Crazy Dreams…

I dont remember my dreams. Never could I recollect what I had dreamt about  in the last night. A few exceptions are this and the one that woke me up this morning. They would rather come under the category of nightmares.  For the past few days, I have been trying really hard to read this big book (Barrons) of hundreds of words that even makes a month a small time for an exam. I dont reckon preparing for any exam like this in a very long long time.

So here goes the dream and I was so terrified that I totally remember the details. It was a sandy beach. In fact lots of sand … and then there were couple of  my friends and we were all happily playing and chit chatting. And suddenly this guy starts talking about GRE and  he gave me the following shocking news

1. GRE from now on is for a score of 2200

2. No math in GRE and its only  the verbal section completely

3. And a new edition of barrons with 103 word lists is newly released .

And then he went on to tell me that some guy wrote it in a jiffy and got some 2188 .. I have no idea how I remember so much from a dream ..  I just got up with a shock, messaged two ppl who were giving GRE today and then slept  back.  May be all these happened because I was trying to do 4 word lists yesterday  to compensate for my slow pace of current preps.

In all, I just wanna be done with it and move on to other things. I have been battered since the day, I had planned to give GRE. First it was with getting a passport which almost took me 2  visits to chennai passport office and finally one visit to trichy pass port office and now I get awkward dreams of the examination. On one side, I am having an awesome summer, on the other side, I am really getting abused by these GRE preps. The only thing that I am sharpening in this process is the pencil that I use to keep track of the words

Now I am Sleep Lifting !!!

Things in my house are as old as me . Things like TV , refridgerator , cot etc . There was this refridgerator which my  parents were planning to get replaced with a new one . It was a Voltas one .. been used for 19 yrs and I actually remember breaking the door handle couple of times.

Suddenly I get up this morning and I was surprised to see a brand new refridgerator in place. So I felt a bit nostalgic and enquired where the old fridge was . My mom was like freaked out ..

I hadnt slept properly for the past few days and I was off  to bed early ( I mean around 10.30 in the night )  . And the new refridgerator had come at around 11 in the night . And my mom tells me that it was I who helped the delivery guy bring the new refridgerator into the house and take the old one  out . And she also told me I almost missed dropping the fridge and the delivery guy shouted at me for a moment . I helped them move the things and went and slept off again   .

Yeah guess that was my first sleep lifting job . Thank  God I didnt drop  anything . May be I shouldnt go to bed that early

The Private Magic Show at Sun Lab

Today was one of my lucky days . I was in sun lab with my laptop , and had gone out for dinner . When I came back , was  surprised to see abhilash with a set of cards and AJ sitting in front of him . I went shouting “Hey me too , for the magic trick ” . And hence the private magic show of AJ began in the sun lab , with abhilash ,me and srinivas watching him do amazing things with cards .

I was a bit late , had missed a trick . So i  pulled a chair and sat down and the next half an hour was breath-taking . I have watched  lots of videos of David  Blaine’s Street magic . I was amazed at those tricks at first but was convinced at times that they were all fake . But this one by AJ totally blew my minds off. I happened to see abt 7-8 of his card tricks and i was really amazed to see how a couple of hands , a mouth and a pack of cards could take you out for an awesome entertaining journey. And then finally , he made me do all the magic. I am gonna explain this .

AJ  : So you wanna do some magic ?

Me :  Ofcourse yeah .

He then gave me a deck of cards and then,

AJ : Now you are the magician . As a magician what would you want me to do ?

Me : Pick a card ( I couldnt think of anything else )

AJ Picked a card randomly , I was holding the deck all the time . And then he asked me to shuffle the cards . Now I did all possible shuffling to make sure he was not cheating . And then he asked me do deal  a set of cards  of my own choice . So i arbitly cut a  few of cards . While he still had the card which he originally chose , I divided the cards I dealt into two sets .

AJ : Now the first deck gives me the  value and the second card gives me the suit.

