tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-123354572011-12-04T23:52:45.565-05:00My rantings on Life, the Universe and Everything(and a few other things besides).Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.comBlogger1311100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-22286468368112670912008-02-12T17:11:00.003-05:002008-02-14T12:26:09.544-05:00

I've been reading a lot of Raymond Smullyan lately (2 books done, halfway through another one, and two more lined up once they're returned to the library), and halfway through the first book he was already on my all-time favorites list. I strongly recommend his stuff - there's nothing quite like it. I'm particularly fond of the way he points out the paradoxical nature of everyday life. It's

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-20126201405936605572008-01-04T13:53:00.000-05:002008-01-04T16:20:01.762-05:00

I just read an interesting article on Lifehack on the relationship of metaphor and learning. It happened to spark off a fairly detailed stream of thought, so I figured I'd blog about it. Give it a read first, it's fairly short.Now, when I first read the article, I immediately liked it, because I've actually done a bit of thinking on stories and metaphor in a more personal way, applied to how I

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-14826312722176974842008-01-03T04:57:00.000-05:002008-01-03T06:02:23.049-05:00

Looks like the weather gods are just begging me to blog by producing blog-worthy climate around Orlando. As I mentioned in one of the previous posts, there's a cold front hitting the general area, and so temperatures have dropped.Yesterday's forecast on my nifty AccuWeather toolbar in Firefox was for about 11 C. It seems the estimate was off - I paid attention to the temperatures all day long,

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-24507468133634603462008-01-02T07:02:00.000-05:002008-01-02T08:11:03.922-05:00

As promised in the previous post, here is the interesting incident that took place as a result of sitting in the front of the plane near the window, and having way too much boredom to deal with.In stark contrast to the previous flight from Mumbai to Newark, I was seated as far ahead as possible without being in first class - row 5 (rows 1 to 4 are in first). Sitting on the right window seat of

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-29837775011911855952008-01-02T06:06:00.000-05:002008-01-02T08:10:09.571-05:00

(The following paragraphs were written while I was sitting at Newark airport feeling terribly bored and too bugged from travel to read anything.)So here I am sitting at Newark airport at 8 AM on New Year's Day, waiting for a flight that will leave in two and a half hours. Having nothing else to do, I've found a convenient power outlet, plugged in my laptop, and decided to chronicle the last few

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-62446677634782379362007-12-19T06:43:00.000-05:002007-12-19T10:45:19.675-05:00

So here I am, blogging again. As is usual, I shall preface the main body of the blog with some random remarks about why I haven't blogged for so long. Actually, scratch that - I was planning to explain why, but it's been so long that I can't really remember why I stopped blogging in the first place. So I'll refrain from boring everyone with some made-up excuse, and save myself the bother of

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-9402405566558494512007-06-20T22:52:00.000-05:002007-06-20T22:55:34.775-05:00

I'll be in New York until Saturday evening for a little something Google has planned. Looks like going to the World Finals has its perks.

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-78705102183947470492007-06-17T13:22:00.000-05:002007-06-17T14:46:11.623-05:00

So I've had one of the most amazing holidays ever - and I squarely blame it for all the difficulty I'm experiencing in getting out of the vacation mood. My parents and sister came over to the US, and we've basically been all over the place. Three days at Disney World, followed by Washington DC, New York, New Jersey, Niagara...and loads of shopping, of course. It was one hell of an experience,

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1465736486943231252007-04-30T10:50:00.000-05:002007-04-30T11:07:51.103-05:00

This has got to be the coolest geek love song I've ever heard. Not only is it full of crazy jokes from topology and abstract algebra and the generally crazy overloaded terminology of mathematics, they sound pretty good too! I nearly fell out of my chair laughing, and found myself wondering what it sounds like to a non-geek. Despite all those amazing mathematical double entendres, I have a

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-5980660801141287312007-04-26T23:32:00.000-05:002007-04-27T00:14:09.001-05:00

And so, ladies and gentlemen, my second semester of graduate school comes to an end. I'd say it went pretty well, all things considered.It's been 3 months since I blogged. The amount of catching up stories I need to tell is insane, so I'm going to be shamelessly selective and just pick out anything that seems important.Though now that I think about it, that isn't very different from what I

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-23532042630514925272007-01-26T00:35:00.000-05:002007-01-26T00:42:41.587-05:00

And so, after what seems like ages, I've finally made yellow on TopCoder. At the moment, I'm simultaneously at 1521 and on cloud nine. I just checked out my TC profile, and it turns out that it's been exactly two years and 3 days since I registered there. Still, I had a bunch of semi-prolonged absences in the middle, so I've only done 51 matches so far. Not too shabby. I'm off to celebrate -

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-70017790761233123702007-01-04T15:47:00.000-05:002007-01-04T15:53:16.311-05:00

"Away, you bottle-ale rascal, you filthy bung, away!"From Henry IV, Part 2. Ol' William really knew how to shoot off his mouth in style. Here's to the greatest literary badass ever! Go here to enjoy Shakespeare's inimitable put-downs, as well as a bunch of automatically generated insults in his style.

