I just realized that my last post was in June, before my India Trip!!! Time has flown so fast... Some of the pretty interesting updates are:
1. Got engaged! :) Very happy about it.
2. First research paper (from PhD work) got accepted. It took very long in review process, but better late than never. Again, very happy about it :)
3. Submitted another paper!
4. In between, trying to do some jogging here and there..... Ya, I know, I need to pull up on this front.
5. Read couple of interesting books: "The Idea Factory" and "Who moved my cheese". The first one is a must read for students doing MS/PhD. Its written in form of a novel by one of the MIT alumni, so you will never get bored of it. The second book is a very small book, but a gem one. Certainly very interesting.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The White Tiger
Recently, I read Arvind Adiga's 'The White Tiger'. This was recommended by one of the very close friend. Along with it, the fact that Arvind Adiga won Booker prize for this book, motivated me enough to read this novel.
The start is impressive as 'The White Tiger' addresses a letter to Chinese President. The initial pages suggest that this novel will be full of India-bashing. However, as I move along, I found this novel of a kind of 'eye-opening'. It gives a certain view of how poor people thinks, what are their small-small dreams, the prevailing cast system, the problems associated with day-to-day life of a poor, and more importantly, the increasing rich-poor divide.
Certainly a worth reading.
The start is impressive as 'The White Tiger' addresses a letter to Chinese President. The initial pages suggest that this novel will be full of India-bashing. However, as I move along, I found this novel of a kind of 'eye-opening'. It gives a certain view of how poor people thinks, what are their small-small dreams, the prevailing cast system, the problems associated with day-to-day life of a poor, and more importantly, the increasing rich-poor divide.
Certainly a worth reading.
Monday, May 11, 2009
A good joke
Yesterday, I was watching one of the IPL match between Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore. Malinga's first ball was leg-side wide and second ball was off side wide. Immediately, the great Harsha Bhogale said, "On an average, Malinga is bowling on middle stump line". This was the best commentary I have ever heard! :)
Friday, March 27, 2009
Jorge Cham and PhD comics
The recent 'Science' issue (Vol 323(5922)) has published profile of Dr. Jorge Cham. He is the master-mind of one of the most popular comic among grad students, the PhD comics. He is a Stanford PhD graduate and was very close to become a Professor in MIT but somehow that didn't work out. In fact, his story is a classic example of "to pick one thing and be really good at it". If you get hold of this article, please read it as the story is quite interesting. I just want to thank him for seemingly funny, but extremely useful, PhD comics.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Good time - bad time
What do you think about your present time? Is it a good time, i.e., things are happening which will please you or is it a bad time where everything seems against you? I am asking this question because past couple of weeks were messy for me and I am confused. There was a good news and on the other hand, a terrible thing happen unexpectedly. Such times gives rise to more confusion. You can not enjoy your success which you would have in normal days. You will not lose sleep due to bad thing because something good also happened.
I always believed that whatever happened, analyze it only after few months or even years. One may be surprised that the thing which he thought extremely bad at that particular time was not all that bad, and sometimes, that was the best thing to happen which led to some particular successful event. So, is there really something like a good time or bad time? or everything is just relative? :)
I always believed that whatever happened, analyze it only after few months or even years. One may be surprised that the thing which he thought extremely bad at that particular time was not all that bad, and sometimes, that was the best thing to happen which led to some particular successful event. So, is there really something like a good time or bad time? or everything is just relative? :)
Friday, February 13, 2009
Cool "Maths" Joke
This one is again forwarded by one good friend
The cocky exponential function ex is strolling along the road insulting the functions he sees walking by. He scoffs at a wandering polynomial for the shortness of its Taylor series. He snickers at a passing smooth function of compact support and its glaring lack of a convergent power series about many of its points. He positively laughs as he passes |x| for being nondifferentiable at the origin. He smiles, thinking to himself, “Damn, it’s great to be ex. I’m real analytic everywhere. I’m my own derivative. I blow up faster than anybody and shrink faster too. All the other functions suck.”
Lost in his own egomania, he collides with the constant function 3, who is running in terror in the opposite direction.
“What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you look where you’re going?” demands ex. He then sees the fear in 3’s eyes and says “You look terrified!”
“I am!” says the panicky 3. “There’s a differential operator just around the corner. If he differentiates me, I’ll be reduced to nothing! I’ve got to get away!” With that, 3 continues to dash off.
“Stupid constant,” thinks ex. “I’ve got nothing to fear from a differential operator. He can keep differentiating me as long as he wants, and I’ll still be there.”
So he scouts off to find the operator and gloat in his smooth glory. He rounds the corner and defiantly introduces himself to the operator. “Hi. I’m ex.”
“Hi. I’m d / dy.”
