Heights Of Animation

Susi Does It Again

So with all the concoctions I could create, I managed to escape from the tight spot once again. Somehow managed to arrange for a dead grandpa who was already dead for the past three years. So my guide was sorry for my grandad and also satisfied with my progress ;).But I feel very bad at having to do projects this way. Why should I always mess up things that I can do very well? Three months of hardwork and I know I can manage something that even I will be proud of having done. Most of the projects that I have done to date have been considered worthy of me by many of my peers though I know that I could have put up a far better show had I been more honest to myself. What is it with me? Why should I waste my talents like this and then play a farce with the evaluating panel when I can very easily be telling them things from my heart rather than from my brain? With this shit of a mouth that I got I have made many believe that I am indeed a very intelligent guy. People think that I can always handle projects well even if I don't get my marks. There are guys here who want to be in my team(Karthic, Vijay, Mallu,...). But I know I havent done justice to the belief they have in me though I can. This time though I am not going to let down anybody. If someone is going to be disappointed after this project, it has to be me alone. Enough of lameting I guess. Retrospection is not a healthy option now. HARDWORK is the only thing that can let me feel like myself.

The first review is on the 29th and I am a bit ready for it. That's just the point. I can be prepared even without really working. Not just my friends even my staff believe that my projects are worthy enough of passing their close scrutiny without even scrutinising fully. May be someone should find more faults with me. I am not eligible to get the accolades that I do get. May be if they do get more strict in my case, I will start to work better and my throughput may increase.

So I have written another paragraph about me again? Why does it always have to be ME, ME and ME? Why don't I write something about someone else? There are a lot of nice guys around me. Why don't I write about them? There are a lot of nice things happening around me. Why don't I write anything about them? Why must it always be the ME? May be I am so self-centerd in my thinking. Everybody is. You open a blog to write about you only. But atleast I could have reserved some space for my friends. OK. Here I go.

Vijay is one guy I feel sorry for having missed out on his IBM project. Sad thing to happen so late. But he took it sportively and is now slogging his ass out for an internal project. From another side I think it is better he does a project in the university than at IBM. I think IBM was not utilising him as they could or should. Though he feels that the project given to him was challenging, I firmly believed and still do that it was not worthy of his capabilities.

Another thing I would like to mention. There are a lot of fellows here who are hooked up with a project that is not worthy enough to be done by a student of this cadre. The panel members are looking for some project that has an IEEE base. But these guys argue and say that they ought not to be doing soooooo complex projects. But what then is a project for them? We have had enough of 'hello world' programs already for every semester. Are they thinking of implementing a web service which does nothing and submitting it? Or generating a error report tool for that matter. I am totally with the panel as regards this problem. Let us do something worthwhile for a change.

I am Running Out Of Reasons

Six months after my first post, I am justifying what I said there. I am one hell of a lazy ass. I don't have concrete reasons to attribute to this though. I know I can finish some things in a span of a few hours but my laziness drives me crazy. The thing that actually prompted me to start this post is the fact that I haven't met my project guide in the past 21 days. After my zeroth review she had given me some work and had wanted me to meet her after a couple of days. The work she had given was very small which I promptly failed to finish in the time provided. Later when it was really getting delayed, I made this fabulous awesome resolution to myself. This was my plan. Instead of going and meeting her now and saying that I haven't progressed any further, I will take may be another couple of days and show her something worth the time span. Please do keep in mind that I am indeed a fast worker -- At least a lot faster than a lot of guys around me. Now two days later, the situation was slightly different. I have now done more work than she had demanded yet the work couldn't be justified for four days. So then I thought I would push the deadline by another two days. And now the count stands at 21 days. A week back I had mailed her that due to the sudden demise of a close relative I couldn't meet her and that I would meet her the following Tuesday(I think I missed the word 'following' in the mail and may even justify it to be the next Tuesday). Another week has passed since. Now the work I have done can very easily be justified for ten days work. But twenty days have gone since then. How the hell am I going to face her now? What more reasons? By now even she should know what a lazy ass I am. I need to pacify things very soon. But how? I will have to call and give some other lame excuse at the very least. God knows what the F*** I am going to do. (There is a small rumor abuzz that the first review may be on the 22nd of this month).

Still got something to smile for.

Tidbit for the day

Turing Test
The Turing test is a proposal for a test of a machine's capability to perform human-like conversation. Described by Professor Alan Turing in the 1950 paper "Computing machinery and intelligence," it proceeds as follows: a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with two other parties, one a human and the other a machine; if the judge cannot reliably tell which is which, then the machine is said to pass the test. It is assumed that both the human and the machine try to appear human. In order to keep the test setting simple and universal (to explicitly test the linguistic capability of the machine instead of its ability to render words into audio), the conversation is usually limited to a text-only channel such as a teletype machine as Turing suggested or, more recently IRC or instant messaging.

