The world, how it works, surroundings, myself, etc.

Monday, December 13, 2004

CVIT party

It was CVIT party in the evening today. The venue was Indulge, Cyber
Pearl Building, Hi-tec city at Madhapur. It was organised by the CVIT
for the CVITians to celebrate the setup of the new sophisticated CVIT
lab. Though the new lab has been in place for about 5 months now, at
last, this party had been fixed after a long wait.

It was rather fun. First of all, all we people congregated and did what
technical people like us would do -- just stand! Slowly, the environment
started to become livelier with MNSSK Pavan in his characteristic
sarcastic and enthusiastic maneuver trying to jostle everyone around. He
had indeed been prepared with some chits, etc for Dumb Charades to which
we eventually moved on to after a few songs from some volunteers. The
Dumb Charades was the best part, as always is this game.



test 2

 

Saturday, November 06, 2004

Test blogging thru mail


Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
-- Albert Einstein.

Saturday, October 16, 2004

Last minute preparation.


Strange and singularly remarkable it is how work expands to fill the
time you have for it. In other words, given you have anything to do,
you'll keep postponing the work till the minute beyond which it can be
fatatl. And it is again at this oft-encountered do-or-die situation that
one makes a pledge to be more organized but the story goes on and on.

I have my Pattern Recognition (PR) test on Monday. Though I did attend
the classes, at least one read of the book is the least that is
expected, but I've not done even that till now. I've not been able to
flip one page of the book since morning. And yes, I'll go to the movie
screening tonight at the instt too.

Humans are funny. It's so interesting to observe the patterns. God knows
when we'll be able to express the patterns or at least be able to
differentiate the patters from one another so as to perform
classification of several things. Oops! Did I utter PR!
--

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Squirrelmail attachment: File corrupted and size getting increased (doubled): Actually PHP prob.

I spent a considerable amount of time before I could figure out the
solution to my Squirrelmail problem. My attachments were getting corrupted
for even slightly heavy files. Interestingly, the file size was getting
near to doubled.

Solution:

I hunted and figured out that it wasn't actually a squirrelmail problem in
the first place. The problem lies with Apache (it's a apache 2 bug)
I had to comment out the following lines from php.conf:
#<Files *.php>
# SetOutputFilter PHP
# SetInputFilter PHP
#</Files>

This following link helped:

http://codewalkers.com/archives/phphelp/123.html


I had already gone all nuts (not expected PHP to behave like this). This
solution was really a relief.



Friday, August 20, 2004

The Cat Who Fought.


Imagine a picture on a wall with a strong and determined cat murdering a big long snake. Its authority is questioned by a little girl who's answered by her Grandma.



Tired of playing the day long,
And bored of the oft heard princess song,
Alice put the picture's occupation at stake,
And demanded -- "This cat it slaughters the snake!"

To the picture on the wall her tiny fingers pointed,
The authority of the cat had she daunted,
"We don't want hatred far or near,
Why does this cruel cat hang here?"

Little Alice had struck a pragma,
As she questioned thus to her Grandma,
Who stood agape at her innocent thought,
Sure it was befitting what she sought.

Not that she despised the picture's air,
She just looked for an errand here or there,
On which to put the blame of her mind,
Suggested - "A dustbin the picture should find."

Grandma, having resolved to correct her activity,
Continued to bring out the cat's gravity,
Chose to disclose her through a song,
Of the fateful night when all went wrong.

"In your mother's arms you used to roll,
With chuckles and giggles answer here call,
Through her velvety locks your bright eyes shone,
No one denied you - you crowned the throne."

"In days to come, you learnt to talk,
They were afraid - you had learnt to walk.
Riding on curiosity, you'd set to motion,
Without your parents' slightest notion."

"They'd hunt around, have a tough time,
And teach you aloud - never cross the line.
With absolute innocence you'd nod your head,
And get outside - you'd have no thread."

"They were scared, had their plans sorted,
When long and huge, a snake had been spotted.
They devised early, a cat was brought
To keep you busy was all they sought."

"You played with the cat and looked content,
You took it withal wherever you went,
You didn't roam out for days indeed,
The plan had worked, your parents were pleased."

