For The Sake Of A Pizza

Last night, my friend and I decided to go to Pizza Hut. Unfortunately we were greeted at the door by a board saying - "Sorry. Computer Not Working. No Credit Cards Will Be Accepted." For a fleeting moment, I thought about offering to fix their computer in return for Pizza, but we decided to take the more mundane option of retrieving some cash from an ATM.

It turns out ATMs are not as populous a species as I believed they were, at least not in Iowa City. You will find them at the Malls and near the banks, but not always near major stores like Walmart and K-mart and we happened to encounter a lack of these today. My friend was ravenously hungry, so we decided to explore a better alternative than going elsewhere in search of food or an ATM.

One of the great latent advantages of possessing a debit card is the power it bestows upon you to go to any major store, buy some trinket and take away a huge amount of cash, a system they call "cashback" - something I had never bothered to give serious consideration before. However, 2 years of cashiers politely enquiring "Any cashback, sir ?" with much redundancy had made me aware of its existence. So enter we did K-Mart, in order to acquire the 20 bucks or so that would allow us to have our weekly Pizza.

I am no avid shopper. I hate going out there and spending hours browsing through the stuff on offer before purchasing. I'd much rather go there with a detailed specification of what I want, get it and get out of there. Having said that, I never thought I would walk into a shopping situation like this and be unable to buy or want to buy *anything*.

T-shirts are always welcome, but I have just got a whole new army of those; tennis racquets don't do harm but K-Mart is hardly the place to buy them and there are no books !! I have no idea where the chocolates are and with every second we are getting more and more ravenous for the impending Pizza. Finally I decide, that a 12-pack of Pepsi in the fridge can never hurt, we pick it up and get in the line for checkout. Some woman who evidently has a lot of cash (unlike us) is taking her own merry time at the counter and on more than one occasion I have a good mind to smash the 12-pack on her head.

As we make progress in the line however I begin to wonder about the benefits of having a 12-pack in the fridge when I am going to leave the town in 4 days time. I mean that is still 8 bucks !! What do we do ?? Finally I spy some things nice and cheap and that could never be wasted - a boll-pen !! - that all-time classic, chocolate - oh hell, why don't they put them everywhere ? and some gum. Well any one of these would have sufficed but it just doesn't feel too good to demand a 20$cash back on something priced at 30 cents, so all three went in for 2$. The lady at the counter was told that I didnt really want the 12-pack and I was fairly impressed by the impassivity and lack of surprise shown - these people are real pros - and we finally departed with a lot of relief and hilarity.

Master Of One Trade

Graduated with a Master's Degree in Computer Science Saturday.

Phew ! The Convocation Ceremony is some experience - albeit an exhausting one.
There are so many PhD graduates - and for each there is usually a "Prof. XYZ" who "assists with the hooding." And if that is not elaborate and time-consuming enough, the person on stage repeats the above sentence every single time. I'm sure he must have woken up several times in the middle of the night muttering something about Professors and hoods much to his wife's distress. My - apply a little bit of "common" arithmetic here - by common I mean the method of taking out the common factor - we all know that the person who "will assist with the hooding" is a "Professor" and that he will indeed "assist with the hooding" - take that out of the brackets for goodness sake. Just say the names of the Professor and the student !! And to put the icing on the cake, we need to sit through this for 2 hours wearing not only the graduation gown, a piece of cloth which is undoubtedly an honor and a privilege but also one that generates extreme body heat when adorned, but also a blazer and a tie, on chairs that are placed infinitesimally apart.

But all in all, it is an occasion to remember - with family and friends watching - it feels nice. I dont know whether I will ever be experiencing that feeling again.

