Wahooo

http://www.highiqsociety.org/noflash/nonmembers/iqtests.htm(ultimate IQ test)

I scored a 118.

which they say is significantly above the average population.

But ... you need a min. of 126(which means super-duper brainy :p ) to qualify for further tests.

I'm sure I screwed up the "which of these unfolded patterns when folded is NOT formed" Q's.

but wahooo anyway : )

Paradig{u}ms

Doesnt it all come down to perceptions ... Beliefs, convictions, conclusions.
I had a very intruiging conversation with a friend of mine over lunch a couple of days back. She believes it still is a man's world. She says , at the end of the day it is the man who will work at anything but family matters, and the woman will take care of the child no matter what... even if its an emergency [child getting sick]!

Now .. I totally disagreed with that. But I heard her out completely and found that her arguments always cropped up from her belief that people never change, their attitudes always remain the same. I say , thats 1 ton of bullshit. Change is a very integral part of everyones life. There's no such thing or event when the change is said to be complete. Your life isnt like some crazy scientists experiment. Its a process, changes / adjustments / sacrifices have to be made. Thats how one moulds his/her character.

About the patriachal society concept... I'd rather work out the differences. Why should one follow the herd. Everyones lives are different... I just cant imagine myself taking charge over all matters. I find it ridiculous to even think about it.

Im very open minded about acknowledging the fact that life is never a smooth sail. I've been through rough patches and have learnt to accept that life can be unfair, one just has to get used to it.

But thats the best part, I'm ready to go through the tough patches.. not that I'm aiming at it. But I percieve it differently. Every fall can be made an opportunity to rise.

Also it isnt the case that Im no longer in good terms with that friend, but I have to say I totally disagree with her notions. I just hope all girls arent like that :)

Over the years as i've become more open minded, I've learnt to enjoy the simple things in life like admire nature. My dad being a psychiatrist had written an article about how the connection between neurons are formed for every thought!

So... if you can spawn a thought and form a neuron connection, why cant you also break it when you want to! Its _your_ brain isnt it !!

Neuron Burning

Been a while since I rambled anything here. So here's a quick rundown on "what's been up".
For starters, the gods have betrayed us .. damn xbox got busted. Then its been more work and more of "others" work. Some chaps here have phrased it very well... they call it Ashwin's consultancy services [acs] extension 209. :-s It's not good you know ! It fouls up my "peace of mind" concept :p

So, other than that, nothing really interesting going on. One of these days, I'm going to stay at home, sleep all day, catch up on reading some novel and stay very far away from my computer(s). Yes its possible !

Ok, so there's this new thing called the "nach syndrome", where a guy randomly digresses from the context of a conversation and starts rambling about the movie "nach". My friends say I have that ! Thats not true....well not entirely true... I dont come back to the same topic ! And even if I do, I'd say its a virtue !
wait wait let me explain ...

No one likes to hear people being back bitched / girls talking about cute ( which is not always cute) stuff / people not knowing where + when to stop / etc etc ... sooo thats where its a virtue. My mind tends to .. as if automatically.. think about other stuff. Now dont be mistaken, I _do_ have control over that. But sometimes I dont :p ... I think it could be extremely helpful when your mind tends to think about things that are beyond your control, but refuses to give up, simply because you really want it ... get me ?

So there..

Talk about humour ..

This is what the geek world is all about.

Do an egrep -ir "( fuck)|( shit)" * in your distro's kernel source.
Be careful , dont spill that coffee/beer into your keyboard while you're laughing.

Writing funny comments makes the reader chill, sip his/her coffee and carry on.
Its good for health, no seriously.

Even I write funny comments, in my code... its better than just //Ashwin

Want to read more ? Check this out.
more
more

Comprende amigo ?

Got this fwd in my mail a few weeks back ...

>> For those in their twenty-something's...this puts it all into words

>> perfectly. They call it the "Quarter-life Crisis."



Some things seem to match, but some dont, read on ...