"Then came a night when the winds were cold,
You were playing and weren't on hold,
Your fancies took a dazzling turn,
When light at a distance you saw one burn."

"Your knees and hands carried you out,
There was no one to see you, no one to shout,
When you paddled your way and the stars shone,
You cat followed - you weren̢۪t alone!"

"The strong winds blew cold as ice,
The venture wasn't cheap - we pad a price!
Coz right where the out gate creeper hangs,
A big long coral snake carried its fangs."

"Innocent, excited, naive and blaze,
You crawled over doped in craze,
To where the reptile's nest lay,
You had wronged - one could only pray"

"But alert, seasoned, agile and deft,
Your strong cat attended you since the moment you had left.
And before any mischief dawned your head,
The long snake charged eyes all red."

"The snake ran fuming; you were its prey,
Erstwhile your cat had smelled the fray,
Made up his mind of however it be,
Would contest the poison till it flee."

"Thus flared up the clash and fierce it was,
As your cat pounced upon it under its claws,
But the fiend was long with hisses slipped,
And the friend was bit - it was whipped."

"With troubled motion the cat redid its hold,
Gobbled the snake's head - yes, it was bold.
The combat had caught your eye's gleam,
Frightened, alarmed, aloud did you scream."

"Before long, the song was sung,
A crowd gathered, the dead snake was sung,
The life of the girl had the cat cherished,
Fought till breath's last before it perished."

"The might was narrated over and again,
Of how the brave cat fought in the pain.
To tribute the courage against the hiss,
Was crafted this picture to hang where it is."

"In years to come your fiend looked at you,
From the picture on the wall you almost threw,
Sing of its bravery, not of malice,
Acknowledge its deeds - what do you say Alice?"

"True for sure I had a friend,
Whose selfless deeds I couldn't comprehend,
The picture must remain here and not be banked,
I love you, my friend," Alice thanked.


My poems at http://students.iiit.ac.in/~nirnimesh/myPoems.html


Purpose of studying something.

What is the purpose of studying something? Knowledge? Well, yes. To the
extent that one is able to absorb enough ability to
read/write/understand things in written, studying, as in schooling, is
quite necessary and vital too. However, isn't it that the ultimate aim
of all this is to be able to "apply". One learns algebra, for example.
But the reach of algebra does not settle down to passing an exam and
moving forward to the next class with another myridad set of such
subjects to be digested, studied for the exams and to be forgotten
later. Sure algebra must be taught, no say against it. However, the
perspective has to be more resulting. One needs to absorb the abstract
nature of how things work in that domain and apply it to another one to
result something.
Let's say one reads a research paper, puts in considerable amount of
effort, hard effort. But in due course of repeated studying of the
research paper, one's mind gets tuned to that paper, with the thinking
getting limited to the first and the last pages of the paper. Hence, one
should not overdo. In terms of Pattern Recognition systems, this could
be called overfitting in which the (PR) system learns just a bit too
much from the training data (the research paper in this case) and gets
too nicely suited to it that it fails to correctly classify novel inputs,
which actually was the aim in the first place.


Friday, August 06, 2004

My hostel mess.


Whoever named it, it for sure suits to a T. I was so so angry at my
hostel mess one day that I could not help writing a firing mail to the
administration. Well, things did happen after this. Situation didn't
remain that bad at least.


Here's what I wrote.

Dear Sir/Ma'm,

This is with regard to the newly installed OBH mess and related
state
of affairs. And please please don't regard it as just another
resentment.

This is not the first day for such thoughts but it's sure the last straw
for me. I try to summarize why:

