Nutty Scribblings

The Alchemist – A review

vijay — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:04:37 +0000

The Alchemist

Read this only if you have already read the book or if you are okay with the spoilers in this review.

The book is a journey of a boy who listens to his heart through his life and learns to not regret his decisions.

The story is centered in the areas from Spanish to Egypt through the Mediterranean and the sahara. The shepherd boy starts out in search of an unknown treasre twice revealed to him in a dream. In following his dream, he faces a series of encounters and experiences which no other shepherd boy would have imagined.

He faces many losses and break-downs in his path but he later realizes that they are but gifts that put him in touch with the right people and in the right track. He sees meaning out of otherwise not so important proceedings of nature and human behaviour and is reinforced in those beliefs by the proceedings.

The boy discovers that true love lies not in holding tight but letting free.

He is helped by higher beings including – a king and an alchemist in his journey. He is guided by omens given by natural forces including the desert, wind and the sun.

The story deals with many phenomena that is not commonly observed. Meaning of life, purpose and destiny of being are the topics used as foundation to build the story. Believers of after-life, destiny, one-ness of spirit of the world will find this book awesome. Others will find this book interesting.

Rise up!

vijay — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:07:43 +0000

Rarely do I find myself having a creative surge! Here goes:

Say it like you are singing a song

Build it like you are sculpting a stone.

Dazzling dance for the sun to dawn

To watch in wonder what you do

Let not fear fade your colors

Let not lust grade you down

Just not for you, for every person here

Want to hail your wear

Snow may come and cover the show

Don’t you leave your mission and go

The wait is not too long, before

The sun shines to clear the snow

They go out far searching for flowers.

Your get yours when you find the flow.

Do you hear the claps crying to be heard?

Dare to clear the clasps and the destiny is yours…

My first donation through internet

vijay — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 20:03:54 +0000

Few minutes back, I donated to Wikipedia.

I am very happy that I am writing a blog post on it. Here is what was going through my mind during the process.

“Hey, who is this guy giving a huge pose, glaring at me and standing atop the article I want to read.” About few years back, I never had to scroll to view the first thing I want to know at Wikipedia. But now they have this banner with one of the person from the Wikimedia foundation that reads something like : “A personal appeal from ____, programmer at Wikipedia”.

“Usually it’s the Jimmy Wales guy who shows up, but this time, it’s a new guy.” I clicked it to see what he had to say in short: he was working for wikimedia for the holy cause that they are for – To make the available knowledge in the world accessible to everybody in its pure form for free. He wanted it to stay alive and if I wanted it too, asked me to offer what I can.

“I have lost few hundreds of money due to my stupidity in the past, spent it in useless stuff, spend thousands on vacations. Why should I not donate?” Nothing was forcing me to do so. I recollected the huge amount of times Wikipedia showed up as the first result in Google and how it provided the light for me to march towards my destination. “Nobody will know if I do so this way. Why should I?” There was a small me asking that question. I quickly kicked it off knowing that it is stupid. “I should do something because I choose to do so, not because somebody will approve or applaud it”. And then I chose that I will go ahead and proceeded to donate Rs.X*.

Wikpedia gave me a HTML snippet that I can put in my blog to show-off.

Life and work(life)

vijay — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 06:02:47 +0000

I have been feeling bit too pissed about the way my life and work are in balance. I do like my work. But when I look back after an year, I dont want to see myself to be some one who has done an awesome work in job but nothing otherwise.

I am starting to realise more clearly there is more life out here!

Moreso, I realised that in general my analytical thinking and problem solving capabilities have dwindled quite a lot after joining the company. (grr!) I dont think I can blame anyone else for that other than you know who!

But ya. Things are going to improve before my next post! See ya!

