My Pensieve

[A 4 part blog. Transcription from what I scribbled down on my flight]

The kid sleeping in the back seat has already kicked me twice, mildly. The first time, his dad profusely apologized to me. A bit embarassing. In my kid days, I pissed on the guy in the seat in front of me in a bus. Beat that.

The first class seats in this flight (I am in cattle class, by the way) are pretty sweet. I wish they would let me sit in one of them for a few minutes for a picture or something. I am willing to pay a couple of bucks for that.

The sunglasses I bought for my mom are clipped to my t-shirt. I figured this is the safest way to carry them to India. What would you think of a guy with ladies sunglasses?

3 and a half hours of flying remains on this leg of travel.

[A 4 part blog. Transcription from what I scribbled down on my flight]

The food I have consumed since the start of the journey:
 Cereal and Milk
 Muffins
 Banana
 Odwalla juice
 Coffee
 Ginger Ale
 Rice with Dal, Mutter and Yogurt
 Cookie
 Salad
 Chai
 Popcorn

 Getting Chai at Starbucks at O'hare airport was fun. The lady was stereotypically customer unfriendly. It was like a scene out of some movie. I asked her for an extra-strong Chai and her response was that it'll cost more money due to the extra-syrup. I would have bought that had this not been the 100th time I've made the same request at Starbucks and they have obliged the last 99 times without saying a word. I left the shop with a timid "that sucks". I enjoyed the "seinfeldesque" moment though. It's the small things that matter.

[A 4 part blog. Transcription from what I scribbled down on my flight]

I opened this notebook to write; only to find that I could not locate my pen. I remember attaching a pen to this notebook. Probably it's disengaged and lodged somewhere in the bowels of my bag.

I did put up a good search though. I went to the back of the plan to ask the air-hostess (I came up with this word play, hottest-air-hostess - cool, huh?). No luck. I then disturbed Venki and searched his bag. He does have a pen, except we couldn't locate it. I found an old Reynolds pen in his bag instead and unsurprisingly, it did not work.

Finally, I asked the girl sitting next to Venki and I got this pen. My quest to find a pen ended thus.

Michael Crichton's new book Pirate Latitudes was on stands. Bought it, pretty much, automatically. I have finished half of it till now and cannot see more than traces of Crichton in those pages. Someone please tell me that the book was a big conspiracy and is actually some fan-fiction craftily inserted to make people believe that it was his draft.

[A 4 part blog. Transcription from what I scribbled down on my flight]

Currently on a Boeing 757, flying over Atlantic.

The map is telling me that 3398 miles (or 4 hours) worth of flying remains, at a ground speed of 1057 km/h at an altitude of 10,665 meters. Wow.

Being a nerd, I find the map screen with its continuously updating data more interesting than the crap they are showing on the telly.

The next-seat neighbor was watching GI-Joe (the movie). Come on! I guess one cannot fathom the limits of in-flight boredom. It will be an interesting experiment to know how many hours of TV watching would be spent on a channel that just shows a man picking his nose.

The travel till now has been eerily smooth. Feels almost scripted. I hope something happens with at least one of the my next two upcoming flights so I know that everything in the world is still normal.

[This post was written on the back of a ticket print-out while traveling to Bangalore from Mumbai on flight IX 602 on 18/Jul/2008. I had totally forgotten about it. The ticket print-out was just another scrap paper for me. But my dad had duly saved it because "I had written something on it" and showed it to me a couple of weeks back. Lot has happened since then but I'll post it here verbatim for integrity's sake.

I love my dad]

Venkata Subramanian Mahalingam - It's my official name, as given in the passport.

Actually, my 'official' name is supposed to be just venkatasubramanian m (as if it's not long enough). But, some official decided to add a space and made it venkata subramanian m (in my 10th class). Strike One.

Now most people can't accept the fact that name is just a bunch of letters. Structure maniacs. They need first, last and an optional middle name. So, I had to have these in my name too. So, in my passport, it became 'Venkata Subramanian' (first name with a space, mind you) and 'Mahalingam' (expanding my "initial". Thankfully, my dad's name is not mohanasubramanian or something like that). Strike Two.

