k^infinity to http://kpowerinfinity.spaces.live.com/ & http://kpowerinfinity.wordpress.com

Pushing the limits ... to infinity! This blog has now been split into two. My personal blog is now located at Live Spaces and my more technical blog is located at Wordpress

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

A Rs. 30,000 Jacket

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1269647,00.html

Infineon, a division of Siemens, has produced his incredible new hi-tech marvel, which due to an on board computer, can do loads of stuff including music playback, hook on to your mobile phone, and show off!!!
===
"I have a dream" --- only when i'm sleepin'

Google under attack!!!

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996202

Google goes down due to Mydoom virus, DoS attacks... I hope its IPO sails through despite this
===
"I have a dream" --- only when i'm sleepin'

Monday, July 26, 2004

Coding Hell

Well, this is 1.45 in the night and i am going mad trying to figure out what is wrong in my code for my compiler assignement. this is the kind of time, when you feel: Man, why am i not a sleeping beauty :((

===
"I have a dream" --- only when i'm sleepin'

Sunday, July 25, 2004

Iacocca

Just finished the autobiography of Lee Iacocca, who is remembered for the great innings at the top of Ford, as well as the turnaround of Chrysler. The guy really had business sense. And he was really frank. I think that is why he was able to get his idea across, and also appear as sincere and honest.

His popularity after Chrysler almost filed for bankruptcy obviously plummetted, but he kept his cool, and due to his sincere efforts to help Chrysler, turned it around in no time. Boy, he did not even take his salary for a year, just took a nominal amount of $ 1. If all American executives were like him!!! There sure wouldn't have been any Enron.

However, in one thing he was wrong. He believed that due to various subsidies, and also low labour costs, and fixing of the yen to the dollar, the Japs would one day devour American industry. He could not have been more wrong. The Japanese economy could not take the strain of so many billions of dollars of subsidies, and also the fixing of the yen, and ultimately buckled. America, one the other hand entered one of its most prosperous years. This goes to show that free enterprise sure is the winner finally. Government should intervene only if it is a matter of national integrity and security, or if the damage due to something will make a very major mark in terms of skewing the unemployed ratio, as in the case of Chrysler.

The Chinese are going down the same path. They have fixed the yuan to the dollar, are giving massive subsidies, and are also torturing their labour. Let's see how far this one goes...

===
"I have a dream" --- only when i'm sleepin'

Gmail's too creepy 2

The pic is interesting, have a look:

===
"I have a dream" --- only when i'm sleepin'

Gmail is too creepy???

Found this site: http://www.gmail-is-too-creepy.com/ The site just drew me crazy. These guyz have tomes on how gmail is invading out privacy, and how it is not good for the user. They even go to write, that google will make a database of keywords and email addresses and later sell them. Common, this is a little too far fetched.

And the fact is that Gmail Rocks.... It has the best interface, simple and powerful, with some great new features, including keyboard shortcuts, conversation stacking, search, same page reply etc. wich make it refreshing as well us more useful.

Try to get an invit, and use it... you'll love it

===
"I have a dream" --- only when i'm sleepin'

But hell, an assignment :D

Hell, I got an assignment in the first week itself... can u imagine that...grrrrr

This is a compiler assignment, where I am required to build a C Pre Processor. I tried to look at the GCC code, and it is over 15k lines in over 10 files. How am I supposed to do this in 1.5 weeks??? bohoho

===
"I have a dream" --- only when i'm sleepin'

Saturday, July 24, 2004

A lovely week

This one was a hell of a week. I had my registrations for the new semester.

However, along with it came a lot of load about my breadth elective. I had been allotted Motion and Control in the Ocean Engg and Naval Arch dept. And it just had too much of mechanics for me. The fact is that I never liked too much of mechanics, not in school, and certainly not during JEE. Mechanics used to drive me crazy, and I used to loose my nerve as well as quite a bit of my confidence while attempting tough mechanics problems. So, there was no way I wanted a self-allotted course which had a lot of mechanics. However, the only alternatives being offered were the Devil's alternatives. I could take a subject with a lab component, but then I would probably not be alive by the end of this sem, because I already had 3 formidable labs. The only other option was Introduction to Flight, which apart from a great deal of mechanics, boasted of a very formidable and infamous prof, who was notorious for getting under the skin of his students.

Ultimately, after a lot of trouble, and several trips to the Dean, a few of my friends and I settled on Financial Management and Accounting. The only thing in its favour was that I would possibly learning something new, and interesting.