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-75294441143661481172007-01-04T13:24:00.000-05:002007-09-06T16:45:03.723-05:00

Today was my 50th TopCoder SRM. The fates were with me (I suppose all those hours of practice also helped a little ) and I hit a new all-time rating high! I'm now at 1483 - just 17 points short of going yellow. Can't stop practicing now - I'm in more danger than ever of a rating loss after that huge increase. If anything, I need to practice harder to be able to maintain my rating at this level.

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-43671851567739347762006-12-27T23:05:00.000-05:002006-12-27T23:07:56.395-05:00

Woohoo - I just successfully cooked some rice, and it's perfect! Mom's recipes really work! Now I can settle down in front of the TV and watch the South Park marathon.

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-86192134358086044402006-12-27T14:51:00.000-05:002006-12-27T15:21:41.084-05:00

My latest exploit is probably the most uncharacteristic yet. I cooked. It all started out two nights ago when my roommates declared they were going to Miami for two days with a bunch of other guys. Now I had a pretty good idea of what they were going to get up to out there, and unfortunately, I'm not the kind of guy who enjoys that sort of thing. Sad, but true.For those who don't know what I'm

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-88490229706744595232006-12-24T13:18:00.000-05:002006-12-24T14:39:19.606-05:00

Season's greetings, everyone!Blogger Beta has now gone official, so I just switched my blog over to it a few minutes ago. I've been messing a bit with layout and that sort of thing, and a lot of my old hacks don't work anymore, such as the comment expansion script.Okay, actually I just can't be bothered to go through with figuring out how to integrate that into things here. I'm not sure how much

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1160436381140224592006-10-09T18:07:00.000-05:002006-11-01T03:51:32.920-05:00

So I finally had my first real test in the US - the midterm for Advanced AI. As expected, it was a lot more fun than the crappy ones we usually had back home. So I got down to comparing the two styles and noticed a few things about how we did tests back home.As far back as I seem to remember, my memories of exams have always had a certain kind of boredom and a 'grin and bear it' feeling

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1157849560281580652006-09-09T19:13:00.000-05:002006-09-10T01:14:51.546-05:00

Okay, I've been putting this off for far too long. So now, with profound apologies for the long absence, it's time for me to start blogging again.Besides, if I didn't, I'd be slaughtered by dozens of angry friends and family members whenever I made my first trip back home. :PAs one might expect, so many fascinating things have happened in this one month that I've been in the US that I'm not sure

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1154981792052070932006-08-07T14:26:00.000-05:002006-08-07T15:16:32.150-05:00

*Nostalgic music...*This is going to be my last night sleeping in my nice and comfy old bed. Tomorrow night, I'll be flying off to Orlando. Grad school, here I come. Mumbai - it's been real, old girl. Keep on rocking.I was originally planning to make this into a long post, touching on all the people and places that have helped shape me into who I am now. Somehow I can't bring myself to do that,

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1153299904893735872006-07-19T02:50:00.000-05:002006-07-19T04:25:53.220-05:00

In the aftermath of the bomb blasts in Mumbai, the government has done what all governments seem to do when terrorists strike. It's gone insane, and decided to brazenly violate the constitutional rights of its own citizens.Trust some half-witted incompetent government dolt in charge of something to have come up with the bright idea of blocking the Blogspot and Typepad domains, plus quite a few

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1150749530693594502006-06-19T14:52:00.000-05:002006-06-20T05:57:46.870-05:00

It's been just about 2 weeks since the exams ended, and as expected, I've been making several attempts to engage in the ancient and honored art known by the quaint Indian English term 'timepass'.Unfortunately, attempts to practice this art for a prolonged period are inevitably cut short by various events, mostly due to the upcoming departure for the US. I still have plenty of time, just not

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1149868047804727752006-06-09T10:30:00.000-05:002006-06-09T10:47:27.950-05:00

It's finally over. Four years of the torture that is engineering have finally ended. And to all those who were expecting a certain cliche, no, it does not feel like just yesterday when I was a mere fresher wondering what the world of engineering had in store for me.It's still difficult to get used to the freedom this entails. Strange feelings, which are only just beginning to sink in, even though

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1148556265709831382006-05-25T06:15:00.000-05:002006-05-25T06:24:25.733-05:00

I've just got hold of a huge cache of music from my pal Rohan, who handed me his USB drive a couple of days back, so we could exchange cool stuff. And the greatest thing of all is the absolutely fantastic collection of Yanni's compositions, from 1987 to 2000. Probably not exhaustive, but enough to keep me occupied for weeks. There's nothing like Yanni for a nice afternoon of coding and general

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1148419327353379752006-05-23T16:09:00.000-05:002006-05-23T16:22:07.506-05:00

Incredible. Once again luck has chosen to favour me. And every other final year computer engineer in MU, of course. Our Multimedia Systems exam was actually easy. Looks like I spent the last four days worrying for no reason. Silly me.To Satan - the deal's off, I want my soul back...The next exam is 8 days from now, which is why I'm sitting up this late blogging. Not that I wouldn't be doing it

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1148152813179498552006-05-20T13:57:00.000-05:002006-05-20T14:24:17.386-05:00

Multimedia Systems Design, by Andleigh and Thakrar, Prentice Hall India.Disgusting.Sickening.Third rate pile of incomprehensible, disjointed, incoherent shitty nonsense.And that ain't the half of it.At some point between the 19th and 23rd of May, every single final year computer engineer of Mumbai University will open this terrible tome and be bodily plunged into a pool of miserable melancholia.

