rohitj's domain

2007 was overall good. I got to learn lots of things, and got to do lots of things. Got to talk to lot of cool people. Though I wouldn’t forget that it also brought 7th semester which was like the most difficult semester I ever had. This semester probably took my anxiety level to top. Some of the highlights of 2007 are below:

1. Got a job at Microsoft, India. I am excited about it.
2. Got involved into Free Culture activities.
3. Shifted 99% to open source softwares. (flash )
4. Shifted 100% to free songs. (though, this is true.)
5. Shifted to wonderful KDE. I will write an entry for it.
6. No more Gentoo, it takes time. Ubuntu on other hand is wonderful. (Apologies to all those who are on Gentoo or are thinking of shifting to Gentoo because I asked them to do so. )
7. Hiking
8. Another hobby now is Photography …. need money to buy DSLR.
9. Bought a new web space to play with different things. Its been wonderful till now.
10. Zeropage removed restrictions from their songs.
11. Kelly Allyn sent me her autograph, need to go home to get it.
12. Met some wonderful people during internship at Virginia Tech.
13. <compressed because its personal>

Hopes from 2008 :

1. Grad School or a good job (or a startup?)
2. DSLR
3. Free Culture Club at IITK
4. Passing IITK
5. openmoko / android
6. make IITK music club release an album under CC ( www.tempostand.com should help us)
7. Finish talk with Vox Populi guys

1 : Zeropage initially released its tracks under CC by-nd-nc. Their tracks are really cool. I specially liked Ambient India. So, I talked to them, and asked them if they could remove the nd-nc clauses, and indeed they did. It’s under CC by-sa now. )

2 : I asked pornophonique. to release their videos in OGG format. Kai stunted me saying “this wmv-stuff is quite a pain in the ass, i know!”. But they didn’t know how to convert the videos, so I suggested then ffmpeg2theora. But it seems they didn’t have time for it, so Kai has asked to me convert the videos and share it for them . I will do that as soon as possible.

3 : Antaragni is a cultural festival organized by IIT Kanpur (of course only students organize everything). Students from all over India comes and participate in this event. This time, antaragni has flash page. The flash used the song “Right Here Right Now by Fat Boy Slim”. Of course I knew that they don’t have license to use this song. Even in IITK, people don’t know that there is something called “copyright” and there is something called “license” and “piracy” is illegal. So, anyways in IITK.MISC newsgroup I raised this issue, and they had to remove the song. . Since the flash is not sounding cool without music, so I suggested them to one of the songs Jamendo offers. I mainly suggested them “Steep”, “Bradsucks”, “pornophonique” (yes, pornophonique’s songs are under ND clause, but they said, they will give permission very easily), “terremoto”, “Josh Woodward” and now I have told them about “Zeropage” as well. I am hoping that they will take my advise.

So, in IITK we get net access through LAN. LAN not only gives us access to internet but also supports our LAN activities like file sharing, gaming etc. No doubt internet has decreased human interaction and is making people introvert/weaker. IITK is facing a similar problem. Some frequent suicides in past 2 years brought the issue that interaction between students should increase. And interaction between senior and junior students should increase as well. And authority came up with the rule that for first 3 semesters students should not be allowed LAN or personal computers. For computing purpose they should use Computer Center or Hall Computer Center. They claimed that reason for decreasing student interaction is computers. Students tend to spend most of their time in front of computer rather than with other students. To some extend its not wrong. If I consider myself, I spend most of my time in front of computer, and because of computers only, I spend most of my free time on computer rather than with friends. But being an extrovert guys ( I am pretty much extrovert, right?) I interact with friends as well. But its not same with others. Those who are not active in different activities inside campus tend to become more introvert.

But the question was, is LAN Ban going to help? Actually NO. Because its not computers that is contributing more, but its lack of activity in student community that is making students introvert. Gossips between students can not make students truely strong. We need to increase student co-curricular activities. Kanpur being a sort of village place where IIT students have no life outside IIT Campus, we need to create opportunities for students so that they come out of their rooms, rather than sitting in front of computer. Computer is just filling their free time. If you want that this free time should be spent outside students room then we have to increase social activities, which can be sports, festivals or anything. Let us talk logic here, how many of us play any game here? How many students do physical exercise? If I consider my wing of 24 students. No one does any physical activity. games, dance, jogging, gym, nothing. We do not have that good infrastructure for physical activities. How many of us participate in some club activity or something? Except from 2-3 guys, no one else does that. Why?

