Observations and stuff!

I saw a toddler today, playing with a toy bulldozer, on the street. The bulldozer was in pretty good shape. It was great, colorful and whatever a toy would should be good at. But this boy was not in a good shape, otherwise he wouldn’t be playing with that on the street. I wish we had camera in our eyes so that I could photograph some instants of my life without seeking the camera. Maybe that is every photographers dream.

Few days age a friend of mine told me what a perfectionist she was once upon a time, and how she somewhat lost it (I don’t believe that). I was amazed by her story! She is such a skilled person! Just as I Love her, I started to feel sometimes that I might not be an appropriate person for her, she deserves someone lot better and complete that me who can actually Love her. Sometimes that makes me so unhappy, I wish I could be that perfect in my principles and ways, and in what I do that I could near her. But flaws in my character are so deep that I am still trying to make myself more complete after 20 years of spending Life! She is so nice and yet so perfect in her ways; I never seen anyone like her. Whatever, I am so lucky that I met her!

I started to programme AVR microcontrollers. It was really very FUN! My friends really liked that I think. I enjoyed the compliments. But I wish they were more interest in doing some programming first hand. You can see my first project here.

“People like us don’t change, we either stay sharp or get sloppy” – Rusty, Ocean’s Eleven. I liked this quote very much. After very bad good awesome cool encounters with Life, I am what I am.

Animation and Perfection

One very good friend of mine is is learning how animate stuff. That is his trade in academia. His devotion to his subject, makes me jealous. He devotes himself to his subject, like he is the subject. When he draws, it seems that the pencil somehow exactly reproducing what he wants from it. Some perfection I rarely see. He uses his pencil like a second arm.

Some friend of mine just jerk off the word perfection, they just keep saying something like nothing is perfect, so bothering about perfection has no meaning at all. I think perfection is; what we can do, compared to what we want ourselves to do or what other people can do, or what is possible for us to do. And this friend of mine just proved me correct. He is obsessed with perfection. I am not saying he is one of the rarest people who can draw like GOD, but he is one of them who likes to become perfect.

I liked to flaunt my obsession about perfection in my trade, where I play (Unlike HIM). It was a bug in my character. Flaunting perfection might lead to conflicts of many kind. And that will fade obsession. When obsession is faded, then there is no perfection, no uniqueness; And then how can one define himself, to him, to his conscience, to the Universe.

Perfection and obsession are so intermingled!

Another tribute to perfection, Richard Williams’ animation. Enjoy!

Obsessions

My recent obsession for various skills, I think is improving my overall performance as a ‘HUMAN’.

When I was young, and in High School, a teacher said something in Bengali…

“Je joto kom boyoshe nesha kore, Se toto paka Nesharu hoi”

It literally means, the more young one gets addicted to something, becomes more expert addicts. I don’t remember in what context he said that, but I recall this words very often these days, when someone says that they need more time and knowledge to do something and they cannot do it right then. The more we get obsessed with something, the more perfect we become. And perfection is necessary! And the early we do, the easier it is for us. Stuffs might appear difficult or impossible, but we can pull it off if is not drastically advanced. Like when I learned how to program a computer with BASIC, I knew I had a lot of power, but I couldn’t even form the simplest algorithms. I was in sixth grade at that time. Eventually I learned more programming languages, and learned to use more libraries. I am no super-duper programmer, and I am still trying to get into a open-source project, but I am starting to realize the abstract nature of programming, which I prefer to call, “The Zen of Programming”. These days, as a electronics engineering student, I sometimes try to hurry to some topic. I do find it difficult, but I believe I will eventually pull it off. It reminds me of the days, when I played Enigma and Pink Floyd in cassette player, and slept with the BASIC FOR SCHOOLS book under my pillow. Electronics is pretty new to me, and I am somewhat new to electronics. And the philosophy of the discipline is very much different than what I learned few years back as a kid.

Since recently I am trying to perfect my hand for drawing human figures and mechanical designs, improving my mathematical skills to for computationally advanced stuff, trying to get my photography skills to a significant state, dreaming of becoming a Good Adventurer and Mountaineer, getting a good skill for designing electromechanical and electronic stuff, and expanding my knowledge to as much as I can and getting a clear understanding of SCIENCE.

This is FUN!

The Rescue

I was waiting for a long time to post this. But I could not as my internet connection was down. But now, that I have regained the connection, I think I should write up this story right away.

Well, they were not conservation workers who did the job, there. They did rescue a DOG, from almost certain death. I am no good story teller, but I will try my best, so that you won’t fall asleep.

I didn’t even notice what was going on, but I saw one among team was looking the down a hole, near a temple named Ghagarburi. The rocks near the temple is has some strange holes, made by some industrial effluent flowing there. And there was some scream, it was the dog, and it fell in a watered hole. It was the scream that I noticed (and once again it was proved, that scream is an evolutionary aid).

Well, here is the team:

Now, just as we noticed that the dog was in trouble, the first thing that was on our mind that how to save it.

We saw a piece of clothe. We thought it would have traction with her feet, if we lay it at the mouth of the hole, as she was slipping. But that didn’t work as the cloth was slipping itself. “Godammit!”, we thought.

