The Vault Of Souls

Before I went to see 3 Idiots , I had heard a thousand people chant about the brilliance of the movie. So , amidst all the hosannahs and eulogies that i heard chanted about the film , all the frenzied applause by everyone whenever the name of the movie was mentioned , I went to see the film at last. And did 3 Idiots live up to my expectations...??

As a movie... YES. A perfectly made , celluloid entertainer. Every performance was exceptional for its sheer energy and versatality. So , As a cinematic adventure , Hirani and Amir hold the story together perfectly.

But , 3 IDIOTS , for all its fine comic moments , is a very dangerous film. The movie legitamizes a scorn and hatred of education. It ridicules the best education institutions set in INDIA , sanctions wilful dumbing of our own. It shows our higher education system as an arena of bad teachers determined to ruin the student's lives , suicidally pressurizing students.

Amazingly , a film whose central message is "the education system sucks", " we earn nothing at our centers of excellence" , "dont study hard jusst do what pleases you" is being hailed as the best film ever made in INDAIN CINEMA. This huge popularity of the movie shows how eager we are to embrace mindlessness and how keen we are to see education and hard work as obstacles to enjoying a good life.

We keep chanting the mantra "the-system-sucks , who-cares-about-grades , the-rat-race-is-foolish.". Yes our education system needs reforms , things need to improve but in the pusuit of educational reforms , we cannot allow standards of excellence be lowered. The IIT's must be applauded for the world-class minds they've thrown up , they are institutions that are respected all over the world.

There was a scene in the film in which Rancho mocks the Laplace Transforms (the equation written on the blackcoard) as an example of rote learning. Yet, without Laplace Transforms , Hirani's computer would not boot up!! As an Engineering student, I have never come across a teacher like VIRUS nor have i ever felt the manic stress during the 3 years of my college life.

Let's get real about higher education , and not engage in an escapist fantasy and convince ourselves that education doesnot matter. For each of us, geniuses or not ... there are no short cuts.

So , THREE IDIOTS IS A GREAT MOVIE!! BUT THAT'S JUST IT ... IT'S NO MORE THAN A STORY.

Well , Since India reached the top position in test rankings yesterday, much has changed.


But the foremost change I noticed in any player was in SACHIN TENDULKAR. And I am not talking about his ON-Field self.


Well , In the past few days SACHIN has started speaking on controversial issues. He does'nt usually say anything contoversial nor does he shifts his weight around things but these days he has started saying what is on his mind on issues in his own UNASSUMING DIGNIFIED way.

First, I believe he did a great service to the nation by stating that He was an Indian first and that MUMBAI belonged to all Indians. I think it was even better than his 175... well, almost!! And the response letter by the sena supremo bared to all that his ground was shaking.

Then , At the yesterdays post match session he thrilled a lot of people by including the names of Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh , who were unceremoniously sacked by the BCCI , in the list of people who made most effort in bringing the team to the NO. 1 position. Well, Prasad would be encouraged by this unexpected vote-of-confidence.


Thus, Sachin speaking on national issues is a huge bonus along with having him play for the team. Though not noticable , but for me it is a huge change as he is one man who can influence the minds of most Indians and no-one could ever doubt on his Patriotism!!

God made this world in 5 days.... Ever wondered how??

If God was able to make us and everything else in 5 days, why do software engineers have to devote so much time in developing a simple system which is infinitesimally small compared to this planet?

"GOD , for one , did not have any installed base to worry about upward integration and compatibility . No platform dependency.....

and I'm guessing he skipped most part of documentation also....."

No wonder He ended up with such a mess.

Maybe if GOD had followed SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle), maybe the earth woul have been a better place to live in.

P.S : I'm also sure that GOD used some Open Source Technology under the EULA Liscencing and the copyleft standards which explains so many versions of the same species all around us!! ;-)

Well, GOD should have taken Computer Science Engineering. And if he did take it... he should have paid attention in class.

So.... Now gotta get back to work... have to complete the documentation for my project... bye!!!

Most of us have traveled by bus at least at some point in his life. But traveling itself is an adventure starting from the time you set foot in a bus stand. I went to Coimbatore recently and had a similar adventure. Boarding a bus in Tamil Nadu is an art in Itself.

As soon as you enter the Bus Stand you will see nothing strange out there. Waiting for the bus, you start wondering about the things you could do when you reach your destination in the next 3 hours.

You see the bus. Hopeful , you stand up in acknowledgment as a true civilized engineer. But as soon as the bus comes in your full view.... SWARMS!!Hundreds of People!!.... come running towards it from every nook and corner of the bus stand. The previously calm Bus Stand suddenly becomes a battle ground. And you stand there Stunned....


When you return to your senses a second later and start frantically running towards the Bus but .... in vain.... . The bus stand goes calm again as soon as the Bus leaves and you can then count the people on the bus stand and you sit wondering where the people dissapeared or where they come from in the first place!!.

You again wait patiently for another bus, thinking that most people had boarded the last bus and this time the crowd will be less.... but this time too ... hundred more people come running as soon as the bus arrives hanging from EVERY NAIL of the BUS.

