Is this a Plot...Was Arab Spring also a Plot?

Did you see what that Kanhaiya and his lot were saying? Are they inclusive people? Are they not creating divides? And if you read this blog two years from now will you not be straining your brain trying to remember who Kanhaiya Kumar is?

If you fail to recollect here is the gist of the story... An event is held in Delhi's JNU campus. The attendees call Afzal Guru, a person who was hanged for his part in the Indian Parliament attack, as martyr. Media flashes this event all over. Police arrest the student leader there by the name of Kanhaiya Kumar. When this person is being presented to the court, the lawyers allegedly assault this man. Overnight this guy becomes a hero. He is released on bail, but the court gives him stern warning to watch what he says.

I feel strongly that this entire event which transpired was to a certain extent staged. Was it staged from day one or was it staged after it got the media attention, I do not know. KK seems to be heavily aligned to the communist parties who in turn are sympathetic towards China.

Then one night I am watching TV after a hard days toil, and I am watching Barkha Dutt interviewing some author. The author at one point says "In India we are on verge of a student revolution", or something to the same effect. And I am like...but why? And how do you know this sitting in US of A?

This somehow fills me up with doubts...are all these people being funded by somebody? Are these so called intelligentsia trying to create a fake plot to overthrow the democratically elected government?

And if this being done here then could not the Arab spring be similar?

Narendra Modi... Is he an expert in managing his profile?

In my career, I have met many a people whose external appearance and actions portray one thing and in real life are different.
First reaction of mine is that Mr. Narendra Modi may be a gentleman like one of them.
But at the same time, I hope that he is not one of them.

Maybe he did hold a fast, may be he did not. But did he say that he was holding the Navraatri fast? Or was it only the media picking up the issue?
His holding or not holding the fast does not make any difference to me or to the country.

His working for 21 hours a day does. Does he really sleep for only three hours? How does he comeback from US in the night, visit Gandhiji's memorial in the morning, followed by road sweeping, a swearing ceremony and a 1 Km walk?

The next day he is again on the radio talking to people. Whether he was live or not, I don't know. But his voice was very soothing and nice to hear.

I had decided to follow his footsteps. But then I realized that this was not my 'Swadharma' .

Anyways this gentleman is the most impressive prime-minister we have had in decades.
Feeling proud to be an Indian after a very long time!

From Optimization to God

I was in the process of debugging a code, when this thought hit upon me.

That human intelligence (i.e where we can predict certain thing based on our understanding) is definitely a process of optimization.

Let me explain:

I was working on a code in C. The code had some eight case statements in the switch. Understanding that some of the lines were common for all the cases I put them on top of the switch statement. This thing I must have done many times before, but I have correlated it with human intelligence for the first time

How?:

Again let me explain. Before Newton we thought that movement of earth and falling of apple had no correlation and thus there must have been fantastic theories for each of these aspects. Along came Newton and he "optimized" these two disparate facts and enhanced our knowledge.

So?:

So what? Don't you get it. As human intelligence develops we must be finding more and more facts that are essentially the same thing but manifested differently!

Soo?:

I mean c'mon, if we find that there is only one thing thing that is being manifested in all the different ways then we would have found it.

'it' what:

It is God!







Cheers!
Aditya

Two pieces of writings that struck me

Here are two quotes, from two very disparate sources which have struck me.
The first one is from the article in Indian Express Newspaper. The name of the author is Tridip Suhrud (I just love that name! It's got an edge!). The article is about Narendra Modi's upcoming fast. The author then compares his fast with that of Gandhi, who incidentally, was also from the same state. He also points out that when Gandhi conducted his fast not everybody was happy with the use of fasting as a 'tool'.
In this article, the author neither criticizes Narendra Modi, nor does he elevate him to a higher status.
In doing so, at one point the author integrates the politician, his actions, and the perception of the people of the actions of politicians, in one common fluid definition.  He puts in words a global phenomena which many have observed, but few of us could express.
Here is the quote:
"It is inevitable that some of his colleagues, his political opponents and critics would view his intention with suspicion. This inevitability arises out of the very grammar of politics. Simply put, all acts of a political person are political acts. As a political act, it becomes an instrumental act, an act that is false in the sense that it seeks to achieve something other than what is declared to be the purpose. As an instrumentality, the only ground of judging it would be in the future."
You could find the article here. Please read the article it is quite interesting.