- Some days ago, it was promptly declared (without prior notice)
that
the OBH mess would remain non-functional for 2 complete days. Hours
before the lunch time, we received notification saying that arrangements
had been made for all (around 800 of us!!) to have food in NBH, and most
would have to stand while they eat.
- I didn't have money, nor the inclination to go upto Indira Nagar
in
the outpouring rains at food time, on the 2 days.
- The caterer and mess had been changed and after paying well in
advance
our Rs 5000/- for the mess charges, we expected the mess to be a delight
(the music system, flower pots, and the curtains in the mess pointed to
it). However, what we instead got is a blow in the face.
- Mess has inadequate (rather, hardly sufficient) food. This was
at just
around 9:00 when I went to the mess. The queue elongates from the mess
counter to the mess-entrance. Needless to say, it typically takes around
20-35 minutes before one touches the plate.
- Though the OBH mess was functional from 1st Aug, I've not had
proper
food in the compulsory mess since yesterday.
- The Sunday biryani was without any curry (vegetable).
- Tonight, used/dirty plates lay stray right near the entrance
with no
one to carry them away (an open invitation to files?)
- Far insufficient number of tables/chairs in the mess. I've seen
some
of us actually standing and eating (plate in hands!!)
- Whatever few number of tables were arranged, they remained
uncleaned.
- Unending fight for roti(s).
- Hardly anyone to get us water. (okay, an old story)

Some of us tried to talk to the caterer, and we got the answer that the
management/administration has _NOT_ provided them enough number of
utensils and enough number of tables/chairs!!

I understand that the new mess takes time to settle, but I'm sure you
won't take it as an excuse for utter non-performance. We do expect the
administration to plan out things for us, don't we?
I'm sure if our parents come to know of this state of affairs regarding
the mess (including no food), they'd take strict exception to it. I know
I might have sounded a bit sour but dear Sir/Ma'm I couldn't help it --
I'm hungry.

Please try to work out something.


Dear Director Sir,
We didn't ask for any soothing music in the mess. All we plead
is
clean,timely,edible food. We, as humans, require food. Is that really
too much to ask for?


Please, please help.

A student.
On behalf of a large number of us.

Sunday, July 25, 2004

Some Quotes.


Some Quotes from today's Times of India.

It is better to live as long as you want rather than want as long as you
live. -- Socrates.

It is wise to keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final.
-- Roger Babson.

True love somes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear
bells, get your ears checked. -- Erich Segal.

There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who
face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other. --
Douglas Everett.


Who are You?


I came across this very good and encouraging, thought-provoking article in
The Times of India today.

Who are You?
------------

In the 17th century, the French philosopher Reni Descartes came up with
the explanation for it all: I think, therefore I am. I remember this
statement being the source of debates in philosophy classes. It was the
existential 'which came first' story the chicken or the egg.

Years later, I feel that his statement really is a fill-in-the-blanks
statement. 'I think, therefore I am.' In other words, 'I think I am angry,
therefore I am angry, I think I am tired, therefore I am tired, I think I
am busy, therefore I am busy.'

Let's go back to Descartes and fill in the blanks. I think I am too busy,
therefore I am too busy. So the usual conclusion to this thought is I'm
too busy to go into the garden this morning thus I don't go. [I think I m
too busy to go into the garden, therefore I am too busy to go into the
garden.]

What this does is, for one, tell your subconscious mind to keep looking
for that answer, and two keeps the door open to the answer coming through.
If you keep saying I can't remember, well guess what, your subconscious
goes, 'ok, can't remember,' and it goes off to lunch and stops trying to
remember. End of story. On the other hand, if you say 'I m remembering'
it will stay 'on duty' until it finds the memory you're asking for. In the
same way if you're searching for the solutinos to a problem, if you say to
yourself 'I don't know what to do', I think I am unable to find an answer,
therefore I am unable to find an answer -- there again you've closed the
door to the answer coming through. Saying 'I am able to find the answer'
opens the gate wide for the answers to come to you. We can replace those
dead-end thougths and statements with some that leave the door open for
solutions. 'I think I am able to discover the answer, therefore I am able
to discover the answer, I think I am capable of finding a solution.' Now
some of you might be saying this is simplistic. Well, yes it is, and
that's the beauty of it. We humans seem to have a tendency to complicate
things, when things really are simple. First a thought, then an action.
First a belief, then a consequence of that belief. A thought, then a
result to that thought (action or inaction).

We have disempowered ourselves by thinking 'small thoughts' or dead-end
thoughts fulled by low self-esteem, images of unattainable goals (to be
like the 'slimmer-than-life' model on TV), and thoughts rampant with
self-criticism (or criticism of others). Thoughts that are self-defeating
[I think I am a failure, therefore.]

