kanth

A must read for all those applying to grad school

2005-09-03T00:33:23Z

This link <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~harchol/gradschooltalk.pdf> has some very nice information on applying to grad schools. Especially the portions on what admission committees generally look for while evaluating applicants. Also, I found this paragraph very striking...

"Student X comes from famous school Y in country Z, where he was ranked 5th out of over hundreds of thousands of students. He was also ranked #1 in his class for the year in terms of GPA. The student comes to graduate school expecting to be the best and starts working very hard on research. By the end of his first or second year, the student realizes that he has not yet published any papers. His friends and family from home start asking what's wrong with him. He feels frustrated and ashamed. He blames his advisor, he blames his department, he blames his school. Finally, he grows up and accepts the fact that maybe he's not the best, but he can still do well if he works hard. He starts listening better, works harder, and ends up quite successful."

I would not be able to explain this any better. :-)

I wish all schools were as candid as to what they expect. In fact a book titled "Demystifying Grad School Admissions" is long over due, from a sure to be popular author.

Me in RGB

2005-09-02T16:13:19Z

A link to some of my old and new pictures here... time flies TM!

What ever there is worth learning, cannot be taught?

2005-07-11T00:13:42Z

Almost any knowledge now a days can be found in some non-human form; such as books, internet, electronic media et al. Then why do we need schools, teachers, etc.? One might argue, to help deal with the vast amounts of data... but can't there be books on that too, an anthology perhaps! Then what about answering specific or complex queries? Well, will a search engine of the next decade, solve this too...???

With the advent of new learning techniques, combined with the change in information dissemination styles, especially those which are electronic in form, what does tomorrow hold? With the so many self trained, internet bred technologists aka hackers, this only seems inevitable.

I hope there is more to it, the "human touch" as they say! Currently, my thoughts on this are but vague, will a more enlightened soul throw some light on this?

kanth @ 2005-07-09T09:37:00

2005-07-09T16:38:37Z

"If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth."

- Joseph Goebbels, Minister for Propaganda in Nazi Germany

This is how most things work now a days. From company marketing to politics. *Analysis* and rhetoric out weigh facts and thought. Are we just so lazy that we can't think for ourselves?

Greatest discovery of our age

2005-07-08T19:11:29Z

"The greatest discovery of our age is that man by changing the inner aspects of his thinking can change the outer aspect of his life."

-- Prof.William James, Harvard University.

Being a generalist

2005-06-16T01:02:24Z

Sentences with the word "specialist" and it various forms have become a cliche. So, I wonder, what about this word is the cause of it's popularity? And the next stream of thought would be, what is the opposite of this word? Generalist, unsophisticated, naive... etc. and I can argue why each one of these could be the most appropriate (no flame bait!!!).

From the subject of this post, you would have guessed, it is the word "generalist" which I am more interested in discussing. By the very nature of human systems, as people proceed to gather more and more knowledge, they have wanted to _specialize_ in something or the other. And I contemplate, for what reason? And is that the *right* thing to do?

May be it is obvious, people do think that as one gathers more knowledge (which *may* lead to wisdom) is bound to become a specialist. This could be a conscious effort, and at times is just circumstantial. Here is where the educational system comes into the picture! Any graduate study is bound to specialize, in other words, narrow down into a specific area. But I also think, that being a specialist is just an extension of knowing some subject, which people think as natural. And may be, since doing this is such an easy task, has been glorified. However, it won't take long before one realizes it, and is disillusioned, being a generalist is more difficult!!!

Now, let me tell you why I think so. Let's start this way, did you ever try cooking? If you did you know it is tough, and for one is not trivial. Did you ever try a field entirely different from yours, wonder why it's so difficult? So, everyone knows, I am an engineer, and I love what I do. But now the question ringing in my head is, am I better off being a specialist, developing on my engineering skills and doing better or be more than that, that is actually be a GENERALIST. The industry stars, as we refer to them, the tech gurus, have all been more than just engineers/scientists extraordinaire! They were visionaries, a skill which is perhaps something no school can teach us.