Databases (or rather, DB admins) don't seem to like this idea. So, I get e-mails and letters addressed 'Dear Venkata Subr' or something like that. Strike Three.

[and that's it.... I guess the landing sequence started or I fell asleep]

This is the most interesting news I have read till now!
I think it warrants a translation.

(source)http://www.dinamalar.com/humantrustdetail.asp?news_id=64

Remember - this is news. This happened for real. These people are real!

Date and Time: October 29,2009,23:56  IST

Headline: Love blossomed out of a wrong-number call. They get married after police advices them to.

Summary:
Kallakurichi, Tamil Nadu - The phone number keyed into the mobile phone
was wrong and it so happened that it belonged to a young lady.
And that's how their love started. The love developed over an year with
frequent phone conversations and without them seeing each other.
When the lover boy came to the cool-drinks shop at the behest of
the lover girl for a meeting, relatives rounded them up and the
marriage happened under police supervision.

Details:
Ramamurthi is the son of Muthu who hails from Neelamagalam
in Vizhupuram district which is close to Kallakurichi. He works at
a private company in Chennai. A year before, when Ramamurthi
was trying to make a phone call, Abirami ended up being at the
other end of the line by mistake. She is the daughter of  Kathirvel,
hailing from Ambalam near Kallakurichi. Love developed over a
year's period with phone conversations and  with no in person
meetings. Ramamurthi, who had come to his  hometown for
Diwali holidays, called up  Abirami yesterday evening. Abirami
asked Ramamurthi to meet her at the cool-drinks shop at
Kallakurchi.

Meanwhile, Abirami, whose father was no more, had already
requested her relatives to help her enter into a wedlock with
Ramamurthi. Her relatives, who rounded him up, took him to
the Women's police station. As advised by the police,
Ramamurthi married Abirami at the Ganesh temple near the
police station. Ramamurthi, whose love relationship was over
phone, without face to face meetings, was surprised by his
sudden marriage and started off to his home with his new wife.

-------------

I should also translate the 3 user comments that are currently on the source article:

1. He got wedged
2. Love triumphs
3. Dude you got wedged

This song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrVQeOBTzVI

is from the movie: Kattrathu Tamil (Tamil is what I learnt)

This is one of my favorite movies (though only (many) parts, not the whole)

This particular song is one of my all time favorite songs.

This song is hard to get out of its context. The context is - this guy is running away from the world
due to multiple reasons and ends up somewhere in the north India dancing like mad with Saadhus.

The lyrics are trippy, weird in parts. so, skip the parts that you don't get/like. there's good stuff
in this song. The translation might not so justice to the effect of the song, but this is what I've got.


இன்னும் ஓர் இரவு

For a long time now, I have been wanting to tell this story. This is
my second favorite kids story.
I am worried that my narration might not be good enough.
Well, here goes!

There lived a family of 6 with 4 daughters. The youngest was 5 years old.
The family had a habit. Everyone will have a glass of milk and a banana
before going to bed.

One day, as usual, dad brings home 6 bananas but hides one of them.
He calls his youngest and asks her to distribute the rest to everyone.

The kid gives one to her dad, one to her mom and the rest to her
sisters only to realize she has none left for herself. And she loves
bananas. She has always had a banana before going to bed in the
night.

But she just keeps quite and does not cry either.

While everybody around her is busy eating, her dad calls her to
ask if she has had her share.

She plainly lied - "yes".

And her dad holds her in his arms and starts crying. He knows
she'll be a wonderful person in the future.



My favorite kids story? - The same kid, when in her 1st standard,
puts a blunt knife to her neck and tells her mom that if she
forces food into her mouth, she will cut her neck and die :)
Obviously - you don't get away with that kind of behaviour
with moms :)

After a long time since I decided to write a book (which I dearly wish that no one else will read :), I was struck by the most interesting thing I could write about. The ideas that roll inside the mind of a CS nerd, the ideas that geeks find fascinating.

