nineteen till i die » Science

Rediff does it again !

zephyr19 — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 03:12:21 +0000

Dear Rediff Team

Being a widely used web portal of good repute, I do not see any reason why you should allow blunders like the following to happen, especially on the homepage! Moreover, earlier, I had observed this.

A suffering surfer

Pawan Jain

Rediff homepage spelling mistake

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First ever issue with GMail

Pawan — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:13:07 +0000

Google just doesn’t seem to get its counting correct. It was with Orkut communities (there were, and I believe there still are, those famous “Showing 1-10 of 5″, “Showing 1-20 of 0″ kind of bugs in orkut community threads pages, and the eternal wrong counting errors of number of friends), now I see it with GMail. Just have a look.

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Computer Science and Toilet Paper

Pawan — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:13:37 +0000

Though it is very famous and well known (even works for me), that the best ideas come in the washroom, a place where you are invariably alone. Having said that, I have to accept that I could never have thought of this:

Yikes. We never realized that you had to be a computer scientist to use toilet paper. Worse, we didn’t realize that thinking was required to select the roll.

Amazing essay by Don Norman. It furthers my belief in the power of computer science. I have more career options than I ever imagined! Toilet paper, etc. etc….

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So, what about the Nano?

Pawan — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:08:00 +0000

So, as the curtains unveil the smallest car in India, and the most economical car in the world, everyone wants to have one. This is the first time this has happened in the car industry – where a large set of Indians can actually think of owning it. The obvious and the most interesting reason – the price tag. Where in the world will you find a car priced at $2500 ?

Beyond all the apprehensions of the “People’s car” being unable to run, being unreliable, being made of plastic, …, there was an unswerving faith that resided in the heart of each and every Indian – the faith in one man – one shy man who has proven himself time and again and won accolades for his ideas and his execution of strategies. When Ratan Tata came up with Tata Indica, it was his sole belief and dream of having a car which is 100% Made in India. While all his board of directors were doubtful, he did it, and today Indica has carved out a niche for itself with a decent market share.

And before anyone could imagine – here he is – with his latest – the Rs. 1 Lakh car ! Although he had declared his plan more than four years back, it was seen with as many doubtful eyes as one can imagine. Personally, I was hopeful, but I never expected it to arrive this soon!

All this hullabaloo about it notwithstanding, I am not going to buy this car, neither for myself nor for any family member of mine. The looks are decent, but I have serious doubts about comfort. Remember Tata’s words – the motivation behind the car was providing “safe” transport to a 4-member family. From that perspective, and looking at the nominal price, anything with a decent seating and back support is high on comfort.

My parents already possess a M800, which I am sure is much more comfortable than the Nano which does not even have reclining seats. So they obviously deserve much better. And for me, exterior looks are okay, but I am not impressed with the interiors – it is essentially basic minimum, sans any funky stuff (Anyways, that would be asking too much for Rs. 1 Lakh!). So here’s wishing Mr. Tata all the best for his latest endeavor. Hope it becomes the “People’s car”.

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My latest possession : The Small Wonder

Pawan — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 09:11:00 +0000

If you happened to click on the title of this post, you must have come to know what I am going to talk about. Now you are going to click on it right?

It was all Sony in the mind before I came across this cute little thing. Now I feel it could never have been a Sony. According to me the Canon PowerShot A530 is the cutest thing in the world of cameras. This might sound like a biased review, stepping into the shoes of a consumer type who would not like to conclude at the end of the day that his decision was wrong.

Unfortunately I did not get enough time at home to explore the little master, but after reading many unbiased reviews of experts around the world, I can feel satisfied that my decision echoes with people who know. I can’t wait to paste a huge photograph of the smart photographer in my post. So here comes the small wonder..

Possesses all the features that matter, added to it the sleek and attractive look and feel. Just a handful in size. What more can I say.. I feel like putting my hand into the screen and hold it in my hands.

Meanwhile I plan read more about the camera and get inspired, and dedicate next few posts on my blog on the small wonder.

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How’s that!!

Pawan — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 17:35:00 +0000

Impressive isn’t it? Well as my partner puts it in his own words.. “This is the beauty of Ray Tracing”. What you see in the image is the scene you will get when you have two white light sources(one placed near top left and one placed near bottom right), and the objects as shown in the picture, which comprise of a simple non-reflective yellow bench, three walls, a roof and a floor, and a beautiful picture of a parrot on a wall. The floor is carpeted, and one of the three walls is completely covered with a painting. The roof has a largely reflective paint which gives a cool look to the overall picture.