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1147602844307311932006-05-14T04:38:00.000-05:002006-05-14T05:41:30.456-05:00

For some reason I've been finding it really hard to blog these days. Every time I decide to blog, it inevitably slips my mind or something else comes up, or I'm just not in the mood. Maybe it's just laziness. Anyway, I've broken out of that long enough to manage this post. As I write this line, I still have no idea what I'm going to talk about. Guess I'll just relax and let the words flow on

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1146068560860149662006-04-26T10:52:00.000-05:002006-04-26T11:30:52.410-05:00

Finally - it's all done. Midterms, vivas, submissions, the project - the whole schmeer. It's probably been the most hectic couple of weeks I've ever had. The only way I could get any free time out of the last few days was to waste it, and that's rather hard to do with vivas and a project report to finish. Not surprisingly, it isn't all that hard, though.Today's Robotics viva rocked, though we

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1144222044124502132006-04-05T01:36:00.000-05:002006-04-05T03:20:36.170-05:00

Wow, it's been over a month since I last posted - this is probably the biggest break I've ever taken from blogging. It's been rather eventful and fun(though not all of it). A potted history follows, from the last blog until now, in chronological order.First item of note: Nearly a month ago, some damned SOB stole my shoes from the rack outside the 3rd floor lab at college. It's the least used lab,

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1141298713411828772006-03-02T04:54:00.000-05:002006-03-02T06:25:13.476-05:00

In my last post, I had promised to blog about the Code4Bill experience. Unfortunately, this isn't going to be the drawn out, in depth look at it that I was planning, mostly because I'm too tired to write a long blog at the moment. Just a few lines about what happened, and then I'll chill and read The Golden Transcendence. Perhaps I'll write a more detailed account later, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1140717611607788862006-02-23T12:04:00.000-05:002006-02-23T13:13:17.266-05:00

I'll be leaving for Bangalore tomorrow, for Stage II of Code4Bill. Let's see what Microsoft has in store for us. After all, the worst they can do is find out that I'm running Linux...OS Update: Now on Ubuntu 5.10.Now reading Eric Raymond's The Art of Unix Programming. Seriously not what I should be doing for an interview with MS, but the chances of qualifying were always infinitesimal anyway. I'm

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1140353264973580612006-02-19T06:42:00.000-05:002006-02-20T06:17:08.023-05:00

This blog is brought to you by Ubuntu Linux 4.0, courtesy of a failed hard disk and a strange concatenation of circumstances, which will be explained in excruciating detail below.For the past few days, I've been having problems starting up my computer. It's been rather like a game of Russian Roulette, since I never could tell which startup attempt would result in the blue screen of death. When

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1140025138208871252006-02-15T12:38:00.000-05:002006-02-15T12:38:58.346-05:00

Check out The Pain - Scientists Run Riot for a delightfully humourous piece of tongue-in-cheek satire.

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1139856356817288362006-02-13T13:14:00.000-05:002006-02-13T13:45:56.910-05:00

I've been experiencing an incredible streak of good luck over the past few days. It's as good as anything to blog about, so here goes...First off, universities have finally started replying. I've only got two replies so far, but one of them has been incredibly positive. The University of Central Florida wants me in their CS Ph.D program, and what's more, they're giving me an assistantship too!

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1138372296385061492006-01-27T08:41:00.000-05:002006-01-27T09:44:01.350-05:00

Once again, it's been a long time since I last blogged. Seems like it always is. Anyway, here's the latest update on stuff I've been doing/am doing, as well as other stuff in which I'm mostly a passive component, so that it's being done to me, as it were.First off, I finally received my Google Code Jam t-shirt! Whoopee! Wore it to college a few days ago, and received a bunch of 'New Pinches' in

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1137516862483935022006-01-17T11:54:00.000-05:002006-01-17T11:54:22.520-05:00

The very picture of maternal patience... 

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1137516661409179622006-01-17T11:51:00.000-05:002006-01-17T11:51:01.416-05:00

Mrs. Pigeon, the queen of her castle.... 

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1136961739305744312006-01-11T01:27:00.000-05:002006-01-11T01:42:19.376-05:00

It looks like Junior has two siblings on the way. His mom has wasted no time in producing two eggs to fill up the flowerpot again...Says something weird about her, doesn't it? One kid leaves and she produces two more to take his place. Let's hope this isn't a geometric progression...My sister has threatened violence unless I mention that her prelims have ended. Therefore, I hereby mention that

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1136952083218200132006-01-10T22:42:00.000-05:002006-01-10T23:02:33.140-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen, Junior has left the building. The little chap finally found his wings this morning. He hasn't been seen since.His mother, on the other hand, shows no inclination of moving out of the maternity ward(read flowerpot). This is annoying my mom a bit, but she suspects that another egg is on the way. I'm pretty sure that's not the case, but we'll know soon enough. If it's not here

