Branching Out!

Below is a mail my brother wrote out to a freshie-to-be. I found it extremely well balanced and (5 yrs after counseling) made me realize that this is what the profs. were trying to tell me back then.
[Produced verbatim, without his permission :P]
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Some ground rules that one should know before you make this decision:

- JEE AIR is just a number. It just says how better you are over someone else to solve some types of problems that appear in the JEE exam. Many people in IIT have that intellect. Many. And that is irrespective of what their JEE ranks are. There are some (many) utterly dumb people crowding the double-digit ranks.. and there are some brilliant people inter spread in the lower ranks.. even 1000+
- The "stardom" that you get with your JEE rank either single digit or double digit will last you well till the end of the first semester and will vanish completely by the end of the first year. A completely new magic number called "CPI" takes over and it decides the amount of respect (a.k.a. 'bhaav') you will receive amongst your IIT peers. At that point, AIR and department become inconsequential.
- The intelligence required to succeed in IIT (and beyond) in the true way is much different than that is required to succeed as a student. (more on this later)

Conclusion: Try not to confuse your AIR with department just because everyone else is doing so.


Q1: What IIT Engineering Branch to select?

1) Follow your gut approach:

All wise people say this. And in many ways I can see how they are right. All engineering fields and sciences are quite similar at the core. Either people invent or they discover. But "the process" and "the media" is what makes some people click in some field over other. To truly succeed in any field (be in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical, Mechanical, Chemical, Aerospace, Civil or Metallurgy) one requires the same qualities - hard work, understanding of the fundamentals, patience and passion to pursuit challenging problems.

Everyone has some ideas in mind about what one wants to do in life. A good strategy is to look at all these departments w/o bias and select one that will get the best in you. (By bias, I mean "what fields others are chosing","Where is the latest trend?", "What is most paying" etc). I will explain all the departments in short and explain with examples how some people have made the best of the opportunities in their specific fields and how so many others have "wasted" their chances.

Moral of the story: If you chose something that you like, you will likely innovate and thus excel and shine irrespective of what the rest 50 in your class are doing. If you are passionate enough, there is a treasure everywhere in IIT. 95% of your batch mates will not mine it. But you can - if you want to!

Metallurgy: For some reasons, this department closes the last. 95% of the people are disenchanted and are more eager to get out of IIT even before they get in. However, there are exceptions. Every year about 5-6 of these Metallurgy students do stellar work. In Materials, Plastics, Silicons, and in so many technological items of day to day use. I have some friends who are in Stanford and are working on SUPER-EXCITING problems. Their work also affects Genetics - a field that might be the next HOT thing. So essentially, people who have made the best of the opportunities are doing exceedingly well. People who did not study at all in 4-5 years have left Metallurgy. Unfortunately 95% of the batch is such. The reason is that there are no "regular" jobs in this field. Either there are 5-6 PhD positions in top US universities or nothing! So the reason why this department lags in "AIR ranking" is because of lack of regular "MUNDANE DAY-to-DAY jobs". Ironically, most of the people from this department are pursuing "MUCH MORE BORING" and "MUNDANE" jobs in Software and IT.

Civil: You know what Civil engineers do. A couple of my colleagues have started construction contracts. May be earning in crores. Some of them have joined large construction firms and are managing huge business. Again almost 90% of IIT students who didn't chose to make the best of this opportunity are either doing mundane but well paying jobs in IT, Software or Finance.

Aerospace: This department has let down many of my friends though. Despite lack of jobs in this department, many students join this with high ranks too, because of the glamour of airspace. Again, lack of regular stock jobs. Hence almost 80% people are dis-interested from day 1. Some people have got disappointed with DRDO and ISRO in the past. Haven't heard many people doing PhDs, probably that is because US doesn't encourage Indians in this field (?)