>> It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that

>> there are a lot of things about yourself that you didn't know and may or

>> may not like.

I'd agree.. I am more inquisitve than before...however.. i get answers to most of my questions.

>> You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two,

>> but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.



Umm. I'm not insecure, but I've grown to be more ambitious

in my professional life and proven to myself that breakthroughs

however big or small dont happen all that infrequently if the job

is done passionately. So, I'd say, I'm getting more confident, but

 will never be blase or over-confident.



>> You look at your job. It is not even close to what you thought you would

>> be doing or maybe you are looking for one and realizing that you are going

>> to have to start at the bottom and are scared.



Exact opposite ! I'm really lucky with my job, I know the

state of some of my buddies, who still dont have work. I'm

invariably challenged with tasks, that prove my competency,

and earn me some well deserved respect and satisfaction.



>> You miss the comforts of college, of groups, of socializing with the same

>> people on a constant basis. But then you realize that maybe they weren't

>> so great after all.



True, that I miss the comforts of college, but back in college I dreamed of

 being where I am today, so its all good.



>> Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find

>> yourself judging a bit more than usual because suddenly you realize that

>> you have certain boundaries in your life and add things to your list of

>> what is acceptable and what is not. You are insecure and then secure.



True.



>> You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and

>> scared and confused.

>> Suddenly change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with

>> dear life but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further

>> away and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.



I'd take it more gracefully.



>> You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such

>> damage to you or you lay in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone

>> decent enough to get to know better.



Oh so true.



>> You love someone but maybe love someone else too and cannot figure out why

>> you are doing this because you are not a bad person.



err. no comment. : )



>> One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap and getting

>> wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic. You go through

>> the same emotions and questions over and over and talk with your friends

>> about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision.



first line : no comment ;) But rest of it is very true.



>> You worry about loans and money and the future and making a life for

>> yourself and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just

>> like to be a contender!



As long as I earn the respect, and give my task my best shot, I'm satisfied.



>> What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to it. We

>> are  in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can

>> to figure this whole thing out.



Im sure this is true.

Like, Ouch !?

The pain, the migrane, aah unbearable , this one !
I can understand the haiku amongst geeks, general IQ tests I mean, code challenges and the like. But this ! I cant look at it, although I wish I could someday achieve that apotheosis.

Take a look at this ..

http://www.google.com/googleblog/2004/11/give-up.html

then this ..

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/news/2004-10-13/google/

Mathematica !!??

A few days back, I was begining to feel better that I could finally answer "whats the coolest hack you've ever done ?" in the GLAT
and this just spoils the fun, doesnt it ?

Mailing list flame wars ..

There's no end to this ! It all started the day I started my job, and was giving a task of writing some snippets in an LCD driver; in linux of course. I had to find out some ways of getting hold of memory allocated by the kernel cache pool, for ARM ( Advanced RISC machines) architectures. So I posted this query on the ARM mailing lists, from my hotmail account. Little did I know, every mail I sent from hotmail to the list, was getting duplicated as a new entry ! Russel King , the _dude_ who wrote and maintains the ARM linux kernels, got pissed off and started to abuse. He said " and wtf (why the fsck) do you think you can post it twice everytime !? ", to which I retorted " htf ( how the fsck ) do I know that its comes twice through hotmail !?" ... and it continued from there on .. However, I had many people to my defense,.. someone there said to Russel that he should cool down, coz everyone knows how hard he works and etc etc .. At the end of it , I didnt get the answer to my question at all ! later on , of course I got the job done.

Again, on the linux LVM (logical volume manager) mailing lists , I wanted to know if the RAID 1 driver could be done on 1 disk with several partitions on it... coz so far we've read from texts that RAID <> needs more than one disk and so on ...

Now, the reason why I asked about RAID 1 on one disk was, to find an alternative to hacking the kernel IDE subsystem and obtaining the same functionality of RAID 1 ( mirroring).
History repeated again, only this time , my mails didnt repeat, but people started asking me the same question over and over again , as to why would anyone be as silly to have RAID 1 on a single disk !