Lot On The Plate

Apologies for the lack of any interesting or rather *any* posts in recent times. Fact of the matter is there is lot on the plate at the moment. And even excluding what has gone in the past few days, there are still the following upcoming items on the agenda:

May 10 - Parents arriving for graduation; pick them up from airport
May 11 - Exam at the diabolic time of 7.30 in the morning, project report due later
May 12 - Take Home Exam of one of the toughest courses offered due, attend a function in celebration of graduation
May 13 - Grading papers
May 14 - Graduation, throw a party (and help organize it)
May 15 - Travel to and sight-see Chicago
May 16 - Return to Iowa City
May 17, 18, 19 - Prepare for upcoming job interview
May 20 - Fly to Houston to Mama's place
May 21, 22 - Continue Studying for upcoming interview
May 23, 24 - Trip to Las Vegas and Grand Canyon
May 26 - The Interview

And it is not as if it ends there, but I guess you get the picture. So ...

The Ultimate Answer

Some of my friends seem to have been disappointed by their first-day-first-show (henceforth referred to as FDFS) experience at the movies this Friday. I was so lucky then in that respect. Yesterday, I happened to watch this wonderful movie - The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - based on Douglas Adams' book - vow - I must get my hands on that soon now - blast ! I haven't been reading *anything* for a loooooong time - anyway, those of you have had the good fortune of reading this book - you will know what the story is - but for those who don't - this is about a time when the Earth was demolished to make way for a hyper-space super-highway and how Arthur Kent (the hitchhiker) manages to get a ride through the galaxy.

The best part comes when Deep Thought - the computer designed to find the answer to the ultimate question - i.e. "What is life, existence and all that ?" processes it for 7.5 million years and outputs 42 !!! Yes, the ultimate answer is 42. What a climax !! Reminds me of a time when a friend of mine had claimed that for any 2 vectors f and u, the best scale of u that fits f is square root of 2 .... but whatever !! and then the computer helpfully suggests that it was not the ultimate question and had they taken more trouble to frame the input correctly, the answer could have been more helpful. It also offers to construct this machine for them.

For this and much more geeky fun stuff ... the Hitchhiker is a must-watch ... and for me a must-read !!

Outsourcing

Interesting, to say the least, is this article in today's Tabloid Of India. After IT and BPO, now the next big thing outsourced is the school-leaving exam papers of British kids. Now I am not completely pro or anti outsourcing. I believe it has its place and importance although I do not think in the long run it is going to be beneficial to anyone. But clearly, there is some sort of outrage in the British media about this. Of course there are atrocious comments flying around that "Indians can't read English" - which is such a load of tosh - Indian English is one of the best in the World. But the weird part is this organization which is doing the outsourcing claims to be non-profit. Pray, what then is the reason ?? Do the people in Britain consider grading the papers of their young too difficult or demanding or unimportant a job ?? Or does the body simply believe that the Indians are much better at it ??

Either way, I would like you to think about what you would have felt had you been told that your 10th standard exam papers were being outsourced to Sri Lanka or Bangladesh for grading !!

Happy Days Are Here Again

It is hot out there. The temperature touched 81 today and the night is only 10 degrees cooler. I feel much better in this kind of weather. Spring time is finally here and the trees have begun to coyly exhibit some of their leaves. People have gone back to covering less of their selves and campus seems buzzing even late nights on weekdays.

I am also particularly happy because I have been playing tennis this last weekend. Cricket is the greatest but I am kind of out of form ( that seems to be the in-thing these days) . Badminton is fun but nothing can come close to a good hard game of tennis especially if it is followed by a great chug of icy cold water or a bottle of Gatorade !!

Way To Go !!

Pune lass Amrita is Miss India Universe. Usually, I am particularly indifferent to these events. But thanks to my daily visit to The Times (Tabloid) Of India, I happened to glance at the pictures of the contestants yesterday. The first I saw was Amrita and I thought - yeah, that's it ! She looks good - a view further confirmed by the rather none-too-extraordinary pictures that followed.

A thinking clearly supported by the judges, much to my satisfaction.

Good Luck in the Miss Universe Contest !

Way To Go Pune !!

