Archive for the 'Anu' Category

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Experience Of A Rookie Chef

Published on June 28, 2009 in Anu. 0 Comments

I have never claimed to like or be good at cooking. I have always shyed away from the kitchen. It is the one room which scares me the most. And so it should. I have always liked things which can be described definitely. When you devise an algorithm, you insist that a particular event occurs after a certain event in this particular order.

But when it comes to cooking, you get instructions like – cook the rice for 5-7 minutes. Hang on! Which is right? Do I wait for 5 or 7 minutes, or do I average it out and turn off the burner after 6 minutes? And even the 6 minutes is subjective. You do not have to look at the watch to keep track of the time. Apparently, you sort of develop and intuition for cooking. Oh! these things always confuse me. And I always end up stuck in no-mans-land trying to figure out the best rescue strategy.

The other day I wanted to prepare dal. Now the receipe said that I had to leave the pressure cooker on full flame till it whistled and then sim down for roughly some 5 minutes. Fine! I waited for the first whistle, and then simmed down the flame. But the whistling did not stop and the receipe does not say anything about more whistling! Confused and not knowing what to do, I turned off the flame and opened the pressure only to find uncooked dal. Huh, so much for panicking. So I put the pressure back again on full flame waiting for the first whistle. I assumed that the whole procedure needed to started from start, which as I learnt later was wrong. At the end when I opened the cooker, I found my dal to be as dry as rice.

Ab main chala dal chokne. I do not know what it is called in english, so I’ll write the thing in hindi. Mom ne kaha tha ki pehle kalchul ko gas par rakhte hain, taaki paani sooch jaaye. Once again, no definite time defined. I waited a few seconds. Fir ghee daalo aur thoda der gas par garam hone do, was the next instruction to be followed. I did only to find oil sprinkle here and there. Reason: I hadn’t waited long enough for all the water to boil away.

Ab ghee karam hona tha thodi der tak. Once again no time period defined. I waited a minute and carried out the next instruction which was – ghee mein jeera daalo. And the minute I do so, the whole thing catches fire. Now I had seen my mom do this but it never caught fire ! Help Help!! I turned off the burner and then started to blow off the fire. After some efforts it subsided. I called up my mom to find that I shouldn’t have waited so long.

Ok! So I do the whole procedure again and was successful. It was now time to immerse the kalchul into dal. And the minute I do that, the whole thing sprinkled out with a hissing noise. Curse it! The kitchen was in a mess. But I neither had the patience nor the tools to clean it. So I just ignored the situation.

Yesterday, I asked the receipe of making kheer. Accordingly I bought sugar and milk from a shop nearby. Happy that I was about to eat kheer in half an hour, I set about cooking it. I took the packet of milk and started to cut it open, while also singing a I-Must-Not-Spill-The-Milk song. You must have heard the story of a man who was cutting the branch of tree he was sitting on? Well the same thing happened with me. The moment my scissor cut open the packet, I realised that I was holing the upper part which I was cutting off, and the bottom part which had the milk was unsupported hanging in the air.

Splash! I spent the next 20 minutes mopping the kitchen.

Why? Why does everything happen only to me? What the hell ever happened to beginners luck? I must read The Alchemist again.

By the way, if you are a person who likes the kitchen clean and tidy, beware before entering my kitchen.

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The Difficult Choices

Published on June 20, 2009 in Anu. 0 Comments

Things were so simple in the past when my father used to make all my decisions. Well, most of the time I disagreed with him, but still, atleast I wasn’t burdened with distinguishing one choice over the other. Back then, I was just a robot doing what my father wanted of me.

I remember, we were studying NP problems. Our professor introduced a function – choose(), which would choose a solution, and all we next had to do was to verify if the chosen solution is correct or not in polynomial time. Life would have so much easier if we had such a choose() method. Alas !