Im like " tere baap ka kya jara" , I just need to know if its possible or not , simple. Although I got the answer to it, some really inquisitive chap found it hard to believe that I could hack the kernel IDE subsys to get RAID 1 functionality and so wanted to know how its done. I told him that, and yet again , the dude ,wonders why I was trying to do it, when "md" ( multiple disk) modules were part of the kernel these days ! Again "tere baap ka kya jara" ...

So, moral of the story, expect uber-geeks to act really stupid once in a while.

But still class Geek : public Earth {

AKA The geek shall inherit the Earth.

PS: Just in case you're still wondering why the IDE hack ? ( im sure most of you arent) ..well, RAID needs to have "formatted "partitions with filesystems mounted on them ... So the IDE hack , will eleminate that need , all I need is one formatted partition , be it any filesystem, the rest could very well be unallocated space ! , kewl in'nit ?

Hello me , its me again ..

Its been a long time since I wrote anything here. Since its _my_ blog and I tap into myself when I begin typing anything here .. hence the title. So, there hasnt been much on my mind, except buffer cache's and IDE controller device drivers. The last few days made me switch onto a totally workaholic track.

Come friday next week and I shall be the proud owner of one of these WiFi babies !
802.11g WiFi cards. What will I do with it !? .. the USB dongle driver for linux is kind of incomplete, so I hope to contribute there. What does the driver do ?! It'll make my computer work like a Wireless Access point. I've worked on this for 802.11b and on the PCMCIA driver before, so I think I know what Im doing.

Meanwhile, one of my buddies got his X-Box... now I'm convinced .. _there_is_a_God ; ) Now, we just need to get that thing modded, coz the games are ridiculously overpriced otherwise.

I was just talking to my friends about how we've changed after we graduated. It all happened soo fast, it seems like not too long ago, when we struggling through our semester exams, cramming up loads of text and writing a million sheets of submission work... and now suddenly all this freedom ! Sometimes I feel like those days were much better than now! But then, schooling days seem even better .. almost no worries, didnt even know what real freedom was like ! But yet we enjoyed like crazy. hmmm

What would be a perfectly balanced life, at this stage? In my case, my work life is going pretty well, social life .. not bad at all, then why do I feel like somethings missing ? Is it just the ambition from the work life thats intruding in the other aspects of life ?

Now you know !

Child like curiosity is the best ! Its even better when the "big brains" give it a serious thought and get the answers. Here's a cool one : Why doesnt paper ( or any flat, thin thing) fall straight down ?
What d'ya know ! Cornell gets the answer :

While college students suspect the answer is known to lazy professors -- the ones who allegedly grade essays by throwing them down stairwells to see which sails the farthest -- the so-called falling paper problem has long intrigued scientists.

As Wang explains, "Leaves and paper fall and rise in a seeming chaotic manner. As they fall, air swirls up around their edges, which makes them flutter and tumble. Because the flow changes dramatically around the sharp edges of leaves and paper, known as flow singularity, it makes the prediction of the falling trajectory a challenge."

Im sure we being engineers were on the right track guessing the answer to this ( atleast I was ) but to put it in words *sensibly* is always tough :p

Why dont I feel like going for one of these !?

Snapped from http://www.openforce.at/mozparty2/
Remember the Mozilla 1.0 Release? Mozilla supporters were partying all over the world! But now, it's 1.0 time again - for Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird Join the parties and help making the next months browser statistics way different :-)

Have a look at which countries are participating !
Suprisingly ! our own Pune is on the list.

I had a good look there, to see if it would be really worthwhile going for one of these , coz I think its a damn neat idea to party all over the world, its like new years day. BUT ! although I dont have anything against firefox/thunderbird ( in fact its all I use .. both on windows + linux) I just dont feel enthu enough.

