The fun of reading e-mails from CLI

I loved this comic strip from geekhero webcomic .

Lol… now u seriously wanna read mails from CLI ????

Microsoft released a new internship upadte for our college!!

Microsoft had come to NIT-Trichy for placements last semester and they were also looking for intership . So we the third year comp-sci s were  asked to take a written test( which also happened to be the same written test as the one for final year students sitting for placements) . We were told that the list of selected students for interview would be announced in few weeks. The test was a easy one and so I was pretty much hoping to get called for interview. But the results came after about a month and to my surprise my name wasnt there and so were couple of other probable names (nutty , akhil and so) . I remembered murphy . The guys who got selected for the interview round were happy and had begun the preps for interview . But there was not further notification until one day they said they are gonna have one more written elimination round . And so these people again began their preparations ( I can clearly remember few of them who bunked a couple of things for preparing for this elimination round) . Curse the murphy law, the written test was called off the last minute and there was further no notification of what its gonna be like.

And all of a sudden now microsoft sends a new list now telling they  have scrapped of the first list they  had earlier announced and released a new list. I was happy that the new list  published  , had my name .But ,what about all those people who had been preparing. You cant all of  a sudden show an opportunity and take it away( keeping a sweet in ur lips and takin it off ). And how can some MNC like microsoft make a mistake in their selection process to this extent.

Now this is something that microsoft has been doing for ages. They release an OS and then later release a million security updates and patches. I heard about the recent IE security update where they all of a sudden discover that the web browser millions of people around the world use is no more secure and release a critical update for it .

A software is ok to do somthing like that , but not people.And i hope they dont announce another new list in the coming days

Shifting from Fedora 8 to Ubuntu 8.10

This is something i had been planning for a very long time since i found my fedora 8 boring .Its not that fedora isnt good , but i was done configuring a hell lot in fedora that i wanted it to be more simple. So i waited till Itrepid Ibex gt released and since the day it got released i started taking back up of important files from my /usr/share.

I had changed my fedora themes and icons so much that i never looked like fedora. But then deep inside it was basically the fedora  8 and i wanted a change. So this after noon at 2 i started my reinstallation and i first thought i will wait for few more days to get the repos from hari who is bringing it from  banaglore. The net at my house has a download limit which i had already very well exceeded.

Each time i had a prob with my fedora i had to go google , find out why the problem occurs and then get the solutions . But with ubuntu it was all one click away. And in no time i found all my service from music to IMs and topcoder applets up and running . Its  so sweet  using ubuntu … I <3 ubuntu

And ubuntu has a much better support on the net than fedora.Go ubuntu  Go !!!

Comedies on my first Trip to North India

I recently visited IIT Kanpur of ACM-ICPC Aisa Regionals and it happened to be my first trip to north india. The farhest i had gone in south india was till Uduppi few years ago. So before i tell something about the comedies that i made , i ll tell u my part of the situation.I am a guy who knows only Tamil , Telugu and English .And i do speak Hindi but my friends would better close their ears on that . But i can understand and read hindi to some extent . On my onward journey i had booked for Rapti Sagar from my home station Katpadi to Kanpur in 3rd AC. I booked 3rd AC because my friends who had already traveled to knapur by trains had warned me of the “difficulties” in traveling in Second Class . But my team mates could’nt make it to 3rd AC. They had booked theor tickets in a funny fashion that it was impossible for them to cancel it and book it in 3rd AC. So we all set forth to kanpur with me in one compartment and they both in Second Class. The onward journey was not much of trouble since i didnt have to get down anywhere and communicate with others except for in the intermediate stations to buy some eatables . The train was running on time till Jhansi and after that from kanpur to jhansi which happened to be just 220 kms , the train was late by 3 hours. All because the track became a single track rather than the ususal double track.

