Monthly Archive for October, 2008

Over and Done

Published on October 30, 2008 in Anu. View Comments

Today, I am done with all my toefl and gre exams. It had been three hard months, procrastinating and putting off the day that I would have to eventually write the gre. Well it was today, and I am glad it’s out of the way. For once do I get a breather before again getting busy with the acads.

I am much dissapointed with my gre result. Quant was as usual, scoring the perfect mark of 800. Verbal was not so good, managing just a meagre score of 470 in 800. As a result the summation comes out to be 1270 which is considered below par.

I fared much better in toefl though, obtaining 110 in 120. A perfect score in listening, 1 less in reading, and around 25 in both speaking, writing helped my total to the magic figure of 110. However, with the dissapointing gre result, the toefl score becomes redundant I suppose.

But the results do not discourage me. Never were my intentions to apply for a phd position (more on this later on). Writing the gre had become a mere formality for me. I had lost the motivation to perform well and outshine the others. Also the pattern of gre does not suit me.

Most importantly, gre is not the end of the world. I am saddened today at the dismal performance, but also take this defeat in the right spirit. It shall motivate me to do well in the other exams, to make amends for my mistakes.

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Too Much To Take

Published on October 28, 2008 in Anu. View Comments

Today I am reaping the benefits of having made reading a good habbit. I have my GRE exam in a couple of days and without any remorse I admit that my preparations have not been upto the mark. But the reason was just that I am no longer motivated enough to write this exam. It has become mere formality, to get a good score. I dont think I would care even if I got a low score.

And it’s good that I have mentally prepared myself to accept low score in GRE, afterall that is what I will get. Inadequate preparation has really dented any chance I had to score well.

However, at the moment my biggest concern is not the GRE. Instead, it is my BTP. I have my viva on the 4th of november, and yet have’t done anything substancial. I did work on a project with determination to arrive at a result, but now have fallen short of time. I need to get some work done this week.

We had a great time in the wing though, bursting crackers and all. Good to spend time with the 3rd years of the wing. Have posted a few photos on picasa. Sooner than later I shall be adding them here too. Tomorrow being the Diwali, we shall definitely do something worthwhile – already there were plans of going out for dinner, but nothing confirmed for sure.

I now need to sleep, must complete Barrons tomorrow, so that I have my wednesday for revision and practising on sample test. I really hope I score 1300, even though the chances appear feeble.

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Who Deserves The Formula One Crown

Published on October 22, 2008 in Sports. View Comments

Another season has come to an end. The top two contenders have set for themselves a title shootout at Brazil. The chances are however skewed towards Hamilton who has a comfortable 7 points lead over Massa. All Lewis Hamilton has to ensure is that he needs to finish atleast 5th if Felipe Massa goes on to win the championship. And considering all the things he has done this year, its a small feat to achieve. For Massa though, it is an uphill task, not entirely in his hands. He needs to win to maximise his chances and hope for Lewis to commit a blunder, something Lewis hasn’t done this season.

So what hope does Massa have? If we look back in time, an year earlier, Lewis was under similar predicament. He had a seven point lead over Kimi Raikkonen when they arrived for the final race in Brazil (deja vu for Hamilton ?). But Alonso was the one challenging him then, and the top two contenders self destructed each other and allowed Kimi to claim the glory with a margin of just a single point.

Who are Massa’s allies? Well, ofcourse team mate Kimi for one. Alonso has vowed to help out Massa in his fight against the McLaren driver (few grudges last longer than expected). But not many to fill in the 5 places between Massa and Hamilton. I still maintain the best chance for Massa is to have Kimi smash into Hamilton at the start of the race (Raikkonen could argue that he just out-braked himself and couldn’t have done anything t avaoid the unfortunate disaster). Otherwise, Massa will just have to put in his best efforts and pray tothe gods to for once let Lewis’s car malfunction.

So who amongst these is the worthy candidate for the no. 1 driver in F1 position? I argue none!

Both Massa and Lewis had been awarded the best cars present on the grid. They had the best people working along to ensure that they go on and win each race possible. They had unlimited funds available to sustain the development of the 2008 car (most of the teams had switched to the next years cars long time back, while McLaren claims it has enough funds and crew members to develop both the cars – present and the future). So if these two are at top of the things, then its not only their effort, but the good fortune they have been blessed with of driving for their respective cars.