Look at the banglore LUG participation and then look at Pune's. Then I went to PLUG's (Pune linux users group) mailing list, they seemed to be talking about how they could use this as an oppurtunity to spread their existence awareness. I've been to one PLUG meeting some two years back... it was boring as hell. Sure they were geeks, but the community seemed very small, and something was missing. Some of the guys couldnt even speak proper english ! I personally, fall instantly asleep listening to such people... esp when they're delivering lectures. Pune seems to lack active participation from the "working" public. PLUG seems to be full of engineering students. Its good, but I think if there are many experienced people who have proven their smartness by contributing to open source significantly and thus acquiring "bragging rights" ... it would be a lot more cooler. izz jes what I feel.

BangLinux .. the bangalor LUG .. appears to be a big group.. they have these massive events sponsered by industry tycoons.. which immediately stikes an impression.

But then again, do we really need a reason to paaardy , huh ? ; )

Hello from picasa

My cube


Hey this thing actually rocks !
try it out ... really neat interface... easy to use ...
but down side = need broadband to enjoy the s/w : solution = do it from work :p

Triangles Challenge

I had some time in the morning till my hardware arrived. So I thought of giving this a shot. I tried it for about half an hour.. got to the point where my code fails to see if all 3 points are collinear.
And then, I gave up and thought I'd leave it to rest.

Damn this screws up the indentation ! ... baah nevermind

Woot ! woot !

Just read about this on Google's blog and followed the links ...

Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who as Stanford graduate students successfully created the Google search engine, have been named the 2004 Fellows of the Marconi Foundation at Columbia University. In announcing their selection, John Jay Iselin, the Foundation’s president, congratulated the two men for their invention that has fundamentally changed the way information is retrieved today.

AND !!


Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made "important contributions to engineering theory and practice, including significant contributions to the literature of engineering theory and practice," and those who have demonstrated accomplishment in "the pioneering of new fields of engineering, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education."


Lawrence Page, president for products, Google, Mountain View, Calif. For the creation of the Google search engine.

Makes me kinda wonder... are these really humans ?

Bjarne Stroustrup, College of Engineering Professor of Computer Science, Texas A&M University, College Station. For the creation of the C++ programming language.

Now .. I have his book.. I bought it because I thought it would be the best resource for a self made programmer. I barely got to the third chapter .. and havent looked at it since. Now it seems fathomable , after having read from other resources. But for a complete beginner.. its a nightmare.

Thats not to say I dont admire him. If I had one day with him, like sit for his lecture or catch him in some conference, it would be the day of my life.

Random thought generator

Warning: Some of the stuff I've written below might make you think I'm not human. Sometimes I could'nt agree more. ; )

I was up on the terrace last night... the stars seemed really bright, clear sky, full moon, and I saw 2 shooting stars... upon which I was amused. All these "shooting" stars always seem to fall off towards the horizon. What if one of them were to be bang up above you and it were to fall perpendicular to your ground. Would'nt it look as if its getting bigger and bigger. Hopefully it would disintegrate. Or else no matter how far you ran, you'd still be squashed like a fat butt sitting on an ant.

What if one day the skies were to change colour like in any version of Doom. I'd hate to be amongst any of the characters in that game, but just the sky colour, even if its for a few minutes. If you dont know what I'm talking about, obviously you are a lesser mortal for not having played the game.

If we were on Saturn, would we see large stones rotating around us ? Do the Saturn rings also change their plane of rotation? If so, then it would be a problem for air traffic ! Airplanes would have to adapt immediate braking mechanisms like mosquitoes.

There's more to this article .. but something inside tells me to stop.. and so me, my mind and myself shall stop.

Are you tech e-nuff ?

Everyday I read about newer technologies related to my work. It mostly revolves around operating systems and networks. Since most of my work is on open sourced projects, I cant help but greatly admire the geeks and nerds out there who wrote it in the first place! Its one thing to concoct an idea, another thing to start coding, and a whole different ball game to open-src it.