Panic struck me because my return journey was in jeopardy because of this latest information that trains between Kanpur to Jhansi always run late in hours .Since i could’nt get a straight train from kanpur to katpadi on my return journey , i had decided to break my journey in Jhansi and catch a Rajdhani from there . So the time differnece between these two trains was just 3 hours and i knew i was not gonna make it if i rely on trians . So i gathered info from diff people and thought why not book a train that leaves in morning in kanpur so that i can catch the Rajdhani which is supposed to arrive at night 9 in Jhansi.I thought may be 12 hours is something trains cant dream to be late of.

I was rather wrong, the next day when i checked in the net , the recent train i had booked which had a 12hr hour gap to Rajdhani was already running 14 hours late. I cursed my self and finally decided to go on bus from Kanpur to Jhansi on 17th morning and catch the Rajdhani at night 9. To be safe i took n0 chances with the bus journey and i started as early as possible on 17th.

This is where the comedy started. Till now there would be either one of my two team mates with me when i was roaming around that any one speaks to me in hindi , i would ask these guys to do the translation and speaking for me . But now i am gonna travel all alone in a bus from Kanpur to jhansi (a 7 hours journey) without knowing the language. So on 17th morning Vaibhav helped me catch a bus to Jhansi . The bus was bad , rickety and in a sort of position that i wasnt even sure if it ll make to Jhansi. I got into the bus , got a ticket , shut my mouth and closed my eyes. The ticket was not like the tickets given in TN.It was like a small piece of hand written bill and i had kept it in my pocket with my mobile .

So after few hours of journey , i put my hand inside my pocket to get the ticket , so that i could collect the balance change the conductor had to give me . “It was not there ” . I checked all my pockets , saw all through my luggage bag if i had transferred it over there in my sleepy mood. But it was gone . And then i vaguely remembered a small piece of paper falling down when i tried to reach for my mobile at a place the bus had stopped earlier for refreshments . What am i gonna do. I tried communicating with the guy who sat next to me asking if there was any surprise squad int those areas to check for tickets ( thank god he knew english) . He assured me there wont be any . So i wasnt interested in wasting another 150 rupees on buying the ticket again. So i continued my sleep. An another half an hour the bus had traveled , and suddenly i found the bus to stop.Three people with some record books in their hand got into the bus . Damn i could make out that they were the ticket checkers . I was wondering what would they call 1000 and 500 in hindi( so that i can bargain over the fine or his commision).But something weird happened . They started counting the heads and did some calculations and got out of the bus. I caught a big Sigh of relief and continued my sleep. The bus started and then again stopped and suddenly these three people again got into the bus. This made no sense to me unless they are here for checking the tickets again. And this time they came near my seat and one of them started saying something in hindi . I pretended to be asleep so that they would not check from me , but i suddenly found a hand waking me up. I got up saw that it was the ticket checker . My throats were dry.

All imagined myself questioned in hindi for a ticket and couldnt think of a worser situtation. But suddenly he waved his hands asking me to move and sit . And when i did he sat right next to me . There i was , ticket-less and with the ticket collector sitting next to me. I prayed to god he wont ask for tickets . He continued telling something in hindi to the conductor , and after about an hour , got down at another place . I was not scared of him setting next to me , but i was really excited to know how it would all end. And it ended pretty much as i wished .

There are lots of bus journeys that we make. And not all are memorable ones . But this one with the ticket collector sitting next to me and me ticket-less and a hindi illiterate was more than enough to make it memorable .

ACM-ICPC 2008 Asia Region Kanpur Site

The Asia Regionals were held in Kanpur site on December 15th and 16th. My team consisting of Vaibhav , Me and Abhinav happened to be the only team to be going from NIT Trichy . So we couldnt have the sort of get together fun we had at the Amritapuri Site. And also the kanpur people were not that warm in their treatment being the host of the competition for the past ten years. And it also happened to be my first trip to north india. I am planning to write all the comedies that happened in the process of my travel as a seperate post .But i will stick to the competition in this post.

