Good Will Hunting

When the tea brews hot, the wise man will triumph

Surya — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 19:43:35 +0000

It’s all happening out there in America.
Two years ago Barack Obama gave thundering promises about change. The rhetoric about change should have suggested that he was a closet socialist. Whatever notions one might have had about him being an uniting force have been shattered in the past 18 months. He has put America on a fast track to socialism. Now America is split wide open in the middle. While Democrats worship him as FDR’s second coming ( which he is ), Republicans deride him as America’s nemesis.
And there is the hot tea brewing underneath. The Tea Party movement is reshaping American political landscape. Almost a quarter of American electorate is now affliated to this right wing resurgence movement. The Tea Party is a mash up of a wide variety of right wingers ranging from outright libertarians to military supporting conservatives. But they are united in their love for small government and the liberty that comes with it. They fear that Obama’s policies are only going to destroy the American dream. All the Republicans are running behind the Tea Party to claim ownership. The Democrats are also running after them, hoping to find some excuse to silence the Tea partiers. It is accused of racial bias. But didn’t the Democrats insult all those who opposed Obama to be racially motivated?
And even the Tea Party movement is not the most radical force in American polity now. There is the one who must not be named. Ron Paul, the wise doctor from Texas has finally found his moment even as the mainstream media tries to hide his existence. Ron Paul is as libertarian as one could get. Take Reagan and add a lot more integrity, a lot more commitment to liberty and remove the militarism, you get Ron Paul. He has got the youngsters on fire everywhere. He is by far the most intelligent politician America has produced in a long long time. His integrity is beyond question. The only charge put against him by his opponents is that he is too libertarian and not administrative material. But that could precisely be his strength. He is untainted by the establishment. Even his own Republican party is uncomfortable with him. He has been consistent in all his positons ( Sound Money, non-interventionist foreign policy, federalism, small government, removal of all suffocating regulations on trade) since the 70s. For years he was the sole constitutionalist voice in America. Last year his End the Fed Bill pushed him into limelight. His common sense explanation of how the FED was actually to blame for the global financial crisis endeared him to the American youth. He is seen as honest as opposed to most other politicians who are embroiled in murky corporate deals. He is the only person who swears complete loyalty to American constitution’s ideals. If Reagan’s deregulatory measures could trigger the prosperous 80s and 90s, Ron Paul’s term would make America the paradise it promised to be originally.
And for the record I would proudly state that I knew of Ron Paul even way back in 2008 when he was mostly unheard of even in America. Today I proudly call Ron Paul. He is the force to reckon with in the 2012 elections. Today Mitt Romney is dismissing Ron Paul as a nobody. Sarah Palin is trying to win over his supporters. But opinion polls are showing a strong wind towards Ron’s direction. And Obama is watching too. If there is one person who can spoil Mr.Obama’s socialist vision for America, it is this wise doctor. And that is where hope lies for America and the rest of the free world. Way to go Doctor.

Do you remember the nineties?

Surya — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:10:57 +0000

When internet was just a hifi word
When terrorism was something only reporters covering Sri Nagar talked about
When we thought Rajni Kant becoming our CM was just a question of when
When Shaktimaan was the only super hero we had heard of besides the Phantom in the comics
When we found the very idea of listening to someone’s voice over the phone unbelievable and exciting
When our Computer supplier told us that the 256 MB RAM he supplied was cutting edge and we did not know what to do with the 20 GB hdd he gave us
When the postman still delivered us letters
When Doordarshan not satisfied with troubling us with life threateningly boring movies, forced us to watch an old man brushing his teeth with Vicco Vajradanti for the thousandth time in the day every few seconds of the movie.
When music meant AR Rahman
When cricket meant Sachin
When Jurassic Park made even our chaai master talk about Computer Graphics
When Microsoft was sadistic enough to inflict Windows 95 upon us
When people thought Maruti Omni was a cool car
When we were struggling to find a game other than Super Mario in the 999999 in 1 Video game cassette that our father bought us
When Pizza was something we saw only in the Hollywood movies
When Rambo and Rocky were the only Hollywood movies that were released in our sleepy towns
When America was still the land of opportunities and dreams
When BJP was the middle class party and Congress was considered corrupt
When the American President was busy screwing his secretary and not the whole world
When the idea that the seas would boil was a fantasy of a few crazy minds only
When people still valued freedom and were not crazy enough to implant a RFID chip in their bodies
When it seemed that there was no stopping the world from becoming a freer and happier place

