Baddn`s Dazzling World

2005-04-02T09:22:00.000-08:00

Baddn`s Dazzling World

Hidey Hooo...Glum Chum...Snug as Bug n a Rug...I have lost it !!!

Murali is in town...Showing him around and doing the usual tourist circuit. More intelligent posts coming up...!!

Morning Sunshine !

2004-08-20T08:50:00.000-07:00

I have finally started to go to work. Its such a radical shift the way you think and operate in Grad. School. I have to get used to it. Talking about "Thinking", I have recenty been very very influenced by Prof.Dr.Edsger W. Dijkstra`s writings about thinking and mathematical elegance in general. The more I am sure that a certain verbosity of writing, stringing togther of random ideas and a facade of intellectualism don`t actually mean anything. Ideas and expressions must be backed by a very clear and elegant understanding of things ( situations, problems, etc ) and this rigour is greatly missing in most people. A diligent reader may ( may be not ! ) argue that I am guilty of the same, to which all I have to say is often time, I have limited my expressions to a bare minimum and these writing should be construed as a short essay, about things which I think are important. It is imporrant for people in general , esp. people in scientific disciplines to be able to read things and clearly understand the merits/demerits of an exposition regardless of how marvel thw wordings or beautiful the construction.

I quote Buckminster Fuller : " Form Follows Functionality ! ". I do not think the converse is true. I have come across wonderfully written articles which carry behind them very poor substance.

2004-08-14T18:09:00.000-07:00

Hoover Tower by night....

2004-08-13T16:22:00.001-07:00

Discipline ?????

2004-08-13T16:22:00.000-07:00

2004-08-13T16:01:00.000-07:00

Little Horsie was stranded in a bench by some wretch...

2004-08-13T16:00:00.000-07:00

Light of Universal Conciousness...

2004-08-13T15:59:00.001-07:00

My Didgeridoo....

2004-08-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

Artwork on the Modern Didj...

2004-08-13T15:57:00.000-07:00

Happiness

2004-08-13T15:55:00.001-07:00

2004-08-13T15:55:00.000-07:00

Typical Morning...on route to class

2004-08-13T15:45:00.001-07:00

Branacles..Shells...What are they ?

2004-08-13T15:45:00.000-07:00

The Colorado..

2004-08-13T15:43:00.000-07:00

The waters.....

2004-08-13T15:41:00.001-07:00

Drakes Beach

2004-08-13T15:41:00.000-07:00

Canyon at Hoover Dam...

Bring out the Sword !

2004-07-04T17:19:00.000-07:00

Are YOU ..

to SCALE the heights

of Learning ????

I have not been able to get much work done lately. Total lack of enthusiasm, an utter lack of discipline and a totally in-surmountable laziness has been enveloping me.

BUT That shall all END TODAY !..... O Sennnooo Jiiiii ( meaning : Battleformation in Japanese )!!!!

July 4th

2004-07-03T15:24:00.000-07:00

July 4th Weekend. There was sudden yelling and screaming outside my room. When I casually looked outside, there seemed to be a huge amount of fireworks and partying going on. The above pic was from right below my window.

Not much fireworks in my life right now. Things seem so slooow or rather placid might be a better work. Heading off right now to buy suresh some Golf Clubs. Have been pouring through some rather interesting books on Mysticism.

Medium & Subject !

2004-07-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

I drew the following flower and then took a picture of it. Not to sound nerdy or anything, but this brings about a rather interesting question about media & subjects.

1. Is paper the medium and the flower a subject.
2. Is paper the medium and the impression of the flower a subject.
3. Is the ccd of the digital camera the medium and sketch of the flower the subject.
4. Is the retinal wall the medium and the frame of view the subject.
5. Is the mind the medium and the sensory impulses the subject.
6. Is the thought the medium and the perception the subject.
7. Is Consciousness the medium and Perception the subject ?

In the absence of a medium , can an impression be maintained !!!!!

Web of Power

2004-04-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

Its been a long time as usual...and I havent quite had the enthusiasm to update my blog. So many things have been happening. I had a wonderful Spring Break with all my friends where we travelled deep into the Mid-West, amidst acres of barren land, farm houses and manure, ( I am not sarcastic..we had a great time ) interspersed with the spanking nightlife of cities like Chicago.