We reached there on 14th morning and we headed to IIT kanpur in an auto and got the accomodation . As most of the IIT s have surplous rooms and hostels, we were given individual rooms for each of us and the campus was the first thing that i found overwhelming in the trip. The campus was so beautiful with lawns all over it.Coming from a place like NITT where all u can see when u look around are Red hot soil , having a nice landscape around was inspiring enough for us to drop all tasks at hand and go for a walk around thc campus. We made a short trip, and their hostels were par the expectations i had in mind. Each hostel had a seperate mess within it and a canteen and a nice lawn all around it . We were made to dine in the mess and i would have regretted it if it had been in my college mess , but this was IIT mess. The mess was so clean and well equipped and no wonder the food was tasty .

The next morning we had the inaugural ceremony and guest talks. They had arranged for Tea which had more than just tea, and we almost had a sort of lunch over there . There was a practice contest in the afternoon and thats when panic stuck me . I was pretty much comfortable with the Mooshak online judge . But these people were using PC2 . PC2 is a java applet and the application was not as i thought it would be. It didnt even have a rank list display . So after the practice session , we took our time off and we had a special dinner in the computer center lawn. The lawn was well lit with lights and the food was great and so were the girls around us .

The main contest was on 16th and we were all geared up . There were few things we had to take care of. The first thing being that the rank list would be displayed only at the lobby downstairs .So we had no idea how the other teams were doing. And then the questions were not that great. They didnt have proper input size specification and two of the most easy problems were unsolved by all teams. It can happen that a particular team can be eluded by an easy problem , but if all the teams had a problem with their simple solution not getting accepted , then it was more than a tricky input. Even after the contest , any interaction with the judges regarding the problems . We spent most of the contest time debugging our stupid mistakes and made our submissions only in the last minute. And spent most of the time wasting on one of the easier probs which no one could solve.

In the end we were happy that even after a bad performance we were ranked 14th . And there were only 14 teams out of the 60 to have solved 2 or more problems . Only 4 teams solved 4 problems .Four teams had solved 3 problems and 7 teams had solved 2 problems . So the first fourteen teams were grouped into the meritorious list , which we had managed to get into with our last minute debugging . Had we debugged those earlier , we could have been into the top 10.

On 17th i started my return journey and reached home on 19th early morning at 2 . In all it was a nice experience to make few things clear to me . I needed a lot of practicing to do in the coming months .

ACM-ICPC Asia Regionals @ Amrita University – Kerala

Have u ever been overwhelmed by the hospitality ? . Then probably you should visit Amrita univ as an ACM-ICPC contestant.So was I whn I visited the campus on dec 3rd – 8th . I should say they made all of the 70 odd teams take a note of their hospitality and treatment they offered . There were teams from as far as Kazakistan , Taiwan and Singapore .The ACM-ICPC goes like this. Each college is supposed to select team locally by conducting a local contest and then these teams compete online for their tickets to the regionals . The Asia Regionals was held at amrita univ and one more is held at IIT kanpur. There are totally 70 regionals in the whole world and Amrita Univ is hosting one of them . There were 5 teams from NITT this time and we made sure we had a lot of fun.And for the kanpur only my team gt qualified . So Amrita was the only place where all of us cud have a great time together.

Me and nutty boarded the train on 3rd night and reached there on 4th morning. And they had promised us tht they will pick us up from station. So we were expecting an old college bus to be waiting for us , but we were greeted with a qualis . From there on they really impressed us all . The volunteers were organised and knew exactly wht to do .(Not like the pragyan volunteers ) On 4th we mostly spent the day at the rooms chatting and had great food in the after noon and night.

On 5th the registration started and my other team mates arrived. And they had this traditional welcome for us with about some 40 girls dressed in mallu dress holding lamps in their hands as we entered their college building. And just then suren reminded me about the cheer leader effect . The inaugural ceremony was held at 9 followed by a practice contest and then we were taken on a beach trip by them. They took care of all the travel and even carried mineral water bottles for us in the bus . This is probably the height of hospirality . And finally we had the banquet dinner and it was just great.