I miss those years. I miss the excitement. There is a lot happening now too. But that hope is missing. The faith that every day would be better than the previous is gone

Asal – An ajith bonanza

Surya — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 09:51:05 +0000

Asal is a real treat for ajith fans. I watched the movie yesterday. The opening was one of the biggest I had ever seen. After all he is the king of openings. And this time, this opening will surely convert into something big like Billa, for Asal is a clean action flick. The screen play is squeaky clean, there are no loose ends and the pace is good.
The opening aerial shot of Paris is in itself stunning and sets the tone for the stylish entertainer. I will not divulge the story and spoil the fun but I should say the movie was definitely worth the fare ( which by the way was too high thanks to the huge opening ). When was the last time we saw a pure action flick? Movies like Jackie’s Police Story or Die Hard are not made anymore even in the west. So asal is really a fresh attempt in Tamil cinema. But of course you should not go there expecting a web of a storyline. The story is just enough to fit the stunning action sequences. If that is kept in mind, you can enjoy the movie well and fine. You have Ajith filling up every inch of the screen space. There are a lot of “Thala” dialogues. But again excuse it. It is for hardcore fans like us. And unlike other “mass” heroes, Thala doesn’t go about delivering lectures to reform us. I think his entire dialogues will fit within a single page, despite the fact that he comes in every scene. Ajith surely understands his strengths and weaknesses very well. He looks great and is fast in action scenes. He is also good in roles with a slight negative tinge. But he has never been good at delivering dialogues. The movie has been made with this in mind. Definitely he has contributed a lot in the making of the movie too. When his name comes up as a co-director and story writer, the theatre rocks. Ajith definitely has the makings of a good action director in him. He should take inspiration from Jackie. After all, he shares the same fearless spirit.

The other plus in the movie are the two heroines. One definitely did not expect Bhavana to look this glamourous. And Sameera is sizzling in her modern attire. But both don’t have much to do in this out and out ajith fare. Still the characters are laid out well.
One should also congratulate the makers for the picturisation of the songs. I was disappointed with the music when it was released. But I should say, when watched with the movie, the songs sound fun. “Totodoing” has been picturised well. Again the director has used the glamour factor shrewdly. Cinematography is another highlight of the movie. Apart from the fact that all locales are stunning, there were some truly ingenious shots, like the scene where Ajith’s shadow looms large over the villain, or the one where the smoke from his cigar announces the hero’s arrival.

Background score is jarring though. Yuvan had done a terrific job in Billa. It would have been better if Bhratwaj had atleast refrained from producing screaching noises everywhere .The other minus is Sampath’s character. A character like Ajith’s Shiva demands an equal match in his opponent. Sampath does not fit the bill. And this makes the climax somewhat a disappointment. A movie like Ghilli succeeded in equal measure due to Prakash Raj’s portrayal of the villain. Action movie makers must remember this.
Having said that Asal is definitely a wholesome entertainer. You will definitely enjoy it if you are not prejudiced against Ajith. I do not claim that he is a great actor. But he is definitely the most stylish hero around- a true heir to Rajni. He has charisma and his presence on screen is enough to trigger an adrenaline rush. So grab your popcorn and enjoy asal today.

A model for everything

Surya — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 07:37:24 +0000

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.

-Philip K. Dick

The academic community is fond of models. It is true that modeling is the only way to understand several complex phenomena. But I believe that a large part of enthusiasm for models is due to the fact that models permit unconstrained imagination unlike the real world which always comes up with new problems. The theorist who has had a sudden flash of insight hates to be told by the real world that the idea is impractical.

This is not a problem in physical sciences because, however convinced a theorist might be of his/her ideas, he/she has to corroborate it with solid experimental results for it to be accepted. We must be thankful to the early scientists for establishing this tradition of experimentation. This more than anything else has separated quarks from people of real substance. Because ultimately human imagination is unconstrained but the physical world is constrained and people want to live in the real world. So in physical sciences a model is just a convenient tool for finding the truth. It is not the truth itself.

