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Sunday, December 21, 2008

The Journey (Part I)

In this post I mention about my journey from Mumbai to home (Jamshedpur). The route I took was from Mumbai-Bangalore-Mysore-Bangalore-Jamshedpur. Your really do not have to take this route; there are direct trains from Mumbai to Jamshedpur (Tatanagar, is the name of the station); but I have my reasons. The earlier plan was to go to Mysore and then to Jamshedpur from there. I earlier worked at Infosys, Mysore and I had not completely shifted from the place i.e. I still had some stuff (mostly cloths) to be brought from Mysore, so I had planned to go to Mysore. Plus this would give me an opportunity to meet old friends. I later decided to stop over at Bangalore because there was a conference (FSTTCS) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) campus.

I reached the IISc campus in the morning of 8th December 2008. I was accompanied with Chinmoy (grad student at TIFR) and Shreyas (grad student with IITB). I was alloted a room at the Hoysala Guest house. Some of my friends had received accomodation in hostle on a sharing basis. We went around the campus, met Kavitha (earlier a grad student at TIFR now a faculty at IISc) and then we went to the Microsoft Research Bangalore because Chinmoy had to meet someone.

The next day we went for the presentations at the conference. And in the evening IISc had a movie show ('A Wednesday') in the gymkhana. The next day I had to go to Mysore. I reached Mysore at 6:00 pm the next day. I reached home (my home when I was in Mysore). No one was there but I knew where the key was (the same old place). And then I called Arpan because his bike was parked in the parking area, he was not to be seen anywhere. He told me he would be coming home in some time (it took around an hour for him to come home).


That night we had plans for the dinner outside but this lead us to another problem, one which we always face in such a situation, - 'Where should we go?' . There were certain constraints that we had to fulfill. We could not go to some places because some of the friends were having party the next day and they were not ready to go to the same places. Ashish came up with a place, he wanted to try a new place (because is the new restaraunt explorer) but we were not ready for that. Our experience with new places had been really bad, and we were in no mood to have a bad time. We finally decided to go to 'Jewel Rock' a new restaurant to me but not to the others. The food was good. And once we finished the dinner we went to Chamundi Hill. There is a temple at the top of the hill. But we were not going to the temple and any ways at 10 in the night the temple is not open. But the view point at the top of the hill was kind of our hangout place. Had a lot fun there, and gossiped about people :-). I had to catch up on things that I had missed. Here are a few pictures that I took at the Chamundi Hill.




Some pictures at the Mysore Palace.








Friday, November 28, 2008

The Second Day (War On Mumbai)

An hour or so ago there was news about fresh firing at the CST railway station. But the authorities have confirmed that it was just a rumor and nothing actually had happened. To prevent spread of panic all news channels in Mumbai has been blocked. But, I can still watch them on the internet. As most of the channels provide live feed on their respective websites. The softwares like 'LiveStation' also have feeds from the news channels.

Last night had been a sleepless night for me. I was tired and wanted to sleep but was not able to. So, I went back to the common TV room and as I had expected, there were a number of people in the room glued to the news channels. The security forces had rescued some people from the Nariman House. NSG had still not taken the control of the building. There was another operation going on in the Oberoi hotel where the floors were being cleared from the top. The drama continued for a long time and it was 3:00 am when I finally decided to go to sleep.

Today morning I got up by a call from my aunt and uncle. I asked them what the situation was? They told me that the NSG forces were dropped onto the Nariman House via a chopper. I got up and went straight to the TV room to find out the condition. The operation was still on. The police said there was altleast on terrorist in the Taj and number of people still in the hotel although not as hostage. The police have now confirmed that the Oberoi hotel operation has been completed. About 108 hostages have been rescued from the Oberoi. The gun shots can still be heard from inside the Taj. The battle there still continues. I just hope that it will get over soon.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

A Wednesday!! (Terror in Mumbai)

I was sitting in my office at the TIFR when I heard a loud sound. The windows of the room shuddered. It could not have been a cracker. But, as I heard it I still continued to work. A few minutes later a second sound was heard. And then my cellphone begins to ring. I was getting a call from my uncle. I picked up the phone and my uncle asked me if I was alright and where was I? I replied, that I was fine and in the institute. I asked them what the matter was and he told me about the news he was watching. There was gun firing going on in the region not very far (about 4-5 Km) from where I live. He also asked if my sister (who also stays in Mumbai) was fine too as they were unable to reach her on the phone. I said that I will find out and let them know.