I think I am not smart enough, therefore I think I am unattractive,
therefore I think I can't do this, therefore...

The belief or thought we have sets the tone for our actions, for the life
we create. If there's one thing that can change our lives, it's to change
the nature of our thoughts, of our beliefs. We are not powerless. We are
powerful beyond measure.

It's up to us to fill in the blanks with the reality we desire, not the
one we don't. We can change our reality. We can make a difference in our
lives and in the lives of the people around us and in the world.

-- Marie T russell.

--
Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
-- Albert Einstein.

Saturday, July 24, 2004

Matching between words in mind and around.


At times, and rather quite frequently these days, I find that I hear a
word someone speaking and at the same time I find myself reading this
very word. Just a moment ago, I heard Soumyajit saying aloud the word
'Arena' and I found myself reading this word in a manual!


Friday, July 23, 2004

They call me sysadmin now ... always!


It's been quite some time now since I got appointed as the astt system
administrator for my institute and have become known profusely since then.
But hardly had I sensed that there could be an awkward side of the coin
too. People seem to have forgotten that I'm still Nirnimesh and they
address me as sysAdmin, root, and so on. I get the impression that they
think that we sysAdmins keep looking for people to block their logins (the
institute's policy says to block the logins of spammers). Every now and
then I get mails/requests when someone is not able to work out something
with his/her system or when suddenly the programs stop working due to some
reason not remotely related to me and my job.

So, though it feels good to be called sysAdmin, come'on..enough is enough.
Do I cease to be myself?


Thursday, July 22, 2004

Feeling angry at everything.


Don't exactly know why, but since yesterday I'm feeling angry on
anything and everything. Someone speaks and I feel irritated, someone
laughs and I feel irritated, someone moans and I feel irritated..
someone breathes and I feel irritated. Oops! that's getting too much of
it. What do I do?

Friday, July 16, 2004

To MS or not to MS

Often in life you come across situations where you have two choices. The
fate of either of the choices is equally appealing or equally apalling.
You need to choose one pill of the two, however.
The decision for or
against doing MS was a similar dilemma for me for long. One thing was
however sure that if I did MS, I would do it at my href="http://www.iiit.ac.in">institute only. What wasn't sure was
whether or not I had to (or rather should) do it.
And finally I
decided (or should I say realize?) that I wanted to gradute my B.Tech
degree to an MS by Research by the time I leave IIIT-H. And the decision
wasn't easy.
So why did I make up my mind to go for MS by Research at
a monthly stipend of Rs 6000/- which would work out to around 12% of what
I would have got had I appeared for campus placements at my institute?
What did I really want?
One thing I do realize about myself is that I
want to be rich, and famous. I wish to start company of my own. With the
idea of a job comes the tail "What next?" Assume I have a handsome job and
I work hard for my job and earn a good position in my company. So what?
How proximal do I reach to my goal? Is that a step in the direction of my
goal or does that take me to a room whereafter there's no door leading to
my light? And I found the answer to be the latter.


Furthermore, at 21, I feel I could rather give myself more time at the
institute, learning, perfecting, and maturing myself before I step in to
deal the intricacies of the world. I expect to get acquainted better with
the habits and the habitats. Besides, the idea of doing research is
exciting. The feeling of doing something which someone else does not do or
is not able to do sends a feeling of superiority, and it feels good in a
positive way.


I thought and thought and thought and thought, and have a feeling in my
mind that MS would be a better choice for me for the time. I communicated
my thougts to my professor href="http://www.iiit.ac.in/faculty/pjn.php">Dr. P. J. Narayanan
and with the talk we had, my decision was sealed to certainity.


I pray to god to make sense and wisdom of my decision.


Wow! the email works.

It's real fast and far more convenient to post thru emails. Of course, I
should keep in mind to remove my signature from my emails.


Checking blogging by email.


This is to check blogging thru email.

Nirnimesh.

--
Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
-- Albert Einstein.

Thursday, July 15, 2004

To pen it down.