The joy of growing up and becoming independent comes with the pain of having to choose yourself. The responsibility of weighing one choice over the other now rests on you yourself. And my years of experience, however less might it be, has taught me that more motivated and clear your goal is, easier the task of choosing becomes.

Normally I am quite motivated. I know my goals. I have a very-long-term expectations and the path is vaguely defined. I am proud to say that usually my brain makes all the decisions, curbing whatever desires I might have had. I try to suppress my feelings and always think twice before making a decision. I try my best not to get carried away by the petty emotional attachments that I might have.

Yet, I am but a human. And just like any one else, I too am biased. At times it becomes too difficult to think clearly. The choice of path does not seem as intuitive. My actions tend to maximise local happiness, rather than the global happiness. Suddenly the control of my mind seems to waver a little, giving in to the temptations.

At these times I can actually hear my brain speaking out to myself. The brain tries to remind me how useless the temptation is, and how important the other goals are. But at these times it becomes a challenge to make the right call. What do I want ?

I have tried convincing myself that I have worked hard to be who I am today, and therefore, do deserve to enjoy the moment. And yet, this very thought reminds me that the work is not yet done. Its a long life out there, and a lot yet to be achieved. I remind myself that I am not the person I aspire to be, atleast not yet. The temptations, the fleeting happiness, the greedy solutions always tend to throw me off the track.

But come what may, I always manage to find my way back. And I think this is more significant. Though distracted, I fight hard to get back into the battle.

A similar dilemma greets me now. I have a good job with a decent salary in the city of Bangalore. An awesome team, some great new friends and a few of my best friends from college – I have everything I wanted from my first job. There is indeed a tendency for me to get carried away, to become complacent, to lose my focus.

Which is why I have written this post. This shall serve as a reminder to me that the life has just begun, that there are a lot of things to achieve. Now shall be the true test of my character, of my mental strength. I need to curb my complacency tendencies and set myself challenging targets. Yes, I shall talk to Navin and make sure that the half-yearly goals we set for me are tough to achieve.

Despite what I have written, I am confident that my mind shall win over heart, that I shall continue to be as focussed as I was just before the JEE. And whenever I shall feel my faith waiver, I shall read this post to remind myself who I truly am and what my goals are.

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Two Awesome Weeks At Bangalore

Published on June 14, 2009 in Anu. 0 Comments

Things just keep getting better by day. Living alone by oneself is not easy, but the thought of your friends joining you in another 10 days keeps you going. Apart from that, life’s good at B’lore.

My first job at Fair Isaac has almost everything I ever desired. I have my own desk, with reasonable amount of privacy. I have an awesome 4gb laptop. I am part of a great group of people, who like to party and travel places together. And the team is led by a manager who himself doesn’t care much about formalities and is completely friendly with us.

Our group of campus recruits has lots of good people. I have made some nice friends. And though shortly we shall be moving away to our respective teams, I hope to keep in touch with them and spend more time together. Luckily, a few of them are on the ground floor, the same as me.

As I mentioned earlier, my friends from Kharagpur shall be joining me pretty soon. Once they are here, it will be party time and lots of fun. Also Chuski will be coming for enrollment into the management course at IIMB. Yay .. a treat’s due :D .

The best thing however is that I have not yet managed to get the gas conneciton transferred. :D … So I am having to dine out everytime. Lucky me. Cooking alone would just be devastating. I have done enough cooking in Switzerland last summer to last a lifetime.

The only downside to the whole life at work is that using windows is mandatory. :( . I am already missing ubuntu. I am missing amarok. A new version of it has been released and I cannot test it.

Also, it was boring transitioning to Java. I am still in love with the complexity of C. Moving on is turning out to be difficult.

Sadly, now I have to go and get started on my Java project. Enough procastinating already.

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Yet Another Transition

Published on May 29, 2009 in Anu. 1 Comment

After 4 happy years of coding in compiled languages of C and C++, the time has come to make a transition to the interpreted language of Java. The change is more of an imposed one than desired. And I am not getting drawn into the subject of compilers vs. interpretors, mainly because of my lack of experience with the latter category.