The next obvious question would be, and how exactly do we define this generalist, in contrast to a rather intuitive definition which may be given to specialist. Is a casual observer, a generalist too? And how exactly does one become a generalist? I know, I have too many questions, very little analysis and too much of ranting here! But hey, I am an engineer, and this is our birth right. :D

"Jack of all, master of NONE", "Jack of all, master of ONE"? and just "Master of ONE"? Is the last one what we do in school, at work, in life? Is being a master of nothing better, or master one and still good at everything else better (which is horrendously ambitious)?

Thoughts please...

Mera naya webpage

2005-02-09T19:03:30Z

Hey, I finally got some html going, and here is my new homepage <http://www.crhc.uiuc.edu/~cchered2/>. Comments invited (better be positive). :p

Now that I am back

2005-01-21T04:23:50Z

Hey, people, now that I am back, and that I could not update my journal from India, I once again start after cursing my laziness. I went to India last year and came back after Sankranthi this year. ;) It was great, infact something which I can't explain in words. I am sure many people would have experienced the same thing, when they go back home after moving out for the first time in life.

This trip was infact quite a memorable one for me. First, there was a pleasant surpise with me winning the Best Student of CSE award from my department, though I am still to get my cheque ;). Next, was that my dad got promoted. All in all a very great year 2004. And so I welcome 2005 and wait to see what's in store for me.

And BTW, before I forget, I made it to my first ever LJ meet on the 15th this month at Barista, B. Hills, more can be found in the cyberabad community LJ...

First semester is ending

2004-12-06T00:54:39Z

I just can't believe it has already been one semester since I came to the USA. In exactly 2 weeks from now we are done with the semester. Yes, it has been very hectic, I learn't a lot in technology, writing skills, experimentation techniques, etc. But, the most important thing that I learn't is about life itself. Makes me reliase how happy I was back in India, and what people here miss in life. Yes, these are amazing universities, with great achievements, but finally is that essence of life, makes me wonder?

Now, before I get back to the rhetoric, I also visited California (Sunnyvale) last before week for the thanks giving. The Valley is an amazing experience, you see all the big names you have heard in the computing industry, and best of all it feels like home with so many Indians around (though some people hate this very fact). As expected I went to Fry's electronics for the black friday sale, it was a lot of fun, and in the store, to my surprise, I met one of my seniors from under grad (she too was very surprised to see me). Later, in OfficeMax I met another of my class mates from high school! Finally in walmart I met one of my friends from India!!! These incidents made me wonder, is the whole of Hyderabad somehow magically in the Valley now?

I also went and saw the campuses of Stanford and Berkeley. Stanford as expected was very neat and classy, but somehow I really loved the Berkeley campus. However, no chance of getting into UCB now, cause I don't have any plans of getting a PhD. :-(

Coming back to UIUC, one of my courses, I think I will do ok, I am a bit tensed about the other course. This other course, we took a project which was kinda tough and we ended up with an almost negative result, I am not sure if we will come up with something interesting in the next few days. Anyways, I think grades don't matter too much for companies here, they care more about how much you know in whatever field you choose to apply for a job, This is something which is very striking about USA, they expect you to already know a lot in the area in which you are applying for a job. Where as in India, companies know that univ students are unaware of industry technologies, and don't really test them in that direction.

Anyways, since I am going back to India for the winter break, I will try and update my journal once again from there...

First post from USA

2004-11-22T08:29:37Z

Well, as again, me and my laziness, I never cared to update my journal after coming to the USA. I am here in Champaign, IL, a five min walk from where the first ever graphical browser was created, the apache webserver, and the most important of all, inspired the man who created the LED. I have a crappy apartment (I know, I whine a lot), but an amazing Univ, so no complains there.