But today, modeling is not limited to the physical sciences. In fact the biggest users of models today are Business leaders, Investment bankers , Economists and so many other ‘practical’ men. It is true that the economy has become too huge for decisions to be made solely on the basis of conventional wisdom. Models are of great practical value in predicting the outcomes of decisions of monumental importance. Whereas the utility of models cannot be questioned, we must not forget the fact that these are still just models and they cannot accurately represent the ever changing nature of reality. It is the failure to grasp this fact that has made the world seem so complex and unpredictable a place than it actually is.

The biggest casualty of this attempt to port a tool of physical sciences into the social realm is economics. It is not exactly clear why economists chose to use mathematical modeling as a tool for economic analysis. It is possible that this was partly motivated by a desire to show themselves as talented as their counterparts in physical sciences. Whatever the reason is, the world has suffered a lot due to this change of direction. Prior to the advent of modeling, the problems of economics were analysed on the basis of human actions. It was understood that the economy is only a sum total of individual actions. Hence it had to be understood only from the standpoint of human behavior. Mathematics and modeling had no place here. But this happy state of affairs was interrupted when a man named Keynes appeared on the scene. Like a pied piper he lured all students of economics away from the real world and into the imaginary world of unlimited money supply and the all encompassing benevolent state. What he preached was fundamentally no different from what Karl Marx had said a century ago. But the same people who recognized communism to be a disgusting idea, celebrated the Keynesian idea of big government. The irony is Keynes himself claimed to be a defender of capitalism and professed to hate socialism, while at the same time preaching ideas that contributed to making Socialism more popular than its proponents could have ever made it.

The biggest problem with Keynesian economics is that it tries to fit human behavior into its model. It assumes that actions of countless individuals can not only be modeled but can also be played around with. It is on the basis of this assumption, that governments and banks try to pump money in and out of the economy trying in vain to make people act the way they want them to. Any parent with a teenaged son/daughter would know that individual behaviour cannot be regulated without the individual’s consent. Parents who attempt to do that end up with rebellious kids who blame their parents for all their misery. The argument that the parents were motivated only by a desire for the children’s welfare is seldom bought by the children. If people who are so close and important to an individual, cannot predict or regulate an individual’s behaviour, how can government planners, sitting thousands of miles away in closed cabins expect to?

Today even physical sciences realise the limits of mathematical modeling. Todays research on artificial intelligence relies heavily upon Fuzzy logic, Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms. None of this is mathematical in its approach. The scientists have realised that a lot of phenomenon are distributed in nature and are hence inherently imprecise, unpredictable and more importantly constantly evolving in nature. So mathematics is just not the tool for the job.

If people must indeed model economic actions, I would suggest them to take a closer look around while driving their car on a busy morning. Every vehicle around you wants to squeeze the last inch of space available for it. The sole motive of every driver is to reach his/her destination in time. Most of the motives clash. I want to go straight. The car before me wants to take a turn etc. But still most of the people manage to attain their motives. How does this happen? Simple. We start with a few simple rules. Always drive on the left. Stop at signals. Keep at least a feet away from the vehicle at the front. Indicate before turning etc. As long as people stick to these rules everything is smooth. If someone violates, he/she is considered an offender and punished accordingly. So as long as the person next to you is sensible and acts in his/her own self interest, you too can safely reach your destination provided you too act in your own interest.

Now consider what would happen if were to apply mathematical modeling to the traffic regulation problem. Suppose the planners are too irritated by the delay caused by traffic jams. Rather than going for a strict implementation of the traffic rules, they decide to model traffic to prevent problems from happening it all. After all prevention is better than cure, right? So they develop an advanced system that would decide what kind of traffic flow is best for everyone. It averages out everyone’s motives and constraints and provides a fair deal for everyone. You get up in the morning and decide to take a ride to a nearby grocery. But the traffic that day is heavy. So the system calculates that every person should on average take 20 minutes to travel. So to discourage you from travelling in five minutes to the shop and in the process ‘steal’ 15 minutes from your fellow men, it taxes the 5 minute route. On another day, you are in a hurry to reach the hospital. So you want to use your car. But the system calculates that the load will be unmanageable that day and taxes every car that takes the road. If the planner is strict, it might even bar you from using car that day. After all every one has to share their troubles. What happens on a normal day? You have an on board display that tells you how much the system will tax you if you take a particular turn. The tax is directly proportional to the disturbance you will create to the regular traffic by making that turn. As long as people keep travelling straight along with the flow, no one has a problem right? But what about the place you want to reach? That is expendable because it cannot be fitted into the model. Ideal isn’t it? No more traffic jams. A world fair for everyone. I suggest to city planners to start working on this idea soon. They can get the best brains to create a model for them. I am good at mathematics. May be I’ll join too. Long live the brave new model, sorry world.

