Hakuna Matata

How Flipkart messed up my TV order & deleted my review.

2012-01-10T13:02:00.007+05:30

I ordered a Samsung LCD TV from flipkart on 9th Dec 2011:

It arrived a good 2 weeks later, well after the promised delivery date. Flipkart interestingly has no policy w.r.t. delayed payments and there's no provision of compensation to the customer for the delay. They don't even tell you about the delay unless you call them.

My family had visited me for a month and I primarily bought the TV for them and to watch movies once in a while. Given that flipkart at times delivers the order next day, I was hoping it'd be quick and was extremely annoyed at the delay. When I shouted at them, they promised me a 5% wallet credit acknowledging the problem. That wallet credit took a good 10 reminder calls over the next ten days before I finally saw it in my account.

Anyway, then a day after delivery, Samsung guy came for installation and told me at the outset that this TV doesn't support videos via USB wonder why you bought it. You can just see photos and play music on USB. Since I didn't begin to use the TV, I checked again on flipkart and found out that there are other reviews (posted after I bought the TV) on the TV's page pointing out the same problem. I was expecting something like "USB doesn't support video" on the TV's page in specs but didn't find it. So I called up flipkart and asked them if they can replace it because I would prefer a TV with USB video and the website is missing this info.

They told me that replacement policy is only for products with a manufacturing defect or a damage in transit. I pointed out to them that there are other customers facing the same problem and you might want to consider highlighting this problem in RED on the TV's page.

Then I found one sane guy in their replacement team who understood the problem and then checked the logistics and told me that the TV will be replaced in 48 hours, and the money will be given back as store credit which I can use to buy a different model.

When nothing happened in the next 48 hours I called them again to check and this time flipkart replacement team said that NEITHER ARE WE GOING TO REPLACE THE TV NOR DO THEY HAVE ANY RECORD OF THE GUY WHO PROMISED A REPLACEMENT.

Whatever happened to "your calls will be recorded for internal training and audit purpose".

Worse, these guys insinuated that I'm lying and never had such a conversation. They kept asking me the complete name and department of the guy who made that promise and keep telling me that there's nobody called so and so.

I got tired of talking to them and posted a review on the TV's page so that other customers are not mislead. I again got a call from some Robert Peter from facebook/twitter team of flipkart due to that review saying we take reviews very seriously and will try to do the best we can to right this wrong. An hour later that guy called me again saying sorry we can't do much.

Next thing I see is that my review is deleted from the TV's page:

http://www.flipkart.com/tv-video/televisions/itmd29nnjtvv6dte?pid=tvsd29nhbjnf9hdh

There was another user review after my review which said that the page is probably modified by flipkart after my review to add (JPEG) after USB in the specifications. Flipkart folks deleted that too!

I've had good experience with flipkart in the past but I realize that I should've restricted it to books only.

A few problems stand out here:

- Flipkart has no clear policy about delayed shipments and how to compensate or at least inform the customer so that he can cancel the order and get it from somewhere else.

- Flipkart's so called 30 day Replacement guarantee is ONLY for goods damaged during shipping or having a manufacturing defect. Don't be mislead.

- Flipkart's will NOT stand by the promises and statements made by its own execs. Be prepared for statements like:forget what the last flipkart guy told you on phone, here's what I'm telling you and you need to believe me not the last guy.

As a customer calling flipkart, to be safe, you should ask for complete name and department of the person you're talking to and remind him that he needs to record the conversation in your case-history so that you don't have to explain the whole thing again next time you call. Don't believe "your call will be recorded ...." message.

- Flipkart guys don't take unfavorable reviews nicely and promptly delete them. Don't bother posting reviews on flipkart.com unless you only want to shower praises at them.

Update 1: Turns out Flipkart has a habit of manipulating reviews:

http://www.pluggd.in/flipkart-deleting-negative-reviews-297

Update 2: Posted another review on flipkart.com and took a screenshot this time :) : http://t.co/fl7x6H5

Flipsyde - U.S. History

2006-10-18T12:44:00.000+05:30

We The People, Flipsyde's first album is just too good. With numbers like Someday, Spun & Get Ready, I reckon they deserve to be more popular than they are right now.
But the album's best I'd say is the brilliantly worded, satirical, political rap US History.
Here's the text ...