The other quote is from the NASA Newsletter. I advise that every young boy/girl above the age of 12, should sign up for this newsletter.
The newsletter, which you can find here, is about NASA's Kepler mission finding a planet with two suns.
 The article, at the very end, presents the views of John Knoll, a Visual Effect Supervisor of distinct repute. The movie is mentioned here because it had in one of its features shown a planet with two Suns. The quote strikes me for it's eloquence.
Here is the quote:
"Working in film, we often are tasked with creating something never before seen," said visual effects supervisor John Knoll of Industrial Light & Magic, a division of Lucasfilm Ltd., in San Francisco. "However, more often than not, scientific discoveries prove to be more spectacular than anything we dare imagine. There is no doubt these discoveries influence and inspire storytellers. Their very existence serves as cause to dream bigger and open our minds to new possibilities beyond what we think we 'know.'"
Keep Dreaming!

Did I Not Tell You This Before?

I am the one having the last laugh!

Did I not tell you? You will feel let down at the end of this struggle! The same way as our freedom fighters felt after independence!

What was achieved? Most probably the only thing that you are left with is the extra knowledge that there is some thing called as "civil society". Whatever that may be!

Kejriwal, our young hero has been criticized for delaying Anna from breaking his fast because of his long speech.

Kiran Bedi, the former top cop, has been criticized for her loose tongue.

Swami Agniwesh is being called as a traitor, wheeler-dealer, middle man and what not!

And what was that with a dalit and muslim girl on dais with Anna to give him coconut water. Was that not theatrics? Was it necessary?

Parliament is going to sit on the new bill for next umpteen years.

And if you think Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley are on your side, then trust me they are not. Both are supreme court lawyers. They are SUPER TRAINED liars. Much in the league of Kapil Sibbal.

So don't waste your time.

The solution is not going to be in changing the system. The solution is in changing your self. Think micro you will achieve the macro!

If you are feeling angry because you feel cheated, forget it. You will face this anger again and again and again and again.

Anna is a good guy! He is 74+. He was hungry for 10+ days. My head hurts if I skip my lunch! But do not look at him as the hero you want him to be. Don't think of him as Gandhi. Gandhi could get away with a million things (read his "Experiments with Truth"). If Anna is anything less than a saint then he will be crucified by the media.

Patience is the key! Things will improve. But remember, every body will have to do his/her part!

There is no savior around. And most likely there won't be one for next so many years!

Keep the flame burning!! (Just joking! Kill it. Don't add to the green house gases!)

The Anna questions

Anna Hazare is the theme for the day,maybe the week, or may be the month! But will it last beyond that. Should people like me join this "struggle"?
Or is it just another problem or a glitch which Indian politicians will overcome in next few days and continue to run amok as they have done for so many days?
Will we be left in the lurch as we have been by so many groups?
Will Anna, 15 years down the line say that he was sorry for the actions he is doing now, like BJP now says to it's muslim voters for Babri Masjid?
Will we believe that we are going to change everything and end up with no changes? Did my parents not feel when VHP used to come to their doorstep and tell them that they were going to create a "hindu rashtra"?
Will the gandhi topi guys tomorrow stop paying money at the toll nakas, by merely pointing to their caps?
Will Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi, stand by Anna or will they start on a parallel track once they achieve their targets? Didn't Nehru do this?
Will this put another family as the pseudo royal family of Indian politics?
Will students, employees, and many others use this as an excuse for not working?
Will this lead to an organization which will be so powerful that it will convert our pseudo- democracy to an Autocratic state?
There are so many questions in my mind! I am one of those guys who is on the sideline waiting and watching.
How long will I wait?

It's a FREE world...Atleast for Engineers

Hi All!

There are some really high quality free softwares which are flooding the Internet. I have come across a few of them and I wanted to share them with you.