Must-See

If a picture is worth a 1000 words, what would be the value of a Megabyte of video ?? This is an absolute must see. (Requires Real-player)

I sall not describe it any further, rather let you all do the talking.

Destiny

I try hard not to believe in destiny. I figure one should be willing and able to shape his own life. At least after reading Ayn Rand I do. But sometimes it just happens to hit you and you keep marvelling at its weird ways.

Take last evening for instance. I had done practically nothing of value the whole day. I was going to spend the night watching the India-Pakistan game. So I figured, I'd put the evening to use by doing some good work. Accordingly, I refused my friend's invitation to a movie (Swades) which, I having seen twice already was not that difficult; at the same time, being such a good movie, I would not have minded seeing it all over.

But I put my foot down. And I bid him good-bye at the door. But as luck would have it, the frustrating bus that had made me wait 10 minutes in the cold just the day before, did not allow a single minute of my delay. I had no option but to return to the movie. (Admittedly I did have the option of walking back home, but naah !! Too cold) And once I am in a movie it takes something really drastic that can pull me out early - something like "Kyon, Ho Gaya Na !" for instance.

Anyway, at the end of it, my friend's family offered me a lift and came up with an even more brilliant idea of inviting me to dinner. I was going to ponder about dinner once I came home anyway. Who am I to say "No" to a chance of Puran Poli, Kheer and Varan Bhat on Holi Day ?? That was one amazing dinner. And I was destined to have it.

On the flip side, it made me so drowsy (and the whole evening tired) that I came home and fairly instantaneously jumped into bed - no cricket for me tonight - missing a Sehwag 200 in the process - well that's destiny for you.

What I Did Over Spring Break ...

1. Had a haircut 12$
2. Applied for OPT 175$
* Played badminton for several hours - Priceless

3. Got my learner's license 6$
4. Bought the India-Pakistan series package 25$
* Saw VVS Laxman hit Danish Kaneria for a 6 - Priceless

5. Got a free Pizza and 2 litre Pepsi (because Pizza Hut delayed my order) 2$ (the tip)
6. Bought Potatoes, Sugar, Coffee and other grocery 10$
* Cooked Batata Rassa Bhaaji after a long time - Priceless

7. Hogged junk food 15$
8. Recharged my Reliance India Phone Card 5$
* Spoke to friends and family back home - Priceless

Blogging - A Career ???

Can one make a career out of blogging ?? Definitely, like in all other fields, there are the concepts of popularity, quality and "making it to the top". There are the really good bloggers - whose blogs are a must-read and respected in the blogosphere while there are the ones who hardly know what they are doing - the ones who just decided to try something because all their friends were doing it.

The other day I read on India Uncut of Amit Varma, one of the most respected Indian bloggers that there is some kind of bloggers' get-together where they meet and discuss blogging "business".

And the latest that I hear is that there was some sensation where some blog called Mediaah had to be shut down after the Times (tabloid ?) of India threatened legal action against it because of some particular posts that supposedly were libellous and targetted the Tabloid. (Must be interesting ... but nah ... not that interesting to get to the heart of it). Point: clearly blogs are not just a pastime of the netaddicts and people that have nothing to do. They do and will have a big role as alternate media. Bloggers have power. But with great power, comes great responsibility. Blogging may never be a career but it clearly is serious business.

Kahin Door Jab Din Dhal Jaaye ...

I've been meaning to write this for quite some time now. But often something else came up. Or at times, I forgot. Today I have nothing else to write - hence here goes.

Those of you who have stayed in a place 12 hours off from home (like I am doing here) might be able to understand me better. In the inital days particularly, it is a weird sort of feeling. And I am not talking just about the jetlag. It is as if when you are going to sleep in the night you realise that somewhere 180 degrees on the other side of the globe people will be waking up - your friends will be out in the gym working out (missing you hopefully, well who knows ??). Your mom will be making amtee bhat but proportionately less than she used to because your plate is going to be empty.