"US History"

Hustlin's in my blood my father's name is Britain
His history consisted of robbery killin' and pimpin
Filthy rich and the biggest killer that you ever seen
Once I'm older I'm takin' over ima be king
I was locked up in jail when he got the new land
Opened his cells I guess that's how the story began
First mission was to clear it out and claim it as mine
Indigenous people were peaceful it took no time
Great grandmother Africa was blind and disabled
Sons was traitors we played divide and conquer invaded
Sold her children into slavery and profited quick
Started makin' side deals and that's how I got rich
Daddy Britain found out and tried to put me in check
He don't understand I'm a man and I deserve some respect
Tried to bring it to me but I play for keeps and I won
Still my daddy but you ain't the only man with a gun
More money More problems little brother is wild
They call 'em The South he's country with a big ass mouth
Tried to show 'em new business but he don't wanna change
I love 'em but I knew eventually I'd blow out his brains
I'm America!

[Chorus]
You know you know God Bless America
You know you know God Bless America
You know you know God Bless

[Verse 2]
Me and my daddy still cool and my uncles is with us
France Russia and Italy and we all killas
But it's this nigga named Germany that's out of control
Rollin with Japan and Turkey and them niggas is bold
Started fuckin' with my uncles and we all went to war
Uncle France damn near died at the tip of his sword
When the smoke cleared we won let 'em retreat
Shoulda' killed 'em cause they knew they had us close to defeat
Kicked it off again 20 years later it was on
This time my uncle Italy traded and he was gone
I was neutral when Japan hit me guess that he knew
I aint gone' let my family fight without me jumpin' in too
Woulda' lost if I didn't hit Germany's weapon supply
Kamikaze Japanese was always ready to die
Dropped atomic bomb let them niggas know that it's real
Speak soft with a big stick do what I say or be killed
I'm America!

[CHORUS]
You know you know God Bless America
You know you know God Bless America
You know you know God Bless

[Verse 3]
I'm racin' with my uncle Russia we the ones with the guns
He supported the North so I rolled with South Vietnam
Thought it would be easy but almost 60 thousand died
They was harder than Korea so we ran for our lives
It's a family called the Middle East and they got bread
Sellin' oil they don't cut me in then off with their head
I got a nephew named Israel that's right in the middle
Pay his allowance as long as he can dance to my fiddle
I had a patna' named Iraq gave 'em weapons and money
Nigga started getting' power and he start actin' funny
Saudi Arabia's cool gotta son Bin Laden
I was trainin' his soldiers to go against the Russians and stop 'em
Then he tried to say I need to take my soldiers and cut
Gave 'em the finger that's when he flipped and blew my shit up
I took it to 'em, and then I took it back to Iraq and if you ain't my blood brother you gonna be flat on
yo' back
The sons of Africa just invented this shit called rap
Tellin' my secrets that's why I'm puttin' their heads on flat
Built an empire quick and it might not last
But I bet I go down in history as the one that smashed
I'm America!

[Chorus]
You know you know God Bless America
You know you know God Bless America
You know you know God Bless

Hustlin's in my blood my father's name is Britain
Hustlin's in my blood my father's name is Britain
The red the white the red the white the blue
The red the white the red the white the blue

Check out the video on youtube ...

Paraskavedekatriaphobia

2005-05-13T01:39:00.000+05:30

Today is Friday The 13th.

And if you're looking for bad luck, you'll probably(luckily ?) find it !

RAINCOAT: An album with no noise.

2005-05-10T16:44:00.000+05:30

I was listening to this album of the movie RAINCOAT on my way back from the office.

The music score is semi-classical + folk. It is simple, melodious and very very soothing....
(Here, I feel bad that "different" has become too cliched a word !)

I wonder why the album did not get any popular at all ?

2005-04-21T16:45:00.000+05:30

Cricket is not our game! Wrestling is Indian game. In fact, cricket should not be played by us ......I agree whatever happened in Kanpur was not good but why Indians are so bothered about watching cricket really baffles me.......

- Mulayam Singh Yadav
Lucknow, April 19, 2005

This guy is a buffoon !

........Ozzman Cometh !!!

2005-04-14T23:41:00.000+05:30

......IPOD, Therefore I AM !

Programming Contest Questions.