Somebody Recognizes My Hardwork

My watch says it is 6.30 in the morning. I am just back from the tea shop.

The tea master said:

"Don't you sleep at all. I saw you at three in the morning walking all alone and now you are back to the shop at six."

So the project must be coming good after all. Will have to wait another three months to see if his words bear any truth at all. :)

A Few Google Misconceptions

1. Google Desktop indexes your files and uploads the index to Google servers.
Not until you ask google to do so. Google stores index on your own computer and will send them to the google server securely only when you enable search across computer.


2. Gmail indexes your emails and makes them available for everyone.
No, Google indexes your mails so that you can search them just like other email services (yahoo, rediff etc.)


3. Google doesn't delete my Gmail messages.
For safe storage google makes multiple backups of your emails.
"You may organize or delete your messages through your Gmail account. Residual copies of deleted messages and accounts may take up to 60 days to be deleted from our active servers and may remain in our offline backup systems." (Gmail Privacy Policy)


4. Google doesn't improve search anymore to increase its earnings from ads.
You may not see it in short time periods but google does tweak its algorithms to improve search results.


5. Search results should be ranked by people, not by algorithms.
Ask yourself, will you rank every google search result? I won't.


6. Google is spyware.
Spyware is "any software that covertly gathers user information through the user's Internet connection without his or her knowledge, usually for advertising purposes. Spyware applications are typically bundled as a hidden component of freeware or shareware programs that can be downloaded from the Internet. Once installed, the spyware monitors user activity on the Internet and transmits that information in the background to someone else. ..."Softwares like google toolbar and google desktop do send information to google servers for personalized working of the software for your computing environment. Google does protect this information from third party but still the problem lies in what does google do with this information.


7. Google Earth shows real-time images.
No, what you see "are photographs taken by satellites and aircraft sometime in the last three years".


8. Google is the best search engine that will ever be built.
Google's goal is to be the best, and it has achieved that to some extent. Still the market is big and competition is tough.


9. Google favors Wikipedia, Technorati, blogs.
No, the simple answer is that such sites have many backlinks to them.


10. Google will take over the world.
My wishes to them.

Unturned Stones

My life as a student is almost over. My PG life seems to be drawing to a fast conclusion, just like my school and UG. Just when the end is near you get that uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach. You suddenly feel that you haven’t had enough. Not enough out of the three full years that have gone by. I could have and should have done a lot of things that I didn’t. I must have apologized to some people. I must have gone smoother on some instances. I should have enjoyed better. May be I should have had more lunches at the canteen. May be I should have visited the cooperative stores more often. I must have played more TT. The library could have done well with more visits from me. I once wanted to play roadrash in the lab. That work is still pending. I have gone to a hell a lot of theatres but still don’t know some theatres in Chennai. I have got to correct such trivial statistical blemishes. Must have done the project (Heptagon) that ended up just when it began. Could have got more marks in my later semesters. Must have arranged that industrial visit which never got beyond the planning stage. The RCC never got more than a couple of visits from me. Must have gone for the sub-juniors freshers party in my final year. Must have bunked more classes [;)].

A lot many dreams never grew beyond their cradles. Will I get another chance to right these misgivings? I think not. Playtime is over. From now on with no more handcuffs on there still will always be pressure on us to deliver. Just when it seems like we have completed a big phase of life successfully we come to realize that it is just the beginning of another even colossal phase. Life rolls on. It never stands by waiting for us to finish our daily chores. This eerie feeling of an impending premature conclusion is eating us alive. When I was at the end of my school life I had quite another set of pending to-do lists that were left pending. I then presumed I would have them done in my college days. Same was the case when my UG was drawing to its close. But now I have got the wherewithal to realize that you don’t get time for anything unless you make time for it. Time is a spectator. Not a team player. You got to get him play the game of life with you.

Now with just another semester remaining for project my mind refrains from allowing me to go elsewhere for that. I badly want to do it in the one place that is going to become memory very soon. I want to cherish these last few days. The last few days are the ones that spring to your memory when you think back about days gone past. I don’t want to go elsewhere and then repent my action later. With so much of my dreams still left over and so less time left to do them in, all I promise is one thing. I am gonna have one hell of a rousing last semester. I am going to leave no stone unturned now. I want to know what lies beneath each of them. Some far off day I don’t want to sit back and again say I could have done that. I am gonna to do it all. I am going to give one hell of an adieu.

The best poem I have ever read...

PATRIOTISM


Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored , and unsung.

- Sir Walter Scott

From the Days Gone By I Still Recall...