I guess there are 2 main reasons :

1. First is that academics load is a bit extra and irregular. We tend to work really hard for 2-3 days and then we relax for 2 days. Such irregularity doesn’t let us do anything other than acads and then sitting in room. For example, I want to play Lawn Tennis or Table Tennis, but I need a partner. The academic system doesn’t allow a student to be remain regular in schedule. So, I can not have a fixed partner, and hence I can not play either game regularly, and soon I stop playing that game. I have tried it a lot of time, and every time after 2-3 days, I got an assignment or my partner got an assignment and we stopped playing. But they wouldn’t decrease academic pressure.
2. Lack of infrastructure for student co-curricular activities : no of Table Tennis tables in each Hall of Residence of 500 students is just 1. For the whole IITK of 10,000 population only 2 Lawn Tennis courts are there. Squash? no. Bad-minton? no. Swimming? limited service. Volley Ball? just 1 court which has lights. Basket Ball? just 2 courts (though its probably enough). Gym? limited service. pool/billiards? no.

And more it. LAN Ban meant snatching freedom from students. Those who want to learn about computers, will not be able to have their own computer and hence wouldn’t be able to experiments. I remember I learned about Linux in my 3rd semester. LAN/Computer ban for 3 semesters will mean that a computer science student will remain away from computer for 3/8th time of his degree. What an irony. Those who want to partipate in programming contest, those who want to work on their projects, have to dependent upon Computer Centers, ah common thats so inconvenient. And anyways, as we got feedback from new batch which is affected by this ban, this ban is not helping students interact with seniors. Probably same batch student interaction would have increased.

So, considering this new batch’s response, Student Senate has said NO to LAN Ban. IITK has been a place which has given full freedom to students. This freedom has given us rights that we can say NO to decisions taken by authority which affects students. I hope now when even Student Senate has said no to this, authority will take back their decision.

I invite comment/suggestions regarding the two point I raised.

So, finally CS Department of IIT Kanpur has taken a step to decrease faculty-student distance. Every Wednesday students and faculty members meet at 5PM and talk over a cup of tea and samosas. The topics are supposed to be informal. So, it wouldn’t be just about acads. Today was second meet. I couldn’t attend last meeting, but today I was there. I was 20 mins late, so missed tea and samosa. But  it will be compensated next time, we are going to have pizzas and cold drinks in next get-together . Yes baby, CS department is the coolest (at least pretends) department of IITK.

As of now, we are still talking about different serious issues about department, but I am sure if this meeting will keep going, we will have some real informal chat. There were 4 professors. Prof. Manindra Agarwal (HOD), Prof. Sanghi (DUGC), Prof. Jain, Prof. SKA. I appreciate that these professors were there. I think in last meeting Prof. Karnick were there. I hope others will show up as well. Though for one meet, I think 4-5 professors would be enough. But that shouldn’t mean that same professors are there in every meet. Special thanks to Prof. Manin and Prof. Sanghi for taking this initiative.

So, how is this meet helpful? Lets take one example. Prof. Manindra is a real cool personality. He is one of the best professors, IITK has. Though UGs usually do not get to interact with him, because he (usually) teaches only PG courses, and also he is a laconic speaker ( Am I wrong?), though he is very down to earth. There are other such professors. These interactions will remove such distances. These interactions will surely show students that professors are not devil. You can talk to them as frankly as you talk to others ( but you have to be a bit formal). I am sure this interaction will make the department a better family.

And yeah, please keep variety of stuff to eat and drink. I don’t want to miss these meeting. 

In my post about google products, I had shown my wish to have a desktop application for calendar which should sync it’s data with an online server so that I will not have to open browser to see calendar, and I will be able to see calendar even if I do not have my laptop with me.