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1136811788049505332006-01-09T07:19:00.000-05:002006-01-09T08:03:08.193-05:00

Why doesn't Junior learn to fly already?If you don't know who Junior is, I'm too lazy to enlighten you. Go and read some of my older posts.Junior's been jumping around for a few weeks now, but surprisingly, he hasn't made any real attempts to fly. Mom and sis have spotted him flapping his wings frantically a few times, but he hasn't actually managed to achieve lift-off yet. He's almost as big as

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1136299675160477872006-01-03T08:57:00.000-05:002006-01-03T09:47:55.223-05:00

After the coding spree I mentioned in the last post, I seem to have switched gears and started an insane reading spree. Even by my standards, it's a bit of a record.Here are the books I've been reading:The last three books of Isaac Asimov's Robot saga, namely The Naked Sun, The Robots of Dawn and Robots and Empire.One of Asimov's Empire series - Pebble in the Sky. I still have two more left - The

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1135773349850857572005-12-28T07:10:00.000-05:002005-12-28T11:48:51.573-05:00

For the last few days, I've been busily coding away at USACO. For those who don't know, it's a place where they train you to do algorithmic programming of the kind that you see at TopCoder and so forth.They follow a pretty effective technique of dividing their training pages into sections of increasing difficulty. As you finish solving one section, the next one becomes accessible. In about 4 days

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1135243794749170872005-12-22T03:40:00.000-05:002005-12-22T04:32:03.766-05:00

The city has gotten rather cold lately. Yesterday was Mumbai's coldest day in over half a century, with temperatures hitting 11 degrees Celsius. By Mumbai standards, that's as good as 11 below zero.December 21st, 2005 - A day that shall forever live in infamy! After begrudgingly rendering faithful service for the last few weeks, my nose has trechearously chosen this fateful day to declare war on

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1134915047665155282005-12-18T07:59:00.000-05:002005-12-18T09:57:09.196-05:00

*Warning - ritual diatribe against MU's stinking system and its consequences follows.*On Saturday, we suffered through our last exam - Software Engineering was the name of this final torture. Very useful subject, as far as the software industry goes. Unfortunately, it doesn't meld very well with MU's exam-oriented style(hell, nothing that really qualifies as engineering melds properly with it),

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1134481116717623982005-12-13T08:38:00.000-05:002005-12-13T08:38:36.766-05:00

Check out this insanely hilarious account of how the Polish police react to a mugging. Now this is what I call motivated service!

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1134295593841752862005-12-11T05:06:00.000-05:002005-12-11T05:13:00.996-05:00

I don't know how many of my readers will find this interesting, but I give a thumbs up to Michael Nielsen » Blog Archive » Interesting problems: The Church-Turing-Deutsch Principle. It's about an interesting extension of the Church-Turing thesis by David Deutsch. I like reading this sort of stuff, so if anyone else likes it, leave a comment so I know who else shares my weird tastes...

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1134294596881093732005-12-11T04:49:00.000-05:002005-12-11T04:49:57.630-05:00

Check out this really cool illusion. Beats the pants off any other illusion I've seen!

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1134154243104879062005-12-09T11:47:00.000-05:002005-12-09T14:56:11.350-05:00

First off, my pal Sagar is losing it. Oddly enough, this has caused my opinion of him to actually improve. Now if only he'd resume competing at TC...My sister has begun studying probability. Those who know me realise that I'm mentally preparing myself for the terrible ordeal that will undoubtedly follow. Those who don't should know that my sister has no memory for any mathematical skill I(or

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1133775050526191812005-12-05T04:06:00.000-05:002005-12-05T04:34:20.596-05:00

One of the staples of a Hollywood movie involving law enforcement or something along those lines is a scene involving a bunch of people crowded around a computer monitor, looking at some kind of image - for example, a picture of a car racing away into the distance.Some guy tells the chap with the keyboard - "Can you enhance/zoom in on this?" - pointing at the license plate.Now at this point, some

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1133681343443798122005-12-04T02:23:00.000-05:002005-12-05T08:45:20.623-05:00

The sheer idiocy of the 'Intelligent Design' brigade is the ultimate proof of the existence of God. After all, to continue trumpeting such nonsense in the face of overwhelming evidence requires a level of stupidity and self-deception that could only have arisen through divine intervention.

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1133458899597445692005-12-01T12:41:00.000-05:002005-12-01T13:48:21.970-05:00

Write Things: Two papers down and so am I!Looks like I'm on a roll - this is yet another trackback. As always, go read the post first. Like most things Mihir, it's good for a laugh. This is a sort of point-by-point reply, so you might wanna keep it open in another window - or tab if you're a more enlightened individual.2 papers in three days? Ha - our smallest gap between papers is 3 days! *

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1133333420071987752005-11-30T01:50:00.000-05:002005-11-30T02:50:18.486-05:00

Daily Blogs!: Thinking of the Abstract This is a trackback to one of Thite's blogs. It's about an essay he wrote in the tenth standard, about abstractions. Go read it first to grok the context of this post.This is a pretty good piece of writing for a tenth grader. I don't think I ever came close to writing anything like this back then - just the usual tripe they saddled us with in school. As with