What boggles my mind is ... should I want to dedicate myself to a particular technology for most of my life, or is it too early to decide that !? This thought stems from the fact that, one cannot just simply decide to write a WiFi USB driver from scratch without knowing USB and Wifi internals. Same goes for any other project.
Moreover, to study these technologies means "studying" that technology and also how it integrates into the OS in 'n' out. How does one get there ? When does one suddenly "know" everything about WiFi / OS / or anything else... Sitting under a banyan tree with eyes shut and going into a trance wont help. ; )

Currently, my exposure to technologies directly depends on the tasks I get. So far I've hopped from WiFi to uClinux kernel ports to PPP and so on.. and its just 5 1/2 months since I started. Generally these tasks take about 3-4 or even 5 weeks... and just when the task gets over, with whatever little confidence that I acquire, I feel like contributing to open-src... another task kicks in. I guess, time will take care of that... where time = next few years of the tech-industry.

So far, its cool that I learn from snippets of code from the various nuances of the embedded world. But one day I hope to implement something so that someone else (read uber-geek wanna be) gets inspired.

Ton Whileloop

This week has been a nightmare. I've forgotten how the sky looks at 7am and how the sun sets in the evening.
All this courtsey of our client. His real surname is Verloop, but you can guess why we call him whileloop.
This chap must be in his mid 40's , supposedly wears a wig, earings, and is an extremely enthusiastic german dude. So, he's actually german, has a chinese wife, main office in the US, does business in Europe and China.

#define global Ton

But he's a great guy, walks in every morning, salutes everyone he bumps into, and is ever energetic. Today he suddenly thought of something while having lunch... ran upstairs , took his magnifying glass and observed something on a PCB.

A few days ago.. he wanted to see if we could get MP3z to run on this prototype board which had an audio codec and a speaker attached to it. Somehow, when we mangaed to get some sound out off it, he ran upstairs ...got his camcorder.. and taped the lifeless proto board playing the MP3 file !
All this .. so he could show his ppl back home that "the thing" really works!

But his enthusiastic spirit is really good... it keeps him high ! Being a german , and we know what alcoholic capacity they have .. one wonders which spirit keeps him high (pun intended).

Power Naps

These days .. esp. for the past week I havent had good sleep.. so I thought why not try a power nap in the afternoons when I come for lunch ..

I come home for about 45 mins... 15 min. have lunch and 20 min nap... At first it seemed tough ..but a little effort and it feels like a miracle !
There are some people I know .. like my cousin .. just eyes shut .. and its like he hasnt slept for a year !
Wish I could do that ...

Whats the most you can stay awake ? I've stayed awake the whole night only twice so far .. once when we were all playing cards .. and the other time was I think before some exam ../ in the PLs

Some one once told me .. "So.. you want to become a Comp. engg?... can you stay awake for 72 hrs straight? "
me:" Yeah rite !"

There are some people out here at work .. who have stayed up for 5 days straight .. esp. when its delivery time...
They all say .." i'll learn soon"..
But I guess its different when there are soo many people around .. all work their but_s off of one common purpose .. the atmosphere doesnt remain mundane any more ..
But then there are some working people .. who cant sleep more than 5 hrs a day .. _insmoniacs_ is what they are!

Why not just work < || == 10 hrs a day and finish everything off so you're free on the weekends , or evenings ..

hmm..what else ?
One of these days I'm going to tweak this thing so it'll display some random IRC conversations .. from bash.org
bash.org has some of the funniest , weirdest conversations ever captured.. and the list never stops .. shows how stupid people can get ..
check out bash.org and you'll know what I mean..

Indifference

Music is such an integral part of my life now .. Every couple of songs reminds me of some time that went i through in the past .. both good and bad. eg. I used to listen to a lot of The Calling, Wallflowers, 3 Doors Down etc while i wrote some code a few months back .. and now whenever i listen to those songs .. memories come gushing by .. memories ; of all that happened around that time !
Power of music .. i say !

