H@H

It's Holi at home guys. With all the usual papad, chips stuff its yet another colourful time of year. We love it when we are happy and we hate it when we are in sad composure. I dont know but it happens with me sometimes. I have mood swings sometimes.

For better this time I am happy and Im loving it. I went shopping with Mom. These days we are inundated with choices in the garments and I am that kind of tasteless fellow that I can't choose among them. It was quite a difficult time.

So friends Happy Holi and enjoy your time. I don't have much to write right now. If you are in :) mood then you are rocking! But if you are in a sad mood then just 'take a sad song and make it better'. Listen to 'Hey Jude' from Beatles.

Weekend out

I had a weekend out of college. went to attend wedding ceremony of a friend's sister. It was at a rather unknown place 3 hrs journey from Delhi. So we (I and a friend) went to Delhi and traveled with 2 others in Delhi by road. I must say it was a rather boring day sitting there idle with no one to talk. We stood like 3 idiots. I started to wonder why we in India make so much pomp and show of marriage. We should rather save some bucks instead. And save a lot of people from getting bored and wasting 1-2 days of their short life. We invite people, bore them, feed them then bid them. Better to KISS. Keep it straight and simple. I would chose otherwise if given an option.

In spite of all this I had very nice time on Sunday. Came back to Delhi in the morning at my brother's house. After that there was a sort of mini-family-gathering. Two of my (cousin) brothers, I and my sister. All 4 of us have spent our childhood together at our old house. We are childhood mates and share close bonds.

By the way I practiced a lot on blindfold solving and got close several times during the return journey. Couldnt make it successful though.

But right now got my first successful blindfold solve!

A * can change your life

A * can change your life. For worse if commuted with a /. This is what ruined my life for over a week. Absolutely simple shit-piece of code was not working. So I thought I was not using the correct equations for computation. I scanned many journals and looked around for alternative methods but with no hope. In the end yesterday was a path breaking day and it just flashed me trace back the values. And the moment was maddening when I found out that I actually mistyped * in place of /. I went berserk screaming like stabbed man in the middle of road.

Good thing is results are absolute match with the reality and Im on to the next step! :)
Sometimes things can be simple shity. Shit happens. At times, shit happens.

Blindfold

I am learning blindfold cubing these days. For the less enlightened ones let me tell you that in blindfold cubing you first take visual of a completely scrambled Rubik's Cube and memorize its configuration without moving it. Next you put on a blindfold on your eyes and in one go you have to solve the cube.

Right now the status is that I can solve only the edges of the cube. Still working on the corners. I have to device mnemonics of my own for each locations and memorize with the help of pictures-story in a journey form.

Since we are going to Delhi this weekend (in all probability, if my mates do not ditch once again) to attend a wedding ceremony. I will have lots of time while traveling in the train. Let's hope I would be able to perform a successful solve after return on Sunday.

The results of an absolutely simple piece of fortran code seem to trouble me since last week. Don't know what went wrong. Have to check it once again. Now I know why mtech thesis is extends beyond May.

Run time starts

Fun time up. Run time starts. Techkriti is over. A lot happened. IORC 2010 was good. This time it was good with decent number of turnout in events other than normal Rubik;s cube speedsolve. 11 people solved 4x4x4 cube (including me at last posittion :| ..) means it's also well known now. Quality of timings was definitely better than last two years. You can have a look at the results on WCA website as soon as they are uploaded in a day or two.

Among other things I lost two of my cubes. 3x3x1 also called Floppy cube which was the cutest of all the cubes I have. :( The second was 4x4x4 cube. It was turning weirdly since I lubed it last. Anyways I was going to get a new 4x4x4.

Yesterday we had a dinner with Mr.John Louis. It was nice time sitting together and sharing time with this wonderful gentleman and his prodigy child.

There was this girl from San Francisco who came to IORC for filming a part of her documentary on Rubik's Cube. He interviewed John, Bernett and me. She was on a fellowship of one year. What a dream fellowship. For one whole year you have to travel all round the world and meet people and see places and shoot movie!

Did a decent job and secured fourth place in gimmick competition to win some bucks. :) And this time, unlike the previous year when I was not able to en-cash the cheque, got the cash immediately.