Caught up as I was in this whirlwind of activity and back to sunny Californian weather, tennis, programming assignments and the like. It now suddenly strikes upon me that some of the most enjoybale years of my life is coming to a close. The gravity of the situation is slowly sinking into me , yet I fear its still not had its deepest impact. I am leaving Stanford, the place I have grown to love and adore. I`ve had such wondeful memories, a phase of my life when all else had slowed down almost to a crawl and nothing more to do than spend time dreamily contemplating about pleasant things amidst the sun-washed green lawns. The Morning air, the cool shades of majestic trees, the crisp and bright sun, breezy nights and ofcourse all the intellectual stimulus. I cannot bear to write all these things ! I for one am dispassionate about things, but this one I am going to have a hard time to let go off.

It is in times like these that I am very reminded of the works of Carlos Castaneda. About how the Shaman Naugal Don Juan imparts the "impeccable" way of the warrior. There is no time to "indulge" in emotions or decisions. All a warrior has is time to "act". The "actions" have to be impeccable. The web of power is woven all around us. We merely have to act and act well. Act with Knowledge.

God ! I hope I am back here again !

Hall Sweet Hall !

2004-02-15T14:29:00.000-08:00

Its been a while since I penned down the thoughts of my mind ...esp. considering there has been so much happening !

I am now in Sweet Hall , the marvellous computer clusters here. I shouldnt be complaining since its my fault that I am working on a Sun Ultra 60 which adamently refuses to display any font size greater than .01 and I feel my eyes have aged considerably staring at such displays. Well wisdom follows age...in my case the amount and knowledge I am accruing seems to trail age pathetically.

Every now and then I feel and urge to read things like man pages of random keystrokes. I have a lot of work to do and my mind has only now stabilized from long bouts of numbness. Sometimes I wonder if that numbness is part of my brain.

Had a wondeful time visiting GooglPlex. The place absoultely blew me over and I have spent a few days maintaining that excited state of mind. The folks there are amazing , they seem to have soo much fun and they have awesome food. What a combo..

The weekend has been spent analyzing the performance of superscalar out of order processors. I must say my ee282 proj,. is interesting, but I guess they might have as well given me pages and pages of data and asked me to anaylyze things. I am of the opinion that you must build stuff in your projects. Although more frustrating than simulations, the end satisfaction is higher.

It is precisely when I say things like the above that I feel bad and angry at the same time. I havent built anything.....................arrrrrggh...frustrating........i do think I am motivated atleast a little..but most of the time motivation leads to frustration.

Human Stupidity ~ Infinity

2003-12-10T00:36:00.000-08:00

Truly "Vanity belongs to fools !" -

Long winter ahead

"Bittersweet Symphony" Addicted to the song..I always picture myseld driving a nice car along some placid English Countryside when I hear it. The thing is most often when one listeins to music, they disassociate themselves with the lyrics when "feeling" the actual melody of the song. Weird...I think about a vast gardens when I listein to Macy Gray`s " I Try".

Dead Week

2003-11-29T13:49:00.000-08:00

Finally the end of the quarter and "Dead Week" approaches.

This quarter has been frightfully fast in its progress and I am worried that before I know it I shall find myself out of the university.

Spent the morning trying to decipher an article in Phrack and finally gave up....for now..for now...I shall never surrender !!!!!! NEVER

That reminds me, I saw a wonderful program about the personality I admire one of the Most :
Sir Winston Chruchill...what a character !!!

Thanksgiving day just whizzed by without leaving me any time to catch up on stuff other than "Yojimbo" and a bunch of other Japansese movies.

Johnny Quest

2003-11-25T18:03:00.000-08:00

I feel like Johnny Quest and Hadji in their Adventures, having to retire to some other world every now and then and go on adevntures. What is this other world ? ......grad student`s life. It is a world which sucks you up leaving you no notion of reality. You feel like things are as they used to be, but somehow you know they are not. The illusion of fame and glory after grad life are like a mirage on the vast desert. Its a crossing which even Lawrence of Wherver dare not take. Def. not for the paint hearted. ( As a side note, Hadji Singh is suppossed to be the Sultan of Bangalore..isnt that hilarious...sounds like Earl of Palo Alto )

Have been working with some GeneOntology databases and searching mirco - array data..extremely interesting purely, unfortunately I dont understand much. I need to read up on bio stuff and understand at least at a high level about whats going on in the genomics world.

Saw "Seven Samurai" . Stunning movie and I really liked it. Toshiro Mifune is fun as ever.

ThanksGiving Week..its that time of the year when you scramble to catch up on things you had procrastinated but somehow never..