Now, in software engineering course, we are asked to make a software using different software engineering techniques. And I could persuade my project partners to work on this dream calendar. Mainly the calendar will have following properties :

1. API for making desktop application and web application. First release will have API for perl only. (will serve both desktop and web application )
2. All normal calendar things
3. The software will be under GPL.
4. Others will be able to change your calendar, if you have given them permission.
5. others will be able to send you a request to add an entry in your schedule, like your friend may want you to attend a meeting, (s)he can put an entry for that in your calendar, but you have to accept that request so it finally appear in your schedule.
6. We are trying to understand how iCal works, once we understand that, we will try to include iCal as well, so that you could use current softwares which supports iCal. (iCal is RFC standard for calendars, that means I can freely use it. right?)
7. As of now, if iCal doesn’t make sense, we will have our own thing, for now we are calling it oCal.
8. I will run this server on my web server, so if you others wouldn’t have a server to sync their data, they should be able to do that.
9. We are thinking of including some plugin system as well, so users could modify the calendar functionalities, though we are looking at how different plugin systems works
10. Current status of the project can be seen at http://rohitj.net/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=software_engineering_project

If you think you want a particular feature in the calendar, let me know. We want to know what users want.

Last week was a different week for me. My schedule was all screwed. In general, I slept at around 4PM (IST) and woke up at 11PM. But, this wasn’t that bad schedule as I got good peaceful lonely time to work. Though, last week I slept for just 30 hours. I had exam which is screwed big time. Then had assignments and the biggest part was used for BTech Project. I had some tough time doing the work my guide gave to me. Though it was interesting at the end. As, I got to learn lot of things. And then yesterday’s meeting went well. I have now a lot of things to do. Most of it are the things that even my professor himself have no idea about. I think I am going to enjoy my BTech Project.
And yeah, I have started another blog to write about the work I am doing in the project. Check out  www.rohitj.net/researchblog/ . It’s again powered by wordpress.

So, I pulled all-nighter because I needed to understand 3 research papers and was supposed to compare them and then meet my BTech Project Guide. And to my surprise I couldn’t even complete a single paper. Of course, after all I am daring enough to work under Dr. Ganguly. Of course, I am still hoping that this ‘dare’ will give fruits . It’s interesting to work on something which you know you can not do. Isn’t it?

So, after this night, I had class at 02:30 UTC. To enter Academic Area there are mainly 4 gates. I usually take a gate which is usually not taken by other students. Each gate has a Security Guard. Of course we never notice security guard, and I assumed that security guards never give any attention to students. But today when I was rushing for the class, this security guard at the gate said, “Sir, aapki chaal mast hai”. Which means “Sir, your walking style is good/interesting.” I was shocked. First I didn’t even notice that he was there. Second that he must be observing me for quite sometime. Third that he said something like this. I said “kya?” (“what?”) and he replied “aap chalte hue achche lagte hain.” ( “you look good when you are walking”). wierd!!! I am sure he wan’t hitting on me, but still, its weird.
Then it comes out that there was no class today. And I need to complete an assignment by tonight. And I need to complete some formalities by 06:30 UTC for placements. So, I have no time to sleep in day time as well. On thursday, I have got  2 exams, need to do preparation for that as well. And then BTP work.

By the way, my BTech Project is about “Compressed Sensing”. I will be starting a new blog to talk about it. Stay tuned.

Dr. Dheeraj Sanghi, who is a professor at Computer Science and Engineering Department of IIT Kanpur, and who is currently SUGC in IIT Kanpur did a special observation and posted it on iitk.misc newsgroup. The observation is like this :

Year of passing means the year in which the student finished his/her high-school. Since IIT is very prestigious school and other schools are way worse than IIT, everyone wants to get into IIT. Thats why, some students who couldn’t get into IIT spend 1 year after high school and prepare for IIT Entrance Exam.

This observation is important for 2 reasons (at least):

1. The statistics says that out of 535 student 351 students wasted their at least 1 year for IIT JEE preparation. Note that most of the 2005 passouts spent 1 year just on JEE preparation. Most of the times they do not join any other school. And even if they do when they come to IIT and join as freshers they in fact trash that 1 year. For 2004 passouts and others I wouldn’t say its all true. They may have joined some other school. But still they wasted years in that school. Isn’t it horrible? Students are wasting time in JEE prepartion, the time they could have used in some creative work. Of course it’s not IITs fault. Rather now IIT has made the rule that you can join IIT in the year say ‘y’ only if you completed your high school in a year > y-2 . India need to create more ‘good schools’. But please don’t do that by sacrificing IIT’s name. Stupid Arjun Singh can do this thing. Improve NITs. They have got potential.
2. Second thing is the trend of CPI. What is the reason that CPI is decrease with gap between passout year and IIT joining year? I am not sure about the reason. Here are some reasons I could think of :

• Fresh students can study more because they are the once who studied for high school and for JEE both. So, of course IIT load wasn’t too much for them. On the other hand since dropouts (students who spent a year or more for JEE preparation) had lot of time during JEE preparation, they couldn’t face the IIT academic pressure.
• Freshers are still studying for exams and marks. On the other hand dropouts had time and they now understand that exams are stupid things and working for marks is stupidity. (I believe that exams doesn’t prove anything. And if it doesn’t prove anything, fuck it, don’t care about it)

Can you suggest something seeing this stat?