More "specs" about the book:
 1. This book will be a collection of essays. possibly interconnected. each essay will explain a fascinating idea.
 2. The book will be aimed at non-CS people (but who are computer/tech savvy). It will be aimed at anyone who has a curious mind (specially kids).
 3. It will avoid almost all the buzz-words and 'technology' stuff, including the internet. specially the internet.
 4. If you liked Bill Bryson's Short History of Nearly Everything, you'll like this book. This book will be to CS ideas
  what Bill Bryson's was to science (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery).
 
I in no way claim to be the authority on what I write. I will assume the same role Bill Bryson played in his book.
I will also use the words of experts, real CS people :)

Sample topics:
 * Birthday paradox
 * Machine learning
 * Sorting
 * Computing
 * Software Development
 * Programming

It will not be a droll text book. It will not be a compendium of all important CS concepts/ideas.
It will not be a history of CS (though I find it interesting enough to sprinkle it among the essays - most things don't make sense unless the history is known).
Interesting read will always take priority over depth or breath. The whole aim of this book is to show that most ideas are interesting (no matter what domain) and simple enough to make sense to anyone if made accessible and enjoyable.

Why this book? (you must be a CS nerd to understand this)
 CS ideas have had a huge impact in our society. Algorithms, specially. Can you think the scale of data sorting that goes on
in this world and how we take take for granted the fruits of reduced algorithmic complexity? Most things we enjoy, most
billion dollar revenues depend on certain simple smart ideas someone came up with while taking a shower :)
I am sure many people will enjoy wrapping their minds around these ideas just like how many people enjoy understanding how things work or how the universe works.

a sample essay topic:
Computing

possible start to the topic:
    When someone thinks of a computer scientist, they probably think of someone doing some activity that involves the computer. Possibly he is typing away with a florescent glow on his face. After all, a rocket scientist works with/builds rockets and a brain surgeon opens the skull and works on someones brain. But, one of the most popular computer scientists of all time, Edsger W. Dijkstra never used a computer for decades till his colleagues persuaded him to. He then used it for just
for e-mail and web browsing. After all, many of us are more computer savvy than he was. If so, what makes him a renowned computer scientist and not us?
 

Just friggin' stop it!

Look this is not about me. But, there are many eligible nice guys out
there who would rather prefer to find/meet the girl they want to
settle down in their life by themselves and not take the arranged
marriage route.

I know a few themselves and I would glad recommend to single girls
looking for simple, unpretentious, nice-guys (will I be at the top of
the recommendation? I can't tell you that! :).

The situation for such guys is already bleak, given the current
marital policy of our Indian society, which seems to overall encourage
arranged marriages.

And I also have heard from a couple of girls who were pretty much
stalked, harassed or otherwise annoyed by single losers who are
enterprising enough not to give up in their chase.

Now, I feel it is perfectly OK to pleasantly/politely inform your
intention to the girl you are interested in when you feel like (when
you feel confident of getting a positive response, for example). But,
just ONCE!

Here's what I have to say about that:

1. Please, for the love of god, try to empathize with the very person
whom you are so desperately trying to woo. If you do, you'll know you
are giving them pain, anguish and they don't want that! So, give up
and move on or be smart enough to woo them without making their life
miserable (which means - not accosting them, not soliciting anything,
not being a douche bag. get it?)

2. Girls are wonderful people in general. I don't understand them
(most men will concur that they don't either!). But, they are to be
respected as equals. Do not take advantage of them just because they
are being nice or timid in their rebuke. Believe me, from what I
understand, they can make your life hell, if they decide too :)

3. By scaring these girls, you are doing a disservice not only to the
girl but to all those eligible nice guys! I believe, a girl who has
gone/is going through such a traumatic experience might be negatively
biased (skeptical) towards interactions with any of those eligible
nice guys (in general). Thus, all you are doing is to expand the rift
and spoiling the chances of those guys!