And then when you are in the middle of work and something is not going right and you are sitting there frustrated staring at the computer screen, suddenly you remeber that yes ... on the other side of the globe the evening will be gently sliding into the night - and your friends will be out there partying - but your glass will be empty - hopefully they will remember that - and your ajjee and mavshi and cousins will be coming home - of course knowing that you are not going to be there ...

It may sound weird but what led me to think so deeply on this actually was a cricket match - I had gone to college late at night to watch it ( we don't have cable net at home) and since the match started at 2.30 in the afternoon India time, it was early morning here. And by lunch time when the shadows could be seen across the Eden Gardens on the screen, a beautiful pink glow could be seen outside the windows of the lab. At that time, I could really begin to see this whole concept of night following day and day night "in a new light" - know what I mean ?? (Pun not intended)

And if the earlier parts of this post led you to believe that this is some sort of sentimental stuff, it is not really. It is more of an inspirational post because you see - when I am stuck at work and having problems, I can find solace in the fact that "Kahin door din dhal raha hoga" - and in the beautiful evening, people (people I care about) will be enjoying, partying and having fun. While when I am worried at night, (maybe sleepless due to tension, exams and work) I can always find heart in the fact that this night isn't going to last forever because some 1800 kms along the radius of the globe it is already a brilliant, glorious morning - a fresh start

Concerned ...

Why is Sania Mirza, the latest sports sensation from India and the most perfect girl I have ever seen since ... whenever ... not playing in the Indian Wells Open (or whatever the name of that tournament is - I remember there is a Pacific in it somewhere).

Has her ankle injury gotten worse or is she just resting ?? Because with such a big draw, she should be getting a direct entry in the main draw now. Come on Sania !! Hope to see you in action soon again. I who had lost all trust in women's tennis now keenly follow the WTATour just four you !!

CAPTCHAs

Have you noticed if you have tried to create a new email account or just to register for some Yahoo! Group or something like that in recent times, they ask you to type in a string of letters that can be seen in an image ??

Well the first time I noticed it, it just amused me; the second time it annoyed me; the third time I took the pains to look around and realized it is used to prevent automated registrations - and yes it made more sense then. It was not until yesterday I realised the full theory behind it all.

It is in fact a very interesting and fast-growing area of research, one area I found interesting at the onset after a long long time. This was when we had a seminar in our colloquium series on the topic yesterday. The speaker was a beautiful lady who had just graduated from Berkeley, Dr. Monica Chew, so that made it all the more interesting.

Basically, that thing which Yahoo! among other companies use is called a "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart" or simply a CAPTCHA. The idea is to display a string in a form a human can read but a machine can't. So only a human would be able to type it in correctly, not a software bot.

The principle is similar to the one used in cryptography. (It is easy to compute the product of 2 prime numbers but difficult to find the prime factors of a given huge number.) Here the idea is that it is difficult for optical pattern recognition programs to recognize an image if it is distorted, while it is relatively easy to distort it. Machine Vision is a known hard AI problem, just like Prime factoring is a known hard problem in algorithmics.

Of course all CAPTCHAs which rely on strings have been broken; guesswork is the most commonly used weapon of attack. This is partly because strings used in CAPTCHAS are often dictionary words because otherwise legitimate users misspell them (in fact misspelling (or mistyping) is a horribly surprisingly common occurence). Which is why the challenge is not only to make CAPTCHAs as difficult as possible for machines to break, but at the same time as easy as possible for genuine users to use.

Hence, string CAPTCHAs will soon become obsolete and the way ahead is image CAPTCHAs. An image is displayed and the user is asked to type in what it is. This of course will create unimaginable problems as you can guess - spelling errors, language issues, user interpretations - if you put a picture of a cup, a user might describe it as a mug, cup, coffee jar what else ? and all other problems of the English language - like polysemy, synonymy and what not. Hence the next idea - an anomaly CAPTCHA - 6 pictures, 5 of which denote the same thing and one different - tell which one is different.