Mechanical: Many mechanical people remain in Mechanical Engineering. There are many jobs in India too. This field is of course pretty exciting too. Involves a lot of physical hard-work as most of the people work in Car Manufacturing units and other factories.
Characteristics:
- Huge opportunities for people who want to make it. Esp. in the field of Robotics, Autos and even Aerospace.
- Starting salaries are low (but there is a huge potential if you prove yourself)
- As a mechanical engineer (even from IIT) you are likely to join at the bottom of the pyramid. This is because most of the companies in this field are old and orthrodox. (This is different to what happens in IT, CS, Finance or business). However, a good candidate is likely to grow very fast and manage HUGE responsibilities at a young age. Something that his/her colleagues in CS, Finance can't even imagine. A friend of mine who did his MS from UT Austin is managing a complete product end-to-end of his company (something related to robotics).
- Another friend did a PhD from Stanford and works on a close start-up in Bangalore. Very intelligent fellow. Says the work is pretty exciting. I can get you in touch with him.
- Another friend has started his own robotics company and is helping set up some Birla plant. (I am unsure of the details).

Moral of the story: Difficult for all the class to succeed, but some dedicated folks have done much better than even most of the CS batchmates

Electrical Engineering: Much more jobs, huge opportunities everywhere. Communications technology is still booming and will continue to do so for a while, I guess. Microelectronics will never exhaust. The machine is getting faster and faster and smaller and smaller. Many people remain Electrical Engineers. Good jobs and exciting start-up and research opportunities.

Computer Hardware Engineering: Strong Industry. Many jobs.
Computer Software Engineering: Strong industry and likely to remain so. Abundant jobs. And the Boom is still continuing. Look at Facebook, Twitter. and I am sure there will be something else.
Computer Science: Computer Science is the mathematics/science behind computers. When I took up CS, I was only partially aware of how exciting this was. Very theoretical and conceptual. Less practical and difficult to see the immediate impact of these theories. I was lucky to be in this department and I loved it.

So on one hand, you have so many people who have done brilliant things in all fields and on the other hand there are many people who have not made use of their Computer Science & Engineering education too (although it is supposedly so sought-after).

So PLEASE think what you would LIKE to do.... more than what opportunities are available.

2) Follow the people approach: For many people and most of the times, this approach makes sense. People know what thing is good on an average and they are good at predicting it. There is absolutely no doubt that the % jobs are in exact order of the AIR based rankings that departments get. Eg. There are abundant Computer Engineering jobs, there are many Electrical Engg. Jobs. There are fairly large Mechanical engg. Jobs and there are dwindling Civil, Chemical, Metallurgy jobs.

This is the reason why most of the people from Civil, Meta, Chemical want their IIT degree as a stamp and then get out into consulting or management or finance. For most of them, their IIT education is a waste.

Due to this, one merit in following the AIR based department choice is that if you chose a department what is well sought after, you are likely to be surrounded by more number of sincere and motivated people. Eg. Whereas almost 20-25 people in my Computer Science class were really good, only about 3-5 people in Civil, Meta, Chemical will be really interested in their fields of engineering.

But trust me: Everyone who was motivated enough, is doing very well.

Q2: IIT education: A General Bachelor of Business Administration OR an Engineering Degree

Today most of the IITans, are not doing engineering at all. They are either into consulting or finance or other forms of general management. They either go straight to IIMs or spend couple of years and do an MBA either IIM or International.

The best and the brightest of the lot who pursue this option also have excellent academic record and either a PhD offer from US univ or a good Job in their respective fields (Civil, Meta, etc). However, you will find that this route is occasionally followed by everyone to 'wipe out' the years spent away at IIT.

Anyways, for this reason it is good that you are chosing IIT Bombay. IITB and IITD give more wholesome education than any other IITs.