I remember of the days when I used to have a pen readily available to me. I could get it in my hands easily without overly twisting my body. And now is the time when pens have become a commodity which I have at times, and lose at other times. I buy pens, and lose them. I rebuy pens and relose them. This has happened to my pen collection so many times now that I've settled to the sleek and trendy Reynolds 045 now. Not only does it write nice, at Rs 6, it costs conveniently cheap to afford losing it. The lifetime a pen remains with me, if defined to be in terms of dpp (days per pen) would work out to around Rs 5. This is a rather optimistic figure considering a good situation. At times when I need a pen and roam around with it are exactly the time when the dpp drops to something around 1.5-2.0.

To pen it down.

I remember of the days when I used to have a pen readily available to me. I could get it in my hands easily without overly twisting my body. And now is the time when pens have become a commodity which I have at times, and lose at other times. I buy pens, and lose them. I rebuy pens and relose them. This has happened to my pen collection so many times now that I've settled to the sleek and trendy Reynolds 045 now. Not only does it write nice, at Rs 6, it costs conveniently cheap to afford losing it. The lifetime a pen remains with me, if defined to be in terms of dpp (days per pen) would work out to around Rs 5. This is a rather optimistic figure considering a good situation. At times when I need a pen and roam around with it are exactly the time when the dpp drops to something around 1.5-2.0.

Monday, July 12, 2004

Spiderman 2

Saw Spiderman 2 today. In one word -- "superb". A truly awesome movie after a long time. Far more practical, inspiring, thoughtful, sensual, and everything than the last one, and than most other movies. Good work by the directors. Spiderman, one who posseses so many superhuman powers, one who has the strength of the unbreakable web at his fingertips, one who is the saviour of so many lives at times of distress, has disturbances in mind too! He too has a choice between the superhuman and the petty needs of a human (which he anyway is too). He chooses the latter, does well with it, untill he gathers second reflections and wisdom directs him to realize who he is and what he's got to do. It seemed the directors had planned to keep the bridge strong between the superhuman and his girl who he adorely mentions as "one thing he wants the most". Maybe it got too hard, and that is why Spiderman is given back his girl.

Spiderman's jumps and sharp manouverablitiy over the buildings -- wonderful.

Monday, July 05, 2004

My batchmates getting LAN.

Finallyj, after years of speculation, my batchmates are getting rooms with LAN connection in the hostel. The joy on their face is worth giving a see, as they load themselves down the stair-cases with their stuff. This has happened since our seniors have passed out vacating the rooms for the next batch, and we being the seniormost in the undergraduate program, form the preferred ones. I, nevertheless, had been lucky at having got a LAN room early.

Sunday, June 27, 2004

And the anticipated happened.

After being spared of bumps for 3 years of my existence in IIIT now, I lost the bumping virginity when yesterday night I was given the thrashing in the air. Strong people holding me from both sides, and even stronger people hitting hard at my butt with their legs, and all I could do was shout, scream... And it is still aching. It had become hot that time, and kept vibrating for long. It's hard to sit straight. :((

Saturday, June 26, 2004

Anticipating b'day bumps.

It's my birthday tomorrow. Tradition in the institute proclaims that the birthday boy should get bumps wherein all others make him feel sorry for have taken birth. For long, I've been known for getting over this, and dodging the bumps (thanks to my nature), but this time I feel I won't be spared. I've opened up a lot this year (as per my new year resolution) and this is gonna hit me back literally at the stroke of the mid-night hour. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the whole world sleeps, my batch would be awake to hit me. Let's see!

Booting to windows back..for a few minutes.

I booted to Windows (my grub screen shows it's option as "Virus") today, after a long time. There was a VC++ code that I needed to run, and don't know what fantasy lighted upon me when I thought the machine would work safely and securely. This indeed did not happen. I was almost hoping against hope when the machine started behaving as if it had no RAM at all. A sizable part of my 256 MB and 1.6 GHz P-IV are always taken up by the Norton (yes, it's not foolproof, of course, but still, something is better than nver, and I feel without it, I won't even complete my booting--the network starts before you login :(( )
After a threatening experience for my pc, I gave it relief and reverted it back to it's Linux.

Seriously, some things such so real-time!

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

The day with the apathy with Windows...again.