After landing in the UIUC campus life just went berserk, I did not know what was happening, I never felt I was in control. Only off late, I seem to understand how to get things back under control. As it is said, the first move away from the luxury of home is never easy. First was the confusion caused by all the procedures required here, they are long and very time consuming. Then was the problem of searching for an apartment, and as I already mentioned, my search did not have a very good result :D. While all this kept me occupied, the most important thing which I had to handle (the very reason I came here so early), was to find some kinda assistantship. One thing about UIUC is that there is a lot of funding, but most of it is already offered, and finding something just before the semester starts is kinda tough. And so started a wild search. After a lot of searching, my linux skills came to the rescue, and I interviewed for a position as an admin (networks & systems), which is still an "assistantship", which means my fee will be completely waived. But the problem was that they expected I would stick to the job for 2 years (an year atleast), but I always wanted to get some kinda research assistantship (which is a naturally better choice).

Now, the very next day after I got this admin job offer, I met an Indian student outside the international affairs building, and he casually mentioned that he would be interviewing with some prof, and that he was not very interested in the position. On further inquiry, he told me that it was Prof. Nitin Vaidya he would be meeting. Amongst all the possibilities, I wanted to work with Prof. Vaidya very badly. It so happened that I once contacted Prof. Vaidya from India, but then he did not have any RA positions open. This information was enough to guess that he had some last min position come up. I then sent him an email the next day asking him if he had an RA position, and he asked me to come down for an interview. After interviewing me in the morning, he asked me to get back to him by late afternoon, and by then he would have decided whether to hire me or not. I left his office in a tensed state of mind, obviously, I wanted this offer very badly. Later until 3 PM that day I did not have email access, since Prof. Vaidya asked me to check back only at about some time like 4 PM, I too it easy. At 3PM, I checked my email, and yes there was an email from him, asking me to come down and see him. I went back to his office with mixed feelings of positive anticipation and doubt. Finally, he made me an offer, which I readily accepted (who wouldn't).

Since then, my RA work has been very pleasurable, and I would say Prof. Vaidya is an amazing adviser, and I should be amongst the luckiest on the face of this planet to be working with him. He is very understanding and supportive, which are the most important things you expect from your adviser in grad school.

Courses, some are pure ecstasy of knowledge, and some are a drag, but on the whole, they are very enriching. I have been having a few problems with one course taking away most of the very little free time. As far as social life is concerned, I made some very nice friends, they are helpful beyond my wildest imagination (No kidding!!!), though my only complain would be that you barely have time for flirting ;-). Running the daily house hold chores and cooking is very painful, and I am still of the opinion that they are a waste of my time. The effect of this negligence has been that I lost 7 kilos of body mass, I miss biryani!!!. :D

I am also taking a break this winter, and coming to good old Hyd by the 21st of Dec, only to get back on the 17th of Jan. There are many more things I can write about, many great experiences, but I will save some for later...

Life's so uncertain

2004-06-26T03:41:00Z

It's been eons since I posted, and I know this is quite unlike many of the LJers. Anyway, it's not long before I reach the borders of USA. I am flying on the 31st July from Hyd to reach Mumbai and then on the 1st August I should catch the 9 AM Air India flight to Chicago. From there it's to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where I will spend most of my time for the coming 2 years.

But looking at how things are now, life seems to be quite uncertain, I am unsure about how I will do there (this is the first time I will be away from home), and also keeping in mind that UIUC is a top Univ. with loads and loads of competition. I am unsure, if I will get any funding (again too much competition). I am unsure if I will get what I want since I am now going to the Electrical & Computer Engineering Department, while I was in Computer Science & Engineering here. And to top it all, I am even more uncertain if I will get any internship, as to what I will do and where I will be after my MS. Should I continue for a PhD or say good bye to technical education with an MS. And sincerely, I wish I knew !!!

Perhaps some of the more enlightened of people out there will have some insights to offer. Without boring you guys further, I better sign off now...