2005-04-12T19:00:00.000+05:30

Me, Sundar, Sanjith & Ananth organised The Programming Contest during SPANDAN 2005 in the college last week.
We had a great time framing the questions(and those stories around them) . Stayed awake the whole night to (re)evaluate the solutions. Basically it was a much needed exercise for our grey cells.
This was the Question Paper:

Basic Rules:
Development Environment: C, C++, Java(No JDK 1.5)
Input: input will be in a file which will be passed as the first command line parameter.
Output: Output on stdout.


Prob 1. Double Trouble. 100 points
COWT is a Conference Of Wierd Twins. The twins are wearing T-shirts each with a single digit number (1-9 inclusive) printed on. The numbering is such that the sum of the jersey numbers on a pair of twins is 10. They are seated along a long straight table. The task at hand is to see if the seating arrangement is symmetric between each pair of twins. (For symmetry considerations the twins are identical).

Twins Tshirt Numbers:
1 & 9
2 &amp;amp;amp; 8
3 & 7
4 & 6

Input:
1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9
Output:
Y

Input:
2 3 7 1 6 9 5
Output:
N


Prob 2. Saving Davidapuram . 500 points
Goliathahalli and Davidapuram are two villages that have been involved in regular wars. Golliathahalli,funded by ISI possesses state of the art weaponry and have uprooted the Davidapuram army. To fight back Davidapuram needs weapons and the only resource in Davidapuram are the Fictitia indica trees. Davida Gowda, their chief strategist moots the idea of making catapults from the trees.
The trees are interesting free trees (unrooted trees). A catapult can be made from exactly three branches connected together at a common point. A branch can not be used in two catapults.

The catapults:
As indicated by the ellipses.
Please note that the node labels are merely a means to specify the tree and should be assumed to be mere points of branching.

Input:
0--1;
0--2;
0--3;
3--4;
2--5;
3--6;
6--7;
2--8;
1--9;
9--10;
4--11;
4--12;
4--13;
0--14;
Output:
3

(Thats the maximum number of catapults possible.)


Prob 3. Kindly Connection 150 points.
A rectangular circuit board has a fixed number of points on its periphery. Any two of these points can be connected together using a wire to form an electrical circuit. Being a 2 dimensional board, no two wires should overlap or else there will be a short circuit.

Each line in the Input file contains a connected point-pair.
Each line in the Output file should contain two point-pairs (comma separated) which overlap.

Input File:
1 10
3 9
4 6
5 3
7 3
6 10

Output File:
6 10, 7 3
6 10, 3 9
3 5, 4 6

Assume that the number of points is the highest individual number appearing in the input. No number between 1 and the highest number remains unassigned even though it may NOT appear in the input (e.g. ‘8’ in this case). The order of the numbers in the point pair should remain the same as it is in the input.


Prob 4. Krishna’s Dilemma
In the Mahabharata war, there was a twist in the tale. Both armies were overrun by the Asuras. They captured both the Pandava army and kaurava army. There were N prisoners out of which P belonged to the pandava army and remaining to the kaurava army.

Asuras made all prisoners to stand in a circle and decided to execute N – P people. All pandavas stand together as do the kauravas. Asuras then asked Krishna to choose a number S, so they can select each “S”th (starting from the first pandava prisoner) prisoner to execute. Help Krishna choose this S so that he can save all the pandavas.

Prob 5. Knock Knock…350 points
At Hogwart's Castle, there is a sentinel at the door of every group. Dumbledoor has decided to place a sentinel computer at every door. The sentinel is given an expression. And unless the pass-string mentioned by the student matches the expression that has been given to it, the sentinel refuses to open the door. You are the programmer of the sentinel program!!!
You will be given the expression with *,+ and ? as the meta characters (the only metacharacters).
Alphabet is alpha numeric.

The input is of the format : [Regex] [string to be matched]. The output is 0 in case of failure and 1 in case of match.

Input:
grif+indo+r griffindor
Output:
1

Input:
Grif*indo?r ravenclaw
Output:
0


Prob 6. Silly Notes 150 points
I use "Silly Notes" as my mail client. Silly Notes changes my password everyday. Trinity and Persephone are the two smart ladies who sit on either side of my cubicle. Each of them gave a number(t,p) which lead to the password. I realised that the password was just the absolute difference of 2 power t and 2 power p. All I needed to do was input these numbers to the "Silly Notes", until that fateful day when Trinity gave me t > 32 and silly notes crashed.Can you help me write a code to generate my password?Ah,did I tell you,"Silly Notes" understands only hex?