And then voila !! He opened the first card of first deck . Turned out to be  Queen of Spades. Opened the first card of the other deck , which turned out to be Six Dice . And then he opened the card that he had initally taken . Believe me or not , it was a Queen of dice . I was like OMG . He had not touched the entire deck of cards except for choosing the first card. I dealt all the cards, shuffled them all up myself. And still this guy pulls off a beautiful trick and amazes me ( and still says I ‘am the magician ) .

I feel really lucky to have been the one of very few to get his private magic show . I have seen some of my friends do magic tricks , but this one just blew me off. Totally entertaining.

Hats off AJ . You totally rock !!! .

PS : AJ you are “deeeeee”  magician 

New Year at Theoretical Comp-Sci Lab

2008 ended  with a bang for me . With results declared on new year eve , i was delighted to see a 9.64 GPA with all the efforts i put in ( refer this ) .Lots of guys were actually not happy with results coming out on new year eve .The next thing i was happy was succesfully downloading  the Ubuntu 8.10 repository using deb mirror  from the IIT M Mirror . I had downloaded some 24.8 GB of data in some 2 hours . I am planning to set up the repository back at coll so that we have a local mirror (seperate post on using debmirror coming up ) . With this the new year eve ended on  a high and i had made some working solutions for the research problem at hand. It  was  a overwhleming  farewell gift of 2008 .

2009 had a great beginning too.It was much of a surprise . After wishing everybody a happy new year , i was off to lab . I hadnt been doing much of work this winter , so i thought of not wasting the new year day. Also there was supposed to be a class on randomised algorithms by Prof C. Pandurangan which i didnt want to miss . So I reached lab around 10 in the morning . And then I  discussed my solution for Private Matching with Prof and Phd students and finally i had some meaningful outcome for my brief winter stay at Theoretical Comp Sci Lab ( i think i have been to lab only for some  10 days in total ).So I finally got a  green signal to write my kutti results  and i should soon be sending it for a journal publication soon . Hope it goes on well . I was exited with the new year beginning on a good note .

More fun came when the guys here  at lab decided to cut a cake and celebrate new year. So they got 2 cakes ( eggless becos prof is strictly vegetarian)  , some snacks and two big bottles of Cool Drinks to lab and soon prof joined us for the celebrations , giving his wishes .We put the camera to a good use  and also took pics group wise  ( perfect security , provable security , graph theory , game theory )  with professor. It was all fun. The atmosphere was unbeleivable .Something i cant get back in my coll and i enjoyed it completely here . Suddenly people started asking prof for his birthday treat. The guys here actually celebrate 4 birthdays of prof . One his actual birthday , his star birthday , the one in his pass port, and the one in his official records . And apart from this they also celebrate all transitive closure events of each other’s birthday . (Looks like its more fun doing research ) .

Soon we were headed to Cafe Coffee Day (yeah CCD ) here, with prof and we were around 20 people . Formed a big circle over there in CCD and the rest is all wht usually happens in any treat . After the treat we again took pics . In all it was a memorable new year . It was followed by a lecture on Randomised algorithms ( which i am planning to blog on soon ) . No one who sits in Pandurangan sir’s class leaves without getting inspired by the subject that he takes. And so was I.

In all this new year was entirely opposite previous one. On the eve of the 2008 new year , me and my dad met with an accident and we were in CMC Hospital . My dad had a minor fracture in his right shoulder and we came back home only on Jan 1st morning after spending the whole night at hospital .So i am really thrilled with this new year beginning on a high .

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 ????

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 .