Technically, all the cosmetics are texture maps of images. Otherwise it is a simple collection of polygons. Ray tracing adds all that is required to bring the collection of polygons and images to life.

Have a look at the bare collections of the polygons:

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Ray Tracing Rocks!!

Pawan — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 12:50:00 +0000

You just had a look at my first ray traced image. This is what I am doing in my present assignment in my course in Computer Graphics. You can see 2 spheres, well, one of them appears as an ellipse because of perspective view from eye, which does not affect the shape of the first sphere because the line joining the eye and its centre is perpendicular to the plane of projection. Enough of technical stuff right? Ok so lets talk in layman terms. Simply put, the above scene is what you will get if you had a blue sphere and an orangish sphere suspended in mid air in a room with light purple background, and have a decently good ambient lighting in the room.

Also there is a point light source(say a torch, approximately). The surface of the blue sphere is near plastic so that a point light source spreads on it more. Had it been metallic, the spot of light would have been more concentrated. Well this is only a part of my HUGE assignment, but I am overwhelmed with the results. This is damn enjoyable!

More on the assignment later.. when I have something more amazing to show

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Compu Corridor Cricket…

Pawan — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 20:57:00 +0000

Sleepless again. But this time a weekend.. So banta hai yaar!!

Wing cricket has long been a tradition of Jwala since many years. It feels great to live it when we play wing cricket at 1 am with this cool breeze blowing and touching us as it crosses the wing from one balcony to other.

Rules of this cricket are amazing… We came up with a ‘Body’ rule.. It was really getting annoying when the batsman is not willing to get his bat in place and always gets his chest, or back, or legs in the line of the ball just to pass time given the fact that number of overs are unlimited. The rule says that you cannot touch a ball with your body 3 times in a row. That clearly increases the probability that the ball will meet the bat and makes the game somewhat more interesting.

But today’s game was abandoned halfway. Guess why??

Yes.. HOLI!!

This hostel holi is real disgusting. I hate it. They make a mess of a good colorful festival by running after each other with a bucket of water just to make the person wet. I do not get the point. Whats the fun involved. Moreover in this cold weather you might catch fever.

Anyways.. the cricket is great fun!

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The iPod dilemma

Pawan — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 20:51:00 +0000

Isn’t it amazing when someone for the first time in life gets to feel: This is my hard earned money, and I’ll use it as I feel like.. No obligations

To do or not to do? To buy it or not to buy? Is it worth the investment? Is it value for money? Should I wait for something better?

These are only a few of the questions my mind is busy asking itself these days. Since mind speaks on a blog, mine too got quite verbose while writing the questions above till I stopped myself and gave a line break . So… now that the skills I have acquired in life are actually going to get me money, I cannot stop pondering about spending it to fulfill the weirdest “fancies” and “luxuries” that I ever had and wanted and did not want my parents to invest in it, simply because I did not consider them worthy enough. Now that since most my friends are getting 15K from their internships, my 20K makes me think that I actually have 5K extra for my “luxuries”!!!

So while all these things are running in the mind, it starts to ponder over the question: “Why should I go for an iPod and why shouldn’t I?” The following answers come instantly.

Why should I: Whenever I am traveling alone, I feel extremely bored in mid-journey time. In such a situation I so wish I had an iPod! Another reason is the cool gadget it is. So much in so small a thing! Amazing!

Why shouldn’t I: Maybe there are more things that I need to have before I have an iPod. Take for example a digicam. I would consider it more useful than an iPod which can do nothing more than playing music videos. Absolutely no creativity involved. The real bad thing is that it is so limited is its functionality. One can get real creative with a digicam.

Tough decision this!

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And the day I made it to Google(Intern)…

Pawan — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 16:43:00 +0000

Getting through an interview is special.. at least to me, who hasnt experienced success in an interview before. And when its Google, the significance is manifold. I got the great news from a very good friend of mine and could not believe it at the first instant. And did not till I confirmed myself.

Its a feeling hard to explain.. and harder to write! The day before the interview I was browsing Google’s site for the intern projects. And going through past internees’ experiences and their projects, and visualising myself there!
The feeling that I am one of them now, is just great.

Lets see if its Bangalore or Hyderabad..

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