Richard Stallman, who pioneered the Free Software movement will not be all that ecstatic though. The way he had envisaged the movement was that there will be some geek (it's not a insult in their community!) writing some software, others would like it, and of that some would  start contributing. The software would then continue to develop for eternity.

Successful software needs two things to be developed: Direction and Man hours.

You could have a bunch of trained sailors but you still need a captain to steer the ship. Same is the case with the software. The best example of this leadership, currently, of course is Steve Jobs. The Free software movement is guided by some very able captains no doubt. So this is not the problem for FSF.

But for a long sail you also need fuel. The man hours put in the right time in the right amount can lead to a fast software. A Fast software is one which is continuously being upgraded, is easy to upgrade and is conscientiously moving towards a fixed goal.

This unfortunately is not one of the very strong points of the FSF. It is not their fault it is the lacuna of human nature. You always need somebody to crack a whip or set a deadline. This makes you stop talking and start working.

 Here, I guess, Mr. Stallman will be disappointed. In the sense that what the new trend seems to be is that the large companies in very diverse fields are encouraging the free softwares. These companies may also have some associated commercial interests. If there are, then I am not yet aware of them. If you find any please feel free to inform.

The two softwares which fall in this category are both CAD softwares. One specifically for electronics and the other primarily for Mechanical drafting.

EAGLE:This software has been around for years. I had tried it out way back and had given up on it because it was not as intuitive as PADS. It still is not. But it is FREE! It is in its own respect a very good software no doubt. It has some features like error detection which were at a time way ahead of their time. The problem still persists with it that it is not that intuitive. I mean picking up ground symbol from part list is a horrifying thought for a PADS user. Now you can expect a lot more from this software because it has been taken under the wings of the behemoth Farnell. Check out their website and you will realize their size and might. If you have not tried this software out I suggest that you do (mostly applies to electronics engineers!!). Even if you have another software you have bought (or cracked!!!).

Draft Sight: This one is great! It is very much like Autocad. Now before you start believing every word I say, let me tell you that I am an electronics engineer. I have tried my hand on using Autocad from time to time and have always ended up in a cul-de-sac! This software is a LOT more user friendly than Autocad 2004. If you don't want to take my word for it ( and you should not!!!) then you should read Ricky Jordan's blog. I don't know this guy but he seems well informed! (and also he has put in more efforts to make his blog more interesting!) This software comes from Dassault Systemes, who well own the brands Solidworks and CATIA. They have the motto: " 3d for all!". So they have given the 2d software for free! Get the logic. I don't. I don't even understand the commercial angle behind it! But then I am dumb!

Another software which you can look at is Gnu Octave. Mr. Stallman will definitely have nothing to crib about here! It is a scripting language and is considered as an equivalent tool for Matlab. I have never used Matlab so you know how much to trust the previous statement.

Another thing is the GNU C compiler for MSP430. Commonly known as MSP-GCC. It also is an example of the FSF and MNC interaction. TI supports and promotes the software.

Now let me come to some more interesting things on the net:

First let me share a youtube video with you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&hl=en-GB&v=Gc4HGQHgeFE

And I am very sure that most of you will not come back after seeing that video, but is it not a pain in the you know what if you have to share the above mentioned link! Well tinyurl is to your rescue! I converted the long name above to just: http://tinyurl.com/inspirierenden (BTW:  inspirierenden means inspirational in German!). A word of caution here: if you get a mail from your bank who has the website address as tinurl.com/xxxxx, then please be ware that you could fall prey to phishing! 

Before I leave you I would like to change your homepage to the following site:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

More commonly known as APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day), this site has been running for more than a decade. It has an astronomy picture which is updated daily. One should visit their archive section to see some of their gems. This is also an example of government money being well spent!

Do also visit my site: www. indiaadityanetworks.com

I hope you like this blog. Dont forget to leave a message. I love hearing from people, especially if they are not asking for money!

 

 

Communication is Everything! Part 1: Keep Talking

... And everything is communication.

This blog has been in the blogger drafts section for eternity.  I decided to bring it out today and publish it.