Biking lessons – part 1

vijay — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 19:17:57 +0000

One day in August, I had gone to office in bike since I missed the cab(I was still in Cab scheme then). When returning home, Sandeep, my team mate also joined me since it was too late and it will take some more time for him to get his cab. I was just few rides old in terms of riding with a pillion then. I felt Sandeep was bit heavy and but I was able to ride without any discomfort. We got out of office and turned left to the narrow road that leads to the Velachery main road. The road was pretty empty. I switched to 3rd and then 4th gear and I was riding in about 40 kph There was some four wheeler coming in front of us. I did not want to reduce the speed since there seemed to be a way to the left of a lamp post. The lamp post had a car standing few meters in front of it. But the space was enough to turn the bike notwithstanding the speed we were riding in. I followed my whim to use that way between the lamp post and the left side of the road. The part of the road was slightly sand covered, which I didn’t think about when deciding to go that way. After going that way, I had to turn my bike right to avoid colliding with the car that was standing in front. The sandy ground was not happy about me turning my bike to the right towards the road. Sandeep was telling something. “Go slow dude…”, I think. I realized it myself as well and pressed my front brakes, which made the sandy ground even more irritated I think. The back wheel slipped to the left and my handle bar towards the right. I was not holding it in balance and the front wheel went and jammed onto the rear of the car standing in front. I fell down to the right of where my bike was and Sandeep was out even before me and somehow managed to not fall on the road. He ran a few step using his hand to prevent not falling on the ground I think.

There was no one around. I picked myself up. I asked Sandeep if he is fine. He said hes fine. I told him, “This is the first time I am falling from a bike”. I felt ashamed, obviously. But yeah, I was happy that Sandeep was good. But, I felt bad that I drove him to the accident. I had bruises just above my left elbow and in my right knee. I tried to start my bike as usual, but it was not starting. Guess it was upset. It needed some time of kicking to bring it back from the shock of the impact. It started after like 7 or 8 kicks. We turned right in the Velachery main road. I told Sandeep that I will take a small round in the road to ensure that the bike is running fine. After I did that, we continued. On the way, Sandeep was telling how bad the Velachery road too is and that its always good to go slow in this road. I had to agree.

I dropped him near the turning to his house. He waved bye, asking me to drive safely.

I realised later that this mishap might have happened even if I was not pillioning Sandeep. But me being a learner, I shouldn’t have experimented with someone in the back seat. Sandeep was a good sport to take this. He was even brave enough to come with me few days back(a similar office to home ride).

Lessons learnt:

* Dont panic. Use both back and front brakes.

* Dont be too brave on sandy roads.

* Drive safely!

* Be Extra careful when you are pillioning someone.

New home and new bike

vijay — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 18:51:06 +0000

Okay,

Lot of things have happened. We changed house from Vadapalani to Medavakkam in June end. The new place has much more space(almost double I think). I am felling good here.

Also I got this bike TVS Jive from the dealer/service shop few minutes away from my new home on July 23rd. I decided to buy this bike sometime near May but delayed it since we were shifting the house and I thought I will get it from someplace near the new home.

I changed my transportation option from ‘office provided cab’ to ‘own vehicle’(bike i.e.) beginning September. I used my bike for the past one month for office-home transport Now I have almost travelled 1K kms… hmm… I should say I am loving bike rides. I was a big fan of cycling(I still am but not doing it much), considering I was using my cycle from 8th standard to 12th(to school) and during college days(from home to/from railway station).

I missed college days for learning to bike (I knew very basics though).:( I have been learning quite a few lessons on biking during the past few months/weeks. I think it is a good topic I can blog about.

Also, I am thinking about bloging regularly. So be on the look out for posts on biking lessons!

Where are We Going ?

vijay — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:22:42 +0000

Thats Really Long Time people, Things are not the way they were before. . OK, dont want to bore you, Me, Sidd, Shank working on SPOJ. For one of the problems, we got top rank… here is the Image Hope We continue things like this

once in a blue moon above blue mary

Evil Exam Over !!

vijay — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:00:01 +0000

Hey, Guys long time illa, My Exams were over today. The Feeling is so nice and i guess this will be one reason if I say that I like Exams. (i.e. the feeling after it gets over !!)… Ofcorz, I wont say that I like Exams.

Some Things which happen to me when there is Exam the next day

* Exams want me to memorise things which is very HARD for me

* When I start reading some lesson(usually the first Lesson), I become very much involved in it, sometimes I even search for something related in the internet. ( cmon, wot is the purpose of exams, to make you learn, so learn it properly :p) . Eventually After some time I become tired, and then fall Asleep .

* I end up in the examination hall only reading a couple of lessons out of five lessons !! I manage to write some crap for the questions from other lessons from the things other people discuss after I go to college on the morning of the Dday.

