Recently Discovered
Lawyers and a light bulb
Q: How many Lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?
Discovered it as one of the fortune riddles
Memories Unlocked
It’s simply wonderful how a combination of sights and sounds can unlock some of the memories hidden deep inside!
It rained today evening. The evening air was cool. As I was bicycling back home from work, Lucky Ali’s Sunoh started playing on my iPod. And all of a sudden, I was imagining an egg-roll and a hot cup of tea!
A few years back I remember in my first year of engineering, we had holidays before the end-terms. It was sometime in May, when monsoons had already begun. The smell of the earth wet with the first showers was intoxicating. To top that, I was listening to IndiPop on Adarsh cassette player. It was a “Hits of Lucky Ali” or something like that, I was listening to , that night. Since it had been raining all evening, I skipped the mess dinner. Well, I also had some Strenght of Materials lessons to revise.
And thus, by the time it was 12 in the night, I was really really hungry!
So I strolled out in search of food. Saw a whole batch of seniors walk towards this tiny little place which used to be called The Night Canteen or NC, located behind the PG block. I followed them to that place and ordered an Egg Roll and a hot cup of Tea. That was when I told myself “You will never go to bed hungry again. There’s a place that’ll feed you no matter how late it is in the night. So let the night outs begin!“
And today, the same smell of wet mud, Lucky Ali’s composition brought those memory alive!
Empty Tray
At work, I usually have my daily doze of caffeine in the afternoon with the co-workers.
Felt like drinking Cappuccino today instead of the regular Espresso.
However, when I pressed the button, the machine didn’t respond.
Instead, the LCD panel said “Empty Tray”.
We were wondering what was empty!
The coffee beans? No, there were plenty of beans in there.
The milk? Nope, the container was filled with milk.
So, I tried again!
“Empty Tray” again.
We were trying to figure out what the problem was, when kvaneesh, who was patiently waiting for his cup of tea, got it!
The “Empty Tray” was not a status message.
It was a instruction to empty the excess coffee powder that had gotten deposited in the tray.
I guess, I need to learn the coffee machine language now
Nr_variables!
Okay, henceforth decided to give the opening and closing mood a break!
Anyway, I am currently reading the Linux scheduler load balancing code. And there’s this one function called find_busiest_group() which looks something like this:
/*
* find_busiest_group finds and returns the busiest CPU group within the
* domain. It calculates and returns the amount of weighted load which
* should be moved to restore balance via the imbalance parameter.
*/
static struct sched_group *
find_busiest_group(struct sched_domain *sd, int this_cpu,
unsigned long *imbalance, enum cpu_idle_type idle,
int *sd_idle, cpumask_t *cpus, int *balance)
{
struct sched_group *busiest = NULL, *this = NULL, *group = sd->groups;
unsigned long max_load, avg_load, total_load, this_load, total_pwr;
unsigned long max_pull;
unsigned long busiest_load_per_task, busiest_nr_running;
unsigned long this_load_per_task, this_nr_running;
int load_idx, group_imb = 0;
#if defined(CONFIG_SCHED_MC) || defined(CONFIG_SCHED_SMT)
int power_savings_balance = 1;
unsigned long leader_nr_running = 0, min_load_per_task = 0;
unsigned long min_nr_running = ULONG_MAX;
struct sched_group *group_min = NULL, *group_leader = NULL;
#endif
max_load = this_load = total_load = total_pwr = 0;
busiest_load_per_task = busiest_nr_running = 0;
this_load_per_task = this_nr_running = 0;
if (idle == CPU_NOT_IDLE)
load_idx = sd->busy_idx;
else if (idle == CPU_NEWLY_IDLE)
load_idx = sd->newidle_idx;
else
load_idx = sd->idle_idx;
do {
unsigned long load, group_capacity, max_cpu_load, min_cpu_load;
int local_group;
int i;
int __group_imb = 0;
unsigned int balance_cpu = -1, first_idle_cpu = 0;
unsigned long sum_nr_running, sum_weighted_load;
Now by the time I reach this point, I am kinda confused asto what variable holds what value and represents what load exactly!
I guess, I need to increase the stack size of my mind to keep track of soo many local variables!
PS: I apologise for the formatting. The [sourcecode] macro of wordpress cannot do any better than this.
Sathya is planning to write a simple script to convert C code into color coded html instead.
OLS Paper and BOFS proposal Selected!
Opening Mood: Hungry..
Opening song: Hamesha tum ko chaaya - Devdas
Got the official mail today morning. The “Power Aware Scheduler” Birds of Feathers Session Proposal that I had submitted for this year’s Ottawa Linux Symposium has been accepted. The rest of the BOFS can be found –> here
A couple of days back, Vaidy got confirmation that the paper “Energy-aware task and interrupt management in Linux” of which I am a co-author, has been selected! So it’s great news on the work front!!
The rest of the papers for this year’s OLS can be found –> here
OT, it has been a pretty silent day in my mailbox. I was wondering if everyone decided to take a mass-vacation or something! Only later I came to know that vger.kernel.org is down.
With only a few weeks left to turn in the paper, we should start writing soon! The data is pretty much there with the many experiments that Vaidy has been running for quite some time now.
And me, I am have started using qgit to track the CFS development from it’s inception to it’s present magnificent form! The latest qgit-4 which uses qt-4 looks pretty cool! Much better than the earlier 1.5.5 version
Until next time,
Ciao!
Closing Song: Laree Chooti - Xulfi, Ek-Chaalis ki last local
Closing Mood: Really hungry!
Mask of Sanity
Opening Mood: OLS paper got selected!