Taming the hadoop

Surya — Thu, 28 May 2009 08:24:53 +0000

I am presently working on Edge Node File System a massively scalable distributed file system developed by Prof. Janakiram and Mr. Kovendhan Ponnavaiko of IIT Madras. I am working on a Java implementation of the file system.

We are trying to compare the performance of our file system with other popular distributed file systems. Currently the hottest DFS is Hadoop ( http://hadoop.apache.org/core/ ). So I had to get a hadoop installation up and running. It took me a long while to sort out all the problems and get a fully running cluster. I am recording the steps I followed. Might spare someone a few hours of headache. However this is not a complete guide. Use it along with

1. After downloading the latest release of hadoop unpack it to a directory. Hadoop needs to be installed in the same path across all machines in the cluster. So choose a directory like /home/HadoopUser.
2.Hadoop has a namenode which will handle all the metadata. This is the master. There is another master – the jobtracker which handles computations. Both may or may not be on the same machine. I used the same machine for both.
3. Go to conf directory.
a.Edit JAVA_HOME attribute in hadoop-env.sh to your installed jdk path. Again ensure that this path is valid across all machines ie every machine should have jdk installed at the same path.Also specify the absolute path. It didn’t parse relative path properly for me.(JDK > 1.5)
b.Write the ip of the master(s) in the masters file. Only ip is enough. Don’t specify the username or the namenode port Eg:10.6.9.18.
c.Now in the slaves file write the ips of all slave machines (again ips only)
d.For version 20.0 and above:
conf directory contains the foll 3 files core-site.xml,hdfs-site.xml,mapred-site.xml. Open HADOOP_HOME/src/core/
core-default.xml,HADOOP_HOME/src/hdfs/hdfs-default.xml, HADOOP_HOME/src/mapred/mapred-default.xml. These are the default configuration files which should be over ridden by the 3 files in conf directory.

Copy the property fs.default.name from core-default.xml and paste within the configuration tags in core-site.xml. Now edit the value to hdfs:// Eg: hdfs://10.*.*.* The hdfs is the default uri scheme to be used in the dfs. (Setting this to file:/// causes the hdfs to read the machines local file system)

Copy the property mapred.job.tracker to mapred-site.xml and set the value to hdfs://: Eg: hdfs://10.*.*.*:50040 In the hadoop site it has been mentioned that this property should contains host:port pair. But including uri scheme is essential.

Optional: You can set dfs.replication to any value you want in hdfs-site.xml

For < version 20.0 conf directory has 2 files hadoop-default.xml and hadoop-site.xml. Do the changes mentioned above in hadoop-site.xml

4. Master uses ssh login to communicate with the slaves.So it needs pass phrase less login. For this generate a passphrase less ssh key

Do ssh-keygen -t rsa -P “” You will get a prompt asking you if to save this to .ssh/id_rsa . Let it. Now add this to .ssh/authorized_keys.

cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub >> .ssh/authorized_keys
Now try ssh HadoopUser@localhost. You must be able to login without a passwd prompt.
Now this ssh key should be copied to the authorized_keys of all slaves. I did this:
for entry in `cat ./hosts`;
do
ssh $entry;
done;
The file hosts should contain the list of username@ip of all slaves each on a new line. Eg HadoopUser@10.6.9.3
Executing the above script will continuously span the shells for you. Do this in each shell
scp hadoopUser@master:~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub ./
mkdir .ssh
cat id_rsa.pub >> .ssh/authorized_keys
Now try executing the first ssh login script. You must be logging in without any passwd.
Keep a multicopy.sh ready with you always for copying files from master to slaves
Eg:
for entry in `cat ./hosts`;
do
scp ./file $entry:~/ ;
done;
Note: In HADOOP_HOME/bin there is a script slaves.sh which runs the shell command specified as argument on all slaves. Though this work with other commands I had problems with scp command.
5. At namenode go to hadoop home and format the name node by running bin/hadoop namenode -format. You should get a message informing you of format details. Now run bin/start-dfs.sh. Go to jobtracker node and run bin/start-mapred.sh. If both are the same you can just run bin/start-all.sh. Now your installation is up. Check this by visiting localhost:50070 This is the web interface of you hadoop. Check the number of live nodes. If it is zero you have a problem with the configuration. If just the local data node is up connection is the problem Check for firewalls or other common causes. It is common for some datanodes to be dead. Check their logs to identify the problem.
If everything is fine you can go ahead and run hadoop commands on different nodes and check the consistency of file system.
bin/hadoop fs -mkdir test
bin/hadoop fs -ls
bin/hadoop -put
Run a few map reduce examples to test the job tracker
bin/hadoop jar hadoop-*-examples.jar pi 10 1000
Check the hadoop site for more examples and running details
When done do bin/stop-all.sh