So, stop being a criminal. Stop screwing up the society, a girl's
mental peace and your chance of karma/heaven.
For once, if you cannot be a nice guy, at least stop making it worse
for the nice guys.

I have my reasons for strongly considering a life where I am single forever.
Given I am in grad school in U.S now (away from almost all people who deeply care about me),
it gives me a chance to practice and learn how it really is/will be.

But, I do not want to enumerate my reasons. I will miss many points.
But, I would like for my friends (through comments of this post, possibly)  start a thread on why
it is plain wrong/why I should not be thinking that way.

I want to listen, understand how other people think, and see if it makes sense.
Because, from what I know and understand, me being single forever seems to make a lot of sense :)

Because the ranking is flawed.

I am no way suggesting that India is competing with the developed countries or anything. But I am sure it is not just 14
places above Sudan. Come on!

So, India is placed in the 139th position because of its HDI of 0.619. When things are taken to 3 decimal places in ranking, you need to
take a closer look.

I am also not saying that the ranking is pulled out of a hat. But, the algorithm definitely needs fine-tuning.

What is more interesting me is the HDI trend for India, from this link: http://hdrstats.undp.org/countries/data_sheets/cty_ds_IND.html

Human development index (trends), 1975	0.419
Human development index (trends), 1980	0.450
Human development index (trends), 1985	0.487
Human development index (trends), 1990	0.521
Human development index (trends), 1995	0.551
Human development index (trends), 2000	0.578
Human development index (trends), 2005	0.619

As you can see, that's a good improvement. I am darn sure it will keep improving. Probably at a higher rate.

In general, I like the concept of such indexes. Sure, most of the numbers will not be accurate.
The weighting of the individual parameters are going to come under scrutiny. But, such indexes
mathematically approximate to the real underlying "true" index if the statisticians know what they
are doing (and I am sure they do). Also, the law of large numbers works to the index's advantage.

Also, I recommend that you look at this: http://hdrstats.undp.org/indicators/16.html

Playing along with this index, China reached our current value somewhere between 1985-90 (

0.595

0.634

respectively). It current HDI is 0.777 giving it the 81st rank.

Malaysia (63), Thailand (78) had our levels of HDI by 1975 itself.

In the last 5 years, Kazakhstan's (73) HDI grew the most.

India's HDI grew faster, then growth dipped, and picked up in the last leg.
(period)          (growth)
1975-1980 0.031
1980-1985 0.037
1985-1990 0.034
1990-1995 0.03
1995-2000 0.027
2000-2005 0.041


Thanks to  _dodo_ for introducing me to this interesting data.
I would love to get more questions, queries related to analyzing this data. I'll try to find answers.

I don't exactly know how I got this particular fixation. I want to write a book.

I wanted to go through the process, more than anything else. The whole shebang of coming up with a concept
for a book, dividing up the chapters, making the book grow one page, paragraph, line, word at a time.

Getting other people to read the said book is not an aim. I will never even consider this. Thus, I am free of
all social obligations. I will definitely put it up online somewhere, probably while its being written.
Being a CS nerd makes this easy. (LateX, svn, interwebs...).

In Tamil, we have a proverb, rather a challenge - "Try to build a house, try to execute a marriage".
I will not do either in my life, for sure.  But a book? Maybe,

I am sure I will get a kick out of it, given that there is no deadline, pressure, obligation or rules.
The only rule I want to stick to is - the end product must be a book. It must be written that way.
It must not be something that was "put together" as a book. (A book of blog entries, an
anthology of poems, dictionary). But, must be built from the ground up as a book
(my definition - you will not be able to get the individual pieces elsewhere prior to
the book).

There is no other structural requirement - It might not be a single, big fat novel. Probably
sizable chunks that have a common theme (I am a Tarantino fan). Might be non-fiction.
No constraints on style either. I would prefer for the process to be pleasing to me.
I will stop the moment when I find its not fun anymore (even if not a single word was
actually written!).