Starting the next week, I shall join the FICO, Bangalore. I am quite excited about the oppurtunity as I have received excellant inputs from my seniors and their friends regarding the kind of work that people do over there. Also I need a change from an university-like environment.

Now at Fair Isaac, apparently, people prefer Java over C++. Navin sir said that there are a group of people using C++, but the bulk of libraries and code is in Java. So it will be easier if I switch over to Java than C++, though it shouldn’t be a lot tougher sticking with it. And after giving it a thought, I have decided to learn Java. Learning a new programming language is all about going through its libraries and adapting them. It should be an easy enough task. Also since I have a basic understanding of objects, classes, inheritance and theior abstract nature, it should be easy enough.

The only thing I shall miss are the pointers. Sadly Java does not allow pointer access to programmers like the C does. I do not know the reason behind this restriction, but it sure makes me sad. Of late, most of my variables were being referenced by address and I was really getting into the habbit of using pointers. They make complicated things so easy to manage.

And then another thing is the usage of WIndows. I would really prefer Ubuntu for coding. I do not thing there should be any problem with using ubuntu. I just do not want to START to TURN OFF windows :P .

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My Plans/Wishlist After Moving To Bangalore

Published on April 24, 2009 in Anu. 0 Comments

Well, everybody has plans regarding what they would want to do with their first salary. I have mine too. Here I list them in no particular order. And most probably, I sill do most of the things. So here’s my wishlist -

  • I crave for a Dell XPS. And the machine needs to be powerful enough to render all of the eye-candy effects of compiz. It goes without saying that I shall be using ubuntu as the operating system. No windows for me. I think a 4 Gb RAM should do. It would help if I could get a graphics card. Hmm .. lets see.
  • I want a domain of my own. Not like this one. Here I am required to show ads from the people whose server I use. I want a reliable ad-free domain and hosting. Also this one’s a bit slow and always has some sort of problems. The latest being a problem with WP Super Cache plugin.
  • I want to become a subscriber of last.fm. And this is something I will definitely do as it is the cheapest thing. A subscription costs only some Rs. 500. The positive of becoming a subscriber are lots. Mostly you can make many playlists. Also you can listen to your loved songs. And as it is, I am starting to like the last.fm radio. I dont care for 500. In light of recent events, this has become a necessity rather than luxury.
  • I want an Ipod touch. Nothing else will do. Just imagine … Sony Ericcson Xperia X1 + Ipod Touch … awesome :D :) .

Can’t think of more now. Shall keep adding here :) .

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Lull After The Storm

Published on April 12, 2009 in Anu. 0 Comments

Yabba Dabba doo !!! My Grand Viva is finally over. And I cannot express my happiness over it in any definite words. This is the one time professors get to mock at their students, though I must add a few are very helpful, and try their best to point the students to the right answers. Although I did not do as well as I was hoping to, but no regrets over there. As it is, I have never cared for my CG. Marks are for the lesser mortals :D .

So now with the grand viva out of the way, it is time to resume working on my BTP. But not without a well deserved break for the weekend. Yeah, a well deserved one, really. Only the BTP presentation is between me and my graduation :D .

The last 40 days at Kharagpur ! I am glad to be leaving this place. Not because I got bored of it, but because I want to start a new chapter of my life – a different story, a different person, a different place. I am eager to move into Bangalore, and start afresh. There was a lot I could have done at Kharagpur itself, but my introversion prevented that. It shall not any more. I am determined to present a new picture of myself, a changed self. I am deviating from the topic.

Well, to sum up, now with the grand viva over, things have really calmed down. There is not much to do, except BTP and chilling out with friends. Its time to make the last few days at Kharagpur memorable. There shall come a day when I’ll feel nostalgic, and wish these days – the best of my life – never went away, but it is not that day yet. Today is the time for party.