Capital Markets crash

2004-05-17T11:16:57Z

Once again, thanx to the Sonia bitch and the CPI #!%!#@% , Capital Markets crashed. The so called government organisations (LIC, UTI...) had to kick in to save the day, they bought, bought heavily, but selling from FIIs and retail invertors was also very heavy. After an intra day dip of almost 800, points the BSE finally closed with a 560 point drop.

Soon, I expect a lot of economic hard ship this time caused because of many silly decisions to be taken by the central Sonia lead "United Regressive Alliance".

I do understand that the markets are based on sentiments and they always over react. But this kind of a drop, somehow, I feel is more than an over reaction. I am sure the CPI would say that this is because of some rightist cartals, but as usual they are fools of the first kind, and have no logic in what they speak, as if communalism itself were logical :)) !!!

I just hope that Manmohan Singh rubs more of his 1990 magic into the present economy, I would have been happy had he been the prime minister, unfortunately, I don't see that happening, thanks to the Nehru family plague. And if Manmohan fails, we are in for another south asian crisis, this time headed by India, curtosy the "United Regressive Alliance".

Can't belive that Sonia will be PM

2004-05-15T20:45:38Z

I just can't digest the fact that Sonia will be the PM of India soon. I just can't understand why the people of India are so passive (me included) and don't do anything about it (other than crib in LJ like this). Damn we could not find a PM for our country from the 100+ billion possibilites we have.

If anarchy mean't the rule of a family with the power being inherited, I don't see any difference between that and the today's Congress Political Party of India. I have to admit one thing though, after so many years of slavery and being ruled by kings, we are unable to let such practices die completely, can we ?

And the only qualification that is required for the futures PM's is, she should be wife (k**p's included and given special reservation) of a "neta" and she is all set.

been a long time since I updated my journal

2004-02-08T08:47:07Z

After a long project with my dad, now I am free again. For the past 2 weeks I was with the police dept. working to resolve some data related issues and ofcourse using computers to help do that. Finally, I am done, and now it is time to get back to my normal routine.

Another recent development is that, I will be working with CMC on their firewall development project, which most probably will be final sem proj.

There is a lot more to write, but to put a month's long events in one post is kinda silly... Until next time, bye.

been a while!!!

2004-01-26T04:05:25Z

It's been a while since I have updated my journal. The reason's for which I will update at a later stage when I am in a _position_ to do so... Heheh.. Bye for now.

Nothing much

2004-01-08T18:25:34Z

Haven't been doing much since a few days now. So, nothing much to write about in my journal. All I gotta do now is mail all the Univ's about my applications, to check if they got it or not. One more important thing for tomorrow is that I will be off to CMC to meet Mr Rawat, expecting something positive. Shall write more about it tomorrow. Before the day closes here comes my entry...

Finally I am done

2004-01-06T11:11:32Z

Finally I am done with the application process, now I gotta wait and see where I would be in 8 months from now, positive. The process is very tedious, but inevitable, so no regrets. I am happy that it has come to an end, unless the Univ's need more documents, I wish that doesn't happen. With all this experience I somehow feel that I can setup a consultancy :-), where's my business man hat ;-). BFN.

Welcome 2004!

2004-01-01T16:51:38Z

First of all, Happy New Year to all of you reading this.

2003 was a pretty good for me, I am sure 2004 will be better. 2004 should be the most exciting year for me after a 8 year wait (people who know me should smell what I am referring to), it will be the year which will define my next 10 years of life. 2004 here I come :-) ...

Quite a few unexpected happenings

2003-12-30T17:53:25Z

Today I went all the way to JNTU, Kukatpally only to find out that the scheduled talk by Prof.Venu was cancelled, this virtually ate up the whole of my morning. This made me even more lathargic & I slept the whole afternoon until 6:30 PM :D. At 7 we suddenly thought of going out for dinner with some of our family friends, just back from the Green Park restaurant and updating my journal. ZZZ... until tomorrow.

Some progress finally.