5. You can add more slaves to an existing installation just by updating the slaves file in master. Copy the hadoop installation to slave using the script mentioned.Stop and start dfs again. Now a new datanode should be seen at localhost:50070.
If you decide that the system is inconsistent and needs to be started all over again. You can stop it and do a namenode format. But this will erase all dfs data. Also remember to erase the previous dfs data stored by default as /tmp/hadoopuser*. Do rm -rf /tmp/hadoopUser* on all slaves.

ECLIPSE MapReduce Plugin:

Eclipse has a plugin for hadoop which simplifies its management. Copy and paste the plugin HADOOP_HOME/contrib/eclipse-plugin/hadoop-0.20.0-eclipse-plugin.jar in the plugins directory of your eclipse installation. Now go to Window/Open Perspective/other and select Map/Reduce. You will see a new MapReduce console at bottom. Click on the elephant symbol at right end to create a new DFS location. In the box that opens specify the configuration parameters you specified in the conf files. Now go to Window/ShowView/other and click on MapReduce/MapReduce Locations. You get a sidebar DFSLocations. This is the DFS directory of the hadoop installation. Right click and it has all options to create a new directory/file, Upload or download files and directories.

Simulating Load:

Hadoop has also provided an excellent load simulator bundled with it. But for some reason they have provided only the source inside src/test. The files are under org/apache/hadoop/fs/loadGenerator. This is supposed to be the package path. So create a new Eclipse project and create a package org.apache.hadoop.fs.loadGenerator Copy the 3 files StructureGenerator.java, DataGenerator.java and LoadGenerator.java.(TestLoadGenerator uses a class MiniDFSCluster which is found nowhere). Create another driver class TestDriver. This should be the main class of the project. To create a driver class refer to ExampleDriver.java inside the src/examples folder.Now create a new Run configuration with this TestDriver and then create a runnable jar with this as its run configuration. Now we are ready. Copy this jar to your hadoop home as say, loadtest.jar. Call bin/hadoop jar loadtest.jar structuregenerator [args] (if structuregenerator was the user string defined by you in driver that should call StructureGenerator.class ). This would generate a directory structure and file structure. Then call DataGenerator and finally LoadGenerator. For various configuration parameters refer to http://hadoop.apache.org/core/docs/r0.20.0/SLG_user_guide.html

To Chennai With Love

Surya — Mon, 25 May 2009 06:03:05 +0000

It has been a year since I did some value addition to my blog. It is not that it has been an uneventful year. In fact, the year that went past was by far the best in my life. A lot has happened.
It has been a year since we shifted to Chennai. Chennai has taught me a lot. A timid guy who could not tell one street from another in that sleepy town can now find his way to any place in this big city. I have always loved Chennai ever since I came here first for a contest during school. We stayed in Triplicane and it was love at first sight. Today I feel wedded to this city and it has been a wonderful marriage so far.

Our house is right at the edge of the city. Anna Nagar West is the corporation limit and our house is just a few yards away, technically in Padi. Located at a junction of three busy streets you can hear vehicles 24X7. It is actually the meeting point of two ways of life. A short walk to the east would take me to Anna Nagar West, the Cosmopolitan face of Chennai. Window shopping HealthNGlow and HiStyle showrooms, contemplating entering Kaya SkinCare, dreaming about which car to buy first out of the infinite variety rushing past and occassionally being tempted enough to enter one of the several glass malls , this is India Shining in all it’s glory. But that’s one side of the story. The other is just a five minutes ride towards west. The chaotic bazaars of Padi where you can buy anything from a cell for you watch to a huge spring cot at a fraction of the cost at Anna Nagar West and all the while learn a few riding lessons on how to ride through a 15 inch space and avoid the policeman checking for License. Idhu Namma Madras. And I am fortunate enough to taste both flavours of Chennai in the same plate.