Dec 6th was the main contest day . I dont think there is much to say for this day . But their usual high end hospitality continued. The contest was tough and we managed only 22nd position. The IIIT team from hyderabad finished first and no wonder they were coached by prasanna( our college passout and 2 time world finalist ) .And then there was this award ceremony where we were given away the certificates and some cultural entertainment followed by another great dinner. The next day was excursion day

We were headed to Thenmala on dec 7th . The trip was more of travel and we managed to get nice pics of all . They took us to Ambanaad hills and and adventure park . And even here they took care of all our food and continued to impress us . Finally we headed back to campus at night and the next day i was on train back home . ( they even dropped us back on the railway station in car )

In all they have made this trip memorable with their warm hospitality . All the teams who came for the onsite regionals personally appreciated the efforts put by all those volunteers. I think the pragyan team should have a piece of their hospitality . We were so overwhelmed tht me and others from NITT decided never to invite these guys to our campus for any festember or pragyan ( we didnt want to insult them with our hospitality )

My wierd SRM Dream :(

I shud say i am really bad at remembering my dreams.Each morning i get up i would have a vague remembrance of what i dreamt last night.But the dream i had last night is the height of craziness .I gotta write abt it. And so i ran straight to my laptop as soon as i got up to write down my dream .
Before i tell u wht really happened in my dream , there is a flash-back i need to mention here. Infact a fact about me and topcoder. I would be the guy who had missed the most of the topcoder matches in the world and i would have really wierd reasons to miss each time . Yesterday was once such occasion whn i was in chennai and had planned to come back home before evening on time for my SRM 428. But then the BSNL Broad Band at my area was down and there was no net connection for us for the whole day .My dad called me up and told me this thing and here u see i had another wierd reason to miss the TC match.So i continued to go for my purchase of hard disk(yeah i got an another new hard disk).And came back home around 8 in the night .

Yeah now coming back to the dream .Before i narrate i dont intend to use this story for the next Mr Bean movie . I seriously mean tht . So I was sleeping (ofcourse ) and then suddenly i am in my school ground , with my laptop and a magical green colour ethernet wire hanging from sky and then i was in the TC applet . I was like yippeee i made it to the SRM 428. And there were couple of friends around me . Now here are the questions tht i got .

The 250 problem was ” Given an integer , print the integer three times .”
Sorry i cudnt help it .But seriously my dreams are out of my control , and i dont have any intention of having a ques like tht anywhere. And the funny part is i submitted the question and ended up with 383 points. God knows why. Well if u think thts it ..wait a sec .The 500 one is the big funny one.

You are not gonna beleive this but suddenly i got transported to a new room with a very very long table on it .. And then on the table was some wierd sort of setup .Some thing like being done for a science exhibition. And people were sitting all around at different parts of the table. Now suddenly the laptop comes into my hand and i see the 500 pt question . “Explain the setup before You “.
Are u alive ??? Yeah i got a theory question in my Topcoder SRM in my dream . Can u imagine how terrible it is ? And the more funnier part of this is actually wht the setup is, as i had figured out in my dream .
So i went on to understand the setup and after minutes of serious and tense observation , I finally figured it out tht it was the setup for A network protocol for Data Link Layer tht i had learnt for my fifth sem . It was the one with positive Acknowledgment . Protocol P3 to be more precise. And so i sadly sat down to write my answer and suddenly the laptop was gone and i had a 2 sheet paper in my hand. I began to scribble in the worst of my hand writing and was nearing the completion whn i suddenly turned the sheet and to my surprise i find somebody else has already written some shit in those last few lines. So i began for a search for my eraser and finally found it and erased the part and finished writing. The last line i had written was
” To improve the protocol efficiency acknowledgements can be piggy packed into data frames” .
I finally i had something to submit and looked to my laptop.. (God knws how i am gonna submit a paper to computer. May be i was supposed to scan it and submit). But wait a sec. I suddenly find my lan wire missing . In the process of searching for my rubber , i lost my LAN wire tht was hanging from the sky and i had no way of submitting the 500 pt theory .And then suddenly power went off and i got up .

So there it is my wierd dream . But from now on , i have made up my mind not to miss any more TC matches whatsoever be the wierd reason .I have no explanation as to why the dream was so so crazy , but i just hope it doesnt come true .

PS : Thank god the dream stopped before i looked into the 1000 ptr. Any crazy ideas welcome