The cocky exponential function ex is strolling along the road insulting the functions he sees walking by. He scoffs at a wandering polynomial for the shortness of its Taylor series. He snickers at a passing smooth function of compact support and its glaring lack of a convergent power series about many of its points. He positively laughs as he passes |x| for being nondifferentiable at the origin. He smiles, thinking to himself, “Damn, it’s great to be ex. I’m real analytic everywhere. I’m my own derivative. I blow up faster than anybody and shrink faster too. All the other functions suck.”
Lost in his own egomania, he collides with the constant function 3, who is running in terror in the opposite direction.
“What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you look where you’re going?” demands ex. He then sees the fear in 3’s eyes and says “You look terrified!”
“I am!” says the panicky 3. “There’s a differential operator just around the corner. If he differentiates me, I’ll be reduced to nothing! I’ve got to get away!” With that, 3 continues to dash off.
“Stupid constant,” thinks ex. “I’ve got nothing to fear from a differential operator. He can keep differentiating me as long as he wants, and I’ll still be there.”
So he scouts off to find the operator and gloat in his smooth glory. He rounds the corner and defiantly introduces himself to the operator. “Hi. I’m ex.”
“Hi. I’m d / dy.”
Friday, January 30, 2009
This is Life!
This is from one of the forwarded email:
When there is no friend,
When life is on the dead end,
When world is not a paradise,
When your confidence dies,
Tell yourself - Go on, THIS IS LIFE!
When things don't go right,
When there is no ray of light,
And its too hard to survive,
Tell yourself - Go on, THIS IS LIFE!
When there is competition to face,
When you are lagging behind in the race,
When you've lost faith in God,
When you're betrayed by a fraud,
Tell yourself - Go on, THIS IS LIFE
When others don't respect you,
When you're not amongst the admirable few,
When for a question, you can't find a solution,
When all you're sure about, is confusion,
Tell yourself - Go on, THIS IS LIFE!
When your destination is miles apart,
When you don't know where to start,
When all you see around is pain,
When your hardwork is in vain,
Tell yourself - Go on, THIS IS LIFE!
Even though all this happens
just have faith in self & face the life
with smile,
things will surely change one day
because as said "THIS IS LIFE ...
When there is no friend,
When life is on the dead end,
When world is not a paradise,
When your confidence dies,
Tell yourself - Go on, THIS IS LIFE!
When things don't go right,
When there is no ray of light,
And its too hard to survive,
Tell yourself - Go on, THIS IS LIFE!
When there is competition to face,
When you are lagging behind in the race,
When you've lost faith in God,
When you're betrayed by a fraud,
Tell yourself - Go on, THIS IS LIFE
When others don't respect you,
When you're not amongst the admirable few,
When for a question, you can't find a solution,
When all you're sure about, is confusion,
Tell yourself - Go on, THIS IS LIFE!
When your destination is miles apart,
When you don't know where to start,
When all you see around is pain,
When your hardwork is in vain,
Tell yourself - Go on, THIS IS LIFE!
Even though all this happens
just have faith in self & face the life
with smile,
things will surely change one day
because as said "THIS IS LIFE ...
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Lalu in Singapore
Last Saturday, Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav was in Singapore and delivered an interesting lecture on "Turnaround of Indian Railways". As expected, the hall was full. It was my first opportunity to listen him and I went there just because of curiosity about Lalu and Railways.
Mr. Sudheer Kumar, IAS officer, gave excellent presentation on the actual reasons of turnarounds. I was impressed by the dynamic ticket pricing policy and turnaround time of the goods carrier. Seemingly simple ideas had excellent results in terms of the profitability.
Coming back to Lalu, He was self as usual. He spoke in hindi (and there was some arrangement for people who don't understand hindi). He shared couple of funny incidents and talked in various topics rather than concentrating on the Railways. The question-answer session after the lecture was equally fascinating with people asking very funny to very intelligent stuff. Overall, it was an exciting event.
Mr. Sudheer Kumar, IAS officer, gave excellent presentation on the actual reasons of turnarounds. I was impressed by the dynamic ticket pricing policy and turnaround time of the goods carrier. Seemingly simple ideas had excellent results in terms of the profitability.
Coming back to Lalu, He was self as usual. He spoke in hindi (and there was some arrangement for people who don't understand hindi). He shared couple of funny incidents and talked in various topics rather than concentrating on the Railways. The question-answer session after the lecture was equally fascinating with people asking very funny to very intelligent stuff. Overall, it was an exciting event.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
The Tipping Point
I recently read this book called "The tipping Point: How little things can make big difference" by Malcolm Gladwell. This isn't a novel, but it is regarding how epidemics spread, kind of general sociology. It has some very interesting ideas and discussion about the root causes. It is easy to correlate with ideas discuss in this book. If you find a copy in your library, it's recommended to read.
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