They say home is where you feel at home. In that sense Tuticorin was sadly never a home and Chennai feels like a bond from the past though we lived here last when I had barely begun to walk. The first month here was the most transformative. I was at home having failed to get a summer project to do. Every day I would board some random bus from Anna Nagar West Depot, just enjoy the sights and sounds of Chennai get down where it stops, spend some time at that place and return home. Sounds crazy? But that helped me get a feel of this big city and be confident enough even to guide people on streets in just a few month’s time. I was so confident that I took up the job of renovating our house in Ambattur where we had lived when I was a kid. It is a small house in an apartment said to be the first one built in Ambattur. But it is situated right on MTH road,the artillery of West Chennai. It was a tough experience. I had the invaluable help of Salaam Bhai, a family friend. I managed to get the house painted and refurnished all anew and a few months later even managed to get tenants. I can never forget those days where I had to walk and hike bike rides through a completely strange place and discuss the costs of paints and doors with complete strangers. Though tiring it was never frustrating. Down the years I feel this would be the one experience that I would pick as the one that made me a man.

Ambattur, Padi, Anna Nagar.. But that’s not the real Chennai I hear you say. Yes,Chennai’s heart is down south in the small lanes of Triplicane, in the ever crowded TNagar Usman Street and in the ever colourful College Road of Nungambakkam. It was this face of Chennai that I fell in love with while staying in Triplicane 4 years ago. Today I wonder if this is the same Usman Road I watched with awe struck wonder then. The fly over has sadly diminished it’s stature. But that doesn’t change the fact that it is still Chennai’s shopping capital. Weekend trips to Pondy Bazaar for shopping are both a joy and a pain. The shopping is a joy even with the sea of human faces flooding you. You can always steal a few glances at the “beautiful” ones out of them. The ride back home is a pain. The bus takes forever to leave T Nagar moving an inch at a time. Another popular weekend abode is ofcourse our very own Marina Beach. I still remember walking along Marina Beach gripping my father’s hands as a 6 year old. Then the walk seemed to take forever and the sands seemed to stretch to eternity. Even today Marina brings out that small kid and in me and everyone around. It is Chennai’s breath of fresh air. Chennai would not be what it is without Marina.

North Chennai though not as fanciful as its more pampered southern brother, is still exciting. Where else would you get the latest technical books just out of print in a second hand shop. I got a 2009 edition once in Moor market during December 2008. Bargaining is the life saving art here. When I first came to Burma bazaar I was amazed when people managed to get goods for almost a tenth of the starting price. Interestingly North Chennai looks more like Tuticorin with it’s British era buildings and somewhat deserted roads.The added attraction in going to North Chennai is the direct metro train connection. Though Padi doesn’t have a station and I `discovered` Korattur station by accident during one of my several explorations.

Spencer Plaza deserves a special mention. Entering Spencer Plaza was a nervous experience. You don’t want to do something awkward and be laughed at. I got the other love of my life, my acer Aspire 5920 here. Another experience I cannot forget is walking up and down the plaze searching for a suitable gift for Suren, with the clock ticking frantically for the night bus. I managed to settle down for a football shaped Mouse at LandMark eventually. Spencer definitely beats the more suave City Center hands down when it comes to shopping experience.
The post keeps getting longer and I keep getting many more interesting memories. Getting lost in the several avenues and lanes of Anna Nagar, going in the wrong direction from Ambattur station towards Avadi, getting down at the wrong stop and walking down the entire length of RK Salai from Mylapore to get to City Centre, hiding my incomplete knowledge of Mount Road from Naizath and managing to take him to Richie street, sitting in hot marina sand at noon just to kill time .. the list is endless.These days I am doing a project in IIT Madras which is a lovely place in itself. More of it in a different post.
The next year I will be busy with my quest for a job. There is a next to zero chance of my workplace being Chennai. Most probably I will be trying to get a feel of Bangalore or Hyderabad 12 months from here. Will Chennai recede from my memories and become just another city? Possible but not probable. They say that memories of first love stay with you forever. I will be in love with this lovely city always. If providence wills I might re-unite with my love somewhere down the lane. For now I am enjoying my date with her.

