Sunday, May 30, 2010

Rinpoche

Back in those days, we saw things like these only in movies.

The "Minority Report" interface
again, the "Minority Report" interface
The flexible roll-out display.
the proposed 3D windows interface
aw crap, the screen is so invisible I'd just try to walk through!

Guess what, a guy at IITB built it way earlier than any of these guys!


He loved his ancient laptop so much that even after the back-light in his screen burned out, he continued using it with an extremely bright CFL as a backlight. The real test came when half the keys on his keyboard bid farewell to the rest of the assembly, and he started developing the hand gesture UI technology.
Photo by Sriram Kashyap.











Alright; enough. Dude - get rid of that thing; NOW!

PS : In case you are seriously thinking of starting a flamewar on who invented that stuff, all this was a fart.
He is still alive and is a database expert, about to graduate.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Am I too old already?

Recently a friend of mine said I could follow him on twitter. I asked 'Why twitter? Can't we simply do IM or email?', and then we had a brief discussion about how twitter is great; and I suddenly started feeling a little left out. Being a techie, I would love to check this thing out (although it has been two years since it launched); and so I did.

All it asked me to enter is 'what's happening?'. Well... nothing is happening. I am doing all my regular chores sitting in the campus room.

Long pause.

Now what?

If I post something, who looks at it?

If someone actually looks at what I post, if at all someone does, the big question is - "WHY?".
Why would someone look at what I am doing? Am I a celebrity?
Hell no.
Do I want to be?
Maybe.
Do I want to live the life of a celebrity while I am not?
Probably not.
Is it made just to make the participant feel that he/she is important? Interesting? Sought-after?
Looks like. Everyone is just becoming an exhibitionist, bragging about their exceptional life. Don't you respect your own privacy yourself?

Why would I be interested in finding out whether some guy in France yelled at a street ped? What business do I have with you not brushing your teeth? If you lost your job, shouldn't you be looking out for another one, instead of 'tweeting' about it?

Am I too old-generation to understand the social importance of twitter?
Probably.

I simply do not get the point of twitter.

Another new trend that irks me is the proliferation of so-called social networking sites.
Why would I want to waste my time sifting through the hundreds of status changes my friends post throughout the day? Worse - comment on them, and re-comment?
Why would I want to look at the daily horoscope of a person who is more of an acquaintance than a friend?
Then again, with the rise of these social networking sites, the distinction between friend and acquaintance is hazy.
Why would I waste time answering stupid questions in a quiz that promises to tell me the date of my marriage, or my cartoon avatar, or which Greek God I am?
Why would I play an online game and post stats on my page, and challenge my friends to beat me? There are better online gaming sites, with many more and much more challenging games (trust me). If I want to prove myself at gaming, I would play games on the serious gaming sites.
Why would I waste time answering dumb questions like 'why would your friend xyz be stopped at an airport security post'?
And what about my privacy? Privacy from spies, acquaintances who might make a mess by posting something I do not want my potential girlfriend to know?
I've heard that facebook can be addictive if overdone.

I simply don't get the point of using facebook/myspace/orkut.

Why would I join my colleagues from work, classmates, and ask them to write recommendations for me?
That too on a site which I can not even put on my resume. Why should I give my academic and professional background/history to a company which I barely know, just because all my friends and collogues have done it already and they send me tens of mails every day asking me to join?
Who reads it? Do recruiters actually look at my profile? They search for me? Maybe they really do, but ... Why? If I am looking for a job, shouldn't it be me who is looking out for companies and applying with a nicely tailored resume? The only scenario where LinkedIn makes sense is when you want business connections. That too, can be achieved using yellow pages.

I simply don't get the point of using LinkedIn.



I hear you -

Where do I share interesting links with my friends?
How about Digg/stumbleupon/delicious?

Where do I share photos/videos?
How about Picasa/flickr or countless other sharing sites?

How do I let my Mom know what I did today?
How about writing her a mail/IM? Even better, call her!

How do I let my co-workers know the status of an interesting project I am working on?
Blog about it.

Where do I find business?
If someone can't make it to the Yellow pages, they probably aren't doing good anyway.

Again, I do not get the point of all these sites.

Am I too old already?

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

campus

Seniors always said that campus job fair would be the most hectic days of our IIT life. I did not realize why they made a big fuss about it, until I went through all that myself. And now I am a believer.

Each day is divided into 2 slots, first being 8AM to 4PM, and second 6PM to 4AM. Yes, you read that right, four in the morning. During initial days of the fair, each slot can house 10+ companies. Recruiters have to conduct written tests and all their rounds of interviews during that period. Of course, there will be clashes. You may be interested in getting into a good number of companies recruiting in the same slot, and you will have to run around like crazy to appear for some test in Elects. building, some interview in some classroom in main building and again some test/interview in H10 and so on. This continues till either the company says you do not need to come for another round of interview (which could mean either 'you are in' or 'now we know you enough to not consider you'), or you faint. That is, of course, if you get through the written test.

Believe me, doing all this after sleeping for approximately 4 hours is no fun. Regular food is out of question. I saw people faint and say completely arbit things in the interviews while they wanted to say something else. Try facing moderately tough algorithmic questions after waking up at 2AM midnight, and you will live a moment of a job aspirant at IITB.

As far as I am concerned, I owe a sincere thanks to Girija, Harshada, Ashish and Kailas who helped me all the way through my interview process. Had Girija not called me up regarding the interview, I know for sure that I would have missed it. I felt reassured knowing that Ashish was around, who would happily help me with some algorithmic problem I might jumble up in at the last moment.

Finally I made it into the evil corporation software giant, and started helping others out.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009