Input File:
8 5
Output File:
E0
Input File:
17 3
Output File:
1FFF8


Prob 7. Narcissism redefined 175 points
Dorkut online community site decided to find out how people are related. They listed friends of each member and tried to find out if any person is transitively his/her/its own friend.

Input:
a: b c d
b: c f
c: d e
f: a
Output:
y


Prob 8. Yukon Ho ! 400 points
Yukon is a conurbation. Yukon consists of several agglomerations. John Calvin is the town planner who is tasked to design an outer ring road for Yukon satisfying the following requirements:
1. The ring road should be in the shape of a polygon with one agglomeration at each vertex.
2. Each agglomeration will either be on the vertices of the polygon or inside it.
3. The traffic incurs a cost when made to pass through an agglomeration. So, he needs to minimize the number of vertices of the polygon even while satisfying the above properties.

Input:
1 1
1 -1
-1 1
-1 -1
0 0

Output:
1 1
1 -1
-1 1
-1 -1


Prob 9. Cube with X's. 250 points
(problem obtained from third party)
Look at the image below. It is a drawing of a box with solid lines for the visible edges of the box, and dashed lines for the edges that would be hidden from view. Your task is to implement a program to draw a box like that shown below, given W, H, and D - the width, height and depth of the box (as shown in the image). More specifically, you should return a vector representing a bitmap, where character j of element i of the vector represents the pixel in row i, column j (character 0 of element 0 is the upper left corner of the image). The front of the box should have its left edge along column 0, and its bottom edge along the last element of the return. Naturally, it should be H pixels tall, and W pixels wide. The back of the box should have its lower left corner D pixels up and to the right from the lower left corner of the front of the box, its top edge in element 0 of the return, and its right hand edge in the right most column. To achieve the dashed lines, you should start with a black pixel where the lower left corner of the back of the box is, and then alternate between black and white pixels until you get to the end of the line. In the return, you should use the space character for white, and the 'X' character for black. See the examples for further clarification.

Input:
20 10 5

Output:


Prob 10. Sum-3 Partition.  175 points
Let S = {1,2,3, …. 3n}. We define a sum-3 partition of S to be a collection of n disjoint 3-subsets of S, Ai = {ai, bi, ci}; I = 1, …, n , such that the union A1UA2U….UAn is S, & within each triple Ai, some element is the sum of the other two. All sets A1, A2 … An are mutually exclusive.

Input:
12
Output:
1 5 6
2 9 11
3 7 10
4 8 12


Prob 11.Love Bug in The Middle 300 points
Romeo and Juliet spend most of the time in office chatting. Both of them have been smitten by the "love bug". For every message x sent, the love bug stealthily does the following -
1. It generates two copies of the message x - y and z by inserting random characters in x.
2. Also the set of random characters used to generate y and z the set of random characters used to generate z are mutually exclusive.
3. Sends across both y and z
Can you write a code that deciphers the message sent?

Input:
TTTTHKKJKJKJKJEKJJJJKJLLLjhjhjhO
asasasHswwqwqEqwqwqLwqwLO
Output:
HELLO

Immediate Effect !

2005-04-07T11:40:00.000+05:30

Subject: Change of name

Dear all
-----------

Further to the Governing Body meeting held yesterday, this is to inform you all that the name of the Institute has been changed to "International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore", with immediate effect.

Thanks and regards,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
C M Abraham
Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore
26/C Electronics City, Hosur Road
Bangalore 560 100, India
Phones: +91 80 xxx
Fax: +91 80 xxx
e-mail : xxx
Web site : iiitb.ac.in
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The new name sounds CHEAP if you ask me.

Research.

2005-02-22T13:44:00.000+05:30

http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20041213/technology01.shtml

Be not afraid of research;
Some are born researchers,
Some achieve a researcher's status,
and some have research thrust upon them.
-- partially borrowed from Shakespeare

I say, "Some people Thrust Research upon themselves".

Solaris & Lunacy

2005-02-11T13:42:00.000+05:30

So its a bright afternoon & everyone is gathered around Solaris 10 watching the "first day first show".
Just then, The Director arrives at the scene, and watches our activities with suspicion. We try to share with him our experience with Solaris, but the hoopla fails to impress him.

Director: "Oh so all these days you guys have been wasting time in the office downloading Solaris Huh ?"
Me, THE (_ E=mc2 _): "Actually, one *good thing* abt Solaris is that you dont need to be around while it is getting downloaded !"