I have decided on the structure of the book - it will be like a bunch of "reports". Some will be
based on fact, some purely fiction.But it will not be evident just from reading the report what
class it belongs to. There might be a subliminal thread that connects some of them/all of them.
I don't know yet.

I will blog about it, again, once I reach the next step. Again, that might be a lot longer
than you think :)

Love this song.

Thanks to RP, who put it as his status message.

Its a brilliant, creative song.

Someone took marriage band music, wrote lyrics that was a nice interplay of the contemporary ("bol, bol why did you ditch me?")
and the old and made sure it sounded "marriage band like" and to great, pleasant effect!
Love the "emosanal" spelling.
The video is stupendous too!

This is pure creative genius. I wish more stuff like this happens in Indian Cinema, where there is a regular shade of
the stuff that is rooted in our psyche from when we were very young (marriage bands, for example).

Friends, please point me to more such wonderful stuff, please encourage such stuff too!

1. I lost 7 kgs after I came to Atlanta.
2. I worked out in the gym for the first time this week (includes bench press and running).
3. I played squash and beat my lab-mate 3 sets in a row
4. Feel human again 

One can say:

          " My bowel is strategically aligned to the level of caffeine in my body"

Or:
         "I cannot crap unless I have coffee"


Choose :)

I just "got" the basic idea behind Fast fourier transform and I am blown away!

Almost every engineer studies this in their undergrad but it was just mumbo-jumbo to me back them.

That said, I need to dig deep and comprehensively understand it.

I strongly recommend this Algorithms book: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~vazirani/algorithms.html


As an aside, Euler's identity, Square roots of unity etc., looks magical to me. I really need to
understand them.

Now I am going to rant and ramble. This is going to be a long post. Caveat Emptor.

I will remember 2008 as one of the best years of my life.

Mid-year, I moved to Atlanta to start my Master's at Georgia Tech. And my life has been just great since then!

I never thought that there will come a point where I'll "feel" that my life is just great. But I do so now.

What are the reasons?

1. I learned a lot. I learned a lot about life, people etc.,
2. Everything single thing worked out very well for me. I got a part-time job, a tuition waiver for the spring semester, an internship and almost in the brink of getting into PhD.
3. Got exposed to robotics. Blown away!
4. My part-time job is working in a Georgia Tech start-up, building a full-blown system from scratch. Its too much fun! I'll post here once the pre-alpha is up.
5. My office gave me an iPhone with unlimited data (and I don't have to pay the bills). Heavenly. Its become a great value add to my daily life.
6. I got to work hard on things that mattered to me.
7. I had decent control over what I wanted to do and what I did with very little interference.
8. Overall, the best part is that I got to meet and know some wonderful people.

I never expected things to go this well. In fact, I was quite cynical when I started out with my Master's.
But, now my life feels like I am in the opening sequences of a Karan Johar movie. Too much happiness.

There is so much to write, so many experiences. But, I guess I am too lazy.

Lots of new pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/venkatasubramanian

My class project. Robot catching a bug: http://blip.tv/file/1581180

My Geogia Tech website: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~vmahalin/

My life seems to be finally taking shape.

Some of  the best I saw:

http://500px.com/channels/advertising/4180
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/3799
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/4017
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/3948
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/3159
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/3325
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/3163
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/2744
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/2656
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/2530
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/2309
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/1399
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/2036
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/1977
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/1898
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/1938
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/1935
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/1799
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/1071
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/1631
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/1487
http://500px.com/channels/advertising/1051

Here are the instructions:

(If you don't believe in God, please skip this post.
Here Govinda means God. The poem is based on Hindu faith.)

1. Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhaja_Govindam
2. Read the English translation.
3. Try to focus on reading it fully.
4. Try to avoid skipping and tolerate those parts you don't like much.
5. Make sure your prejudices don't deter you from reading it in a flow. The poem is kind of harsh and straight forward.
6. Let it all sink in.
7. See/listen to this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy1vn0u5dBU
8 . Bhaja Govindam