The Ten Commandments

Surya — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:23:42 +0000

It seems fashionable today to decry capitalism. People take it for granted that the current crisis is due to the system of free market itself. Why this is a false and dangerous accusation will be discussed in a latter post. I will just quote these lines I read somewhere.

You cannot bring prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
You cannot further brotherhood of men by inciting class hatred.
You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves

LINEAR INDUCTION MOTOR

Surya — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 08:45:16 +0000

A linear induction motor by its simplest definition is simply an induction motor with its stator rolled out flat open. It is not very difficult to construct and the working is quite easy to understand much like other induction machines. But constructing one on one’s own is indeed a valuable experience. It is a kinky feeling to see a a simple assembly of coils rolling on a track when supply is given to it.

We constructed a two pole linear induction motor for our laboratory project. While others were contented with designing just an induction motor we decided to go ahead and take the gamble. So did it pay off? The answer is both yes and no.

The first thing we had to do was to find out what a LIM really is. After a day of googling we had somewhat an idea of what we were going to do. It was during this period that we realised that a linear induction is not the same as magnetic levitation and our fantasies of creating our own miniature maglev train would not work out unless we were able to allocate a few crores for our project and obtain super-conducting magnets for the purpose. So our maglev died before it was born. But we still went ahead with the much less exotic idea of a motor running on wheels.

The next phase was the hunt for the raw materials. I say hunt because the city is an hours travel from our college. Every time we had to go there to get something. We would return and just as we neared the college someone would remember something that was missed. It was the fact that Ismail had a bike helped us not to lose our heads in this process.

The stator needs to be of laminated construction to minimise eddy current losses. But where would we go for a laminated core in this cursed place. So it was decided to use just a crude iron piece. The slots were made and our stator was made. We got the tracks, coils and everything ready in a span of two days. Now began the real fun!!

We decided to settle down for a two pole winding because it was the simplest and needed the minimum no of slots. It needed 9 slots. Actually it is analogous to a 6 slot 2 pole induction machine. The only difference being that the end slots are half-filled. The coils were wound, the track was laid out and we eagerly carried our machine to the lab. We gfave supply and as we expected the machine did not display even a stirring of life. Had Mr. Karthik Vel not been there our tryst with destiny would have ended there. But that man whom I hated so much during my lab sessions appeared like a savior. He was excited by our idea and came forward to help us. He suggested that we check for shorts which was the first thing we should have done. And lo there was a short everywhere. Our coil had been cut by the sharp edges of the stator. So we rewound the machine with proper precautions and ran it again eagerly. And it ran!

Our cute little vehicle moved slowly down the track. It is impossible to describe what I exactly felt that moment. Everything seemed bright and beautiful that evening. Then fate intervened. We decided to increase the number of turns and change the alignment of wheels with the intention of perfecting it. All changes were made and we were so confident that we didn’t even test the machine before the appointed day of the demo. And the D-Day arrived. Supply was given and our machine instead of moving attracted the magnet track and refused to move an inch. The hours that followed were terrible. We tried all sorts of changes and finally brought our set up to the original working version. Now the machine did move or shall I say tried to move. There were all sorts of problems. The bearings were worse than before now and the machine was attempting to turn. The iron piece had been permanently magnetised by repeated excitations. Thus our great experiment had a tragic end. We were left wondering what if we had just left the setup undisturbed after our first trial?

But it’s all in the game. If we had done so we would never have known what could have gone wrong with the machine. It is said that only the person who risks the greatest failure can attain the greatest victory.

Our lecturer is pleased with our attempt and wants us to improve on it. We are looking forward to the hunt again. But that will come later. Now it is time to prepare for my exams.

Should you see this?

Surya — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 05:54:54 +0000

I have requested nittians.com to include my blog in their site. Nittians.com is the aggregator of all blogs with nittian content in it.

I started blogging only because taking a pen and writing down a diary entry seemed to be too cumbersome a process. Moreover a diary gives you a false sense of security and you tend to blurt out things which you are bound to regret later when someone lays his hands upon your diary, the probability of which for a hosteler is astonishingly high as I found out to my embarrassment a few months back. So a blog is supposed to be a place where you vent your feelings out without losing your head in the process. This inturn means that my blog must have atleast a hint of visibility which at present it doesn’t .