My faith towards use of Linux further strengthened yesteray with Windows performing horribly, if not hopelessly, on every quarter. The situation was something like this:



My institute admits students based on the results of the AIEEE exam, for which the results were out some days back. Our placements officer had retured from Delhi with a CD containing the scanned labels of addresses of the first 5000 all-india-rank holders. The institute intended to send the brochure to the first 2000 or something students, and since there needed to be some preprocessing done to get the material in the right order before printing, the matter was redirected to the server room of which my sys-admin colleague Sunil Mohan Ranta and I are a part. The address-labels were arranged in several directories based on the region of the applicant. We needed to bring all of them in a single folder, with a minor manipulation with the filename (needed to remove an unnecessary 'A' from the filename). The thrill begins now. We began wondering how much it'd cost if Microsoft made such a software to do this sort of a manipulation of filenames and locations (If such a thing already exists, it means that they've not marketed it well-enought, for otherwise I'd have known it for sure). Rightfully enough, I turned to Linux and the job was done withing a few minutes of juggling with the shell commands (We have poor memory and often make syntax mistakes).




The bigger excitement, however, was yet to come. Each of the address labels were such that we could have four of them on one A4 sheet before printing. (Why?.. shall I say--To save paper!) We began huting for the printing preferences on the Windows machine and many a test-pages went martyr to the gesture, but to no avail. Photoshop, Painshop, MSPaint, etc proved no better. We had in mind that we could hunt for some Windows-printing formatting software which could do our job. However, we decided to give a second lease to Linux and Ranta played around with some image manipulation commands (convert, montage, mogrify, to name a few) and in a few minutes we were able to devise a command (yes a single command) by which to get the labels in the right format on a single page. In fact, we were even able to sharpen the image a bit (we didn't want to overdo it). That being done, we were using the Windows system back again to send each page to the printer for printing. After some time, the machine showed its colors againa and we realized that the laser printer was being given a lot of rest between successive prints as the Windows was slogging hard to pump data to it. We promptly added 2 and 2 together and shifted all printing to be done from the Linux system instead. This worked the required magic for us and we were able to finish the herculean work (the work was exhaustive) in no time thereafter.

Monday, June 21, 2004

Configuring a nameserver

Since the last few days my sys-admin colleague (Sunil Mohan Ranta) and I have been working together to setup a nameserver for our institute. After about a complete evening of slogging (including the time we spent on installing Linux - Fedora Core 2, and learning about DNS's) we finally got it working by the evening. We are using named and configuring it was a breeze (not much to do actually). We had to configure it for the new domain www.iiit.ac.in that the institute is getting.

However, after some days now I find that when I compare the host query results of our newly setup nameserver with the ISP's nameserver we were originally using, the MX entries are missing. Actually, it's only the NS and A entries that figure out with our nameserver. I wonder whether it'd create problems if we use this nameserver for resolving on the mail-server. The nameservers obtained by the root nameservers for .net and .com actually give the same results (as the new NS), nevertheless. The best method, I guess, is hit-and-try. :-)

HR training.

Here it's 3:22 AM and i'm sitting over here in the lab, and portraying (rather pretending) as if I'm helping this girl Priyanka with answering the HR questions for the upcoming campus placements. Of course, I'm also appearing for the campus placements (i'm in the same batch) but don't know why she wants _me_ to help her out (yes..she seems a bit confused with the gamut of questions our placements officer has showered us with, but so what?..so am I).

Feeling cold.

I'm sitting in CVIT, my computer lab and I presently confess I'm feeling cold. In this country, this has more or less become a natural tendency to keep the AC temperature a bit below the normal comfortable temperature, coz I can feel a bit of a shiver in my bones (I assume I am normal in perceiving temperatures). This has occurred to me on several occasions; in trains, offices, banks, though the degree varies from one place to the other. I suggest these AC companies should start sporting a suggestion saying that having an AC is for your comfort in hot days and it does not in any way imply that you have to bear your shivers with benign serenity.

Friday, June 18, 2004

Pankaj getting frustrated.

I started bloggin today, and Pankaj here is gettting frustrated by seeing the wonderful web-interface provided by the site, and yes it's fast too. They've done some serious good work, he says.

First

Don't know what to write.