Take a look at drivers just a few places lower into the grid and you’ll find two champions. Robert Kubica and Fernando Alonso. They are the ones who have driven perfect races and extracted the most out of their cars, race after race.

Right from the beginning, Kubica maintained a good chart position performing consistently in each race. Finally, when he won the Canadian GP, he was viewed as a serious contender. But due to limited funding, BMW decided not to continue development of the present car and to actually switch to the new car. This was a big blow for Kubica who had a few words with the team principal. However, it is understood that things settled down, and Kubica continued his good run throughout the season. The BMW was not fast enough to out pace McLaren or Ferrari, yet he always mainted a gap which gave him a shot at the title.

Take a look at the double world champion and you’ll realise the stuff he’s made out of. He was shunted in McLaren for the rookie Hamilton, and decided to not continue. They parted ways and he returned to the team with which he had won the two championship titles. But this time Renault had been struggling. The freeze on engine development had hit Renault the most and it lost its footing. Infact, it was having to fight off the second tier teams. This was the team which welcomed back Alonso. And now take a look at what Alonso has achieved with the same team. No one ever predicted a podium finish for the spaniard this season, but instead he proved everyone wrong by claiming two races successively. He was amongst the points in nearly every race. Ranault now finishes the season fourth in the constructors championship – well ahead of their predicted position.

Had Kubica or Alonso driven in Ferrari or McLaren, they would have accumulated far more points than what Lewis and Massa have done. Alonso and Kubica have outclassed everybody on the grid. I would love to see them drive for Ferrari someday – they might go on to achieve (or perhaps better) what the legendary Michael Schumacher has done.

I would rate the drivers worthy of being the champions in the following order -

  1. Robert Kubica : He performed consistently with a car whose development was halted midway.
  2. Fernando Alonso : A very strong comeback in the later part of the season.
  3. Kimi Raikkonen : Worst hit by mis fortunes. He surely deserves to win, evident from the fact that he has most number of best lap times.
  4. Felipe Massa : Also hit by problems not his making. But whatever, I feel he doesn’t have the attitude to carry the championship tag. He needs to be more aggresive and think by himself instead of taking orders and doing whats safe.
  5. Lewis Hamilton : The least deserving candidate. Extremely arrogant. Known to make mistakes under pressure. Put him in a BMW and you’ll see him cry. He’s just riding on good fortunes to have actually start the career with a McLaren.

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Lewis Races From Pole To Chequered Flag

Published on October 19, 2008 in Sports. View Comments

Lewis Hamilton overcame the demons of his past to complete an almost perfect weekend, leading from the pole to the chequered flag. It was complete dominance on his part, and at no point of time were the Ferrari seen as competitive.

Even before the race started, the confidence level in Ferrari paddock was low. Hamilton appeared to be under no such pressure. The reason was to become clear in the next 15 laps. Massa had fueled lightest and yet failed to beat Lewis’s qualifying time ! The writing was on the wall – it would be almost impossible to beat Hamilton unless the rookie driver made a mistake.

But Hamilton drove a great race, zooming ahead from the start. He was pulling away on the harder set of tyres leaving the Ferraris of Massa and Kimi (who were both on the option set of tyres) behind by about 2 tenths a lap.

Kimi had a good, rather uneventful afternoon, in which he made no mistakes and completed the laps without ever challenging Hamilton. However, as was obviousy anticipated, he handed over the second position to Massa in the dying moments of the race to settle for a third place. He now stands fourth in the championship, trailing Kubica by 6 points.

Massa looked tired in his Ferrari. Evidently his car wasn’t handling as well as he would have liked it to. He was off the pace the whole afternoon. Aloso completed the race distance to take a complimentary fourth position. Having had back to back successes, he was content to play the safer game and settle for the fourth place. Renault now sits comfortably at the fourth position in the constructors championship.

Hekki suffered the most when his tyres deflated and later on the damage caused to the car while getting it back to the pits forced him to retire. Thus Ferrari now have a 11 point advantage over McLaren in the constructors championship.