2003-12-29T17:21:31Z

Finally, my process of getting recommendations for admission is complete, atlast this major hurdle was overcome today. Later in the day I was pleasantly surprised when I ran into Dr.Chacks of UOHYD, at a place where I was least expected (Infact his first reaction was "Hi, What !!! are you doing here ?!"). He agreed in principle to talk on Font development at the next LUG meet (Jan 31 '04), based on what our members have to say, we can finalize this. I also went out to do some shopping for my pal Ravi, we bought a pretty good music player with mp3 support ;). I am very tiered & can't think of anything more to write (don't want to bore you with my unncessary and silly usable of adjectives :D), so I will I'll stop here for today. ZZZ...

Haven't done much today

2003-12-28T15:50:19Z

Another day gone by, haven't done much but try and read a book about Indian Economy and it's various phases. Tomorrow it should be back to action again, and also post something more sensible to LJ. Signing off...

LOC Kargil

2003-12-27T10:37:51Z

Well, first I goofed up and ended up an hour late for the movie, but was told I did the right thing (missed out on the introduction part which was an hour long). The movie was long (very).. and was more a documentary, nevertheless its about our soldiers, and what ever I gotta say is with my respect for them. Since the movie was about the real Kargil war, the only thing that was left for them to create (imagine) was a bit about the family sentiments. Otherwise I guess, they did make sure that what ever they narrated was true (I hear that they did miss out on some very important parts too). So it doesn't really matter if we like it or not, it was a true story. My suggestion would be that you should give it a shot, not that it will be one of those movies with half naked women and a dance sequence after every 10mins (there were 4 songs in this movie too), but for the Indian soldier.

I am being a bit patriotic here, but with pride "JAI JAVAN, JAI KISAN".

Catch some of you guys at the LUG meet.

Firewall Admin Rule #1

2003-12-27T05:04:46Z

Rule #1: NEVER PLAY WITH FIREWALLS FROM A REMOTE CONNECTION.

I ended up locking myself out of my own server. I did a "iptables -P OUTPUT DROP" , whenwhat I wanted to do was "iptables -P FORWARD DROP". Now all I can do is wait for the admin to restart the machine or go there and do it myself.

Oh yes, there is Rule #2 too...
Rule #2: FOLLOW RULE #1.

Watch this space for more rules, as I discover 'em ;-).
....

OK.. the machine was restarted, thank god. !!!

Another day gone by

2003-12-26T15:10:54Z

Finally I dispatched my UC application today. Spent a decent 800 bucks for the courier service, thanx to TNT's student discount, or I would have to spend much more. Just dropped by at college to see if one of my Prof's was around, but I could not get to her, this means I have to run to college again tomorrow.

My Department (CSE, Osmania Univ) will be hosting a tech fest some time in Feb, it's named "Infinity 2004", I am the backend support for the website and the mailserver. May be I will be asked to review papers, so just in case anyone of you want's to send a paper, send me an email ;-). Soon, it will be another year, wonder what's in store for me. I am sure 2004 will decide the next 10 years of my life (*** butterflies in my stomach***) :-|.

Enough ranting for today... ZZZ.

PS: I almost forgot, tomorrow I am gonna see the Hindi movie 'LOC Kargil', so be sure to check back tomorrow to know if it's worth watching. As they say 'A clever person is one who knows to build on his experience and *others* experiences too'.

Telugu movies seldom make sense

2003-12-25T17:30:23Z

Telugu movies rarely make sense, today I saw one by the name "Satyam". As is in most of these movies, there is rarely any plot, it's all about how good the heroine and the hero look and their *** appeal. The comedy was the only thing which is worth a mention. Overall there was little of the "chewing gum" ;-) effect in the movie, but then I don't think it was worth my 3 hours (yes, it's long, and so are most Telugu movies). I wonder how many people every really enjoy Bollywood or Tollywood movies, except for the few seemingly good ones :>. I gotta go get some sleep now, tomorrow first thing, I gotta pack one of my applications for dispatch, argh !!!