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1133277603634024802005-11-29T08:49:00.000-05:002005-11-29T10:20:03.733-05:00

So that's it for Intelligent Systems. Pretty okay exam, except for the scary first question asking us to design an expert system for software testing. Naturally, most people wrote stuff about all sorts of related things, while dancing around/diverting attention from the main question. Makes you wonder how many of our politicians are engineers...:)Incredibly, they actually asked us a question on

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1133204170818900282005-11-28T13:42:00.000-05:002005-11-28T13:58:29.533-05:00

And that thing is the exams. Yep, the moment of truth has arrived - or will in about 10 hours.Every semester, I'm reminded of one word at exam time - Kralizec, the Typhoon Struggle. In the world of Dune, the Fremen use this word to mean the cataclysmic battle at the end of the universe. It's never really very clear who exactly they expect to fight, but a myth is a myth is a myth...In any case,

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1133079709559474272005-11-27T03:12:00.000-05:002005-11-27T03:24:53.566-05:00

"On two occasions I have been asked[by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."10/10 for the way he describes that weird feeling of incredulity you get when techno-dumbos say something stupid. The ancients always did

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1133078042731094572005-11-27T02:32:00.000-05:002005-11-27T02:54:02.746-05:00

So the exams are just two days away now - the first paper is Intelligent Systems on Tuesday. While we do have really long intervals between exams(3 and 4 days in each case), it looks like I'm going to have to do some tremendously intensive studying a la standard 8 and 9, when I usually studied about a week before the exams and always did unreasonably well. There was a guy I knew years ago who was

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1132649023645766432005-11-22T03:34:00.000-05:002005-11-22T03:43:43.646-05:00

Just when you begin to feel better disposed towards the bureaucracy, some specimen of that wretched caste comes along and leaves you with the conviction that the entire race of bureaucrats are the bastard offspring of an unholy ménage à trois involving a human, a reptile of some sort, and some species of dung beetle.Bureaucrats. Bah humbug.

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1132496077059904182005-11-20T08:22:00.000-05:002005-11-20T09:17:29.406-05:00

What follows is a long-winded, idiosyncratically arranged and rather disjointed set of rantings, descriptions, commentary, and the other sort of useless writing that can usually be found on my blog. I'm not exactly sure why I'm blogging about all this stuff, though. Sometimes it just feels good to have prose flow from your mind, through your fingers into RAM/virtual memory, and eventually onto

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1132434537506231302005-11-19T16:02:00.000-05:002005-11-19T16:08:57.530-05:00

Just finished off SRM 272 and had a nice healthy rating increase - a cool 70 points from 1266 to 1336! Now after they finish the usual ratings rerun after removing cheaters and all that, I'm hoping that I end up with just one more point. That way I can brag that I am officially '1337'.PS: If you can't figure that out, try reading the numbers as letters. If you still don't get it, try saying the

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1132326677166737612005-11-18T10:01:00.000-05:002005-11-18T12:10:09.340-05:00

The java.util.Arrays class provides a little binarySearch() function. I was reading through it's documentation, and I came across this interesting line:If the array contains multiple elements with the specified value, there is no guarantee which one will be found.If you ask me, this is a painful restriction. Binary search is pretty commonly used, and it's not that difficult to think up a

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1132318428766921232005-11-18T07:53:00.000-05:002005-11-18T07:59:45.026-05:00

This article is a must-read. It's about abstractions, how they occasionally slip('break' as Joel puts it) and what that means in actual development.Condensed version: All non-trivial abstractions are a bit leaky. Thus they save us time working, but not time learning, since at some point the abstraction slips and you have to look below it to figure out what's going on.There's also an interesting

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1132314738197780352005-11-18T06:52:00.000-05:002005-11-18T06:55:35.400-05:00

Saving the Net: How to Keep the Carriers from Flushing the Net Down the Tubes | Linux JournalDefinitely one of the finest and most insightful essays I have seen in a long time. Doc Searls does an incredible job of explaining just why network carriers and content industries cannot ever be allowed to control the Internet and its content. Secondly, his characterization of the entire debate as a

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1132149459625886352005-11-16T08:26:00.000-05:002005-11-16T09:27:31.156-05:00

Clogged sinuses. Very annoying.(Blows nose loudly. No use. Still completely blocked.)One of the downsides of being me is the useless sinuses you end up with. Once every few weeks, my nose decides to withdraw from full duty and proceeds to cut my air supply in half. Rather considerate, that - leaving me half a nostril free each time. Still bloody annoying.Still, after 10 years, you get used to it.