Apart from that, the week was just like any other, did not do any other work, and had a great treat today at Park, it was funduu and had a proper meal with starters et al after a really long time. It was actually the birthday treat of Biswa, Golu and KB, my wingies.

more later

===
"I have a dream" --- only when i'm sleepin'

Friday, July 16, 2004

Alone for a week

Well, now i know what it feels like to be stranded in an island alone... i was all alone in my wing for almost 2 days this week, and really got frust trying to figure out whether to talk to the walls or the dirty basins... moreover, i had to organize the room and also adjust to life on the 2nd floor, the guy just below me will probably die from the constant tension due to my being on "top" of him :P

thankfully, imran came on tuesday, and i could sigh with relief... and he also did a great job with the wing... he is the G Sec Maintenance, and the room was soon real real clean.... even the bathrooms :D, and since he has shifted to the room beside me, i had some companionship for the rest of the week

then again, had lotsa fun playing pranks with ramu, and chatting with him from a different ID... when i gave him the pic of a girl who i said was available, he almost jumped with excitement.... some guys however feel, that i made fun of myself.. but i refuse to believe.... wait till i get back to kgp and post the transcripts of the chat... and everyone can decide for themselves...

chalo enuff for now...

===
"I have a dream" --- only when i'm sleepin'

Monday, July 12, 2004

long time no write

well well, its been aeons since i wrote on this blog...

guess, it was becoming a trifle boring with huge blogs and equally huge comments... just wanted to break the jinx...

back in kgp... doing some work on authentication schemes using smart cards.... cool work... but boring at times... one can easily get a paper published regarding this...

apart from that, last few days have been pretty uneventful... spent most of it trying to make a website for my dad's business... yet to put it up so have no URL now... its completely dynamic with a mysql backend... and a PHP frontend...

saw a movie... hyderabad blues 2... great movie... funny, with oodles of sex based jokes... and lots of funny scenes... its a continuation of hyd blues 1 but one can watch it without having seen the latter... MUST WATCH

chalo will keep this short

===
"I have a dream" --- only when i'm sleepin'

Friday, July 02, 2004

Too many aiming for too few Stars

Yes, it is indeed true that most of us youngsters in India today are clueless about their Lakshya [Read Siddharth's comment to my blog Lakshya for the aimless. Many of them tend to flow with the water. The herd mentality is so common that in certain spheres, the competition is killing whereas in others, there is a desert. Take engineering, medicine, management. The number of youth who want to pursue it as a career are overwhelming. The number itself would be greater than the population of a few countries. But at the same time, the number who want to make it big in the Liberal Arts, journalism, art etc. and are clear about it early in life is so scanty that you could count these spirited and focussed students on your fingers. The ones who end up in these never go through a clear life plan, and mostly end up by chance or a choice very much later in life.

But to be fair to them, we cannot entirely blame them. The career openings in India are very few for the great number of youth in India today. The hope of the great middle class of India rests upon their children becoming successful. And the most sure-shot way is to enter the IITs, IIMs, or a premier medicine college. If these youth were to try untested waters, it would be too much of a risk both for their careers as well as for their parent's old age. It is almost a life insurance scheme many parents invest in by making their children go through the rigour of JEE, CAT and so on irrespective of their children's preferences. After all, one only looks at the returns while investing. The children too, due to lack of opportunities in their field of interest, end up plying the way of their parents, elder siblings, uncles and anybody who has been successful.

But then even among the ones who are able to get through to the premier institutes, we find a lack of apathy for working further. The entry itself is considered a license to greatess. After all, the competition for entrance is so mind-boggling that it leaves the student little more interest in studying. A student who has spent all his/her teenage years buried under piles of books is unlikely to be able to concentrate on them once he is successful in such exams. This victory makes them feel that they now ought to enjoy life, to make best of the few remaining days, and this explains the aimlessness. And this results in working without a view of the peak we want to reach. This makes us work hard for scholarships when we may not even be interested in studying the particular branch. This results in not getting results. After all, we can never get results when the heart is not where the mind is.

Each one of us have to identify our own 5179, our own mountain top, the lakshya, and be clear about what we would like to do. This does not have to be at age 6 when we start montessori. But it should be developed gradually. Also we need more opportunities in alternate careers, so that people do not choose it by default but by choice.

And as for the movie, I feel irrespective of the reviews the movie will be a hit in urban centres, in multiplexes, and just like Dil Chahta Hai, it will be a trendsetter. Farhan will recover his investments, and also make a tidy profit; rest assured.

I feel Preity was great the way she was - the dresses etc. she wore suited her character and that should be the motivation. Not every heroine has to do a Mallika Sherawat, and not every movie has to be a Girlfriend. Bollywood movies can be successful even without skin show and cheap characterization - and I think this is what directors ought to prove. However, I only feel that Preity should have had a more meaningful role, some intense scenes perhaps; there was a lot of scope in this which Farhan did not fully utilize.

Signing off.

===
"I have a dream" --- only when i'm sleepin'