Gone are the days when the school reopened in June and we settled in our new desks and benches. We queued up at the book depot and got our new books and notes with the school emblem on them.

We wanted two Sundays and no Mondays and yet managed to line up ourselves for the daily morning prayers.

We learnt writing with slates and pencils, and progressed to fountain pens and ball pens and then micro tips. We began drawing with crayons we evolved to colour pencils and finally to sketch pens. We started calculating with tables and then with Clarke’s tables and later with computers. Days gone by are not going to return again.

We chased one another in the corridors in intervals and returned to the classrooms drenched in sweat. We had lunch in classrooms, corridors, playgrounds, under the trees and in cycle sheds.

Gone are the days when a single P. T. period in a week’s timetable was more eagerly awaited than the monsoon.

Gone are the days when cricket was played with writing pads as bats and socks rolled into balls.

Gone are the days when few played “Kabadi” and “Kho-Kho” in the scorching sun while others simply played “book cricket” in the confines of a classroom.

I remember flashes of fights but no conspiracies, of competitions but seldom jealousy.

Gone are the days when we used to watch live Cricket telecast in the TV’s in the shop windows during the interval and lunch breaks. Few rushed at 3:50 to conquer window seats in school bus while few others had “Big Fun” – “peppermint”, “kulfi” and “road side pani puri” at 4:00

Gone are the days of Sports day and the school Annual day and the one-month long preparations before them.

Gone are the days of the stressful Quarterly, Half early and Annual Exams and the most enjoyed holidays after them.

Gone are the days of tenth and twelfth standards, when we spent almost the whole year writing revision tests.


We learnt, we passed, we failed, we played, we won, we lost, we enjoyed, we laughed, we cried, we fought, we thought. So much experience, all this and more.

Gone are the days when we used to talk for hours with our friends.
Gone are the days when we played games on the road.
Gone are the days when we used to chat with friends on grounds.
Gone are the days when we studied just to pass.

Gone are the days when we shouted on the road. Now we don’t even shout at home.

Gone are the days when we had no money in our pockets and yet the world and out hearts were full of happiness.


Gone are the days but not the memories which will linger in hearts for ever and ever….

John Nash

This self made genius has been my greatest inspiration of late. Before him the honour went to Homer Hickam. During various points in my life, it was shared by great minds like Shakuntala Devi, Albert Einstein, Thomas Alwa Edison, Micheal Vasanth, Linus Trovalds, Subramaniam(DMACS), Bill Landreth... Names from the contemporary and other wise. But unlike these names Nash has somehow inspired me not just in reading about his personal life and being awestruck but then also got me to sit at his research work.

It was through an unconcious motion of fate that I happened to stumble on him. "A Beautiful Mind" was inspiring and absorbing but minmax was what got me into him. He had nothing to do with it, but the creative brain he showed in taking it to further exalted heights... Unlike many others(which includes John Von Neumann) he has never had a great mind. What he had been bestowed upon with was the creativity. To look at problems from a wholly different angle. One from which the whole world had never imagined possible. New dimensions seemed to exist to known problems when he was at work.

Fighting the world is one thing. But what poor thing it is if you have to fight your own self. He did that and did that successfully. To know that and to realise that you are abnormal and to defy science and to cure oneself from what he suffered from(schizophrenia) is considered to be something phenomenal. Things like these have got me deeply engrossed into game theory of late. Am I just getting interested to it or is it really pushing me onward for something deeper? Only time will tell.

Here at last

The first step is always the most difficult for anyone. Ask a child what is more difficult? Its first tottering step or the sprint it later got acclimatised to. I have for long been contemplating on this idea of having my own blog. But procrastination has always been one of my strong points. The point of action must come at some point of time. The sooner the better. My best friend gave me one of the best lines i keep musing over in the recent past. "Dirty your hands if you want to learn something".

Went to Besant Nagar beach last night at 12. This was the first time for me being in the beach at that late hours. Add to it my own driving all the way to the beach and back. Makes it all the more interesting. May be crazy if you know the way I drive. But then there are times for celebration. I wont call this exhilaration but a celebration all the same. Had been waiting for a long time for this monumental moment to fall on me. Now all those friends who have lent me some very nice moments to enjoy in the past couple of years are now placed. An year from now, we are all assured of a future for ourselves.

Pedestrial as it may seem, it is the dawning of a new era in the life of so many guys. Guys who always thought their future was bleak now have their own space to breath. This feeling comes to everyone at some point of their life time or the other. The feeling that you are not a no-good. you too got something in you. For me personally it dawned some five years ago. There sure would have been some who would have enjoyed that moment today or atleast within the past month.

Always there is the beginner's eagerness to anything that is new. The first blog generally tends to be the longest. Hopefully this is not my latest fad. Hoping to continue soon.