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To Bug Is Human, To Debug Divine

Published on April 1, 2009 in Anu. 0 Comments

Debugging is a pretty tiring job. More so if you do not exactly know where you have erred. I spent half the day today debugging my code. Hopefully, it does not have any more bugs.

A day earlier I thought I was done with my BTP coding. I tested the code for small inputs, and the results were as expected. Happy with my work, I wrote a script to let it run a few times on inputs generated following the poisson distribution. When I woke up the next day I was shocked to see the results. They were nothing like what I had imagined. The results had deviated highly from what was expected by theory. Damn! A day’s hard work gone waste.

I sat down to remove any bugs. To elp in the debugging process, I had generated 4 log files – log.xml, run.data, plot.data, miss.data. Poring over these log files and simultaneously running the gdb was a strenous work. I had no idea where the errors were being reported. The aberration becomes observable only after my code has executed for some 10,000 times. It was simply impossible to dry run the code for so long and zero-in on the bug.

I tried a smaller random input, hoping to catch the bug. Luckily enough, this data set produced the error. The deviation was not too obvious, but a hard look at the log files, and I could narrow down the error to a few functions in my code. However, to find the bug, I had to eventually dry run the code for this smaller data set. This took another hour.

All’s well that ends well. I have rectified the error. Basically, I was forgetting to reinitialize an important parameter on the occurance of a particular event. With that done I am hoping to get good results when I wake up tomorrow morning. A good night’s rest is what I deserve. *A pat on my back*. :)

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BTP Update

Published on March 29, 2009 in Anu. 0 Comments

Yay !! Finally I have definitely made some progress in my BTP. I have ironed out all the bugs. As I write, a bash script is running my program over and over again with different parameters as input. The loop will execute some 6*3*100 times. And within each program, there is a time counter which counts forward to 30,000 units.

I have left the whole thing to run in development mode, instead of the deployment mode. Printing out details on the screen is slowing down the generation of results though. Perhaps I must go and sleep while the script does its work. I have been awake for more than 24 hrs now, and sleep is very much welcomed.

I do hope to get some pretty good graph. I am making this siulation for a multi-processor system. However, there is this small issue when it comes to division of work between different processors which I need to discuss with Arnab da. Once done, I should be able to wrap up my project in a matter of day or two.

Fingers crossed. I shall put up the result, provided it is what I expect.

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My Paranoia Self

Published on March 27, 2009 in Anu. 0 Comments
I’ve always been this paranoid guy who never trusts the people he cannot see. It was the primary reason that I avoided the social networking sites and was reserved while chatting with people I hadn’t met in a long time. However, things changed the last year and I started opening up. I did the most foolish thing of publishing my contact information over online. Contact information includes my phone number and email id’s.
Due to my foolishness, some unknown person has managed to forward all his calls onto my cell phone, and now I am being annoyed by someone I do not know. Damn ! This is the second case of my foolishness, of my letting the guard down over the net. Never again shall this happen.
I have decided to once again revert back to my paranoia self – never trust a person you cannot see. I am removing all my contact information, setting up strict privacy filters and actually pruning the friend list. The whole operation might take a few days to complete as I’ll have to scan all the places where I might have left any information whatsoever. If you are a friend who knows me, then you’ll find some way of contacting me.
Phew ! Some work to do during the weekend.

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Case Of The Forwarded Calls

Published on March 27, 2009 in Anu. 0 Comments

An interesting event occured to me yesterday. I do not know if it is the sheer genius of the other person or an honest mistake on his part. Either way, I have had to deal with an angry sales person the whole evening. The whole affair is described below.

It all started in the evening. I returned back to my room after the evening snacks. As I sat down to work, my phone rang. An unknown number – +919334461925. I pick up the phone. The conversation was in hindi.

‘ello. Who’s this?

When will you return my money?