Poor guy doesnt know what to say. Leaves.

....Flippancy is going to eat up my Job one day.

Puzzle: A Confused Frog.

2005-01-06T20:17:00.000+05:30

It took a visit to the "Love Letter Company" and I was with a new puzzle.

So there's this frog which has to go 30 steps downstairs. Now this amazing frog can either jump over either one or two stairs at a time. So to say that minimum 15 and maximum 30 leaps is what the frog wud take to cross the staircase.
The question is "In how many different ways can the frog cross the staircase ?"

TrackBack:
This puzzle seems to be inherently a programming problem; like the Combinatorial Explosion Puzzle posted earlier. Of course this is NOT to claim that it cannot be solved otherwise !

QED: Iterum

2004-12-20T21:35:00.000+05:30

Proof Technique #13 Proof by Linear combination of Intimidation & Oddity.

SAMPLE: To prove that Alexender the Gr8 had Infinite number of Limbs.

First we note the obvious fact that historians always tell the truth (for historians always take a stand, and therefore they cannot lie). Hence we have the historically true sentence that Alexander The Gr8 was warned by an oracle that he would meet death if he crossed a certain river. He had two legs; and `fore-warned is four-armed`. This gives him six limbs, an even number, which is certainly an odd number of limbs for a man. Now the only number which is even and odd is infinity; hence Alexander had an infinite number of limbs.

Proof Technique # 32767: Fool Proof. Howto.....

1. State Your theorem.
2. Invite your collegues to comment.
3. If they don't agree, exclaim loudly: "You Fools!"

"Serious Pursuers" like me, planning to do a major in "Utility of Futility" may find this useful:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~jcdverha/scijokes/9_7.html

PJ of The Century !

2004-12-15T11:57:00.000+05:30

Why did gabbar singh's mother slap him as soon as he was born?
:-?
:-/
:-?
:-/
:-?
:-/
:-?
:-/
Because the moment he was born he asked his mother "Kitne aadmi the ?" :D

Hey Hey, Dont blame me ....The source is Katty Singh !

QED:

2004-12-13T11:50:00.000+05:30

Proof techniques #2: Proof by Oddity...

SAMPLE: To prove that horses have an infinite number of legs.

(1) Horses have an even number of legs.
(2) Behind they have two legs, and in front they have fore-legs.
(3) This makes a total of six legs, which is certainly an odd number of legs for a horse.
(4) But the only number that is both even and odd is infinity.
(5) Therefore, horses have an infinite number of legs.

----- quod erat demonstrandum !
Topics to be covered in future issues will include proof by:

# Intimidation
# Gesticulation (Hand-Waving)
# "Try it; it Works"
# Constipation (I was just sitting there and ...)
# Blatant Assertion
# Changing all the 2's to n's
# Mutual Consent
# Lack of a Counter-Example
# Proof by Elliptical Reasoning
# Bullet Proof
# 86% Proof
# "It Stands to Reason"
# Proof by Linear Combination of the Above

......Looking for sample proofs of each technique :-?

PR0GR@MMER:

2004-11-20T02:39:00.000+05:30

A person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of being able to turn out, after innumberable poundings, an infinite series of incomprehensive answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures from inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for the information in the first place.

Join the Club !

GLAT Problem

2004-11-04T10:51:00.000+05:30

Problem #3 in Google Lab Aptitude Test ...

1 1
2 1
1 2 1 1
1 1 1 2 2 1

What is the next line ?

Spoiler(select to display):
3 1 2 2 1 1
1 3 1 1 2 2 2 1
Nice Funda behind this ! By the way, if the answer makes sense to you, try proving/explaining-why series will never have 4 or a higher number at any level.

Allegory of Bug Fixing

2004-10-29T19:27:00.000+05:30

With the project entering the alpha testing phase, yours truly De-Bugger is busy doing something metaphorically similar to the following ...

Calvin is to Programming what Sun Tzu is to Management !

Problematized !!

2004-10-13T01:38:00.000+05:30

The product I'm working on has its beta release somewhere in November. Design, Development, Testing & Debugging everything is going hand in hand in my module(having just two guys). Under such a hectic scene, my plan to goto Delhi has made the matters worse. Have been working late and during the weekend too :( trying to wrap things up before I leave.

In the middle of all this, I found myself killing a lot of time in some mathematical problems which came through Sundar last week. One of them was a fundoo programming excercise...