I will keep it short and simple.
 Keep Talking: If you love somebody, if you value somebody, then talk to them. In many cases you will find that they were always ready to listen it was you who were switching them off. These are the common excuses that I find for not communicating:
a. I am tired: If this communication is with your spouse, kids, parents and you are too tired to talk to them then  first of all evaluate why you are tired. Is it because you are working too hard? Then ask why are you working too hard. There is a very very very good chance that you are too disorganized. Get a grip of your life and modify your lifestyle.
b. I am busy: Many people are there but they are not there. I am sometimes home but am thinking about some work in the office. Sometimes my wife is calling me but I am too engrossed in reading the newspaper, magazine or a book. When you want to communicate, you have to tell yourself that very thing a thousand times over in your head " I want to communicate!!!". This will help you realize that your loved one has opened a channel for communication and you should pick it up. It is not necessary that every communication should last a eternity or you should chat throughout the night and loose track of the time. The essential thing is that you should be able to understand what your loved one is thinking, what is going on in their mind, what are their current priorities. If  you are able to gauge them future communications will be easier to start.
c. I am in difficult situation elsewhere: I don't have time for this: Remember if you are in a difficult situation, your loved ones are the biggest asset. When everything is going against you they may be the only people there to support you. So do not be a wastrel and dump this asset. In the difficult times this communication may also lend you some mental comfort which may help you get out of the mess you are in faster.

Remember when you say that something else is more important for me and I can talk to you later, is received as "You are not important for me and I will talk to you when I get time." Would you like that kind of insult yourself?


Do visit my company website at www.indiaadityanetworks.com, if you have anything related to electronics or engineering.

The problem of Unique Records

Hi All!

with 40 visits in nearly one year, and to add insult to injury, most of them have been by me, there is very little one can say about 'All'.

We ran into a very different problem recently. We have an application on a vehicle from which we are extracting the data using a hand-held device. The hand-held device communicates with the truck mounted device using RS-485 communication protocol.

The hand-held device is then brought to the computer where it transfers the data to the computer using USB port. 

The hand-held device has some issues. In the sense that there is a chance that it can send the same data to the computer multiple times. 

The computer software is a VC++ application connecting to Access database using ODBC. We decided to remove the multiple records from the database by running the following queries on the database:

Step 1:

All the records reside in the table Consumption.

We created a table to hold some data temporarily by name of CMPNTMP2. 

We deleted all the records in the table using the query command:

DELETE * FROM CMPNTMP2

Step 2:

Next we selected all the distinct records from the main consumption database and copied them to the temporary CMPNTMP2 table using following query:

INSERT INTO CMPNTMP2 SELECT DISTINCT * FROM CONSUMPTION

Step 3:

Then we deleted all the records in the consumption table:

DELETE * FROM CONSUMPTION 

Step 4:

And finally we copied all the records in the CMPNTMP2 table to CONSUMPTION Table:

INSERT INTO CONSUMPTION SELECT * FROM CMPNTMP2

And Wallah! we had all the unique records!!!

Do visit our site: www.indiaadityanetworks.com to see what we do!

Do drop in a message or two, that will keep us going

Another Site Problem related to Inductors

Last time I mentioned about the computer software issue on a site. Well this time I had a hardware issue. And what an issue it was! My installations have climbed up from 10 units a month back to some 25 units now. All were running perfectly. My site engineer was ready to sign the MOM and come back. This is when a unit suddenly blanked out. Within next couple of hours another 4 such units had a similar problem.
Opening of the enclosure revealed that the inductor close to the power supply had blackened. The units are powered on 12 V DC. There are 2 supplies internally one of 5Vand other of 3.3V. The engineer measured the regulated voltages but found no 5V and 3.3V. There was not much he could do there so he sent all the problematic units by courier back to Pune.
At the lab we powered up the units and found that the inductors had burnt off. Our currents were 300mA @ 5V and 250mA @ 3.3V.
We are using LM2574-ADJ as the switch mode regulator. The switching frequency of 2574 is 52KHz.
The inductors which we were using were in a 'half watt through hole resistor' package. We ordered the ferrite core inductors for the same from our local x'mer manufacturer. Our units started working on them without any issues.
Since we wanted to be doubly sure that everything was working well we tested the units at 40V.
Old inductors invariably failed at this voltage but the new ones never did.
Another interesting thing that we noted was that when the old inductors when failed they had their lead would loosen up.
We have sent the modified PCB's to the site. I will inform if we develop any new problems.