I do not know about this pictures licensing, don’t kill me for that.

If you know me well, you know that I think psychiatrists are dumb. But anyways, I am doing this course in this semester named “ORGANIZATIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE PSYCHOLOGY”. In one class of this course, the professor told us that with anxiety performance increases. It reaches a peek and then with further increase in anxiety performance decreases. I think that makes sense to some extent. (if you attended his class, you will agree on this point.) Anyways. So, I told a friend of mine that when there is no exam I am 100% normal (otherwise I may not). And this is a part of her reply “100% normal? I don’t believe it for a second. What are exams like at your school?” So, this gave me the idea of locating IITians in that graph. According to me the graph pretty much looks like this :

In the graph, No 1 means IITians after entering IIT. No 2 means IITians when they were preparing for IIT Joint Entrance Exam (IIT-JEE). Note that students in 1 and 2 are same. No 2 is not talking about students preparing/giving JEE. Its for students who were preparing for JEE and finally cleared JEE.

Red Line means the anxiety on a normal day. Blue lines numbered 1 are making a range in which an IITian’s anxiety falls during exam time or when there is a big assignment deadline. Blue lines marked as 2 are making a range in which an “to-be-iitian”‘s anxiety falls during exam times. Note No 2s had mainly one major exam i.e. JEE and a some internal high-school exams.

Note, red lines are not forming any range that doesn’t mean that everyone’s anxiety is same. It means that anxiety of different students are closer.

Another point : This model is supposed to be for 80% of the IITians. Exceptions are always there, and just to make analysis simpler and less controversial, I am taken 20% students as exceptions. By the way, these 20% students are those who are exceptionally good at getting grades. ( getting good grades !=> good in acads). And it also contains students who are very poor in acads. ( very poor in acads => very bad grades). This also contains people who are intelligent but are really cool, so they do not give extra efforts for exams ( Do I belong to this category? )

Disclaimer : The author is not drunk when he is writing this post. This is just my perception (supported by 2 of my wing-mates). I mean the model is my perception, not the point that I am not drunk. You have full right to disbelieve this model or the fact that I am not drunk. If you are one of those exceptional 20% students, don’t dare to reply. You guys suck big time. … ah, wait, I am ( atleast want to be) in the cool and intelligent guys category. . So, if you are in that cool + intelligent category, you can reply.

Wow, I am good at writing nonsense.

So what does the model say : it says that IITs and its deadlines/exams have changed us. We work when we have deadlines. Just to give ya a glimpse, there is this guy in my school who studied in some univ in Singapore for 1 semester. The prof gave them an assignment on some date (say D) which was supposed to be submitted before or in the class on “D +1 month”. This guy, he submitted the assignment on the “d+1 month” day. He entered the class late because he was working on the assignment till the class started. And after the class he got to know that everyone had submitted the assignment before “D+15 days”. Thats a general thing here. We work on last days, and at that time we work like dogs. We wouldn’t sleep for days and will be working all the time.

Anyways, so it seems that our performance on a normal day is very poor as compared to the time when we were not in IIT. Secondly, note that our average performance during exam times remained same. Also note that JEE used to make more anxiety in us, which actually decreased our performance a lot of time. (hint : see the range for No 2, it cross the best anxiety level)

Also, since no of deadlines increases drastically when we come to IIT (this high anxiety is on 10 days a month normally), overall performance of an IITian is better when he reaches IIT.

But it also leads to 2 points :

1. Is JEE right way of examining students? (For your information 180,000 students from all over the India sit for JEE and only 4000 are selected.)
2. Is IIT system good? Isn’t this varying anxiety bad for students. So much ups and downs. Rather, lots of students become fatigue because of that. (Don’t forget the suicide cases)

If you laughed after reading this post (either because the post is funny, or because I am a stupid/typical geek), BIG THANKS. The post is supposed to be funny and nonsense. But it seems this topic always makes me serious. I will elaborate the last 2 points some day. I shouldn’t do that today, I am already very serious.