Q3: 4 yrs B.Tech or 5 years Dual Degree
Some facts to dispel certain Dual Degree conceptions:
1) Will I not be an IIT B.Tech?
- Of Course. You have 2 separate degrees. B.Tech and M.Tech. The B.Tech degree is "the same" in all forms and features to the B.Tech degree that a 4-yr student gets
2) Are Dual Degree students treated differently at the campus?
- This might have been a valid question 10 years ago. Today, with 60% of the students as Dual Degree students, the question is moot. The Dual Degree students are only clubbed together with Roll-Number. Rest everything is same at least for the first 3 years. Same courses, same instructors, same grading scale. Occasionally these days, it is the Dual Degree student who is the class topper despite his/her "low AIR rank"

Con: The only negative of the Dual degree is that you will graduate 1 year later than everyone else. So suppose, you plan to do IIM straight out of IIT or you want to do anything other than engineering straight out of IIT, then you are better off doing 4 yrs. instead of 5 yrs.

Pros:
- You get to spend one more year at IIT and make use of the Dual Degree program to learn more about your specific field of interest.
- Much more course flexibility offered. You can tailor your degree to your requirements. Eg. I specialized in Computer Science Theory. A Electrical Engineering friend of mine was interested in Physics. He used his last 2 years to do dedicated research in Physics despite being from EE. Now he is doing his PhD from Berkeley in Physics!
- 2 year Dual Degree project instead of a rushed 8 month B.Tech Project. B.Tech project gives you 8 months to work on something. Dual degree project however, is designed so that the student can explore, research and innovate in 2 years with complete attention of the faculty.
- I am not trying to market this program :D but during my Dual Degree Project, I have seen my guide move aside other students waiting in queue to meet him, so that I could meet him! Most Dual Degree students enjoyed this privilege.

If one is not in a hurry to graduate (or pay off loans or start earning) AND one wants to really give justice to the science/engineering aspect of the IIT education, I would strongly recommend the Dual Degree program.

Wall St. Arena

Got this here .

The first paragraph on Macroeconomics by Gregory Mankiw starts:

When you finish school and start looking for a full-time job, your experience will, to a large extent, be shaped by prevailing economic conditions. In some years, firms throughout the economy are expanding their production of goods and services, employment is rising, and jobs are easy to find. In other years, firms are cutting back production, employment is declining, and finding a good job takes a long time. Not surprisingly, any college graduate would rather enter the labor force in a year of economic expansion than in a year of economic contraction.

With RBI reining growth estimates -- so much so for the placement season this year!!

Anyway, in another interesting read the authors predict that the reason China, India, Indonesia and Bangladesh (inspite of having 43% of global population) won only 6% of the Sydney Olympic Medals has a strong corelation to the fact that the these 4 countries contribute 5% of the Global GDP.
Times have changed: India alone contributes about 2.15% of Global GDP (World Bank 2007 est.), will we win the ~18 medals expected of us?!

Juno

Ever since reading about the movie in this review, I was pretty decided about watching it someday.
The basic setting of the movie (16 yr./8 grade girl gets pregnant after having unprotected sex with a friend) is foreign to us (since 16yr. olds aren't sexually active here). However, its a matter of years before such issues start cropping up around here.
Since whats best about the movie and what made me fall so in love with the movie's easy flow is aptly summed up by the above article, I'll just share the title song. Not only did I catch the lyrics in the very 1st go (which is rare with English numbers) they kinda appealed to me as well ...

If I was a flower growing wild and free
All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee.
And if I was a tree growing tall and greeen
All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves

If I was a flower growing wild and free
All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee.
And if I was a tree growing tall and greeen
All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were a river in the mountains tall,
The rumble of your water would be my call.
If you were the winter, I know I'd be the snow
Just as long as you were with me, let the cold winds blow

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were a wink, I'd be a nod
If you were a seed, well I'd be a pod.
If you were the floor, I'd wanna be the rug
And if you were a kiss, I know I'd be a hug

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were the wood, I'd be the fire.
If you were the love, I'd be the desire.
If you were a castle, I'd be your moat,
And if you were an ocean, I'd learn to float.