Excuse me, but may I know who am I talking to?

******, when will you return the money you owe me !

I suppose you have dialled a wrong number. Which number do you think you have dialled?

I got a call from you on this number, asking me to recharge the number +9198——– (I do not remember the other number) for an amount of Rs 3500, with your word to repay me today. When do you intend to pay me back.

I am sorry. I repeat once again, I think you have got the wrong number. I am not the guy you are looking for.

*******. I dialled your number +919002341426. This is the number you called me with. Now ****** tell me your address so that I can set you straight.

I hang up. But immediately the phone rings again. The same number. Damn, he redialled

Hello?

******. Why did you hang up. Afraid of telling me your address are you?

So eager for a fight are you, come on. I am in RK Hall of Residence. Wanna set me straight. Come here. I shall be waiting for you at the gate.

Who the **** do you think you are.

Afraid are we now, huh?

Pay back my money and I’ll let you go.

Dial the correct number first and you’ll get what you want. My number starts with 99, not 90.

Smart chap eh? Tell me, how did you tweak the connections of your mobile phone, that I dial your number on 90 and it goes to your phone at 99.

Am I expected to laugh at your joke, because believe me, I’m not in the mood for it.

I’ll complain to the police.

I’ll thank the gods for putting some sense into you. Please go on and do so.

I just want my money.

Can you talk properly first? ‘Coz I do not see this conversation heading anywhere.

[a few minutes silence]

When will you return back my money?

As I have already told you, you have got the wrong person. I am not the guy who asked you for a recharge. Please redial and check with the right person.

How can it be? I dialled the correct number.

May be a cross connection. You might perhaps want to try after a few hours.

Or a simpler solution is for you to return my money, ******.

Mind your language.

I hang up again. He called me again and again, but I let the phone ring.That was all for yesterday. In the morning today, I got another call. A different number – +916542325507. Again the guy was asking for someone else. Something is definitely wrong, I thought. I told him the same thing, that this is a different number and hung up. But something came back to my mind immediately. I thought I had seen an arrow mark on my screen beside the number of the caller. This never showed up before. Something is definitely wrong.

I went to my neighbours room, Rohit. I asked Rohit to call up the 90 number. The call was on my mobile ! But there was no sign of the arrow mark. Was it my mind playing tricks on me? Was I imagining things? All my screen showed was Rohit Calling. Unless …

I went to Dhangi’s room. Now Dhangi is not added in my contacts list. I made him call up the 90 number. And voila ! There it was, the arrow beside Dhangi’s number. And it immediately occured to me what the whole thing was.

The other person has set up call forwarding on his mobile. Whenever you try to call the 90 number, it gets forwarded to my mobile. All the time the sales person was dialling the correct number. I did not know what to do next. Dhangi suggested I call up the Airtel customer service and tell them.

I called up the Airtel customer service at 121, but I managed to get only one reply -

I am sorry sir. We cannot help you in this matter. Airtel is a service provider. All our customers are equally important to us.

Damn it fool, even after listening to the whole story can you not think out of the box and actually do something. I know you have been taught to blurt out the same response and you are doing a pretty good job as a bot. But don’t you see there could be something fishy here. I suspect a foul play. Can you not for a change use your brains and do justice to the money Airtel pays you.

I am sorry sir. We cannot help you in this matter. Airtel is a service provider. All our customers are equally important to us.

Oh my darling, this is India. Why do they even have call centers here, I wonder. The guy on the other side would have done a better service to the nation pulling a rickshaw. And to think that the Americans outsource all their work to be done by these damned creatures.

So be it. I am going to do nothing in this affair any more. If the sales person calls up again, I’ll tell him to go to the police. Let him fight for his money. Let Airtel value their customers so much that they annoy them. If only there was a way to block out all the forwarded calls.

So ends the Case Of The Forwarded Calls. I shall post any new developments below. But I do not think there will be any.

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