Rhythm of Life

Today I got a thought while returning from school and I feel that it is worth noting down for the benefit of all. So the thought is as under.. What is 'my' life? What is 'mine' in this life? Is this life really 'mine'? It is given to me by God and it can be taken from me anytime. So is 'my' important in 'my life'? I think no. But yes 'life' is important. Because after all that is it why I am here. Now, that means, I am like an element, whom God has filled in with life, for a certain period on this earth as a human being. So, what is so much important in this life to be concerned about? Should it be my work, my career, my every like and dislike, my dress, my food, my time, what? Does any of these matter after my life? I think then, all this won't matter a bit to me once this life is taken from me. That means nothing in this world can be more true than the fact that you have to live..till God wants you to. Next question is, what sho...

Ever wondered where all the stuff in your house comes from, and where it all goes after you are done with it? I just saw this amazing " Story of Stuff " . In words of my ex-teacher, Mrs. Lalita Aseri, "Its really impressive....it may sound funny but yeah..its very motivating for me." Watch the story yourself and find out! Now if you too find yourself motivated, Here is the link for 10 recommendations on what we can do to address the problems identified in the film on storyofstuff : http://www.storyofstuff.com/ anotherway.html Specifically, http://www.cosmeticsdatabase. com tells about the toxic contents in various cosmetic products that we inadvertently buy. Similarly, there are lots of carcinogenic products in most ready to eat foods and snacks that we do not even know about and buy. Like now I never buy a product that lists "Monosodium Glutamate" because I know its carcinogenic. And after remembering its name, I came across the products containing it ...

I am following the Time's Lead India '09 initiative where they regularly publish a column called Vignettes of Leadership , that brings out the views on leadership directly by leaders in various fields. Here I will be summarizing some of those articles specially noting down the interesting things to take from each leader. Lee Iacocca , the former CEO of Chrysler, has Nine C's that make a leader stand out from the crowd: 1. Curiosity : Listen to people outside the ‘Yes, sir’ crowd and read voraciously, because the world is a complicated place. 2. Creative : Go out on a limb, be willing to try something different. 3. Change : Manage change effectively, whether you’re leading a company or leading a country. Things change, and you get to adapt. 4. Communicate : Facing reality and telling the truth. Communication has to start with telling the truth, even when it may be painful. 5. Character : knowing the difference between right and wrong and having the guts to do the rig...

We, the citizens of India, want certain actions (not just promises but actions) from our leaders, once they reach up to form the government. The Times of India's Lead India '09 is asking the people of India to create a manifesto of what we need from whichever government comes next top power. You can choose 3 issues most important to you, to help evolve such a manifesto. Times will present this Peoples’ Manifesto to the new parliament. These are my 3 most important manifestos for the elected leaders: 1.) Safe drinking water for all, clean rivers, and environment and make it livable. 2.) Zero tolerance to religious extremism, and terrorism. 3.) No corruption at any level in government offices, and full transparency and accountability of government officers. Please feel free to comment and put forward your 3 issues at http://www.lead.timesofindia.com/Wada_naa_todo.aspx Lets create a safe and just India that we all want.

Everybody is trying to curb terrorism, or atleast showing and talking like that. The root cause of terrorism is poverty, illiteracy and social injustice. In India, rigid and cruel caste system, and corrupt government have made the situations worse. We have almost forgotten the rural face and now that keeps coming in front of us in forms of Naxalites in Bihar, Maoists in North Eastern states, separatists in J&K and other insurgents. Over this, the selfish political leaders of different parties keep capitalizing on the emotions of each community. The governments keep coming and going with citizens watching them with wistful eyes. Its enough now, and we citizens will have to do something for the betterment of society. When everyone in society would sleep peacefully after the nights meal, no body would come out to commit the sins of killing.