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

You are in CSE, IIT Bombay when ...

... the following exchange pleasantly lands in your inbox!!

Dear Ram,

Your leadership in piloting this bold initiative through Tata Sons is finally paying off - and how superbly! My congratulations and compliments. I am glad that IIT Bombay has contributed in the effort, not only via its past students (who are also past faculty), but also a little through our on-going research collaboration.

With best regards,
Sincerely,
- Deepak

and just when you wonder who Ram is --

Thanks Deepak. You have been a great supporter and a source of strength. Warm regards

S Ramadorai
Tata Consultancy Services
Mailto: s.ramadorai@tcs.com
Website: http://www.tcs.com

Quoting Sushant :-

To Kanpur ...

I shall not harp again on the (un)justifiable reasons for my long absence. Some updates:

1. Leaving early morning tomorrow for ACM regionals at IITK. Have never been to kanpur, it might also be my east-most indian city since i am self-aware :)
It should be a nice experience, this time being the best in the year to visit kanpur. Their cultural festival is also scheduled on this weekend. We should have a gala time, an inviting break from the semester.
I guess quite a few expectations rest on us but I am quite pessimistic this time around, we have not practiced at all :(

2. Met Tejas and Sonal after a long time yesterday, had dinner together. Good fun.

So long

Won't bother to add much - have been to Hyderabad, so the eastern city and a few other things might not hold, but what the heck saved me a lot of typing :-)

Corny!

Quoting this article,

V. Raghunathan writes about a farmer whose corn won top awards year after year. When a reporter asked about the secret of his success, the farmer attributed it to the fact that he shared his corn with his neighbors. Why, the reporter wondered, would the farmer want to share his seed when those neighbors also competed with him for the prize? The farmer's reply was, "The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grew inferior corn, cross-pollination would steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors do the same."

That Indians often fail to act like this farmer is the principal theme of Raghunathan's book.

V. Raghunathan concludes "Indians are privately smart and publicly dumb".

'Matrimonial websites losing out to dating websites'

Its interesting to note what the country is coming to, when you read a news item, as above.
Its a perfect reflection, of the mindset of people all around, where the generation - taking a definite break from marriage-centric view. While, breakdown of the current structure - is not what I am betting on - the thought process has set in.

Keyword Hunting and web Mining!

Trust Soumen to come up (well - webmine to be frank), with

Claiming "IIT=Cornell+MIT+..." is like demanding that Mumbai local trains are superior to the Paris subway because it's much harder to get into a Mumbai local train.

While, it would be wholly disrespectful and way out of my aukaat to refer to Prof. Soumen Chakrabarti, as a plain Soumen, since it is how he is referred to in student circles, I shall do so & pray that he doesn't come across this.
On an academic note, I am mostly taking the Statistical Foundations of Machine Learning course by him this semester.
Soumen as a person, prof., researcher is an enigma alrite. While, I have always been an ardent fan of his newsgroup postings, never did I realise the extensive amount of general writings that he has come up with in the past few years. Most of them are linked here. He speaks of pollution, lawlessness, and more general topics, in such a simple language and persuasive logic, that it leaves you wondering where has all the common sense gone.
His witty one-liners or clever anagraming, I recently realised is just a part of the story. Clearly, people better equipped at humoring english are abundantly distributed (priori hypothesis) all over the web.
What I believe is unmatched is the through professionalism! He was as good as an IIT student can get. A President's Gold Medalist during his IITKgp days, he went on to UCB and so on...
As a researcher, I guess he is good, because a list of people in DataMining, throws up his name in the same league as Sergey Brin and others.
But what is truly fascinating is the amount of professionalism he brings to class. He has a clear handwriting, even more clear ways of sketching out complex fundaes and diagrams. He overloads you with information and expects you to imbibe it at that rate. You are mentally exhausted and bamboozled after attending his class, yet you know that you want to come back for more.
& if all this, made you picturise a jet-setting Capitalist, he says a lot for cycles, environment, making IITs relevant in the larger picture, and the other India - in general.