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

Diwali Celebrations

I got this idea this morning after speaking to my cousin who lives in US.It so happens tht, we in india burst lots of crackers ,create a hell lot of explosive sound and u knw call ourselves a peace loving nation . My uncle called me up from singapore and told me too tht  they get only those small sparkel sticks , even with a large tamil population over there.. Ok so here is my writeup on how diff ppl would plan to celebrate diwali with their idea of bursting crackers

A Physicist : Create a sub-atomic collision and make a chain fission reaction to go BBOOOOOOMMM !!!( may be the LHC guys were planning to do this .. I heard there were a lot of indian scientist involved in tht prooject)

A Chemist : Create a vaccum chamber and do pyrolysis on a organic fuel and collect the combustible hydrogen over water and through a pin hole ignition create a effect of Lakshmi Vedi ….

Mathematician : This one is difficult .. He theoretically creates a fallacy bomb and proves tht it did create an explosion .

Pakistani : No comments.. i dont think i have to explain this .. May be u wil find all the details in newspaper tomoro..

NASA guy : Send an unmanned mission to the removed planet pluto and put a Oosi Vedi over there and send a rover in the next rocket to light it up after 9 years( i heard it takes 9 yrs to reach pluto from here..:P )

George Bush : No he doesnt burst crackers .. he accuses others of (mostly u knw some afghan or pakistani guy )

Tom the Cat : Light the big bomb with a match box..throw the match box and keep the bomb back safely in his pocket.

Algorithmist : Take a super exponential algorithm and run it on a 8085 Processor .. I pity the processor .. its obviously gonna get overburnt

ECE Guy : Probably team up with the algorthmist and make the 8085 processor interface with an 8279 for typing out the hex code of the algo ..

Yeah so i am wrapping it up with the

Comp Sci Guy : write a shell script to ssh to all comps in the network and do a bomb fork ( in windows u can do it just by pressing Win+E for a couple of seconds .. imported bomb for special occasions )

Any one who wants to try out my new fork bomb mail me.. Cost : Just 5 characters

Weird Things

Off late lots of wierd things have cropped up in my mind and i am going public about it … So tht was a statuatory warning for ppl who think i am perfectly stable (So back off it u wanna carry on tht thought in ur mind )

I have found lots of things which contradict themselves.Like the truth of the statement implies tht the statment is wrong.. So it eventually becomes both true and false.. ( yeah i think of only predicate logic and not propositional logic)and i spend most of the time thinking on whether i am right or wrong.One more thing tht i found interesting in the application of Heisenberg’s Uncertainity Principle to the process of thinking on wht u r currently thinking.. When u think on wht u think , the thought changes wht u are currently thinking and hence i came to the conslusion tht u can never determine wht u r currently thinkin.. (thoughts are electrons around our head… who said butterflies were ) .So we dunno wht we are currently thinking on…so whts the point in thinking.. ( tht was a bad joke ). Anyways the point is Cycle tests can push one to the end of wierdness . If u think thts it.. there are more things to come.. bt i seriously consider the sanity of the reader and wish to stop my blabberings..

PS : one more wierd decision i took was to switch from fedora to ubuntu once iterpid ibex comes out( i seriously dunno why i made this decision )

The Broken Window

If u think this has got any analogy to the movie secret window i watched recently, u r wrong except tht i am as crazy as jhonny depp in tht movie..

I ll keep it short and simple. It was the day i went thropugh this torment of lehman brothers interview ,tht i settled to watch Batman Begins( for the third time).I was totally into the movie and was having an ear phone so i could practically hear nothing but the movie sound. All of a sudden i hear the noise of glass splattering tht for an instance i wondered if batman had jumped out of my monitor screen. No he didnt .

(Now before i proceed i need to give the description of the secnario. I am in Garnet B 44 which happens to be in the first floor). So i put my head out side window and see kra and vsp at the ground floor waving at me “Macha coming to mess ?”

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.. Do these guys have to break my window pane to just ask me if i am coming for tht stupid mess .

PS 1:Me and Bur(my room mate) have planned for a revenge ..surprised revenge for kra and vsp. any suggestions or strategies welcomed..:P

PS 2: My blog is in the list of growing blogs yippeeee