Purdue - NYC - Niagara - Purdue Roadtrip - 2K Miles

(Copied from http://musicontherocks.blogspot.com/2007/03/9th-march-aukat-ke-bahar-ki-gaadi-mil.html
First person narration from harinath
)

9th March
13:00> Aukat ke bahar ki gaadi mil gayi rent pe
19:00> Journey out of hell starts... Sabyasachi is driving... n Pathak is navigating
19:01> How to shut those damn wipers
19:15> Overhead lamp pissing everyone off
19:30> 4 log baith ke car ke manual ka magga maar rahe hai...
19:35> Finally those lamps are off..
21:00> Pit stop at Fort Wayne for dinner... everyone is in maxo enthu ki poori raat jaagna hai..
22:15> Ohio me entry - speed dropped to 65 mph...
23:00> Detour No. 1 -> we get off the planned route due to construction and journey ka pehla detour maara gaya... wasted 1 hr going thru arbit routes...
still everyone is optimistic abt our plan

March 10th
00:15> Called up brother to wish him on his birthday... Niagara jaate to treat mil jaati... but alas.. we are heading out to NY
00:45> Pit stop 2.... Pehle player retired hurt hoke pavillion waapas laut gaye hain... Change of drivers.. Now seating is
Front>Harinath (Asst Driver & Asst Navigator) , Pathak (Navigator)
Middle> Sabhyasachi (Driver) and Himanshu (aka Pro Photography)
Back> Mohit (majority) and Umang (his role is a suspense)
01:00> Now I am the one driving the car.. sabne isliye seat belt pehen li... pitch pe lateral movement kaafi ho raha hai... isliye kuch log dare hue hai... still going at speed limit
02:00> after getting acustomed to the wicket, main gaadi dauda raha hoon... piche Mohit chakke maar raha hai apne international theories ke saath... saare spectator dang reh gaye hai unke shandaar performance se (Note - contact Mohit for this theory which is capabale of a Nobel prize nomination)... saath mein pathak ne Radio Sargam shuru kar diya hai (besure aawaz me ekdum bekaar gaake driver ko uthaye rakhne ke liye perfect)...
03:15> Pit Stop 3.... Coffee break... finally saare spectator match se tang hoke so gaye hai... only Front grid is still working.. after refueling with coffee Reddy n Pathak ne full speed me re-entry maari track aur gaadi udana shuru... now we are going in full flow
03:30> Enter into Penn State. . you dont need to see the signboards to know this.. yahan ka chappa chappa ek hi aawaz kart ahi jab gaadi guzarti hai (ghad.. ghad.. ghad...)
04:30> Penn ke saare record dhada dhad rode ja rahe.. ek baad ek gaadi ko overtake karke hum 1st place ke taraf daud rahe hai... too fast too furious.. ek dum full enthu me gaadi chalayi jaa rahi hai.. is speed me 10:00 baje tak NY pahuncha possible ho sakta hai...
05:30> That was just the calm before ths storm... subah ho rahi hai aur ab is partenership ka ant nazdeek aa raha hai... milk in the coffee has started showing its effect... meanwhile.. ghad ghad... ghad ghad.. ghad ghad... jaari... still abhi tak ka Penn me Strike shaandaar 75 aur 80 ke bich me jhool rahi hai... agal bagal ki jo scenery nazar me aa rahi hai mast hai...
06:15> Reddy is near the end of his innings... shakal me saaf likha hua hai ki kitni waat lagi hui hai...
06:30> iski saath non-strikers end pe Reddy apni energy se run-out ho gaye hai... retired hurt player Sabyasachi back after treatment.... bilkul fresh lag rahe hai... piche as usual majority so rahi hai...

(day 3 and 4 to be up soon)

Ubuntu Firefox Flash Sound Problem

My computer running ubuntu got rebooted after 177 days (due to a power cut early morning - The whole of purdue sank into it).

Long ago I did a fix to run sound on xmms and firefox - flash together. Basically one of them grabs the audio device and other waits until the first exists. So the solution that works for me is to replicate it.

$ ln -s /tmp/.esd-1000 /tmp/.esd
Or better, add it as a startup script in
System - Preferences - Sessions - Startup programs and add

So next time your computer get a reboot enjoy audio on both the devices simuntaneously.

Reference: http://www.macewan.org/2006/06/01/howto-firefox-flash-video-sound-on-ubuntu-linux-dapper/

Things to put on a virgin ubuntu

http://linuxondesktop.blogspot.com/2007/02/13-things-to-do-immediately-after.html


upgrade the sources.lst in /etc/apt/ to

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security main restricted
# deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security universe
# deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security universe


deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper main restricted universe multiverse

## MAJOR BUG FIX UPDATES produced after the final release
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-updates main restricted universe multiverse

## UBUNTU SECURITY UPDATES
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security main restricted universe multiverse

## BACKPORTS REPOSITORY (Unsupported. May contain illegal packages. Use at own risk.)
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-backports main restricted universe multiverse

## PLF REPOSITORY (Unsupported. May contain illegal packages. Use at own risk.)
deb http://packages.freecontrib.org/plf dapper free non-free
deb-src http://packages.freecontrib.org/plf dapper free non-free

## CANONICAL COMMERCIAL REPOSITORY (Hosted on Canonical servers, not Ubuntu
## servers. RealPlayer10, Opera and more to come.)
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu dapper-commercial main
deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ unstable main


apt-get -y update
apt-get -y upgrade
apt-get -y install make gcc g++ tetex-bin mplayer gkrellm cvs emacs exuberant-ctags vlc libpcap-dev ispell xpdf gv xmms xfig vim tree traceroute sendmail manpages-posix manpages-posix-dev linux-source linux-headers-386 libncurses5-dev initrd-tools

Randomness

This random blog is output of some of my random thoughts.