Still in the meantime, for those who aren't attending his classes - enjoy his sharings and posts. Watching him, have a go at IITB MB egg heads and Can't read but will applys, is something definitely not to be missed.

DubyaMan

Either George W. Bush has no ideas, how HUGE poodles are,
or, he thinks that (like the supposed WMD) the rest of the world, doesnt know the truth about them.

For an unflinching ally, Tony Blair, he remarked the following to The Sun

I’ve heard he’s been called Bush’s poodle. He’s bigger than that.

As Tony Blair, leaves office, I feel for him for unknown reasons, but then like everything else, Bushisms steal the limelight.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

I am neither the 1^st person, nor will I be the last person, talking about it - but Steve Jobs' commencement address at Stanford titled - Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish, inspires me everytime.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Heres the video :

Calvin - again!

Extremely interested in seeing where this goes tomorrow ;)








--
Edit :- Dated 19.06.07
Nothing related to this, the following day.

S'il Vous Pee

This post of mine, is another of my attempts at elongating a weekend, fast coming to a close. Anyway, the following mail forwarded by Sudeep, caused a genuine chuckle. Read on...

Seems God was just about done creating the universe, had a couple of left-over things left in his bag of creations, so he stopped by to visit Adam and Eve in the Garden. He told the couple that one of the things he had to give away was the ability to stand up and pee. "It's a very handy thing," God told the couple who he found hanging around under an apple tree. "I was wondering if either one of you wanted that ability." Adam popped a cork!! He jumped up and begged,

"Oh, give that to me! I'd love to be able to do that! It seems the sort of thing a Man should do. Oh please, oh please, oh please, let me have that ability. I'd be so great! When I'm working in the garden or naming the animals, I could just let it rip, I'd be sooooo cool. Oh please, God, let it be me who you give that gift to, let me stand and pee, oh please."

On and on he went like an excited little boy (who had to pee ).
Eve just smiled and shook her head at the display. She told God that if Adam really wanted it so badly, and it sure seemed to be the sort of thing that would make him happy, she really wouldn't mind if Adam were the one given the ability to stand up and pee. And so it was. And it was...........well, good.
"Fine," God said, looking back into his bag of left-over gifts.
"What's left here? Oh yes, multiple orgasms..."

Basically, while the recent tell-it-all streak, shall not extend to multiple orgasms, I shall contain myself well within the 1st 85% of the mail, of which I have experience, and in spite of the sting in the tail (read: kick in the balls) of the mail, I found the 1st Adam part of it pretty hilarious.
The mail made me pretty vividly imagine, a excited Adam all gung-pee about his new powers that he could spray about. Think about a 5 year old, jumping with joy at a new water-gun gifted to him & you know what I exactly mean.
The mail also brings out, Eve's reticent nature and her ability to grin in joy (or helplessness) at how relieved (pun intended) Adam is at the power to stand up for himself and express himself. Everyone has experience, at their moms/sisters/daughters sitting tight in the car while we merrily pop out of the car and pop back in minutes later.

On a lateral note, the following picture sums up how evil I feel, each time I can use my Adam-inherited powers. Can you possibly, imagine Susie in place of Calvin, doing the same? Hell NO!
Calvin might not be able to hit Susie with a single snowball, but when it comes to matters that matter, he is bang on target!
Similarly, I was intrigued & interested at the public urinals, I found at street crossings in Amsterdam (seen below). So simple, minimalistic yet efficient and complete, they exactly sum what standing up and peeing is!
While, I hadn't seen something like this before, Deepak D. aka DudDa, interjected saying they can be found in Bihar - Surely! DudDa, we had no idea Bihar had open urinals :P

New Age Information Sharing!