A few hours ago my friends had asked me if I would go to “Naturals Ice-cream Parlor” and I had declined the offer. Naturals is on the Marine Drive not very far from the Oberoi Hotel at Nariman Point. I remembered that even after one and a half hour they had not returned back to the institute. It was about 10:30 pm in my watch. I tried to reach them on phone but the network was generally busy; I was unable to reach them. Worried I told another friend to contact them if he could. He too was unable to reach them. We became a little worried. News was coming in from many places. Many people were on phone informing there family and loved ones of their well being. But some people were caught up in the middle of the action and I had no way to reach them. We could only hope. We tried calling them a few more times before at last Rakesh finally managed to get them. They told us that they were fine and there were reaching the institute. That was a big relief to us.

On their arrival we heard their story. One of them was still shaken by the incident. They told us about the blasts they heard and the people they saw running around who were just asking everyone to run. They took shelter for sometime near a building and then found a way back to TIFR. Got into a taxi and reached the institute.

In the meanwhile people around were trying to get as much information as possible from the internet news services. Thanks to "LiveStation" I was watching CNN IBN live on the computer. We learnt from the news that terrorists had attacked various places around Colaba - Cafe Leopold, Oberoi Hotel, Taj Mahal Hotel, Metro Cinema Junction, CST Railway station, Coma Hospital and Ville Parle. We then moved to the TV room in the hostel where a number of people were glued to the news. Everyone interested in knowing the latest development. It was then we learnt that some of the people were stuck in a theater; they had informed that they were fine and they did would be spending the night in the theather. The theater was closed from within so that no one could enter it. This theater was not a place of attack.

The news channel then reported that three High ranking Police officials had been killed in the encounter. This included ATS Chief Hemant Karkare, Mumbai's additional commissioner of police (east) Ashok Kamte and celebrated encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar. The news channels were screaming that this was the worst thing that had ever happened.

It was 2:30 am and I went to sleep. In the morning I went back to the news room and found that the situation was no better. Infact the hotel Taj Mahal was on fire. Firemen were trying to putoff the fire. People were kept hostage in the hotels and at Nariman House (Nariman Bhavan). The NSG (National Security Guard) had been called, the army had been brought in and the battle was still on. There were gun shots from withing the buildings. A number of people were rescued and many more remain to be rescued.

As I write these last sentence the operation is still going on at the Taj, Oberoi and the Nariman House.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Timex India Website Reported as Attack Site

 


I was looking for Timex India page and google warns me that its and Attack site. So, what does this mean? Has the www.timexindia.com site been hacked? Or they are just distributing malware...
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Thursday, September 11, 2008

All are equal

Everyone in this world is equal. Not all of them have the same social status, not everyone has the same economic status but they all have the same amount of time in a day.

If someone wants to be good at anything or with anybody they must spend this precious resource with it or them.

You will become good in your subject if you spend time with it. If you want to build up a relationship you have spend time with the person. If you are in love spend time with your partner.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Firefox Discarded

I have been facing some issues with FireFox 3.*. It would crash every few minutes after running. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling but the problem was never solved. So, I have switched from FireFox to Opera. Opera seems to be a great browser now. I have also changed the side bar which earlier looked like this (supporting Firefox).

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Flower


Flower, originally uploaded by shishir pandey.

