Power of The Pen
For the past week, everytime I sat down to blog, the power went off… No exaggerating, EVERY time. Hell, even fate is scared that I’ll write a post… 
From the Infinite Club To IIT
So, its been a long time. So, lets catch up. I’m officially B.Tech now-yes, and now I belong to an infinite set. But I guess what matters is what I do from here on, since anyone who knows Engg. colleges in India would tell you that you are bound to pass out with a B.Tech unless you are as gutsy as Bill Gates. Anyway, so what next? I’m joining the MS programme in IIT Madras. I guess I really like the MS programme because of the research component. Having a great guide at IIT also helped. I had worked with him during my Summer internship at IIT and really liked the environment.
During the gap between the courses, I’ve mostly been working on this or that, or whiling time, but something interesting has come up in the last few days. In these last few days, I’ve been working on some scripting work for the SecondLife platform, but that deserves a blog post by itself. So, more about that soon….
“It Had Me At The Scrolling” and the Pinch
Today I watched (at considerable length, may I add) Steve Jobs’ keynote speech at CES. Two things were obvious.
The guy is very good at marketting things.
There was a lot of antagonism towards Microsoft.
But then, that is not the important part.. which brings us to the iPhone..
Though its a bit costly, I guess it has a lot of good concepts behind it. At first look, it seems a pretty cool thing to own. But then, one must be careful. For example, I am not very convinced that text messaging will be very easy on the device.(and we college students live on SMS,mind you!). Also, there is a question of how durable the screen will be, once you start using your hands for operation. I’m guessing that the answer is:not as durable as it would be if I used a stylus.(but then, not as inconvenient either).
(This brings back pleasant memories.. Two summers ago I broke the stylus of my Sharp PDA, two days after my brother gave it to me. Now ,THAT is trouble.)
On a lighter note: Imagine this..you will be forced to keep your nails trim if you want to use the iPhone with good speed. So Apple is doing its bit in improving world health…Good Job(s)…
But personally, I am waiting for someone to gift me the thing. I will use the iPod atleast, till I move to a place with WiFi and someplace where Cingular works. You see, it really had me at the scrolling and the pinching..more so at the pinching. It really must have taken real good hardware to get all that stuff into one palm-sized device.
“It Had Me At The Scrolling” and the Pinch
Today I watched (at considerable length, may I add) Steve Jobs’ keynote speech at CES. Two things were obvious.
The guy is very good at marketting things.
There was a lot of antagonism towards Microsoft.
But then, that is not the important part.. which brings us to the iPhone..
Though its a bit costly, I guess it has a lot of good concepts behind it. At first look, it seems a pretty cool thing to own. But then, one must be careful. For example, I am not very convinced that text messaging will be very easy on the device.(and we college students live on SMS,mind you!). Also, there is a question of how durable the screen will be, once you start using your hands for operation. I’m guessing that the answer is:not as durable as it would be if I used a stylus.(but then, not as inconvenient either).
(This brings back pleasant memories.. Two summers ago I broke the stylus of my Sharp PDA, two days after my brother gave it to me. Now ,THAT is trouble.)
On a lighter note: Imagine this..you will be forced to keep your nails trim if you want to use the iPhone with good speed. So Apple is doing its bit in improving world health…Good Job(s)…
Busy Busy BZ
For the last couple of days, I have been reading blogs throughout the day, and for a good part of the night. I got a huge list from a fellow blogger and friend Vishnu, and am sampling his feedlist…..
Yeah.. I’m Back
Once again, I’ve brought my lazy self back into the blogging world. In this break, as usual, I managed to do nothing worthwhile. Oh yeah, I did manage to complete my applications for PhD… and THAT, was a big pain.. Apart from having to rewrite a personal statement about five times (perfection, you know) the hardest part was having to keep note of all the various required documents. And the university sites did not help much.
Most sites being as vast as they are, there is not easy way to find what ou need to send. Of course, the standard stuff like SOP, gradesheets are all fine.. But finding mail addresses, and other obscure forms to be filled up.. that is trouble. For eg some college-departments have a separate dept. form to be filled and this is never mentioned in the application page, or the form. Luckily, I stumbled upon the forms in time. The mailing addresses are another story. In the myriad pages present in the site, it was a pretty tough deal.
Thank God for the Google University search.. These guys know how to help…
Free Stuff On Economics? What about poor Electronics guys?
Vishnu blogs about free papers from NBER for people in all third-world countries.
So, what about third-world electronics people..Can someone try and get IEEE to give away all papers for free in third-world countries? It will be pretty useful to me..:P
The Height Of Ignorance
Recently I had this conversation with someone who teaches me.Though this someone probably doesnt know about or read blogs, I’ll withhold details about him/her for obv. reasons. But I’ll say this much, he is a lecturer.
Now I’ve got this practice of asking doubts in class. This is something that was long abandoned by my peers after they lost hopes of getting them cleared, or alternatively, after they got into the practice of sleeping in class. Let me clarify, I ask doubts when I’m awake. As they say, curiosity kills the cat.
Scene: In class
Him : This quantity is always positive.
Me : Why should it be
( I assure you he hadnt given any explanations to render that question ultra-stupid)
Him : Because its minimum value is zero
Me : !!!!
Ok, so now I’ve become used to there stupid answers, having been where I am for three years. So….
Me : Ok, now why is its minimum value zero?
Him: Because its value cannot go below zero. For example, if I say pass mark is 45 marks, then anything below 45 is fail right, you would pass that subject….
At this stage let me assure the reader that I do happen to know what ” positive” and ” cannot be less than zero” mean.. and donot need a statement analogous to “anything less than zero will be negative ” but this is the far end for me. When someone tries to hide his ignorance, and does a damn bad job at that too, along with everything else, thats the height of stupidity.
Moral: Next time, ask doubts only to disrupt class when your friends are getting bored. If you want to learn something, go read a book
P S : For the record, I learnt that moral 2 years back, but never lost hope in the human abilities to learn from mistakes and hence get good at what they do..maybe i should have.
Hypothetically speaking
What if E were not equal to mc^2….a random musing.
If it were, instead equal to mc,what would happen?