Technology hasn’t eliminated the desire for rules about who tells what, when and how. You don’t want your wife or girlfriend to tell you she’s pregnant by sending an e-mail message. A close friend could be miffed if he found about your hot date on Friday not from you, but from a casual acquaintance who had already seen pictures of it on your Facebook page.

I fail to find time to actually write something on this blog, though there are tons of thoughts about France, India, Life etc. running through my head.
Till then, sharing another interesting article from NYTimes :- about information and grapevines in new age!

Take it with a pinch of Turmeric©

Knowledge in ancient India was protected by ... not legal or economic ones. The term “intellectual property” was an oxymoron: the intellect could not be anybody’s property. ... Perhaps it is for this reason that Indians do not feel obligated to pay for knowledge. Pirated copies of my book are openly sold on the Bombay streets, for a fourth of its official price.

-Suketu Mehta

On patent laws and heritage wisdom, this makes a good read.

Afghan Girl

Some images live with us, forever.


Google for 'Afghan Girl' to know more, in case you don't.

Not all those who Wander are lost !

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring;

Renenwed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.

: J.R.R. Tolkien

Needless to say - I derive the title of my blog from this poem!
Stumbled on this, today.
Since its a great poem, might as well share it :)

Americans on Cricket :D

“You mean people actually pay to watch this?” exclaimed one American I tried to interest in the game. “It’s about as exciting as measuring global warming.”

“And just as vital to the rest of the planet,” I retorted.
: Shashi Tharoor

In an editorial to NY Times - Shashi Tharoor, whom I long suspected to be as Indian as say, V S Naipaul, actually makes a good stand for cricket !


I really hope India wins today - Tendulkar might have another chance at lifting the Cup
I really hope India loses today - I will spend much less time hereforth till 28th April.
Till then - I head out to LT to watch the screening :)

If Men Could Menstruate ...

Found this pretty hilarious :D

Living in India made me understand that a white minority of the world has spent centuries conning us into thinking a white skin makes people superior, even though the only thing it really does is make them more subject to ultraviolet rays and wrinkles.

Reading Freud made me just as skeptical about penis envy. The power of giving birth makes "womb envy" more logical, and an organ as external and unprotected as the penis makes men very vulnerable indeed.

But listening recently to a woman describe the unexpected arrival of her menstrual period (a red stain had spread on her dress as she argued heatedly on the public stage) still made me cringe with embarrassment. That is, until she explained that, when finally informed in whispers of the obvious event, she said to the all-male audience, "and you should be proud to have a menstruating woman on your stage. It's probably the first real thing that's happened to this group in years."

Laughter. Relief. She had turned a negative into a positive. Somehow her story merged with India and Freud to make me finally understand the power of positive thinking. Whatever a "superior" group has will be used to justify its superiority, and whatever and "inferior" group has will be used to justify its plight. Black me were given poorly paid jobs because they were said to be "stronger" than white men, while all women were relegated to poorly paid jobs because they were said to be "weaker." As the little boy said when asked if he wanted to be a lawyer like his mother, "Oh no, that's women's work." Logic has nothing to do with oppression.

So what would happen if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not?

Clearly, menstruation would become an enviable, worthy, masculine event:

Men would brag about how long and how much.

Young boys would talk about it as the envied beginning of manhood. Gifts, religious ceremonies, family dinners, and stag parties would mark the day.

To prevent monthly work loss among the powerful, Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea. Doctors would research little about heart attacks, from which men would be hormonally protected, but everything about cramps.

Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of such commercial brands as Paul Newman Tampons, Muhammad Ali's Rope-a-Dope Pads, John Wayne Maxi Pads, and Joe Namath Jock Shields- "For Those Light Bachelor Days."

Statistical surveys would show that men did better in sports and won more Olympic medals during their periods.

Generals, right-wing politicians, and religious fundamentalists would cite menstruation ("men-struation") as proof that only men could serve God and country in combat ("You have to give blood to take blood"), occupy high political office ("Can women be properly fierce without a monthly cycle governed by the planet Mars?"), be priests, ministers, God Himself ("He gave this blood for our sins"), or rabbis ("Without a monthly purge of impurities, women are unclean").