And then there are some songs that make me thank god for women in this world !
songs like .. Shaggy : Strength of a woman , Pearl Jam : Indifference etc
Damn cool .. make me go into that mood...
Now only if someone's frequencies matched with mine ; )

Pearl Jam: Indifference would sound excellent over a candlelight dinner .. listen to it !

I will light the match this mornin', so I won't be alone
Watch as she lies silent, for soon night will be gone
Oh, I will stand arms outstretched, pretend I'm free to roam
Oh, I will make my way, through, one more day in Hell...
How much difference does it make
How much difference does it make, yeah...

Free Running

Dont know if you had heard about this ... but its becoming a sport !
I was home for lunch today .. on Discovery channel ... there was a documentary on these chaps from some french town.
Apparantly, these chaps have mastered the art of running with "grace". Something like those Matrix stunts .. but no strings attached. Remember the scene .. where Neo tries to jump across the building ? Something like that ..

I thought it was stupid ...until they showed what these guys were really capable off ! Its an art ! .. art of jumping .. You have to see it to believe me. Its aptly called "free" running . Just run! Jump on railings, walls, between balconies, through railings , whatever , wherever ... freedom.

So the discovery crew wanted to see how these chaps would do, if they were in central london.. amongst the victorian buildings, monuments etc .

Now, what amazes me is that, the administrative departments of these monuments/ victorian buildings etc were actually enthusiastic about all this ! Isnt that cool ! ... If you think about it .. Its very dangerous ! yet artistic and therefore these chaps actually gave them permission to jump across their roofs !

It shows how the western world is open to freedom of expression. Maybe extreme , but damn neat !

The state of freshers in some companies ..

This is one of the cool forwards i got in my mail today .. from one of my "jobless" friends ;)

Something  really keep u thinking and wondering....

                                                

1.     Coca-Cola was originally green.                                

2.     The most common name in the world is Mohammed

3.     The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they

start with.                                                      

4.     The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.                

5.     There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.



6.     TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters

only on one row of the keyboard.                           

7.     You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.             

8.     It is impossible to lick your elbow.                        

9.     People say "Bless you" when you sneeze because when you sneeze,your

heart stops for a millisecond.                         

10.    It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.  

11.    The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the

toughest tongue twister in the English language.                   

12.    If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to

suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and

die.                                                      

13.    Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king   

      from history. Spades - King David ,Clubs - Alexander the Great,    

      Hearts -Charlemagne ,Diamonds - Julius Caesar.                     

14.    111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321             

15.    If a statue of a person in the park on a horse has both front  

      legs in the air, the person died in battle.                        

16.    If the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a

      result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs

      on the ground, the person died of natural causes.                  

17.    What do bullet proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser

printers all have in common?

      Ans. - All invented by women.                                   

19.    Question - This is the only food that doesn't spoil. What is this?



      Ans. Honey                                                    

20.    A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.



21.    A snail can sleep for three years.                             

22.    All polar bears are left handed.                               

23.    Butterflies taste with their feet.                             

24.    Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.                

25.    In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated. 

26.    On average, people fear spiders more than they do death.       

27.    Shakespeare invented the word 'assassination' and 'bump'.      

28.    Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand. 

29.    The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.   

30.    The electric chair was invented by a dentist.                   

31.    The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body

to squirt blood 30 feet.                                            

32.    Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over

million descendants.                                                

33.    Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in

your ear by 700 times.                                                   

34.    The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.            

35.    Most lipstick contains fish scales.                             

36.    Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different







37.    Everybody after reading this try to lick their elbow :-)

Making a start ...

So .. its been on my mind for a long time to make my own website .. get my own domain .. write some php/asp.net code and make my own blogging engine + photo gallery ... yeah sure ! .. one word: toolazy

Now that google is powering blogger .. its become very interesting ! Especially the comments interface .. the new templates ( made by web dev guru's like Zeldman etc) and so on ...

I plan to update this section as and when time permits .. in between work , maybe weekends , or whenever ..
Should be interesting .. so come check it out !