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1130149167253924152005-10-24T10:49:00.000-05:002005-10-24T07:53:51.430-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen, this blog post is brought to you courtesy of http://www.writely.com. For those of you too lazy to click on the link, Writely is a web based word processor that allows you to publish stuff online and collaborate on document creation. I had heard about this earlier in the TopCoder forums, because snewman - one of the best red coders at TC - actually works there. It was

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1130051993673158752005-10-23T02:19:00.000-05:002005-10-23T05:14:20.203-05:00

As I write this, a large specimen of the Corvus splendens persuasion sits outside my window, on the edge of the grill. He seems to be preening his feathers - while this is an activity traditionally associated with birds, I'd never expected to see a crow do it. Watching a crow preen itself is not unlike watching a guy pluck his eyebrows - you're left with a vague impression of ludicrous

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1129830098788157522005-10-20T12:11:00.000-05:002005-10-20T12:44:33.386-05:00

It's very rare that you run into a blog that combines devastating intellectual insight, incredible prose style, and humour of the highest order with such consummate ease as The Joy of Curmudgeonry. I ran into it by sheer accident today, but already it stands proudly at the head of my Firefox LiveBookmarks list.The author is a British bloke with a razor sharp mind, and an even sharper pen(or

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1129811652310250822005-10-20T06:57:00.000-05:002005-10-20T08:23:18.226-05:00

I'm dead tired. For those who don't know, that's what the title of this post means. It also corresponds to a certain state(that of being terribly fatigued) of a certain entity(yours truly) in reality.That's right, reality. The place where you're hopefully living. If not, just go on reading. I'm not terribly bothered about your mental state anyway. What I am bothered about is my physical state.We

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1129551560429307462005-10-17T07:16:00.000-05:002005-10-17T07:20:26.976-05:00

Looks like I haven't blogged for quite a bit. Apologies to people who missed my poor excuse for a blog, but I was busy and bugged, and therefore not very interested in coming up with stuff to post up here. Come to think of it, I'm still busy, and not quite done with being bugged either, so I think I'd better get back to writing useless assignments and journals soon.Brief update: Two vivas are

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1127762389652734782005-09-26T13:50:00.000-05:002005-09-26T14:19:49.756-05:00

In the last post, I complained about a bit about losing my edge - that weird drive to think about interesting stuff, and code stuff, and so on. Thankfully, it turned out to be a passing phase - the old me returned on Saturday, and life was suddenly a lot better...About the title of this post - it's inspired by John Conway's incredible Game of Life. Here's the story...While chilling out after a

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1127494870301657442005-09-23T11:28:00.000-05:002005-09-23T12:05:55.076-05:00

If you've read a few of my recent blogs, you know I often begin by complaining about how infrequently I get to blog, and so on...Well, as often happens, it's become old and cliched, so I won't do it this time. Consider it all said and let me get on with it...Strangely enough, my life seems rather uneventful as far as blogworthy incidents go. The only thing really worth mentioning is that I feel a

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1126426439777122092005-09-11T02:45:00.000-05:002005-09-11T03:14:00.813-05:00

Posting after long intervals seems to have become a habit with me - it's been over 10 days since I last posted here. Here's the lowdown on what happened in the meantime, in no particular order...Finally finished off Shaping Regions at USACO - I posted about it a while ago, if I remember correctly...What was the problem? Dumbness and no knowledge of the Java Collection classes...All I did was

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1125491362471957642005-08-31T07:18:00.000-05:002005-08-31T07:32:07.696-05:00

The last post celebrated my first successful division 1 TopCoder match - this one celebrates my breaking into the ranks of the top 50 Indian TopCoders!Ok, so I'm still ranked 48, but still, it's cause for celebration(while it lasts)! My highest rating yet - looks like all that div 1 practice paid off. Now I'd better start practicing 500 pointers if I want to keep my 1309 rating...Next SRM is in a

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1125409403214593772005-08-30T08:17:00.000-05:002005-08-30T08:46:15.266-05:00

Those who've read my last post(or who know me personally) will know that I was pretty fired up about doing the 1st Online Round of the Google Code Jam. After practicing dozens of division 1 problems in the TC practice rooms, I was ready to give it one hell of a whirl. Unfortunately, fate had other ideas...The event was scheduled for 6:30 AM out here in India, and registrations closed at 6:25.

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1125171939272486612005-08-27T14:19:00.000-05:002005-08-27T14:46:53.813-05:00

Being the overworked individual that I am, I've been neglecting my blog for quite some time. Apparently some of my readers have taken exception to this - or so Swapneel tells me - apparently quite a few people he knows read my blog. I'm not sure what kind of crazy people read my frequent outpourings of nonsense - but as a fellow lunatic, I have to keep them happy...First bit of news - I

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1124475945700274132005-08-19T12:56:00.000-05:002005-08-19T13:44:11.963-05:00

For those who don't know, I narrowly missed qualifying for the TCO. The cutoff is a rank of 150 in your problem set - and I came along at 155...Looks like I shouldn't have spent so much time testing that 250 after all...Apparently some cheaters were removed - I had a +1 rating increase from 1185 to 1186 overnight...Sadly there weren't enough of them!Can't blame the admins, really - even if they

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1124175907794602922005-08-16T01:48:00.000-05:002005-08-16T02:05:08.430-05:00

Looks like it's been some time since I last posted. In fact I probably wouldn't have blogged today if it weren't for an interesting incident that left me with a bit of free time. Details follow...It's like this - usually on Independence Day or Republic Day, college is closed on both that day as well as the day after. Since 15th August(Independence Day) was yesterday, we fully expected a holiday

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1123765427618803732005-08-11T07:28:00.000-05:002005-08-11T08:03:47.643-05:00

There's an old saying which goes something like, "For every door that closes, another opens." Just realized how true it was today. As the last blog post mentioned, I'm down with a viral infection, so no college for me(ok, so this isn't really a bad thing)...Worse still, JCreator - the Java IDE that I usually use - started acting funny today. Every time I try to save something, it pops up this

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1123695121199366382005-08-10T11:42:00.000-05:002005-08-10T12:34:40.123-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen, it's that time of year again. Viruses(the biological kind) are roaming the city, preying on unsuspecting victims - in this case, me.Last night I had one of my occasional sinus attacks. That wasn't too bad - after almost ten years of living with flawed nasal architecture, I've gotten used to it. Unfortunately, I was completely unprepared for what happened the next day...