The procession now moves to Brazil for the season finale in two weeks time. Lewis is pretty sure to be crowned champion. For Massa, there is little to fight for. All he can do is try to win, but the ultimate victory will depend on where Lewis finishes. A seven point deficit is too much to feel confident about. Unless somehow miraculously Hamilton commits a grave error and Massa finishes amongst the top two drivers, Hamilton has become the champion. Ferrari were the undoing of themselves. Questionable decisions from the pitwall, and unreliability issues plagued the chances of their drivers successes. I hope to see better performance by the prancing pony team in the next season.

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LASIK

Published on October 19, 2008 in Miscel. View Comments

I have finally decided to go through with the LASIK surgery. I have actually convinced my parents to prepone the surgery to this December rather than wait till the summer break. Hopefully, if I get placed earlier, I will be able to return home in time and be free of the spectacles.

LASIK is a slightly evolved treatment which alters the shape of the eye. It is irreversible procedure. So one must be aware of the after effects of the surgery. There are chances of things going wrong, and sometimes, the aberration may not be corrective and the patient might just have to live with it for the rest of his life.

There is this hospital in Hyderabad – LVPEI (L V Prasad Eye Institute), which has a good team of doctors to perform the surgery and take care of the post-operative problems. LASIK is recommended only for patients over 19 years of age provided their lens power has not changed for at least two years. A preliminary test is performed to determine the thickness of the cornea. Using this information, the surgeon calculates the amount and locations of corneal tissue to be removed during the operation. This was the easy part and it took roughly fifteen minutes to compile the reports.

Next came the meeting with the doctor who would actually be performing the surgery.  Dr. Prashant Garg let us know the pros and cons of the medical procedure. Well, on second thought, he only told us the cons. He listed out the most common side effects and wanted me to be mentally prepared and ready before I agreed to the surgery. I will list the details here.

The most common complication from refractive surgery is the incidence “dry eyes”. In some cases, this may be permanent.

There are also disturbing visual side effects such as halos, double vision (ghosting), loss of contrast sensitivity and glare. Uually it takes about 6 – 8 months before the side effects are cured, but in a few cases it may take longer. However, there will definitely be a decrease of the quality of the vision.

The only thing worries me is the dryness induced after the surgery. As I work a lot on a computer, the side effect will be more prominent in my case. I shall have to use a liquid ointment to keep my eyes wet. And to live with it for the rest of my life would be too great a risk, nontheless, a risk that I am prepared to take.

The surgery itself does not take long. The patient is awake and is administered tropical anesthesia. In the first step, a flap is made. When the flap is lifted, the vision fades and becomes blurred – patient sees only white light surrounding the orange light of the laser. The lasers remove layers of tissues. Then finally the flap is repositioned. The patient gets to go home immediately afterwards. To allow the flap to heal and prevent it from slipping, the patient is advised to sleep. A pair of goggles is also prescribed to shield the eyes from bright light and prevent accidental rubbing of the eyes.

There is a 98 % chance of glasses-free vision, i.e, the patient need not wear glasses. The chances of a perfect vision is however just 92 %. Eitherway, you have to be prepared for the side effects and learn to live with them for the coming few months.

Abundant resources are available online about LASIK. I would certainly recommend any one opting for LASIK to first familiarise themselves with the details and get prepared psychologically.

Remember, this is an irreversible change. So be absolutely sure before you opt for it.

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How Lewis Can Win The Title In China

Published on October 18, 2008 in Sports. View Comments

With just two races to go, the fight for the championship could not have been more exciting. As Alonso noted  last week both the title contenders have made errors and lost a lot of points. The leader has managed just 84 points this season, far less than what were seen in the previous seasons.

However, Hamilton can wrap it up this this in China. To do so, he must extend his current 5 point lead to more than 10 points over Massa. Mathematically even Kubica is in reckoning, but given the car and his rivals, his chances are pretty slim.

So, these are the equations for Hamilton to pip Massa – he must out score Massa by atleast 6 points and concede no more than 2 points to Kubica, which can be done in three ways -

  • Win with Massa finishing no higher than 5th.
  • Finish 2nd with Massa no higher than 7th.
  • Finish 3rd with Massa failing to score and Kubica not winning.

But once again, this is Hamilton we are talking about. Last year he held a 17 point advantage over Kimi and went on to lose the championship battle. Last race he again displayed that pressure is getting to him.

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