How many people in your class ?

[Low intellectual level, low global relevance]

In August 2006:
I've joined the CSE discipline in the ME program in the CSA department.
A: ~25 others have joined the same.
B: ~25 people have joined the ISE discipline in the ME program in the CSA department.
C: ~10 people joined for the MSc program in the CSA department.
D: ~10 people joined for the PhD program in the CSA department.

Similarly in August 2005:
E: ~25 people have joined the CSE discipline in the ME program in the CSA department.
F: ~25 people have joined the ISE discipline in the ME program in the CSA department.
G: ~10 people joined for the MSc program in the CSA department.
H: ~10 people joined for the PhD program in the CSA department.

I: MTech / PhD program students of the SERC department* joined whenever.
J: ?/PhD students of departments such as Mathematics, Electrical, etc. joined whenever.

I have taken 4 courses:
Computer Architecture: Strength - ~17 from ABCDEFHI
Discrete Structures: Strength - ~50 from ABCDEFGHI
Cryptography: Strength - ~20 from ABDJ
Database Management Systems: Strength - ~26 from ABCEFI

I would think that each of my courses could have been taken up by all of ABCDEFGHIJ and these current assignments you see above are only a fluke / co-incidence.


Note: All figures are estimates. The "from ..." are all guesses. Also, students from the August 2004 and previous batches, CSA department (mostly PhD students) maybe thought of to be in H or J. Students of SSA discipline of the ME program of the CSA+EE department maybe also considered in J.

Pardon the non-properness of abbreviations - For example, ME instead of M. E. - done for brevity.


* SERC isn't exactly a department, but we'll let that be.

nin uuru yaavudu

[Low intellectual level, zero global relevance]

Long long ago, there was a Soiro Pai was staying in Goa. When the Portuguese arrived there, he, like many other Hindu families at the time, fled with his family down south into Karnataka. They settled at a place called Harekal at the Uttara Kannada District. His son Vasudev Pai assumed Harekal as a prefix to his name, which was followed upto my father (at least my brother or me do not have it as a part of our name). Vasudev's son Vaman moved to Mangalore (Mangalooru?) to work at the port since Harekal was a small village and there wasn't much to do there. His son Narayan, was born and grew up in Mangalore, working in the rice trade. His son, my father, moved to Bangalore and has been here for over 25 years. I was born in Mumbai (then Bombay*), my mothers place of residence for over 20 of her initial years. From the age of 6 months right up to this day, I have generally resided in Bangalore (Bengalooru?).

This is only my father's father's ancestor story. There are 3 more (Pa's Ma, Ma's Ma and Ma's Pa), which I might add here later.

igaa naan keLtini, nanna uuru yaavudu, hELi.

* Thanks, Deva.

Switching Channels

Tom Armstrong eloquently puts the answer to a question even I've wondered about (looking at others) at times, in Marvin (Deccan Herald, Oct 10, 2006, Page 14).

Roy's wife: Why do you keep switching from station to station, Roy ?!
Roy: We're paying for 130 channels on this cable system
Roy: I figure to get my money's worth I've got to watch a few seconds of each one

Hard disk bought

[Informative, but only to hard disk buyers]

I am now the not-so-proud owner of a 160 Gbyte hard disk.

Not-so-proud because I had a bet with myself a long time ago, that I would never need more than 40 GB of storage, given that I had a CD-Writer; and also because this hard disk is P-ATA, which will be obsolete within the next 3 years.

Name: Seagate Barraduca 7200.9
Model: ST3160212A
Interface: P-ATA (don't know the UDMA rate yet).
Bought From: Fairdeal Computers and Peripherals, P. R. Lane (off S. P. Road)
Date of Purchase: 14th October, 2006
Cost: 2700/- + 108/- V. A. T.
Warranty: Seagate's 5 year limited.

This post is meant to tell you to not shell anything more than 2800/- if you buy the same hard disk in Bangalore (of course, with the assumption that costs of computer products almost always decline with time).

One Ways

A definitive proof that one ways lengthen distances by a signifcant amount can be found if one travels by BMTC buses. In particular, the cost to go from Kamalanagar Market to K.B.S. is Rs. 8/- in a 96D (regular blue-and-white) where as the cost to go from K.B.S. to Kamalanagar Market is Rs. 9/- in a bus with exactly the same number (and type).

A Test

[Long, low global relevance]

I had my first open-book test today - on a Sunday. It was a DBMS midterm, open book, open time...

As the name suggests, it was truly open book. Our syllabus was 8 research papers, and a little other theory. We could get these papers, any DBMS books, slide print outs, any other papers to the test room, and there was a computer in the test room from which one could access e-copies of all the previously mentioned, as well as free internet access.

When it started at 8:30 am, I was under the impression that it could go on till about 12 or 12:30 pm (thinking it's a long test and Sir wants to give us time to think). From 8:30 to 10 am, we read through the papers: 6 questions, 31 marks (including the one mentioned below) and Sir told us what each of the questions implied (- in this much time, some tests even get over).

By 11, we were asked whether we prefer tea or Slice, and in some time these were got (Appy instead of Slice, since Slice wasn't available). Along with these, Samosa and (pineapple?/chocolate) pastries were served by ~12.

(Walks outside the test room to the washrooms or just to stretch legs were permitted too, and though the initially specified restriction was one person out of the hall at a time, this wasn't strictly followed in the end - in this sort of test, it doesn't matter; after all, what can you discuss during the test which will help you so much -or maybe I've to still chat with some of our toppers here. Of course, we're all trust worthy students and did no such thing.)

The "open time" funda, I realized, kicks in now, and the time was extended by the TAs (Teaching Assistants, the (hopefully) nice chaps who will (hopefully) give me marks - two of our seniors) till 3:30 pm, and there were people asking for more time (can't believe them).

And then, finally people started leaving the hall, and I too gave my paper and got out at around 3:10 pm, though initially my plan was to sit through the 7 hours, just to claim later that I did, because I had anyway stopped writing a very long time ago.

Sir was suggesting we get newspapers to read, and that time, I thought, "ok, what newspapers; I'm going to write a test", but then as the test proceeded, and in the huge fag end (1.5 to 2 hours) of it, I was sitting joblessly, not doing anything, nothing in my brain, having put down something in the fair sheets for the 6 questions already, when newspapers seemed a good idea. Of course, we were allowed to use mobile phones (as calculators), and I even SMS'ed from inside the hall (not to discuss answers, though :) ).

We were asked to think (stare at the ceiling) for 20-25 minutes, and then answer for 5; Sir was very right about those ratios though it seems quite skewed to me when he initially said them; of course, for most part I was just looking around arbitrarily.

Performance Analysis:

Question 6:
The philosophy advocated in Lagey Raho Munna Bhai is:
(a) Goondagiri (b) Gandhigiri (c) Krishnagiri (d) Soniagiri
(1 Mark)

That's the only answer I'm guaranteed to get right. It's (b), by the way. And yes, some student(s) even looked up this answer on the internet, and there was at least one other who got this wrong (He wrote (a)!)

There was another question, which Sir called the "Laddoo" question, meant to be one which could be "done easily" (read: done by me), which was like a question which was a part of the paper our seniors got, which I'm hoping to get right was well. (3 Marks)