Now back to square-1. have to meet my supervisor. Before that gota fix a piece of java code. Already I am running behind the target in the master's thesis. Today mamma asked me when I will be getting the degree in the robes. And I just tried to avert the question. Big task ahead. If I have to save my chances of wearing convocation robe then I should better get things running. Run time starts now!

Buzz

So the new Buzz is Buzz from google. I would say it emulates twitter. (Although I never used twitter. I dont have account on twitter.) Twitter is to blogger what T20 cricket is to test cricket. Oh a far fetched imagination. But well quite a comparison. I love blogger as I love test cricket. I can write my life down on twitter. You may have a lot more followers on twitter but whats the point if you are forced to practice frugality in talking. That's not what makes a good conversation. And I can converse to myself at blogger. That's the beauty! More time to reflect. But then 140 chars means more economical in spending words. May be good thing sometimes.

Another buzz on the campus is Techkriti.  Going from 11th to 14th Feb  its a 3 day treat for guys here at IIT Kanpur. 3 and half day to be exact. Only half of first day is counted. For old people like us (yes, 5th year at IIT Kanpur and you feel old-ish type for routine things on campus) a little more than extended weekend. I'm quite involved in coding AI for a game. The idea is to develop AI for a bot which will play on its own in an areana on web against other people's bots. And not to mention I'll be there for IORC for some cubing. Though not speedcubing. I lost speed over last year or so. :)

Im also looking work around with my new cam. Just need to get the entry pass for my camera to things worth clicking. I'm not sure about the effect of laser lights on the camera lenses. How much unhealthy it. I can carry it for many other good things though. Look out fro highlights from my cam soon in this space.

Forgot to mention that I have been pretty consistent with jogging. me and a friend are going jogging in the morning every alternate day from last week. Wont we call it consistent? :P

Padhai

Tell you people something.. I am auditing a course. Although officially all course work of my curriculum is over. I chose to attend a course without crediting it on my gradesheet. And this is mid term exam 1 hr from now.

Ever since I was born exams have been a strong turn-on for me when it comes to writing blogs. And so its customary to write a post now.

If ever somebody plots scatter-graph of my blogger post versus time then there the highest density of posts would be the exam days.

As of exams its fixed. There is going to be a one-day cricket match in Kanpur and this is the last chance of watching a cricket match in Kanpur. But it seems I'll have to miss this too. It falls on 24th Feb. and the same day I have to appear at a presentation as Teaching Assistant. damn it! All my friends are going. And poor me is left with this damn TA thing...

All the gears-stackmats and displays- that we ordered for IORC has arrived with a person named Lee Sonko and this gentleman will be carrying this stuff from USA all the way down to Kanpur for us. This year they are spending lot of money on this Rubik's cube event. And I heard that someone from US is coming to Kanpur to participate in IORC. Probably this the first time we are having a participant in Techkriti coming from outside India.

Our plans of going to Orissa to attend a friend's sister's wedding is in abeyance because of people are backing off and numbers are dwindling fast. Let's see who all are left in the end.

(cant think of a title today)

SO things have been moving fast since I dropped by blogger last time. Got some results in my thesis only to realize that we need to simplify the problem statement right now. :P

This time techkriti, IIT Kanpur ordered 4 sets of stackmat timer and tournament display from Speedstacks for IORC 2010. But it seems participation is not going to be as high. Lot of cubing junta have been diverted to the new WCA competition being held in Mumbai. Seems like we are being hit by the other competition. But then its going to be good because there are more no. of good cubers from campus itself. At least 3 sub-30 sec. solvers and many sub 60. In the meanwhile I realized that I have degenerated and my timing slipped beyond 60 sec. Thats's embarrassing. I'm trying to gain speed on 4x4x4 cube. But not able to squeeze enough time from other engagement.

Also having a mid-sem exam for a course I'm auditing. Also our FEDUCON team geared up and we are working like 2-3 hrs daily on its website. We may soon expect a career counselling website up and running. Hopefully it will be of great help to students of 10th and class 12th in choosing their path when they have time. There are hell lot of career options out there apart from the ususal engineering/medical fever that is apparently infecting every second parent and subsequently every second school-going child. All this on the website soon. Our team working.