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1123497475506912012005-08-08T05:37:00.000-05:002005-08-08T05:37:55.573-05:00

My sister showing off her 29 friendship bands. The nonsense scrawled on her forearms is from half a dozen friends who ran out of bands...She's got a few tied around her fingers too... 

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1123492999785077862005-08-08T03:13:00.000-05:002005-08-08T12:01:03.223-05:00

This Sunday was supposedly the *official* version of Friendship Day, but anyone who's ever been to college in Mumbai knows that this particular event is celebrated at least three times a year...In fact, I didn't really know that there was such a thing as an official Friendship day - somehow I'd come to the conclusion that it was one of those social consensus things that happen every now and then.

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1123174966791498592005-08-04T11:34:00.000-05:002005-08-05T09:36:54.976-05:00

My sister Lubna has this weird habit of doing a bad karaoke act by turning on voice cancellation in the speaker settings and playing any song she (thinks she) can pull off. She's been doing this for at least a year now. Now she's started this new thing where she cancels the singer's voice, but doesn't sing herself(Thank God...) - instead she tries to pick out the different instruments being

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1122891202044460852005-08-01T05:02:00.000-05:002005-08-03T09:51:10.350-05:00

This is actually a reply to Sagar's comment about my low view of the government. You can see the original post here, and the comments are below that. It deserved more than a few lines of text in reply, so I've given it a post of its own..It's not that I hate governments - it's just that I have a rather cynical view of them. There's a gaping flaw in our current model of democracy - or rather, a

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1122889972232058722005-08-01T04:13:00.000-05:002005-08-01T04:52:53.346-05:00

It's official - the weather god who takes care of Mumbai's weather has gone certifiably insane. The rain is practically a constant feature now - it never seems to stop, just varies between 'not-so-mild drizzle' to 'killer thunderstorm'...I'm told the government has declared an indefinite holiday for now - people aren't willing to risk sending their children to school, or risk their cars by

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1122819415875582572005-07-31T09:05:00.000-05:002005-07-31T09:16:55.880-05:00

Once again, the clouds have done their Chappar Phaad Ke act and screwed up life in Mumbai again. Thankfully, things aren't nearly as bad as the fateful Tuesday - and it's a Sunday to boot, so most people weren't at work. Still, there was flooding in some parts of the city, and the delivery of supplies and other relief materials was messed up. To top it off, schools have been closed for tomorrow,

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1122740076065000572005-07-30T11:05:00.000-05:002005-07-30T11:47:00.970-05:00

One of the things I was going to mention in this post was a small factoid: Mumbai now holds the record for the most amount of rain received in 24 hours. Unfortunately, Thite beat me to the punch by saying this in a comment on the previous post. Feel free to check that out for the numbers...Turns out the city hasn't yet moved on - a sizable number of people still don't have water or electricity.

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1122618803488776032005-07-29T00:53:00.000-05:002005-08-01T14:43:03.893-05:00

This was going to be a long rant on the devastating rains a couple of days ago. Unfortunately, the comp unexpectedly restarted when I was writing it, so I'm gonna be writing the whole thing from scratch. To save time, I'll just give a blow-by-blow description of what happened to myself and the rest of my family, followed by a little something on the rest of the city.Let's start with me. Having

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1121836071166187182005-07-19T23:45:00.000-05:002005-07-20T00:07:51.173-05:00

This has got to be the strangest TopCoder SRM I've ever been in...What follows is a short description of what happened, as seen through the eyes of yours truly.Halfway through the match, we lost the ability to compile code - people who talked to the admins were told that the servers were experiencing load problems - a little later there was a broadcast about this matter. A bit later, testing

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1121451425367496182005-07-15T12:02:00.000-05:002005-07-15T13:18:45.716-05:00

Our time table sucks. And I mean big time.Four days a week, 8AM to 4 or 5PM. Only 2 hours of college on the 5th day, but that's still too much. The only saving grace is that we have Monday off - that's supposed to be project day...The upshot of this is that my class is full of sleepy people - and I'm one of them...Something seems to have put the fear of God into my college people - or at least

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1121192029958433772005-07-12T12:19:00.000-05:002005-07-12T13:13:49.963-05:00

So college is on again. Not really happy news - it's mostly a boring waste of a lot of time that could have been profitably wasted instead...Case in point: I'll end up missing my TopCoder SRM tomorrow, because we have an 0800 lecture, and this prof is not the kind of person who turns up late. Looks like I've been reduced to just the weekend matches. Darn it all...Note to Thite: All the best for