Male liberals and radicals, however, would insist that women are equal, just different; and that any woman could join their ranks if only she were willing to recognize the primacy of menstrual rights ("Everything else is a single issue") or self-inflict a major wound every month ("You must give blood for the revolution").

Street guys would invent slang ("He's a three-pad man") and "give fives" on the corner with some exchenge like, "Man you lookin' good!"

"Yeah, man, I'm on the rag!"

TV shows would treat the subject openly. (Happy Days: Richie and Potsie try to convince Fonzie that he is still "The Fonz," though he has missed two periods in a row. Hill Street Blues: The whole precinct hits the same cycle.) So would newspapers. (Summer Shark Scare Threatens Menstruating Men. Judge Cites Monthlies In Pardoning Rapist.) And so would movies. (Newman and Redford in Blood Brothers!)

Men would convince women that sex was more pleasurable at "that time of the month." Lesbians would be said to fear blood and therefore life itself, though all they needed was a good menstruating man.

Medical schools would limit women's entry ("they might faint at the sight of blood").

Of course, intellectuals would offer the most moral and logical arguements. Without the biological gift for measuring the cycles of the moon and planets, how could a woman master any discipline that demanded a sense of time, space, mathematics-- or the ability to measure anything at all? In philosophy and religion, how could women compensate for being disconnected from the rhythm of the universe? Or for their lack of symbolic death and resurrection every month?

Menopause would be celebrated as a positive event, the symbol that men had accumulated enough years of cyclical wisdom to need no more.

Liberal males in every field would try to be kind. The fact that "these people" have no gift for measuring life, the liberals would explain, should be punishment enough.

And how would women be trained to react? One can imagine right-wing women agreeing to all these arguements with a staunch and smiling masochism. ("The ERA would force housewives to wound themselves every month": Phyllis Schlafly)

In short, we would discover, as we should already, that logic is in the eye of the logician. (For instance, here's an idea for theorists and logicians: if women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long? I leave further improvisation up to you.)

The truth is that, if men could menstruate, the power justifications would go on and on.

If we let them.

(c) Gloria Steinem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. NY: NAL, 1986.

Can be found at: http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/steinem.menstruate.html

Happiness Reloaded !

A few weeks ago I had shared the essay I wrote about, 'My Idea of Happiness',
as an assignment for the Design and Analysis of Algorithms course.
Strange but true.
Well, below is the feedback given by Ranade Sir on the classes' 'performance'
on this assignment. Not is it one of the best analyses of an IITians psyche,
that I have seen, its heartning to see that some professor would take so
much time out to contribute to the students' growth!
Not Surprisingly, one of the most lasting images of contentness, that I have
seen is that of Sir himself, sitting at Shack reading a book, golden rays
streaking all over him.
In his time, to a stray observer, Newton would have appeared something similar
to an Oxfordian, instants before the apple hit him.

Here goes the mail ::

Here are some comments on the Happiness assignment.

I will begin by describing some of the major issues raised in your
essays.  I will then describe why I gave this assignment -- why I
think more students should relate happiness and academics.  Then I
will talk about job satisfaction and competition.

WHAT YOU WROTE: SOME OF THE HIGHLIGHTS
First, the most important source of happiness reported by many, many
people were family ties -- happiness in just being with your
parents/siblings as well as enjoying specific family events and get
togethers.  As it turns out, this also tops the list of what makes me
happy.

A number of people did say that academics/solving problems gives them
a kick and in general makes them happy.  Several also said that
accomplishment makes them happy.  These two are of course different --
you may be happy with accomplishment because it is noticed by your
family and friends; the study/work needed for the accomplishment might
not have made you happy -- just that you have the persistence and
mental strength needed to complete a task once you undertake it.