Let S = {1, 2, 3, …, 3n}. We define a sum-3-partition of S to be a collection of n disjoint 3-subsets of S, Ai = {ai, bi, ci}; i = 1, …, n such that the union :
A1 U A2 U…An = S. Within each triple Ai, some element is the sum of the other two.
For example: {1, 5, 6}, {2, 9, 11}, {3, 7, 10}, {4, 8, 12} is a sum-3- partition of {1, 2, 3, …, 12}.
(a) Find a sum-3-partition for {1, 2, 3, …, 15}.
(b) Prove that there exists no sum-3-partition for n = 1998.

Thanks Sundar,
**Its impossible to thoroghly enjoy solving such problems unless one has plenty of work to do.

Mockery ...

2004-10-13T01:12:00.000+05:30

If there's anybody who looks forwards to Saurav Ganguly's Press Conference after India's loss its none other than press itself.
But he never fails to piss cricket fans off with these cliched statements:

1. "We are one of the Best Teams ON PAPER".
2. "FORM is temporary, CLASS is permanent".

First one really makes me wonder if he's talking about Cricket or TIC TAC TOE.
The other begs an obvious question : "Jusy how far can we strech `temporary` before it becomes `perpetual` ?"

ON PITCH, Indian Cricket Team is a bunch of NON PERFORMING CHOKERS, surely in an Exclusive CLASS of their own.

A Combinatorial Explosion Puzzle ...

2004-10-11T18:44:00.000+05:30

This problem (again) came thru roomie. It took some unsuccessful scramblings on paper & I succumbed to the desire of solving it empirically i.e. by making a C - program. Apart from proving how stupid I am, the program did give some insights but NO SOLUTION AS YET :(

Right now I'm thinking about some more/better set of constraints for the program or preferrably a theoretical solution.

The problem `looks` "interestingly simple"; want to put here while its still fresh in my head...

There are two positive integers x & y (both greater than 1).
And there are two guys A & B.
A knows the sum of x & y and B knows their product.

They have this conversation ...
A says "You dont know the numbers"
B says "Now I know the numbers"
A replies "Now I also know the numbers"

Find x & y.

My Transitive Acquaintance

2004-10-05T22:16:00.000+05:30

My collegue Prady showed me Kalyan Varma's website today. Kalyan, like Prady is one of the first few members of B'lore Linux User Group. Nandi had told me long back about he being root @ PESIT network & how he was literally handpicked by Yahoo! Sundar told me he was the recepient of the Superstar in Y! award. Also, his father Prof Alluri is a part of IIIT-B faculty. However, its NOT `Linux` or `Hacking` why I'm ranting about him, but Photography. Check this out and get bowled over. Now thats what I call "THE WOW!! PHOTOGRAPHY".

FWD:

2004-10-05T16:12:00.000+05:30

Two stupid forwards can ruin your entire day...
This addictive "penguin game" killed more than 2 hours of mine today.
By the way my top score till now is 320.6 ;-)

Evening, I get this irritating forward ...

Hi All,
Go to this link, and if u r interested, donate your eyes and give life to two persons. The link is www.sankaranethralaya.org/patientcare/form.html

If you have already donated, then pass this on to your friends, I hope you also forward this to the maximum memebers that you can.

Lets do the best and hope for the best....
Keep Smiling n Mailing,

Now what does "IF YOU HAVE ALREADY `DONATED`" mean !!!
"Lets do the best and hope for the best...". Screw yourself !
And "Keep Smiling n Mailing" ??? Who am I ? A mailer daemon ?

I abhor these forwards ...

Newton's Laws of Graduation

2004-09-29T20:25:00.000+05:30

Stumbled upon this on phdcomics.com ...

Observation: Laws hold for Post graduation and graduation studies as well.

First law: Well ?! will talk about it later ...
Second law: Reminds me of dayz when I was writing the adhoc networks paper with Sanjeeth and Edwin. I guess it took more than a month to complete. But lets not try to work the law backwards to get an idea of our motivation. It was anyway a `weak reject` much to our dismay.
As for Third law: Distractions outnumbered each of my actions by a factor of atleast 10. So it holds `in-principle` but for the `equality` part.

............sure gives an idea of how difficult LIFE is...
Here I am, despite all odds !!!

