everything was very stand-still too. The smoke was just staying around the chimneys from where it came. (not very clear in the picture). Actually, the silence and stillness made it look like a horror movie!

My day was just ordinary - nothing special. I am not at all in a mood to blog now. Still, two words before I leave.

 

 

Reading - one of the best things one can do to make time worthwhile. When I was at IIT, just in the beginning of second year, we used to go to the lab in the morning, then come back in the evening - without doing anything productive at all. As I was talking about this, a friend (Guru) told me - "dude, just make it a habit to be in the lab. People like us will be soon bored of wasting time. Then we will start doing something creative".

Similarly, you cannot always read _only_the_best_ stuff. But let reading be a habit of yours. Every now and then you will be reading wonderful stuff - the stuff which counts.

By the way, last week, I found myself reading "Harry Potter". I enjoyed it really well. Harry Potter was something which I had always deliberately avoided - thinking that it would be a waste of time. It wasn't. After all, it would be named a classic-series for children by the time I have grand children. Wouldn't it look too bad if I have to tell my grandchildren that I haven't read it? ;)

I haven't finished the series though - that would take quite some time. Eight more days to go before university re-opens. Before that, I have more important things than Harry Potter.

Wishing you all a very happy new year!

Signing off, Sands.

22 December 2007

Hungry

What I wrote in my last post actually cuts much more deep that I initially thought. Yeah, it ought to be - otherwise anyone could simply have solved it much earlier, right? So, I'll be anyway working on it until I have a clear cut answer.

Now the problem is something else -- I am hungry. I had a Bauguette (some long bread) with some butter and herb-sauce only at 4 in the evening.


After that, at 8:00, I had rasam and rice (from one glass un-cooked rice). I had all of it.

At 10:00 I was again hungry - I had 3 pieces of bread - with quite a lot of cheese and jam. Why am I still hungry?

I am not sleepy either! Let me have some corn-flakes too - at midnight? Have some pottu-kadala too, also an apple which I kept for tomorrow's breakfast! 

It's a known fact that I am an above average hungry person. But this is rare!

Signing off, Sands.

  1. Bauguette - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baguette
  2. My mother's  fast rasam recipe -- Rasam.pdf

~

12 December 2007

Probably ...

I am excited. I think, I have a result - which could be ground-breaking! - It could be useless too - but that is what you call research. Anyway, I wish "If only it would be a solid result".

The result is still in theory -- but it looks really promising - Even my professor admits that.

It might not be that great too. All of that, now depends on the careful complexity analysis and also on the implementation/results.

Basically, it's going to keep me quite busy for sometime. at least, all of this year! The night outs are to continue.

Things to do

  1. Write down the algorithm - with all the details (write as in LaTeXing)
  2. Analyze the complexity (Document it too)
  3. Implement it
  4. Check for the results
  5. Be ready to take a bad news too

But I really hope to have a good result. Anyway waiting ... fingers crossed.

I'll let you people know ... as soon as I know.

Signing off, Sands.
Mood: Thrilled/Excited.

5 December 2007

Happy and Energetic

I feel quite happy today. I had a couple of night outs in the last few days. Quite a lot of stuff was done. Not just reading.. I did something.

Anyway, I have to draw energy from it. Should gain all the energy and turn it into lot more work.

By the way, Radio Dum Dum and Saarega are worth checking out - both are Online FMs. DumDum is playing in the background right now.

This coming month has half of the days holidays. I am going to make use of this time. There are a couple of classic CS books I have tried to read many times but never read properly/completely. I am planning to direct my attention towards them.

Today, in my class, I could explain them some cool stuff because I had read some of Concrete Mathematics. The same way, reading the classics would really help me out a lot.

So which are these books I want to read? -- mainly the books by Knuth -- Concrete Mathematics, All the three TAOCP (TAOCP - The Art Of Computer Programming)and the available fascicles of TAOCP-4, then the Book by Micheal Sipser.

I know, I cannot finish all these, but try my maximum -- that's it. Parallel to this, I want to read something else too - which is secret for the time being! Once I finish, I shall write here! :)

The other day, I was reading a little from the fascicles of TAOCP-4, I wouldn't claim that it was easy; but was not too difficult either! - That is giving me a little confidence!

That's all for now.
Signing off, Sands.

PS: Listen to Radiodumdum in the morning (IST), they play really good songs!

3 December 2007

A very narrow escape ... from??

I feel really relieved! I escaped from a pretty bad accident - if I had acted some 30 seconds late... I might have been in a hostpital (?) now!

I was outside. Walking against the howling wind itself was pretty hard. Speaking over phone against the howling of it was even more difficult.

There was a stopped DHL van. I thought of escaping from the wind for a moment... at least till I finish the conversation. I went and stood behind the van.

But before settling down there, I thought of the possibilities -- what if the driver takes the van in reverse? There was no chance he would see me. First I thought that I'll move a little further from the van so that I'll have amble time to move in case the van comes towards me. At the same time the wind wont beat me either.

Why to take chance? I moved away. Within seconds the driver came from the front side of the van and took it reverse. It was pretty fast too!

I was watching him: He actually didn't look whether the road is empty - it is always empty; not many vehicles come there!

Just when I saw that, I knew how narrow my escape was. I went and checked the van. It's ground clearance was really very less - that means...!! (Yeah, the clearance would have mattered only if I had escaped from the wheels!)

What did I think first? "Thanks to my father - who always takes care of all the minute details and from whom I've got a little bit of such thinking".

Then I thought, I shouldn't tell my mother anything about this! - anyway she'd read all this very soon and I can expect a pretty long advice - to be careful! :)

Busy day...! Signing off, Sands.

PS: What is with men and God_Father? Last day EVEN I advised a girl with some dialogues from God_Father!

PS2: Windows live writer is definitely worth trying! (Actually I'd stick to it now onwards - whenever I am blogging from Windows - Good bye to blogger interface!)

PS3: I already found out a bug though! (I was always good at testing!)