I think CAPTCHA is a really intriguing idea. Aim to find out more soon - when I have the time - till then: the next time you encounter a CAPTCHA, make sure you spare those 1 or 2 minutes to work it out - it is really worth the effort.

Hectic But Fun ....

It has been a pretty hectic week; hence the lack of posts - although I am not sure if the net productivity of the last 7 days is going to exceed that of any other collection of 7 consecutive days. Today I had Pav Bhaji at a friend's place - wow - it feels so great !!!

Also today, I played 2 hours of intense badminton with top players (players who are better than me by an order of magnitude). And it can be pretty exhausting - also pretty rewarding both metnally and physically - physically because once the exhaustion wears off and you enjoy a shower and an hour in the bath-tub you feel so great - and mentally if you are able to even pose some challenge to these top players you feel a great sense of achievement.

The Magician

Over the course of the last 18 months that I have been living in the United States Of Ignorant Cricketless America, I have not watched too much live sport action. But a couple of times I have been tempted to buy the package for the live streaming of cricket matches on the WWW. These almost invariably ended in humiliating losses for India, depression on the next day and frustration on a waste of money and time. The one bright spot in this sordid saga however was that the quality of the streaming was excellent.

So I expected that to be the case when last week my tennis-starved self grabbed at the offer for the live streaming of the Dubai Open Men's Tennis Championships. I was wrong. The coverage provided by the well-intentioned ZCam was impossible to watch without distress and at least on the first day it had to buffer after every 5 seconds. This interval is on an average less than the time for a rally in tennis and hence my troubles were compounded. To their credit upon receipt of my complaining email they did apologize and made some sort of improvements on the subsequent days. As a result when it came to the semi-finals I could watch the Agassi-Federer match to an acceptable degree of approximation. Still very fuzzy but it did not buffer every five seconds.

By the end of the match I realised it was worth the effort. Agassi at 34 played excellent tennis and was yet thrashed 63 61 by an absolutely imperious Roger Federer. It reminded me somewhat of the 1999 Wimbledon final where again Agassi played 3 sets of green supreme grass court tennis yet lost all of them to a Sampras playing on an altogether different plane. Not completely erroneously do they call the Swiss King the Heir to Sampras.

One shot in particular will stand out in memory forever and fill the heart with awe and joy every time I reminisce. After dominating a rally Agassi played a drop shot, drew Federer in and played a decisive volley winner... until Federer thought about pursuing the ball - moving in the same direction of the ball, target behind his back and with the back surface of his racquet, (ala Arjuna in the Draupadi Swayamvar) he flicked the ball over Agassi's head to land right on the baseline. For a moment only Agassi realised what had happened. Shell-shocked and broken, he walked to the chair. Only after an interval iof a few seconds did the complete significance of what he had achieved dawn upon Federer and the crowd.

In his regal yet humble style, the Magician put his hand on his head in disbelief and smiled. Federer is giong to be honoured with the ATP Player of the Year Award later this month and also in the running for the Fan Favourite Award.

I indeed consider myself priveliged to watch tennis at a time such a Magician is displaying his skills.

Never Again !!

Shall I have 2 medium Pizzas in 1 evening.

The other day I was alone at home. I thought it would be nice to have Pizza and had one Cheese Pizza - it was frozen - I heated it in the oven. All was well. Unfortunately, at this point of time I made that fatal mistake - listening to the mind rather than the body. I was overcome by a sudden attack of gluttony and against the better judgement of my body I decided to go for another one. That I was wrong I realised within the first couple of slices of the next pizza. But it is always uncool to allow a Pizza to spend a night in your fridge so - devoured it was.