So I have decided that everyone who might get interested in reading my blog should have a fair chance of doing so. So I am removing the monopoly of readership I had on this blog and am liberalising and globalising it.

(That was a dignified way of asking you to read my blog )

THE OTHER BOY

Surya — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 10:24:00 +0000

(This story I wrote for an online short story contest some time back. It was rusting in my old blog. I am reposting it here. A lot of my views have changed since I wrote this. Still it is my first (and only ) story. So I am troubling you with it.)

“Yes, I’m waiting here.. Yeah.. I’m ok.. But come soon.. Where are you?..Hello..”

The line went dead. The familiar voice of his mom was still alive inside . Outside the sounds were unfamiliar. The sound of footsteps. Not the happy footsteps of children running back home. But confused footsteps. Footsteps spreading out in all directions. He could hear a pair of legs runnning towards him. He came out of the school building.A father was grabbing his girl and running towards his car. There goes the last one he thought. Now he was all alone in this building. He could hear army sirens far away. He felt dizzy. He couldn’t make sense out of any of this.
It had all started just two days ago. His father told him that someone had written nasty things on the walls of their sacred shrine. It was believed to be one of “them”. That was indeed a bad thing to do. They deserved to be punished. That was what he thought first. Till it began to get scary. He had seen his neighbours packing things and leaving in a jeep that morning. They are one among the others Mom told. Now he couldn’t really understand what was other about them. But he was happy that he was not one of the others.
Later in the afternoon , the teacher announced in the class that school would close early that day and that the students would need to go straight home with their parents. No one was supposed to come out after that. “It’s a CURFEW” he said. Just as he opened the dictionary to find out what that meant, he heard a loud scream. He saw a group of boys running with sticks in their hand. One had a gun that he had seen only on tv.They were breaking into the bakery opposite his school. The baker was a nice man. Was he an other too?
All that seemed like years ago now.He had been watching his friends leave one by one. He felt like he could break down and cry any moment. Where was mom?
He thought he heard a sound.He was not alone. Who was that? It was then that he saw the boy sitting near the clock tower. He had not noticed him before. Was he waiting for someone too? So he had company. He felt a bit bold now. He seated himself on a bench facing the boy. The boy lifted his head for a while and then went back to play with some interesting thing he had in his hand.
In the minutes that followed not a single word was uttered there. Each found safety in the other’s presence. A safety only human eyes can give.
Then suddenly they heard footsteps. Not one but several. He ran and hid inside a classroom.The other boy was not to be found in his place . Three rough looking men entered the school. He hid behind a door and waited. They seemed to be waiting too. An army jeep passed by. The men left soon after. He came out after a few minutes. The other boy was back in his place already.
Another awkward silence followed. Then footsteps again. But single this time. A lady entered the school. Was it the boy’s mom? He hoped not. He did not want to be left alone again. The lady came straight towards them.
Thank God, the boy didn’t run towards her . She had not come for him. She went inside the school.
She returned alone after some time and sat down on a bench. He could hear her sobbing. She left after a while. After this every time he heard footsteps his heart would skip a beat.He would pray that it should be his mom. If it was not, he would then pray that it should not be the boy’s mom either. His first prayer was neglected and the second prayer answered three times. He told the last man that his son had gone with the teacher. He felt proud when the man smiled and thanked him.
The gate creaked . Footsteps again. This time he only prayed that it should not be for the boy.

It was not. It was for him. It was his mother. He ran into her arms.
As they walked towards their car he turned back to see the boy. The boy lifted his head for a while and then went back to the thing in his hand. He suddenly felt very sad. He asked his mom if they could take the boy home too. She thought for a while and then agreed.

As he walked towards the boy he felt heavy. Unable to look into his eyes he somehow manged to ask him “coming with me?”. The boy’s head made a slight movement. A small sway from side to side. He looked at the boy for a while and then tried to say something. Then suddenly there was a loud siren..
“It’s time… Let’s go.” “Just a minute. Mom..” ” He won’t come with us. See his dress. He is one of “them” “
There was siren again..
“It’s the army. We’ve to leave” He found himself inside the car. Through the window he could see the boy looking at him. He waved his hands. The boy waved his too. He watched him disappear out of sight.
As the car moved he saw a woman running towards the school.
He closed his eyes and prayed that it should be the boy’s mom.