Out of the popular demand, here is a list of the good movies that I watched. Will keep updating the list as I watch more of the good movies. Enjoy! 1.Fifty First Dates 2.Cast Away (2000) 3.Life Is Beautiful (2000) 4.The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) 5.Last Holiday (2006) 6.Little Manhattan (2005) 7.Amelie (2001) -French (English Title) 8.The Shawshank Redemption (1994) 9.The Godfather (1972) 10.The Godfather: Part II (1974) 11.Buono, il brutto, il cattivo., Il (1966) 12.Pulp Fiction (1994) 13.Schindler's List (1993) 14.Casablanca (1942) 15.The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) 16.Goodfellas (1990) 17.The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) 18.The Usual Suspects (1994) 19.Fight Club (1999) 20.Memento (2000) 21.The Matrix (1999) 22.The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) 23.Slumdog Millionaire (2008) 24.American Beauty (1999) 25.Lawrence of Arabia (1962) 26.American History X (1998) 27.Forrest Gump (1994) 28.The Departed (2006) 29.The Pianist (2002)...

Here are some of the books recommended by one of my friend Kalyan, who recently took exam for IAS. Some others are those which I / Vinita have read and liked. Finally, some are recommended by a couple of other friends. If possible read their reviews on the web and then figure out if the subject matter stimulate your interest. And yes, send me your recommendations. By the way, these are not in any particular order. It seems though, that I should try to get them in some order, so that the reading makes more sense. But as of now, I don't know when I'll do that. So till then, enjoy! The Magic of Thinking Big - David Schwartz How to Click with Everyone Every time What I Talk About when I Talk About Running India's Struggle for Freedom - Bipin Chandra India After Independence The Argumentative Indian Holiday in Hell My Experiments with Truth - mahatma Gandhi Administrative Thinkers - Prasad and Prasad Caste System in India - MN Srinivasan Introduction to Consitution of India - DD...

I recently found that UT employees can also get some Employee discounts in various places ! In a way it feels, US universities are not less than a corporate house ! I dint know this earlier and it seems like a good list to look at it! http://www.utexas.edu/hr/edp/employee/ Though similar settings worked in my previous school in India (MNIT) as well ! There we could un-officially go to a shop keeper and claim the undocumented MREC (10%) discount! But the university here seems to be taking it one step further and they have it officially setup! I guess they tie up with these local and big businesses (hopefully according to the need of the students and other people in the University), for example Wireless services, restaurnets etc. This is a win-win for both, because UT people get some good discounts and business get bulk exposure! This could be certainly useful to many Universities and students in other places of the world !

Terrific Love missing u missing u makes me miss u, longing to love u.. makes me lose the moments of loving u. when i wanted to say u that I love u, we ended up fighting till i left u. But, when u were in deep sleep, I found myself dreaming, I was in your arms and dancing on your beats, the world was so peaceful, happiness was embracing me. Is that exactly what I wanted? I knew the answer of me. and I saw the smile on ur face and love in your eyes and isshhhhh..........u kissed me! every moment with u is precious, and your love , my Darling, is terrific ...

const is trick to begin with ... this is what I found while working with it ... 1. References: They cannot be changed to point to some other object 2. Pointers: Can be changed to point to something else 1 class Foo { 2 int i; 3 public: 4 5 void doit (const Foo &that) { 6 that.i = i; //Error 7 } 8 void doit (Foo &that) { 9 that.i = i; //Okay 10 } 11 void doit (const Foo *that) { 12 that->i = i; //Error 13 that = this; //Okay 14 } 15 void doit (Foo * const that) { 16 that->i = i; //Okay 17 that = this; //Error 18 } 19 void doit (const Foo &that) { 20 i = that.i; //Okay 21 } 22 void doit (const Foo &that) const { 23 i = that.i; //Error 24 } 19 }; --Sorry about the alignment, I dont know a way as of now to correct this ... I guess it is readable though ! If someone already knows, let me know (how to preserve the formatting like we do in wiki) test2.cpp: In member function `void Foo::doit(const Foo&)': test2.cpp:6: error: assignment of data-member `Foo::i' ...