Shocked again!! Wondering where the people apparated from.. you again run frantically towards the bus. This time you reach touching distance but alas.... this goes in vain too...!!



Irritated by your last attemept you decide to wait until the crowd thins away and do not try to attempt to board the next 2 buses. But the crowd will just keep on coming... all night long...

Well of all the places you have been to and with all the childhood lessons which taught that "Patience is the best Quality"... This is one place where patience never pays!!

"Space always intrigued me, with its incredibly rich possibilities, space alteration by (architectural) objects, objects' transformation in space (sculpture, design), movement in space and in time, their correlation, their repercussion on mankind, the relation between man and space, the object and time. I think the CUBE arose from this interest, from this search for expression and for this always more increased acuteness of these thoughts...”

– Enro RubikThese were the words of engineer, architect, sculptor,professor Enro Rubik who created the world’s most selling toy ever – the Rubik’s CUBE. But apart from the cube there have been many other creation from the ‘Rubik's Studio’:



RUBIK’s Magic : The puzzle consists of 8 black square tiles (Changed to red squares with goldish rings in 1997) arranged in a 2 × 4 rectangle; diagonal grooves on the tiles hold wires that connect them, allowing them to be folded onto each other and unfolded again in two perpendicular directions.The goal of the game is to fold the puzzle into a heart-like shape and unscramble the picture on the back side, thus interconnecting the rings.

RUBIK’s Snake : is a toy with twenty-four wedges shaped like right isosceles triangular prisms. The wedges are connected such that they can be twisted, but not separated. Through this twisting, the Rubik's Snake can attain positions including a straight line, a ball (technically a nonuniform concave rhombicuboctahedron), a dog, a duck, a rectangle, a snake and many more imaginative shapes and figures.

RUBIK’s 360 : Rubik's 360 is a 3-D mechanical puzzle released in 2009 by Ernő Rubik,The puzzle involves changing the position of six balls, each a different color, in a central sphere to six compartments in the outer sphere. This is done by shaking them through a middle sphere that only has two holes. There are three spheres that make up the puzzle. Unlike the original Rubik's Cube, there seem to be no algorithms and, in general, less mathematics associated with this puzzle. In addition there is a factor of manual dexterity involved in the solution, that was unnecessary with the original cube.

Hats off to the master architect.... one who gave a play toy for adults and children alike, a toy which appeals to a 60 as well as a 6 year old alike and all believe that they'll be able to solve it. The WORLD stands greatful!!!

But, this is still just a concept and there are no plans yet to commercialize this product. Till then... keep measuring the time!!!

"THE ERA OF GOOGLE"

For most people, information on the web means 'GOOGLE'. But for serious research or searching for opinions or finding answers to some questions, Googling may not always produce the best results. Although the knowledge of Google commands, the internal working of the search engine will certainly improve the probability of 'getting lucky'!!

However, even these may not be enough to give you an adequate information about the subject. You may have to browse through many web pages to obtain a proper understanding of the subject.

LOOKING BEYOND 'SEARCH ENGINES'

This inadequacy in search engines is not relevant when you are looking for facts with keywords. But once you start asking questions or opinions, the regular search services fail.Thus, there is a need for a service which gives you a substitute for an advice from a real expert.

Thus a search service is needed which uses the net infrastructure to seek an answer from an experts mind instead of seeking the facts from the already existing database of WebPages created by unknown experts.

Here are some of the experiments worth mention in this direction:

• LEXXE – Its a search engine which uses a technology called ‘Natural Language Processing’ to return results for queries typed in regular English. E.g. The question ‘How old is the earth?’ will give the correct answer along with a number of result links and many cluster of links. But the question ‘What is the age of Barak Obama?’ may give a surprising result !!
• QUERYCAT – This service returns, not links , but an array of FAQ’s about the topic. Although the search is not very good as it does not use the collection of WebPages but rather its own database of FAQ’s. But the Querycat-Health is a good enough service which may return result to act as a substitute to a real doctors advice!!
• DocMazy - DocMazy is a ‘document search engine’, so it only searches for only PDFs, Docs, Excel, and Txt files. It quickly finds these files, which are normally stuck deep within search engines. This thing is especially useful for people looking for quick research sources.It even allows you to preview these documents in your browser itself using AJAX.
• SCRIBD – Started in 2007, Scribd is a ‘Social Publishing’ site. It enables millions of users to share , discover and read original writings and documents.it comes with an iPaper reader which converts print files such as PDF,DOC,DOCX,TXT etc into web documents and hence makes it easier to share docs.
• WATTPAD – It is the worlds largest ‘e-book sharing’ community. Started in 2006 with a tagline of “Read what you like, Share what you write”, wattpad has become a hotspot for people who want to share or read e-books.

Other than these, many other services have been launched which spark some exciting hope for the future of search engines. E.g.

• WolframAlpha
• Citeulike
• Yahoo’s SearchPad
• Ardvark

…………..etc