The Nutty Professor

2004-09-14T21:12:00.000+05:30

I've studied and worked under some of the most erudite professors in academics. Most of them being inspiring and influential.
But my experiences with Professor "Nutty" are the most unforgettable.
No doubt I've learned a lot from him. The way he talks, the way he carries himself, his self-confidence, his practical outlook, his optimism, his collectivist theories, his bottomlines ...
I guess, I'll run out of space.
Here are some "Gems of Wisdom" by the Professor

Myself : Sir, It seems this time almost half the class has enrolled for your subject ?
Sir(admittingly) :Yes Praabeer. Apparently they think I give good grades.
Myself(covering up): Probably they are interested in the subject as such Sir.
Sir(arms akimbo) : C'mon yaar Dont tell me I teach well.

Myself : Sir, somebody asked the salary figure "again" in the PPT.
Sir(disgusted): TELL THESE GUYS WE ARE NOT HERE TO CLEAN THEIR SH*T

Myself : Sir, this company is not giving the appointment letter and its been a long time.
Sir : Mr Praabeer, Mr Praabeer, Do u want me to force the HR to SH*T in his pants ?

Myself : Sir, Why cant we ask companies what salary will they be offering before giving them a date in the placements ?
Sir(smiling sheepishly): Excuse me for saying this, and there is a lady sitting here ... Mr Praabeer, You should NOT talk about spending night on your first Date !

A Student : Sir, My Company is going to be taken over by some other company. This is making me unsure about the eventual conversion of internship to job.
Sir : My Dear Student, You cannot stop driving if there are accidents on the ROAD !!

Myself : Sir, some people are down because they could not make it in the interview
Sir(with a smirk which almost touched his left ear) :
Listen guys, Today, is the first day, of the rest of your life. Thats all I want to tell all of you.

Myself: Sir, Some people have issues with their remuneration.
Sir : Mr Praabeer, Mr Praabeer, Are you telling me, Are you telling me, that I should talk to each individual company and ask them to raise the salaries ? Let me tell you I'm like a priest, I'm like a priest. My job is to bring the spouse together, the terms and conditions they shud decide between themselves.

Sir(looking at me from the edge of his eye):
Mr Praabeer, It seems some of your batchmates have switched jobs ?
Myself : Yes Sir. They were getting good offers so they went for it.
Sir(sighs) : You guys behave like prostitutes. Paanch rupiya zyada diya to usko chhor ke tere saath chaloongi.

Sir (shouting in fury) : Prabeer, This guys needed a provisional degree certificate for company formalities.He calls me at 9pm in the night and asks me when can I give him the provisional degree ? You tell me AM I A PIMP ? AM I AA PEEEMP ?

Anthro : Sir, This company was expected to pay much more than what they're paying now. What happend ?
Sir : Man they were ready to pay much more. I made them reduce it.
Anthro : Why Sir ?
Sir : Yaar Koi aadmi mercedes main baith ke tumhare ghar aaye fir tumko impress karke tumhari ladki se shaadi kar le. Fir tumhari ladki ko pregnant karke chala jaye to tum kya karoge ? -- Contributed by Anthro

To Quote Unqote "Cut the long story short", I learned all the "DONT'S" !

VIM: Capable of doing Anything, Everything and More.

2004-09-03T03:19:00.000+05:30

I've been using vim for more than 5 years now.
And, I've been learning vim ever since.
I just came across this taglist plugin of vim. Now vim even looks like an IDE ! I remember, the first time I saw this build-edit-rebuild feature I was flabbergasted.
vim test.c
write some erroneous C code
:w
:mak test
then just doing :cn u can jump through the line of code having next error. Likewise :cc for current & :cp for previous error.
I think I saw GOD that day.
Here are some vim features I cannot live without. But, If this is the first time you're trying any one of these, today is the day of your enlightenment. Faint hearted dont gulp it all at once !

Shift K for manpage on the text under cursor.
:set smartindent - makes life easier.
% - to match the brace. >% - on a brace '{' right indents.
* - search for word under cursor.
:Ex - for file explorer in split window.
Ctrl ww - to switch between split windows. :res N to resize the focussed window to n lines in split window mode.
gd & gD - for goto definition of the word under cursor in the current function and current file.
:r filename - copy entire file at the cursor position.
:e filename - edit another file(current file goes in buffer)
:ls - list the files in buffer and :e#N to goto Nth file in the buffer
:Nsb - open Nth file in the buffer in split window.
gf - to goto filename under cursor in the current directory
ma - set a mark at this line and name it a then 'a to goto mark and y'a to copy text from between current cursor position and the mark.Likewise mb, mc, mA, mB, mC etc for more marks.
Ctrl n - (in insert mode)for word complete.