* I never get the urge to read for Exams staying awake. I never had the drive to get high marks or gud grades or whatever…

Now you can hyperlink this blog topic for word “Lazy Boy” !! Did you hear that Wikipedia ???

ICPC 007 !! B-)

vijay — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:40:28 +0000

The Amrita University Organised the ICPC @ its Amritapuri Campus, Kerela.

Our Team: CSpirit

Members : Me, Shankar, Siddharth (Shankar is the new member of the team due to unknown reasons !!)

Let me start with the Online Round:

We did the online round well but still i thot we were slow. We were supposed to use one login per team but still 3 of us were in our respective homes. We decided that I shd login and do the submissions and stuff but hell broke loose when i was unable to even view the mooshak page !! Sidd took the job and pasted all the problem statements in rafb.net. I submitted for 1 of the problem to get AC in 55th minute. 1st AC !! habba !!… “Wot are u guys doing ?”. “sidd: I am trying B da.. Try anything else”. I started doin the other problem (not B). The prob was to “represent prime numbers in words”. Sidd got AC for prob B by 1.15 or something. By the time i finished coding, shanky was also done. I was confident.. so Sidd submitted my code to get AC !! Hurray.. We are all Done !!

We came in 9th place. We were the only team to get AC(Accepted) for all the 3 problem in 1 shot with no penalties . They selected 2 Teams from each college. So The other team from m y class was not selected . (we had even got tickets) . The Juniors team got thro.

Regionals:

The Train Trip was not bad. The Amritapuri guys were very courteous. They received us in station even thought we didnt ask for a pick up. The hostel room given to us was very big. nice room. nice washroom. nice place. They provided us with free supply of mineral water bottles! We went to the college. They gave us Internet Facility, which we used to some extent. The Food was not that great though.

Another Notable thing about the college was that, wherever u go, the place would hv been labelled “Boys” and “Girls” in 2 sides. Be it the lab, canteen, auditorium. Is the college is very strict wrt to boys and gals…? (atleast the banners not there in my coll !!) . I knew I was wrong later. U cant see only boys or only gals doin something: Be it eating in the canteen or taking care of some part of the event.

I didnt talk with many of other ppl. except for ThreeAces and Chocolat from CEG. and Ckrackers from MIT-our coll !! CEG seniors were very free going. They said they organise some of events @ kurukshetra. Said they would come to Samhita too. I knew Anusha and Aruna of Chocolat from ICPC-2006 and had known them primarily thro the Internet. In Kerela, talked with them in real-time. We even took a photo.

I took Camera to kerela to take photos.. I forgot to take camera to all the places and ended up without any photos.. This is the only photo i have now.

In Kerela, most of the gals were better than tamil gals esp. manyfold better than my college ! hope u undstd… -> ( … When we were in the internet lab, some gal volunteers were guiding us with getting print outs. We wished these gals dont come to the contest for obvious reasons !! One of them said us that Prasanna (aka Thala, Singam, Singa-Kutti …) would be delivering a speech. Thala was shivering all the time giving speech. After the speech, He was able to identify me to my surpise. He also Identified Shankar…coz they talked in Kanpur.

Prasanna: Thala…

Shankar:

Vijay: macha, wot is this, prasanna is takin to u. ur not talking ?

Shankar:

After some time,

Vijay: Y u didnt talk to prasanna? Clg Gals kitta than olunga pessa matta … Maintaining Ur Taaru Maaru Geth even with Prasanna. ?

Shankar: Dei.. avanllam range da..!

Vijay: He called u thala da !!

Shankar: Avan enna ottaran da.. In Kanpur, I asked him “Wen are u going to become target?”…adhunala than ippo enna Kalaikarthuku apdi sonnan da.

Vijay: Edo solra.

During our stay, we were late to all the events, from arriving at the station, goin to breakfast, lunch, dinner, attending speech , … getting bus for departing … We missed the Kaliripattu performance coz we slept !!

Practice Contest:

Did very very silly mistakes which drank our time. like

1) Trying to find the bug in prime function even without calling it !

2) counting no. of days in the year as 355.