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1120914588149101772005-07-09T07:24:00.000-05:002005-07-11T13:51:59.240-05:00

So we had the Infosys placement yesterday, and guess who got in...This was supposed to be a rather in-depth look at the interview process, but I'm a little tired right now, so let's skip the details and go to the gist of things...If this seems a little below my usual post standard - chalk it up to fatigue and boredom...As interviews go, this was a bit of a deviation from the norm. Of course, Infy

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1120677418972939452005-07-06T13:35:00.000-05:002005-07-06T15:02:32.540-05:00

During the Wimbledon finals match, I happened to be channel surfing and ran into Hallmark's adaptation of Earthsea. With Federer demolishing Roddick with consummate ease, I didn't get to see the whole of it, but I managed to catch a bit of it in the breaks and during the drizzle...The following rantings deal mostly with Earthsea, language, sorcery and coding, and so on...A bit of background on

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1120426418073983712005-07-03T14:35:00.000-05:002005-07-03T16:33:38.123-05:00

The title says it all, really...Federer took the Wimbledon championship in straight sets, and I managed to watch almost the entire match. Roddick put up one hell of a fight, but Federer was inhuman - such mastery of the game is insane - and therefore a great pleasure to watch...Here's the lowdown on what I found interesting...If I begin rambling on about seemingly unrelated things, please put up

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1120298231006060032005-07-02T03:58:00.000-05:002005-07-02T13:17:59.623-05:00

Time for another set of disconnected, incoherent rantings from yours truly. Here goes...First up - I always thought that people as dumb as Joey(from Friends) could not exist. Was proved wrong yesterday. Apparently people can be that dumb, at least in some areas of their lives. Ironically, Joey himself revealed my sister's mathematical dumbness to me...A dramatic reenactment of the scene follows:(

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1120144469660328522005-06-30T09:42:00.000-05:002005-07-01T03:29:33.493-05:00

Looks like I've found something interesting to read again...this time it's Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea Trilogy. I've just devoured the first two books - A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan. Two more to go...If you happen to like fantasy, this comes highly recommended. LeGuin has a rather strange style, or so it seems to me. On the other hand it might just be typical of the fantasy genre - I

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1120030513245001302005-06-29T01:39:00.000-05:002005-06-29T02:35:13.253-05:00

Some time ago I got through to section 2 of the USACO training gateway. For those not in the know, it's a pretty cool website where you can learn algorithmic programming. They basically give you a few problems to solve, and as you do them, you can go on ahead, learning more stuff along the way. Very nice way to do things...Anyway, section 2 is basically graph theory, and I was expecting something

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1119855233560270752005-06-27T01:32:00.000-05:002005-06-27T11:37:18.973-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, one of my posts mentioned Mindsport, which for those who came in late, is a weekly puzzle column that turns up every Sunday in The Sunday Times. Anyway, the subject of my post was my sending in a ludicrously simple solution to one of the puzzles. Now every week the writer complains about people demanding that their solution be published, since they've sent in 3000 solutions

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1119692459303846132005-06-25T04:21:00.000-05:002005-06-25T04:40:59.310-05:00

Just finished reading Nick Bostrom's thought provoking paper - Are you living in a computer simulation? He makes a terrifying case for the possibility that we might be simulations in a computer run by our posthuman descendants. I didn't really take this possibility seriously until now, but his arguments are quite compelling.Basically, he claims that at least one of the following is true: A very

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1119595124517564322005-06-24T01:27:00.000-05:002005-06-24T01:55:55.516-05:00

As I mentioned some time ago, the monsoons have finally begun in earnest. In fact, for the last two days or so, it's been raining almost nonstop. This bugs the hell out of my sister, who has to go to college and coaching classes. Meanwhile, I can relax like the lazy bum that I am and spend all my time indoors...and watch the steadily growing puddle(about the size of a small pond) in front of the

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1119518605698331652005-06-23T03:53:00.000-05:002005-06-27T12:05:00.000-05:00

As promised, here's the lowdown on the TCS experience. It's just a short bit, as my posts go, but it should showcase my monumental foolishness wonderfully...The entire recruitment process was divided into three sections: an aptitude test, a technical interview, and an HR interview. Most of my friends correctly predicted that the first two would be no trouble for me at all. Most of them also said

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1119189559919052022005-06-19T08:35:00.000-05:002005-06-19T10:01:51.326-05:00

So there I was in the TC Arena, ready to attack the problems they threw at me, and tear them limb from limb. With my newfound ability, I was ready to destroy the opposition, jump to division 1, and maybe make the leader board...I was gonna kick ass.Did it happen? Not on your life.Instead, I came out of this SRM with my lowest score ever, and dropped to my lowest rating yet. To add insult to

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12335457.post-1119082458983468732005-06-18T02:42:00.000-05:002005-06-18T03:16:34.826-05:00

Looks like the rainy season has finally begun in earnest, announcing its presence(to me, at any rate) with a thunderclap so loud that it seemed to come from right outside my window...The rain started a few minutes later, and for the first couple of minutes, the word 'torrential' would have been an understatement...Mumbaikars have a weird love-hate relationship with the monsoons - on one hand,

Nadeem Mohsinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848990502375756388noreply@blogger.com0