Timecore Software issue

Mine is a electronic systems design and development company. We develop customized instruments. 

We have developed a instrument which monitors the vehicle fleet. One of the functions is that it logs the vehicle start time and vehicle stop time. This data is first downloaded from the vehicle to a handheld device and from there it is transferred to the computer.
On computer we have a VC++ MFC application running. Everything was running fine for nearly a month and we were getting all the data correctly.
Suddenly we started getting error: "Debug Assertion Failed. File Timecore.cpp Line 40"
On opening the Timecore file, I found this data:
CTime::CTime(int nYear, int nMonth, int nDay, int nHour, int nMin, int nSec, int nDST){
struct tm atm; atm.tm_sec = nSec;
atm.tm_min = nMin;
atm.tm_hour = nHour;
ASSERT(nDay >= 1 && nDay <= 31);
atm.tm_mday = nDay;
ASSERT(nMonth >= 1 && nMonth <= 12);
atm.tm_mon = nMonth - 1; // tm_mon is 0 based ASSERT(nYear >= 1900);
atm.tm_year = nYear - 1900; // tm_year is 1900 based
atm.tm_isdst = nDST;
m_time = mktime(&atm);
ASSERT(m_time != -1); // indicates an illegal input time
}
The text in blue is the text that is on line 40.
The engineer is in Vizag and top honcho of the customer is visiting site tomorrow. Effectively this put our balls in the compression mode. (We are based in Pune)
Since the error is in the initialization of CTime we thought that we had not init the declaration correctly. But the check up that followed revealed that there was no mistake on our side.

Further enquiries from the site revealed that one of the units from had its RTC (real time clock) programmed to year as 2063.
I initially ignored this because the CTime documentation said that
"The upper date limit is 12/31/3000. The lower limit is 1/1/1970 12:00:00 AM GMT."
source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/78zb0ese(VS.80).aspx
2063 falls well within the limit.
A possible pitfall here could have been that I am using VC++ 6.0 and the documentation could be for the current version.
I kept doing what every good engineer does when he does'nt have a solution. I kept googling. Nothing came up. Out of desperation I clicked on Translate the Page next to:
http://topic.csdn.net/t/20041214/16/3644707.html
What a useful thing that was. I came to know that CTime Line 40 uses the mktime function which can handle year upto 2038 only. Problem solved.
Technology is a great thing. It helps us solve all the problems that we created with the earlier technology.

Barack and Us

This is the day after Barack was sworn in. This is also the day after when my grandmother sat up late to see the swearing in ceremony. This is also the day after when my father called my sister (who's in US of A) to know whether she was watching the ceremony. This is also the day after when my mother understood the meaning of 'The First Lady' and that it is not a post.

This is also the day after, when I am hopeful. I am hopeful that this man will bring in the change.
The inaugural speech, we hope, is a reflection of the man's personality and also of his intentions. We hope that God gives him the strength to implement what he says.

The part of the speech that struck me most was:
"Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America — they will be met."

Hoping that the speech was drafted by Obama himself, I feel that this man is a realist.
He sees the problems and puts them across to the people. He also informs them that the solutions are not going to be simple or fast. At the same time he inspires them by saying "we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America."

He has to now prove himself by his actions.

We as Indians hope that Obama does what he says. That he calls a spade a spade. He does not expect us that we "forgive" Pakistan. (Personally I feel that Rice made a very stupid statement especially when she knew that she would be out of the office the next day). We hope that he continues his war against terror. He helps Afganistan to rebuild itself. We hope that he does not alienate the Muslims in general. We hope that he does not help Israel with it's overt agressions and supressions.
I personally hope to him that his personal life is not affected. That he changes the US policies against Cuba and ends their alienation. That he invests a lot in Space programs and gives the world and the scientists the opportunities to create new technologies.
I hope that the hope that he has given us and energized us also gives him the strength.
To do better.