Opening Song: None
Funny thing! When luck doesn’t favor you in love but the loved one gets lucky, you celebrate with them, wearing a mask of sanity, the price for which you pay by burying your own loss. Until one fine day, when there won’t be any difference between the mask you are wearing and your own true self!
Someone rightly said, “…Love is a one way street. Love like respect, isn’t something you get; it’s something you give.” [1]
However, the same person said “.. Strong men make their own luck” [1]
Oh well!
Closing Song: None.
Closing Mood: Gotta hurry to keep an appointment
[1] Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram.
Ambigrams
Opening Mood: Lunch time!
Opening Song: None
For the past couple of days, I have been crazy about Ambigram. So much that I haven’t checked my mails nor have thought about some of the outstanding todo items in my list.
It all started with Pradeep telling me about tattoos and what would be a good design for one. It struck me then, that an Ambigram would make an excellent choice for a tattoo owing to it’s symmetric nature. I had first read about Ambigrams in Dan Brown’s “Angels and Demons” and at that time, I thought, well, may be one needs to be an artist to draw one of these.
But no! When Pradeep said that it would be difficult to ambigrammize some of our names, I somehow wanted to prove him wrong! And the result, two night outs worth of time spent doing nothing but trying to arrange shapes so that they appear symmetric along the horizontal axis. Of every name I could think of! The last time I forgot about everything and spent night outs doing crazy things such as these was way back in 3rd year engineering, trying to come up with Anagrams of words 
Anyway, here are a few ambigrams that I made. There are more, but they need fine tuning, and as an how I get time to fine tune them, I will be uploading them here. Below each picture, you’ll find what they mean, just in case the symbols are too cryptic. Well, it’s also a way of fooling your mind. Once you know what the Symbol means, your mind will be compelled to see it that way 
All these ambigrams were made using GIMP, the GNU image manipulation program.
Copyrights?! Well, Open Source philosophy applies here too. I grant you complete rights to use them, improve upon them, and if you like the improvement/enhancement, share them with others
GAUTHAM
——————————————————————————————————————————————–
KEVIN
——————————————————————————————————————————————–
MILI
——————————————————————————————————————————————–
SATHYA
——————————————————————————————————————————————–
SAPNA
——————————————————————————————————————————————–
RACHITA
——————————————————————————————————————————————–
And this one. This one is an Asymmetric Ambigram. In the sense that it has two names in the same figure. There’s another asymmetric ambigram that I have made, but it needs legal clearance before it can be posted 
CHIRAG
… And when you turn this around, it looks like this:
LEENA
——————————————————————————————————————————————–
Comments, feedback much appreciated. So do drop a message
Also, if you have seen some really nice Ambigrams elsewhere, do share them/pointers to them here.
Closing Song: None.
Closing Mood: Lazy Sunday Afternoon
Black and White
Opening Mood: Good Morning Bangalore!
Opening Song: Lakshya - Title track
Saw Subhash Ghai’s movie Black and White yesterday. If not anything, I must say it is a th0ught provoking and a brave attempt by the man who has been known to make only potboiler commercial cinema.
WARNING!: Possible spoiler ahead!
The movie is about a young Fidayeen who comes to Delhi with a mission to blow up the Red fort on the occasion of Independence day. And how is plans his attack, the people he encounters, the clash of ideologies and finally the decision that he makes. Anil Kapoor portrays Rajan Mathur, a resident of Chandni Chowk, and a professor of Urdu at Zakir Hussain college. New comer Anurag Sinha portrays Numair Qazi, the Fidayeen.
The movie begins with a slow pace, introducing the characters, and setting up the premise. It is in the second half that we see the real characteristics coming out. The ruthlessness with which Numair is ready to execute people whom he believes do not follow Islam is really shocking. One wonders what could have made a young man like that to become a fanatic, who knows nothing in life but upholding his interpretation of Quran.
There were a couple of really hard hitting sequences in the movie. The scene where Numair goes to an MLA to ask for a Independence day Pass and finds that Hindu and Muslim youth leaders offering bribe to the MLA to get some private favors and making it clear that the rivalry is purely political. This was followed by a scene where Numair’s cousin, who owns a travel agency, trying to sell a Hindu Pilgrimage package to a customer with pthe passion that Numair simply couldn’t identify with. He concludes that the Muslims in this country have sold out. When his cousin tries to explain him the concept of “customer is the king”, he tries to attack the cousin, asking him “What right do you have to call yourself a mussalman? And if you cannot be a mussalman, what right do you have to live?” This sequence where he openly displayed his fundamental nature, did shock me for a second.
It takes the murder of Rajan Mathur’s wife, Roma Mathur played by Shefali Shah, by Numair’s accomplices, and Rajan’s mature reaction to it, that forces Numair to rethink his ideologies. Inside the Red Fort, just before he plans to execute the attack, he senses the first speck of doubt about his actions and decides to abort the mission. And subsequently asks the question, “What is the right way of Jehaad? What’s greater in Jihaad? Killing and Dying? Destroying or Saving? If it is saving, what is it that we are saving ?”
Throughout the movie, Numair’s ideology was that of a single minded Fidayeen, who would not deviate from his mission, and never question his ideologies. He was a man, for whom following the Quran was the only way of life. So the abrupt change of heart inside the Red Fort does come as a bit of surprise. That in my opinion is the only problem with the movie. However, one could argue, that these thoughts were taking birth in his mind right from the moment he encountered the different types of Muslims than the ones he was used to in his native country, and Rajan’s reaction and comments inside the Red Fort only triggered the freeing of these thoughts. If this was the case, I feel it could have been portrayed a bit better.
Nevertheless, it is an honest attempt. I would suggest you go watch it
Closing Song: Main Jahaan Rahoon - Namaste London.
Closing Mood: Hungry for breakfast!