Randomness, exists in everyone. The degree of randomness says about physiche of a person. Imagine this, you ask a person where is the next bus stop and he replies "Italy won the world cup!". What would be your reaction?

Randomness exists in every person you meet. Some of them have it less and some more. Some of them hate it. Some of them like it. From wikipedia definition says, "The word random is used to express lack of purpose, cause, order, or predictability in non-scientific parlance."

Isnt this a random definition? This definition lacks purpose, cause, order and is not predictable. Isnt random randomly defined?

Isnt everything you do, everyday random? You wake up at a random time, eat a random breakfast, go to a random place, do some random work, spend time randomly in evening and sleep at a random time. May be play some random game too ! Can you predetermine your future? Can you tell where, with whom you would be five years down the line? Isnt the previous question random? Isnt your answer to it random?

Randomness is not same as crazyness ! Crazyness can be thought as "ordered" randomness, or controlled randomness.

To some people randomness seems strange, to some it seems funny. The most interesting thing is that people start relating somethings to your random answers. My current orkut profile names me as " Vigerin Vagrin Venegerin". This means absolutely nothing. All the three words are not english nor in any language I know. I named myself as this when I started writting this blog. By now a lot of people have infered many things as to why this name was kept. Not even one thinks it to be a random name. Some of funny ones are present in my scrapbook.

Quals Treatment

Road to QE

( 5 Oct 2006) Registered for Quals
( 6 Oct 2006) Thats the second time we wash clothes in US
(10 Nov 2006) What is the syllabus this time?
(23 Nov 2006) We have run out of salt supplies on thanksgiving
(13 Dec 2006) Exams over ! lets start studying !
(13 Dec 2006) Got lots of work from advisor
(17 Dec 2006) Thats the third time we wash clothes in US
(21 Dec 2006) Last date to withdraw is gone
(23 Dec 2006) The work is over. Should start now atleast
(24 Dec 2006) 2 days complete movie watching
(25 Dec 2006) Celebrated christmas, we have run out of toilet paper in house
(27 Dec 2006) Got the information that Quals is on Jan 4th instead of Jan 7th. Lost 72 hours in an instant
(28 Dec 2006) Lets get the books out.
(30 Dec 2006) Reddy goes for trip, I stay back. Lets hit movies again
( 1 Jan 2007) Happy new year
( 2 Jan 2007) Padhai likhai se aajtak kuch hua hai kya ?
( 3 Jan 2007) Have to sleep early cause the exam is at 8 am in morning
( 4 Jan 2007) Gave quals, absolutely pissed, killed 3 pigs
( 5 Jan 2007) Post quals Trauma

From project Wifidump page

(from project wifidump page)

News

( 2 May, 2006) Version 1.0 up and working.
( 2 May, 2006) Who has screwed this news book??
( 1 May, 2006) Had a nice sleep in exam.
(30 Apr, 2006) We had a demo today.
(29 Apr, 2006) kernel panic, seg fault, blood level indicates high level of caffiene.
(28 Apr, 2006) Why is INFOCOM only for a week?
(27 Apr, 2006) Hey, I crashed my kernel by hostap driver! Yahoo !!!
(26 Apr, 2006) What is tcpdump??#$#!#%
(22 Apr, 2006) DIP exam passed.
(16 Apr, 2006) Where's the demo?
(15 Apr, 2006) The laptop had crashed 4381 times. We had put OS on it +1 times than that.
(10 Apr, 2006) Where is the group?
(21 Mar, 2006) Back from mid sem break.
( 5 Mar, 2006) Mid Term presentation. Plan successful, no mid sem exams.
( 3 Mar, 2006) There was a talk across mess table about a project in cs725.
(13 Feb, 2006) First project meeting. None turned up.
(21 Jan, 2006) Team formed.

Life as a graduate student

If you have a PhD and(?)/or are currently doing one, what comes to your mind when you read "life as a graduate student"?

Probably: frustration, "why", interesting, amazing, pity, a phase of life ...

Some of these thoughts were running into my mind when an old pal sends me an IM and asks me, how to apply to grad school. He has taken up a job after undergraduate and seems frustrated enough to leave it. It is one of the best job one can get in software in India. He told me why he hates his job and asked me this very question, of "how is life as a graduate student".

As one of my friend says "Ask any undergrad: 'how is life as an undergrad' (especially from iit k). Take his narration, negate every sentence and you get the answer." Is it that bad? Lets see

As an undergrad: You do not attend classes
As a grad: You attend all the classes

As an undergrad: You do not start any project until just before deadline.
As a grad: You start projects just after the projects are announced.

As an undergrad: You do not cook your food.
As a grad: You know the answer here !!

As an undergrad: If you have absolutely no idea about the course about an hour ago from its exam, there is always someone who could teach you out.
As a grad: If you land up in such a situation, you get one more chance to not repeat the situation, when the course is next offered.

As an undergrad: You booze, you shout, you fall somewhere in campus after a party, there would be someone to get you back in your room.
As a grad: You do that outside your home, be sure of cops accompanying you to your next home...

As an undergrad: You do not write anything in project report on your own. "Trust only copy-paste"
As a grad: If you 'trust only copy paste' be sure to get deported anytime, keep your bags packed.

As an undergrad: Cultural festival (antaragni) is what you live for in a year.
As a grad: What culture are we talking about?

With this gloomy picture in mind, I answered to my old pal. But as is said, 'Grad school is more fun than undergrad', I would be soon posting about pros of grad school compared to undergrad. I am working on it.. Yeah its hard .. I know..