Call it serendipity that I stumbled upon the cscope plugin while trawling aimlessly thru web. Believe me, its a life changing experience. I wonder if this will ever end.
I haven't still tried ctags,key maps, registers, gdb plugin,cvs plugin the list goes on and on and on ...
Its impossible to even know all of what I dont know in vim.
By the way if you are lost, vim will help you with 'the answer to life,the universe and everything'.
Try these, its fun ...
:h 42
:h holy-grail
:help!
... and some people still say emacs is better ? I found this ...
Emacs is a nice OS, but it lacks a good text editor. That's why I use Vim.
Ditto.

Direct Generation of a Voltage and Current by Gas Flow Over Carbon Nanotubes

2004-08-30T20:19:00.000+05:30

A. K. Sood and Shankar Ghosh
Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India
published 17 August 2004; PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

Abstract:

We report here a direct generation of measurable voltages and currents when a gas flows over a variety of solids even at the modest speed of a few meters per second. The underlying mechanism is an interesting interplay of Bernoulli’s principle and the Seebeck effect: Pressure differences along streamlines give rise to temperature differences across the sample; these in turn produce the measured voltage. The electrical signal is quadratically dependent on the Mach number M and proportional to the Seebeck coefficient of the solids. Results are presented for doped Si and Ge , single wall and multiwall carbon nanotubes, and graphite. Our results show that gas flow sensors and energy conversion devices can be constructed based on direct generation of electrical signals.

The full paper can be found here.

This is in continuation with their ongoing reserch on carbon nano tubes. Their Last paper was taken as a major experimental breakthrough in carbon nano tubes flow sensors and electricity generation and was published in the prestigious "Science" Journal in its ‘Science Express’ category — one that’s usually reserved for papers having ‘‘timeliness and importance’’.
This one is an extention to demonstrate the phenomenon with common gasses like Oxygen, Nitrogen etc flowing over Semiconductors besides Carbon Nanotubes and generating much larger magnitude of voltage that before.

I'm really glad business world reported their current work.
TOI is a disappointment for everybody who seeks anything except scantily clad females.

Probability Revisited.

2004-08-26T15:14:00.000+05:30

Gokul gave me a nice one some time back ...
If you take two REAL numbers between 0 to 10, what is the probability that the square of one number is greater than the other number ?
By the way...

Probability = No of Favourable Outcomes/ Total No of Outcomes.

Theoretically, both numberator and denominator are infinity. There's a better answer than infinity/infinity though :-)

Inspiration in Conjunctive Normal Form

2004-08-24T21:24:00.001+05:30

If--

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling.

View:
'IF' holds the world record as the poem reprinted in more anthologies than any other.Inspiring to say the least.

Counterview:
That should be called Nested-If-O-Mania !

And the PIG Died !

2004-08-17T20:21:00.000+05:30

Another puzzle passed on by my insane roomie(offences intended) !

A man has 100 bottles having some liquid. Only 1 among the 100 bottles has poison. He has 100 pigs which he can use for finding out the bottle having poison. A pig dies in 24 hours after it is given poison. The man has to find out in 24 hours which bottle has poison. What is the minimum number of pigs that he requires to use? He can make any combination of the contents of the bottles.

Though I got the correct answer and a theoretically equivallent solution, my roomie was all for his collegue who gave a more elegent solution.
Ok He does talk sense once every thousand years !

A Puzzle out of Another !

2004-08-16T14:11:00.000+05:30

I was trawling thru the dustier corners of our old mail server to make sure I dont lose any
important(eh ?) mail if they move it offline !
This is the puzzle I recieved 75+ responses for !!
---
Here it goes ...
A goat is tied by a long rope to one corner of a square house whose sides are 30 metres long. The length of the rope is 60 metres -- long enough to allow the animal to graze over a large part of the property surrounding the house on the back, front and sides. What is the maximum number of square metres of this property can the goat graze?
I was wondering what if the rope's size is incresed to lets say 70 m ? Not as simple as the previous one then.

PS: Assume a greedy goat ;-)
---
The variation in the puzzle(latter part) was just an impulse of thought. But It turned out to be much more interesting than it looked prima facie and probably worth posting :).