The feeling is quite undescribable. You feel like you have swallowed a full-grown cow that is itching to burst your stomach at every possible opening - and you have to fight it. Mentally, it clears your mind of all thought - you are basically turned into a fat, senseless log. And in that spirit I shed aside all work I had planned for that evening and hit the sack. Slept like a log for 10 hours.

Thank God it's over.

An Absolute Honour

On Sunday, we celebrated Cultural Diversity Day here at the University. While the name may suggest a solemn, educational event where several cultures interact, in reality most organisations use this as a tool for making money by setting up stalls that sell food, items etc. etc. which bear some link to the country/culture they represent.

Be that as it may, it provided me with a memorable experience. I was called upon to get the India Flag which is hosted at the Language Media Center to the venue. Initially I thought of it as just another assignment in my capacity as a board member. Once I got there and lifted the tricolour however I realised what a big responsibility and an honour that is. No wonder it is such a prestige issue at the Olympics as to who should hold the flag.

For those who still think I am making a big deal out of a rather simple chore, Id suggest they try it for themselves.

Terrific, Terrifying, Touching, Brilliant.

There has been a lot of discussion in the blogosphere about the movie 'Black' recently. Look here, here and here. While I am disappointed that I might not be able to see this movie here (in this God-forsaken place) so soon and also overjoyed that such a beautiful movie has been made by an Indian (if all the reports are true and it is hard that so many people would start exaggerating at the same time), I had a most amazing movie experience myself last night. The movie was Hotel Rwanda. It is a true life story set in the Rwandan conflicts of 1994. Had it not been for this movie, I would have never in my life had the faintest idea of what suffering countries such as these undergo. And it is not just the emotional experience that it provides you, it is also the knowledge of facts you would have never otherwise come across.

The conflict is between 2 groups of people - the Hutus and the Tutsis - the Tutsis were in the past the wealthier; the differences in the two were economic rather than ethnic; in fact there seems to be hardly any other difference at all. Colonial Rule of the Belgians exacerbated this difference. And then you can imagine the rest of the story.

Don Cheadle in the role of true-life hero Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who sheltered and protected over 1000 people - Hutus, Tutsis alike and foreign tourists is simply awe-inspiring. Clearly he is one of the 3 Oscar nominations that the film has - (oh btw that reminds me Shwaas did not make it :-( ... Black next year ?? ).

The direction is superb and the tempo of the movie perfect. It never dwells too much on the sufferings so as to make you sick nor does it seem like it has been deliberately hastened anywhere. I would recommend it to all interested in seeing a serious, meaningful film as described above.

A Brit On Campus ??

I was sitting as usual doing my duty as a Help Lab Assistant. Basically I have to just sit in the lab and do my own work. Occasionally people come over for help but most of the times the question is "What is the name of this printer ? ". Easy as that. "301" I answer and get back to work. "And yes, you have to out your own paper". I add. At times there are people who do not know how to compile a C file; worse some do not know how to use an editor - and I need to help out patiently. But sometimes people put before me some JAVA code and expect me to let them know by taking a glance at their printout why their program is buggy.

Today however was different. The question had something to do with certain paths and some variables and I had a vague idea it was something to do with OS Programming Assignments. But I could not gather the gist of the question because I was quite suddenly stunned. The voice I heard was not the "Oh Man ..." tiring American accent but an extremely sphisticated and clear British one. I had to ask the guy to repeat the question a couple of times not because I could not understand him but because I took so much time to get used to the fact that I had actually met and conversed with a Brit in person for the first time. (I hope that is the case and that he is not just an American trying to ape a British accent. I mean - if it is he was really good at it but that would be pathetic - after all having a British accent is the easiest way for American guys to impress women). After all why would a Brit want to leave his country and come to Iowa of all places to study CS is a mystery to me.

I wish to get to know this guy better and hopefully make friends with him. It would be great to have a British friend to talk to - about Cricket and Football - about PG Wodehouse and Harry Potter - about the lovely British countryside and the fickle weather !!!