3) Got confused with a simple if else statement involing &&, || operators

At the End of the Practice Contest… we were not in the first page of the rank-list… that too with easy questions. ofcorz it would hv been easy for everyone ! Chocolat was very fast and they were in 5th position. We were wondering may be we shd hav practiced together before. I remembered Anusha tellin me that they attended all contest together. We knew that they gave solutions for practice problems below the qns themselves only after the end of the contest !! Sidd said “when we solve the problems which chocolat solves in the same time penalty.. we would surely get gud position” haa.. but that might not be that easy. Sidd: “And ofcorz we should solve one more problem !!”… hmm pakkalam…

BackWater Boating:

The Amrita ppl also took us for Boat Riding along Back Waters. It was not bad.. it seemed that the scene repeated itself: coconut trees, fish nets, houses. The co-ords came to our cabin and asked to sing. The guy was seein just me and tellin to sing… reason being all others dont even seemed to hear to him. Jnr. Vikram said me “y dont u sing ?”… “Naan padina ellarum thannila kuthichiruvanga da!!”… “Super idea, senior, Ella teamum thannila villunthutta… neenga first vanthurunga, nanga second.”… lol.

The Main Contest :

They gave username and password for linux only with the Qpaper.. Ahhh… which meant I hv to spend the contest time for typing headers and stuffs …

We had decided to split the Qns and so that the easiest problem can be identifed soon by one of us. There were 8 problems. The first prob i read looked easy.. So i started… After some debugging, I got AC for it in 30 min. When we looked at the rank list. XTC++ was first solving each of the problems in 10 min. Chocolat was second with almost same time. (semma fast!! ). Sidd had hand coded that other problem. He started typing it.. while me and Shankar read the other problems. In more than 5 minutes, he finished it and submitted to get WA.. !! boo !! sidd: “Dei.. WA da chaaa” Others: “seri.. porumaiya par ethavadu thappu panni irrupa”.

After few minutes of debugging.. he identified his stupid bug and then got AC. That was our final AC. Shankar had finished one of the problems involing two balls rolling over and under irregular plane. He was struck up with some bayangaramana case. Sidd and Shanky was thkin over it. At that time, I was coding a Min. Spanning Tree for one of the problems. After much struggle, I was able to code it out. Sidd and Shanky decided to skip the ball rolling prob and switch to another problem which was simple but involved careful handling of many cases. They were hand-coding it. Tho I got correct ans for Sample I/O for the min. spanning tree prob,,, I felt something was missing something. I got WA when I submitted. I got print out and Sidd and Shank Coded the prob they were doing. I helped them out in finding out beautiful no.s which was part of that problem and also in debugging some logical error in it.

I left the minimum. Spanning tree prob and went to simulation prob. which involed rotating a cube in various directions. I was able to handcoded it in a short time. When Sidd and Shanky gave up on their prob when only 10.00 min was left.. i started coding the simulation… The time was not enof for me.. but i got some output in some 20 min. after the contest ended.. I would hv done that had i started on that long bk !

We tried all the problem except a couple of them. When the contest ended, We were in the 22nd place. Our juniors had Solved 3 probs( ). They were in 15th place.

Ranklist can be found here.

We talked with prasanna after the contest. We found that bayangaramana case for ball-rolling problem is not present and that such a case is not possible as per the problem statement.. Alas.. !! May be we should hv tried submitting it without that case.

Prasanna said for that min. spanning tree problem.. we should apply shortest-path-algo after finding the min. spanning tree.. I got that only after some thinking. Prasanna had set 4 of the contest questions. He was also one of the judges.

Post Contest Analysis in the hostel showed us that we would hv got AC for 5 of the problems if we had worked little more smarter. The other 3 required us to hv more knowlege on Algos and only one or two teams solved them. Much more to learn about teamwork, co-operation and stuffs.

Symps this sem

vijay — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 11:43:03 +0000

I did attend some symposiums this semester. I got first prize in debugging or programming in all of them. Now wot does this mean ? This means one or more of the following :

1) I cheated.

2) In all the places they asked the qns for which i already know the answer.

3) I had a gud team mate .

4) Its an event which is a part of one of the corners of the Binomail Distribution !!

5) man, i am gud at programming !!

The Colleges i attended tech symposiums are Sairam, Crescent, SSN-Paradigm and also Juggernaut which took place in my college !

I wont say i learn a lot by attending these… But I do see lot of ppl [:D]… and most importantly i learnt more things that wot i would learn by attending classes this semester…

C ya sooon, Byee !