Several people also mentioned hobbies such as music that made them
really happy.  There seemed to be some disappointment that they cannot
pursue the hobbies and some hope that after they are settled in life
they will devote time to their hobbies.

Finally, there were also several who said that the competition in IIT
makes them nervous and prevents them from enjoying what is going on.

ACADEMICS AND HAPPINESS
The first point I would like to make is that it is worth asking
yourself whether you are happy with academics.  By this I dont mean
the grade you get -- but whether the material you learn is itself
causing any excitement in you, whether you are feeling that you are
learning anything of significance, or whether you are seeing anything
beautiful in what you are studying.  The beauty/excitement in
academics is not always easy to see, however.  Anyone can see the
beauty in snow clad mountains/flowers/ocean.  To see the beauty in a
computer you need to be able to look under the surface a little bit.
But once you do see this beauty, it is as exciting as natural beauty.
Anyone can see the excitement of being able to play tennis well or
play the guitar well.  I hope you can also see that being able to
design good algorithms (or analyze them or program them) is an ability
as hard to cultivate -- it has as many intricacies and frustrations as
there are in playing tennis or learning music.  But it is also as
satisfying.

Being able to relate happiness to academics has a few other important
side effects.

JOB SATISFACTION
I feel that as an adult it is very important to get a lot of
satisfaction out of your work.  After all, you will spend about 10-14
hours every day on it.  Note that satisfaction is different from
salary/promotions/prestige.  You may have salary/promotions/prestige
but may not really like your job.  If this happens, then you will have
to look elsewhere for your real happiness -- remember you only have
8-6 hours for it outside your work.  And that time is also needed for
many of your natural responsibilities as an adult (including
maintaining the family ties that are important to us).

If you developed the ability to see beauty and excitement while you
are a student, you will find it easier, I think to see beauty in your
job too.  This ability I am talking about is not related to CSE -- it
is the general attitude of looking under the surface, looking for
patterns and order etc.

I dont mean to suggest that you should learn to be content with your
job -- by all means aspire for promotions/better jobs/salary.  But
decide for yourself whether the Narayan Murthy's of the world
accomplish a lot because they like their work intrinsically or whether
they work (even without liking it much) because of the money/prestige
involved.

COMPETITION STRESS
Many of your essays report that academics in IIT is very competitive
and causes stress and hurry and so on.

I think there are reasons to ignore competition as well as reasons to
pay attention to it.

Competition usually focuses on external attributes -- how many marks
you get rather than what you have learned.  To keep things in
perspective, note that your relative standing in the department will
play a smaller role after you finish than the role played by what you
really have learned.  So it is worth focusing on what you should be
learning -- are you learning the ideas/techniques being taught --
never mind what others are doing.  Again the message is similar to the
one before: focus on the material you are learning, see the beauty in
it and so on, rather than worry about the marks.

Of course, you cannot ignore competition and marks entirely.  For the
simple reason that most of us have a tendency to get lazy -- some kind
of spontaneous decay.  So competition keeps us on our toes.  It asks
us "how come he/she gets so many marks while I cannot, am I just
lazy?".  If you think you are working hard, then you could ask
yourself -- "how come he/she gets more marks and understands
everything faster -- is there something more he/she sees in all this
that I dont?  Is it because he/she is having more FUN with this than I
am?".  If you can ask such questions you will be able to make
competition work for you than hurt you.


CONCLUDING REMARKS
I am not an expert on happiness, or on people's motivations,
personalities and abilities.  So what I have written is to be taken
with a grain of salt, and as an inexpert opinion.

Yes, I have in fact seen people who can do work that they find
unpleasant just because they have will power that keeps them going.
However, most high acheivers I have seen have made their mark because
they love their work.  The first step to loving work later in life is
to develop the ability to love academics right now.  This will require
efforts on the part of students, and also, I am sure on part of
faculty.  If more students participate in this process, the better it
will be.