This picture was captured in the XLRI campus, Jamshedpur. The campus has a good collection of beautiful flowers. Me and my cousin sister decided that we would exploit it for our photography experiments. Some of the pictures have really come out well.
In fact it was my first time that I was taking macros.


Since then I have taken a number of macros which can be seen here.

Working with Comodo Firewall

I have installed the Comodo Firewall Pro on my system.

I mistakenly marked Google Desktop as an Isolated Application (I do no know what it means even now). Google Desktop stopped working. I did not know what to do. I uninstalled the application and then installed it again (hoping that it might work), but it would not work. So, I googled in one of the forums I found how to change the status of an application. Then fixed it hope it works now.

All those who are new to Comodo Firewall may want to have a look at the link.
Comodo is an excellent firewall.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

My Rankings...

I read in "The Google Story" that most of us at some point of time have tried a search on our names on the internet. I also tried to search for Shishir Pandey on various search engines. Its good to see this blog ranked second on Google (subject to change without notice, it might have changed as I write this). A few days ago it was on rank one in Google search but I did not take the screen shot of it then. I hope it will get back there some time soon. I also tried the search on Yahoo and this blog is ranked one there (YAHOOOOOOOO0000!!!!!!!!). I also tried other search engines like windows live search and ask.com there results were bad.


I attach the two screen shots of results from google and yahoo..


My%20Rankings My%20Rankings1



From today I shall start using Yahoo as my preferred search engine..

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Some Unanswered Questions!!

I have started thinking of the basic mathematical operations again. The thought process began when my father asked me - "why does negative number multiplied with a negative number produce a positive number?".

The basic reasoning on which we are taught multiplication does not seem to work here or if it does I just do not understand how? As per how we are taught multiplication if some one says 'a x b' then it would mean what is the value of adding 'a' 'b' number of times or what is the result of adding 'b' 'a' number of times. This scheme works perfectly when both a and b are positive. This is how we are first taught multiplication and once we understand this concept we start overlooking many things.

It works well even for if one of then is positive and the other is negative. For example 'a x -b' would imply -b added a number of times. As adding a, -b number of times seems absurd (the commutative law of multiplication seems questionable).

What if we have both the numbers negative. We all know because our teachers told that negative number multiplied with a negative number will give us a positive result. But, if I reason the way I have done before I can do no further how do I add something negative number of times. After all you can do a thing once, twice, etc.... or not do at all but how do you do it -1 time?

I am still stuck with this question. Answers and suggestions are welcome.

Monday, July 7, 2008

There and Back Again - A Travellers Tale (Part I)

The Journey to Ayodhya

My Journey began at 9:30pm when I left with my Aunt and sister for Ayodhya from Tatanagar (Jamshedpur). The remaining berths around were empty and I thought that they were empty and someone will later occupy in the night as it was departure time already but then immediatly two more people (mother and son) came in and occupied there seat next to ours. Then after some time it was time to sleep.

As I knew that we would reach our destination earliest by 11 O’clock. I tried to sleep as long as I could, because its really hard to pass time in the train. I got up after we had passed the Varanasi (Banaras) station. Although my sleep had been broken when a vendor came it the compartment shouting "Paper - News Paper, Hindi newspaper english newspaper". It was July and the monsoons had arrived, the view of the country side was really amazing; green fields, ponds filled with water and people working in the fields. Here are a few pictures I took with the help of my cellphone from the train.





My sister had given me a copy of "Angels and Deamons" which I haven't read till then. I started reading the book to pass some time. The train was suppose to be at Faizabad (my destination) by 12:00 pm or so. But, it was now running late by at least an hour. Ayodhya (the I had to reach) station comes on the way but the train does not stop there so we had to get down at the next stop i.e. Faizabad. Sometimes the train stops at Ayodhya, due to some signaling issues, so we had planned if it does stop we will get down at Ayodhya itself. To our disappointment the train did not stop in Ayodhya. But, it stopped at 'Acharya Narendra Dev Nagar' the only station between Ayodhya and Faizabad for about 20 minutes. That's when we were really annoyed. After sometime we reached Faizabad and then took an auto to Ayodhya and then a cycle rickshaw to our home in the village. It was about 2:30 pm when we reached home.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

India's Education Crisis

In this post I will try to put forward my views on the current crisis Indian Education sector is facing, what is the government trying to do about it and what it is not doing.