Today I attended a lecture by Prof. Sanjay Patel, famous Prof in Comp Arch from UIUC... Crux: a 1000+ core architecture Motivation: Some real-time apps Main processor can delegate some work to it ! Implementation: As of now as a co-processor type thing, which has lots of threads, has a different program or thread model ! How did they come up with the design? Choose the benchmark apps ! Interestingly, to figure out implementation, fed these apps and some hardware parameters, like Issue Width: L1 Cache Size: L2 Cache Size: CPU Frequency etc To an optimizer, which then analyses these apps against these hardware choices : Result: a plot on the AREA vs Performance curve for each of these configs Final result choose the design that looks reasonable ! Then decision about the programming / thread model and SIMD vs MIMD model Again benchmark apps, analyze the dependency graphs for these apps ... You can use any tool like PIN easily to figure out this dependency graphs and things like RAW, WAW k...

New students who joined UT this fall, may have, by now, realized the amount of work in the classes and in general about the hectic life... Dont worry, you will get adjusted to it sooner than later .. Good Luck with that ! But I wanted to point out one important thing in this post for new students: About ECAC or the recruitment drive in ECE... Be sure to register for ECAC and submit your resumes to companies for Internships! You should also know that CS people have different governing body (for Natural Sciences, like ECAC for Engineering).. So be sure to keep in touch with that and submit your resume if you are interested in purely CS type (software related jobs).. You might wonder why dont you see yahoo, amazon and other purely software companies a lot in the ECAC fair ... They are more likely to be in the Natural Sciences fair than ECAC.. All the best for the internship search ! If you are in Austin, and want to learn driving and/or take driving lisence test, the best person for you i...

Here, I have compiled the links to all the useful websites for GRE preparation and exam. One needs to refer many websites for GRE test preparation, registration and sample tests, etc., so this might help saving some of your precious time if all those links are at one place. For GRE test registration Free GRE practice tests : Kaplan Before starting preparation for Verbal section (ideally 6-8 months before your GRE test date), you might find it helpful to read my friend's article: http://ranjit.puri. googlepages.com/ The800VerbalWalkthrough.htm For GRE test preparation : Number2 For list of Analytical Writing Topics in GRE exam : click here For sample Essays and Argument writings in GRE exam, click here or download from: http://jainvinita.googlepages.com/sampleessaysandargumentwritings.zip Sample formats for various Application process documents for MS admission. Details on how you should take visa appointment Sample documents and checklists for USA student visa application.

Here I have compiled some general queries that I and many other students have regarding admission in MS. I will put my questions one by one in this post. Feel free to put up more questions and I will be pleased to answer you or direct you to the right source for it. Q&A before GRE/TOEFL and till before the Admission 0. What is the right time to take GRE/TOEFL tests? The best time to take the tests is 1 year before you plan to start your MS. This will give you sufficient time for the lengthy application process. Having 2 years of work experience before MS is not essential but can help you get good understanding of what you want to do in your MS. First I will tell you my plans, please DO comment on it. I'm planning to write GRE/TOEFEL in August, want to apply for MS in OS or computer architecture in fall next year. Comp Arch is usually misunderstood by lot of people , this is if you wish to design processor etc. And that needs VLSI too... So truly speaking you will have to wor...

During in initial days at UT, I happened to talk to lots of people about the courses I should be taking etc. This post contains some excerpts from that : I also talk about a few questions that have been asked by various new students joining UT, specially in computer engineering. What courses to choose for the first sem? People mostly end up choosing the courses which are either necessary prerequisites for other courses or if they are only offered say, once in two years or so. And definitely this sounds pretty reasonable. So for computer engineering the basic and interesting course I have heard of, in UT are UG Computer Architecture (360N), Algorithms (360C), Introduction to OS (CS372H), Compilers, Distributed Computing, Grad EPL (specially by Prof. Craig Chase), VLSI-1 (these are not easy classes, but basic) For the courses which are exotic / rarely offered, I think the best way is to sit in those classes for a couple of lectures, and carefully understand what the course offer...