Life and its waves

2003-11-13T19:05:00.000-08:00

Its just one of those days when I am deeply philosophical and usually it happens when I am troubled by some anxieties. In these time I just take a deep breath , step back and think about why things happen and the nature of events in someones life.

I have been doing considerable readings on this and the only thing which stands out repeatedly is that, there is nothing random in this universe. The very word "Random" is to be avoided like the plague. Everything which happens is a consequence of some antecedent. We may or may not be aware of what caused an event, but surely it must exist. Its like saying when we observe a phenomenon, its very existence stands proof of the presence of some causality.The wonderful karmic philosophy stands as the basis of all action. Buddhist scriptures wonderfully point out the notion that we have no other friend/support in this universe but our actions. It our Deeds and Actions which shall determine wether they uplift us or degenerate our existence. That is why the Vedic Texts exhort us to action saying " Man uplifts himself by himself ".

Having said this, it gives me great relief that things are not random. That things are under MY control and I am the one who holds the reins of destiny , to direct it as I please. This concept is vastly more powerful than more superflous terms used by motivational speakers. This is a notion , that the very force of one`s personal power my shake and shape the environment, circumstance and opportunities.

It must be deeply reflected upon, and put into constant and diligent practise.

Startling Realization !

2003-11-10T13:30:00.000-08:00

I have suddenly realized that several days of my most valubale time have slipped away with out being recorded in the Annals of Humanity. Strangely enough, such interesting and time consuming yet productivity less actions take grip of me one day before the Midterms :))

I did read about MYCIN in my Expert Systems class back in SVCE, but didnt realized till now Stanford was way on top of the Expert System game from the 1970s. Prof. Shortliffe is still around here..somewhere...on campus..errr...

Chandu apparently has been accepted into Dennis Assanis`s group at Ann Arbor..good for him !

Newell and Simon postulate the "Physical Symbol Manipulation Hypothesis ".. The representation and manipulation of physical symbols is a necessary and sufficient condition for intelligent behaviour. The does make some sense in the machine world, but I am uneasy about the "necessary" part. Do humans think by manipulating symbols ? Most often not. The way I think is not through any rule based step by step fashion but a random scan of relevant thoughts. Infact by digging into my memory of things. Does this then amount to saying that in the absence of relevant thoughts in the memory of an individual, he may never arrive at the correct conclusion to a given question. This brings me to the Question of Hindu Philosophy and the Movie the "Matrix". Since every individual is limited by the reservoir of memory they have in order to understand the world, that understanding cannot be correct or complete. This follows from the fact that no person`s memory is both complete and correct. Thus the soundness of our reasoning process is doubtful. Which leads us to the question , that inorder to truly "percieve" the world, you would require an agent outside the mind...actually this is interesting..let me write it as an article and post it on my site !!!!

Spent week end with bro. Watched "Matrix : Revolutions". Was not what I expected , but what
ok considering the savage reviews and biases with which I approached the movie.

Chillout music is really good...

Pup Cluster

2003-10-16T12:31:00.000-07:00

I am really bored and sitting in the Pups Cluster.

Outraged at the fact the University has cut print quotas for students...how about cutting down on some fountains and other such nonsense.

Read a paper on Medical Informatice which went way over me

The last few days , I have been numbed totally. I feel like everything is a dze.

2003-10-15T12:54:00.000-07:00

Well..certainly feels good to start out with my "Diary" again...(Yes and I do want to callit like that). Was talking to Prof. Terry Winograd ( legend in HCI ) about some fundas...it was so interesting talking to him. He could look at things with a totally different perspective. One question he asked me was if people had conducted experiments about the Ocular angle and its comfort level with details on a projected screen ( like slides in a class ). Pretty interesting...

I detest "Jack in the Box"...they should be banned from the face of this planet.

Hmm..have been listening to a lot of Carnatic music lately.

I am also feeling unreasonably optimisitc. Dont know why ! Heard Jeff Bezos the other day in a interesting seminar about a recap of boom time in the valley and business practices. He says one of the few technologies which actually drove huge amounts to be spent in infrastructure to support it is ---- tada - the "light bulb". I agree...

2003-10-13T13:52:00.000-07:00

Well now that I am here and ardently dislike the word "Blog" but still continue to use it...Lets get started. Listening to Carnatic music being played on a Guitar, trying to figure out what the difference between prior and post probability is...pretty fun ehhh ?