First of all the government seems to be too complacent about the quality of higher education. It believes in using the already established names than creating new ones. Its something like selling all the sports shoes in India by the name Nike. This is not a very good idea after all we all know the difference between the Rs.100 tennis shoes I used and the Rs.3000 tennis shoes Nike provides. Of course unless until we want IITians to be omnipresent, like God. But, then one also has to make arrangement (of teachers and facilities) so that all IITians have God like properties.

Why do we need reservations in higher education? Isn't primary education that must be given importance and the higher must be left for the student to work hard and secure admission to. If quota is all about giving opportunity to people who have not got it then primary education is it. Not higher education. There must be scholarships for meritorious students and based on needs, not quota. Imagine how would a student feel if he sees his classmates doing well and he is struggling; either he will work hard or he might have some mental problems. But, if he were to work hard he would have done it earlier. All, you would be doing is spending lot of money on resources then

Arjun Singh wants to open up more and more IITs in the country, the question is, is it really going to help anybody or its just a political stunt to get the votes. I personally believe Arjun Singh wants to give a feeling that he is trying to provide quality education to many people. No matter how noble his intentions may be, the question is will he be able to provide quality education? I think he is mislead by the idea that India is lacking only good institutes of higher education, little does he realize that India does not have qualified teachers (after all good teachers are a must for good institutes). There are only a few places which provide quality education that can be compared to the best in the world. IITs have lost there position in the top 200 universities in the world (in 2007 each IIT was ranked separately). I really do not think that Arjun Singh is doing anything to get or create good quality teachers to India. He has only made things worse by introducing the quota system for the faculty position at IITs, TIFR, IISc and BARC, another Times of India article can be found here. The directors, students and alumni of these institutes have protested the rule but we will have to wait and watch.

These acts remind me of the forward that I had recieved sometime back. If he were the sports minister he would have introduced reservation in the nationals teams too (as it would be really hard that to implement if in the cricket team first. He would have tried other sports). If he becomes the Civil aviation minister he might reserve 40% of the seats in Air India and Indian for the SC, ST and the OBC.

I really hope that the quota is not implemented for the faculty.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Intelligence vs Hard work

I have heard this all my life (I am still very young there is a lot of life still left) from various sources...

"Intelligence is an asset, but, it is not a substitute for hard work"

This might be true...but I strongly believe that

"Hard work is not a substitute for intelligence"

Updated: My friend Vinay believes that hard work can substitute intelligence but it would require tremendous effort (like in the movie Forest Gump).

I do not agree to it. I am not saying that "Intelligence is a substitute for hard work". All I am saying is "Hard work is not a substitute for intelligence" you might keep working like a donkey if you are not intelligent.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Getting support or applying pressure





What do you think this picture actually represents are the bigger slabs getting support or are they applying pressure to the smaller stones?
I think that larger slabs are 'getting support' and 'not applying pressure' because if the supporting stones are removed then the bigger slabs will fall they cannot stand by themselves.

Friday, May 23, 2008

On Reservation in India

OLD VERSION
The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away

Come winter, the Ant is warm and well fed. The Grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.





MODERN VERSION
The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The Grasshopper thinks the Ant 's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the Ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper next to a video of the Ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor Grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the Ant ' s house .

Medha Patkar and Tan Shyamoli goes on a fast along with other Grasshoppers demanding that Grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter.

Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticizes the Indian Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the Grasshopper.

The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the Grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt support as against the wrath of God for non-compliance) .

Opposition MPs stage a walkout. Left parties call for "Bharat Bandh" in West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry.

CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among Ants and Grasshoppers..

Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian Railway Trains, aptly named as the 'Grasshopper Rath'.

Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the ' Prevention of Terrorism Against Grasshoppers Act ' [POTAGA], with effect from the beginning of the winter.

Arjun Singh makes 'Special Reservation' for Grasshoppers in Educational Institutions & in Government Services.

The Ant; fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes; its home is confiscated by the Government and handed over to the

Grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV.

Arundhati Roy calls it ' A Triumph of Justice ' .

Lalu calls it 'Socialistic Justice' .

CPM calls it the 'Revolutionary Resurgence of the Downtrodden'

Koffi Annan invites the Grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly.



MANY YEARS LATER

The Ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi-billion dollar company in Silicon Valley .

100s of Grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere in India ....

because of loosing lot of hard working Ants and feeding the Grasshoppers, India is still a developing country!!!




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Friday, April 11, 2008

Rules are made to help governance

At my home we have a kind of rule that we can have breakfast only after having the bath.
The incident I am going to tell about happened when I was in college and had gone home during the semester break.

I got up late and was feeling hungry. I was ready to have my breakfast when my sisters objected and said I could eat only after having bath, as they were not allowed in such a scenario. At that time my father took my side and said this amazing line.

“Rules are made to help governance, not to govern.”

Come to think of it. Isn't it a beautiful thought?

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Switching Minds

I think most of us have heard about sayings like - "One must always leave the problems of an office at office and should not take them back home or viceversa" OR
You might have seen the add of 'crabtree switches' (crafted to perfection). In the advertisement they show a bride who is crying when she is saying goodbye to her family members and as soon she sits in the car with the groom he rubs on her hands and she becomes happy. In the add the person hopes that life to be like the 'crabtree switches' where you could easily switch minds.

Although the ad is good. If you analyse the add carefully you will find some flaws in comparing life with switches. If you have had a course on digital electronics then you will realize that there are differences between combinatorial logic and sequential logic. The reason being the later has memory. And anything that has life has memory. So the switching would not be so easy as shown.

Now, let us assume what it was so easy to switch moods. Which would mean that we have very less memory. Imagine what are the problems that we would face.
1. You might not remember the path to your office. (no work then ;-))
2. You might not remember your parents after staying away from them for months.
3. You might forget what the requirements of the project are by the time you start coding.
4. Best of all the client would forget to which company they have given the project after giving the money....(outsourcing jindabad...
....etc..etc...

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Software to measure Women's Attractiveness

Yes, you read it right. Now you have a software to measure how attractive a women is. Nice advancement in AI. I still believe that my eyes will good enough, I do not need a software for judging how attractive a women is.

If you are a women may be you must try the software.

Read more about it at Primidi or Haaretz.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

StumbleUpon

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. -The Tagline of StumbleUpon!

Friday, February 1, 2008

Luckiest Day of My life

In India almost everyone loves cricket (I am not talking about the insect). Although I do not love the game so much anymore but, thats a different story.

The incident I am going to tell happened long ago when I stayed in the IRMA campus. We were playing cricket in the campus. One of my friends, I do not remember who, hit a shot and the ball went onto the terrace of one of the houses where no one stayed. We needed the ball and so some one had to get to the terrace and get it (it is quite easy to climb to the terrace there). For that you have to first climb to the top of the building and then come down to the terrace that you need to.

I went to get the ball. I climbed the top of the building and then I got down to the terrace where the ball had gone via the parapet. Little did I know that there was a bee hive under the parapet. But luckily my legs did not hit it or else I might not be writing this blog now. Even after I got down from the parapet I had not seen the hive. I took the ball and threw it to my friends and went back the same way, it was only then that I actually saw the bee hive and for a moment could not think what needed to be done and how I would get back. Some bees stung me. If had not seen the other way to climb to the roof I would have jumped from the building.

After I got down from the building I got first aid.