For my childhood friends If you ask me what friendship day gift I want, I wish for a magic stick that can take me to my past. May be there were homeworks, may be there were tests, but with all of them, there were my friends! Those fun-filled school days, those afternoons of laughter, the evenings in the streets, where are those days? Antaakshri in last period, and radio-show in summers, how can I ever forget those outings together? We all lived in the Malviya Nagar, now I can't even envision, when one of us is in Noida and one in London! On this friendship day, although you are miles away, but I am sure we all have new friends to celebrate the Day. So stop being nostalgic with the memories you have, of exchanging those friendship bands in Shreemaya that day! I hope my funny poem makes you laugh, and hey! .....did you just show your teeth??? than thats my gift on friendship day! Love You All, vinita

It all began with my husband, Gaurav taking his GRE test, although the seeds were sowed during our undergrad years in MNIT itself when we started reading word lists from Barrons book. He got a score of 1350 and how can I forget mentioning here that I got 1390 after fifteen days in my GRE test. After that TOEFL came easy and we both got decent scores to proceed on to the next challenging task of deciding on which universities to apply to. It is indeed one of the most difficult part I must say, because each university application costs between $ 50- $80 (plus some additional cost of sending the official GRE and TOEFL tests scores to them, and mailing the official transcripts etc.) How many universities should I apply to and which?? My advice to anyone who is at the same stage of the admission process is that make your budget the deciding factor on the number of schools you want to apply. Assuming 75$ to 100$, as the total spending per application, you can decide on whether you ha...

Long ago (about 500 days ago, isn't it long enough?) we had compiled some information about the admission to US Universities and here are some links to them. I said long ago, because we don't want you to trust the information in these links without verifying them at the actual website. Another caveat is that most of the information is useful to ECE and CS aspirants but at the least some names and web-links can be useful to others too. I'll try to add more information about and update some of this, but I don't know when. So till then this is what it is :) 1. Info for univs1 Ohio Jhon Hopkins Michigan UC, Irvine UC, Santa Barbar 2. Info for univs2 MIT UC, Berkley Stanford Univ UIUC GTECH 3. Info for univs3 RPI USC Cornell Rice UT, A&M UT, Austin UC, SD 4. Info for univs4 Caltech CMU Michigan Univ of Washington Wisconsin Madison 5. Info for univs5 Princeton Purdue UC, LA Penn State Maryland

Hi everybody I attended a two day discourse taken up by CHINAMAYA MISSION here at IIT Roorkee. I want to share a few points which I learned and which could be of help to all of us. DAY 1 The topic was “HAPPY PARENTING” Few points discussed were:- What is the job of a parent? Why do children these days feel bored so often? What should be given to a child and at what stage? Well then I’ll make an attempt to explain the first question… The job of a parent is similar to that of a potter. A potter uses both his hands to make a pot. The inner hand is expands the pot or makes it big, while the outer hand controls its shape and size. Similarly parents should raise their child with an inner hand of love and an outer hand of discipline. The inner hand widens the vision of the child while the outer prevents him from getting out of control and fall prey to perversions. Furthermore, the job of a parent also resembles that of a gardener. The gardener does not grow plants. This is because growth is s...

Whenever I say the two words " My Papa ", there comes a glitter in my eyes and my heart fills with great pride for the world's best papa that I have. Ever since I remember, I have always seen the immense love and faith you have for me. I cherish every one of the moments that I spend with you everyday telling you about my day and my activities, ever since my childhood when I used to tell you the new words I learnt in school "fan", "yellow", to the time I used to talk to you about my IIT preparation, and later about my relationship with Gaurav, and now about my work and happy married life :). I thank God for such an understanding papa who has always been my best friend. I never had a moment when I had thought of hiding anything from you. I remember the secret confessions that I made to you for my childish mischiefs - remember the time when I got less marks in Maths, and modified the letters in marksheet for signature?? Now that is a laughable incident, b...