Then someone brought a large branch of a tree, to help the dog. But she couldn’t understand that we meant it for a ladder. And she screamed even louder.

The operation:

…

Ultimately she did get out, with the help that piece of clothes, as one us stopped the clothe from slipping.

I didn’t really did anything in the operation but I felt very light that day, when she looked back while running to her kids. I don’t know if it was gratitude, or some mystified look.

Run Baby, Run! Your kids are waiting for you…

Three phase systems, 5star and music addiction

I am having a addiction. Very bad, as it might harm my ears. Sometimes it appears to me that I am wearing the ear buds all the time. Sometimes my Philips GoGear portable audio player, or sometimes my Sony Ericsson W350. I keep listening! I feel more free. And suddenly I am having a mind to list down the songs that connects me to my significant crushes.

1st I don’t remember.

My 2nd crush: Ami Jare Chai Re by Bhoomi

3rd crush: Hey Shona from Ta Ra Rum Pum, Be With You by Enrique

4th crush: It’s My Life by Bon Jovi, City of Blinding Lights by U2

5th crush: Far Away by Nickelback

I have a new fondness for the Cadbury 5star. I eat those a lot nowdays.

And I understand poly phase systems. I studied a three phase AC system just today, and had great fun learning an exciting engineering implementation. Great!

The shards from crushes still hurt, dreams scream in agony, envy ambushes mind, loneliness dominates the horizon, time appears to be much lubricated, home feels like prison (like to return late from college, but a friend give me a hurry), lost the purpose of life (trying to find it again), study seems to be meaningless, chat with friends seems so foolish and I am afraid that I am losing my ability to function.

Now, drinking a cup of Nescafe Instant Coffee, my sour tongue is finding some respite. I think it deserves some rest.

Sony Ericsson W350i

I wanted a cellphone, and after I a lot of research, I settled with NOKIA 3120. But unfortunately while I was in the shop, the whole thing turned to Sony Ericsson W350i.

I bought the phone. It is about five days I am with my new W350i. It is performing great.

The WALKMAN player: Awesome! Has a lot of options, almost like Windows Media Player. It is a breeze to browse through music. It comes with a Sony Bass Reflex Headphones, which sounds great also.

The Bluetooth system is pretty fast. I hooked it up with a friend’s W700i, and tested it. It performed fine!

The Camera according to me is not up to the mark. But I am not really bothered about that as I don’t really need a cellphone cam.

The Net browser is even better, fast and sleek.

And for now ‘I love my music!’

Feynman, tie and textbook

I was reading Feynman’s Lectures on Physics. I say, “If there is any undergraduate physics textbooks exists it is Feynman’s Lectures on Physics, others are mere references”. My beloved readers (if there is any reader as I get no more pageveiws than 16-17 avg.), you should read the books, your background doesn’t matter, least Algebra and Calculus required, but nothing more. You will be doing Physics in no time. If you ask me, “Why should we crack our nerves on something like Physics?”, because you will have to excercise your brain a little bit to learn Physics, I would promptly answer, “You will be missing somthing in your life! Guranteed!”. Reading popular science is great, but only to some certain extent. Beyond that, you must study the inner working of the science, and when you learn that, you will have better understanding on the thing that you are reading in some popular science article. I found thisout myself, I was reading a book, ‘Symmetry and the Monster’ by Mark Ronan. The book is just great, but it was not enough to understand group theory, upon which the latter chapters were dependent on. So, I downloaded these pages, http://members.tripod.com/~dogschool/ and studied group theory. In that way I was able to advance to the latter chapters of the book. I read a lot of popular articles about Quantum Mechanics, but I was never really did understand what is really was. After I learned the inner mathematical workings of QM, I became pretty much familliar in Quantum Mechanics.

Feynman made me a more serious student. I don’t know why, it may also have some different reasons, but I nonticed it. After reading a bits of Feynman, I am in love for other textbooks. I read more text books that I did before. This might seem to be  a strange phenomenon, but it happened.

Not only that, while I watching Naruto today, with Gaara fighting with Rock Lee(Outside: Joker, inside: Tiger), I was practiing how to tie a tie from the internet(http://www.neckties.com/content/howtotieatie.html), and finally managed to master the Winsdor knot. It is quite an achievment for me, withing half an hour, I really mastered the knot, while watching TV. I think Feynman was in this too…

It’s time!

I am a bit sorry that I didn’t show myself off a little earlier. I never liked show offs. I think that I needed to show off a little bit; If you never show off, how can everyone else know what you really are. Isn’t that true, I think it is a bit logical, and how I came to know it? It was real treat when you know that you really pulled off something good.  Basically, it was a group theory instinct! We have a XEROX Phaser 3117 monochrome laser printer. My father had to print something with a letter headed page. Being my printer assistance, I had to make sure when the page comes out which side is up on the page, so that the print corresponds with the letter head. I was sure that the page will come out with the initial up side down, but my father argued that I couldn’t understand a simple thing, so that I should make a mark on the page first. But if you see the XEROX Phaser printer in action, then you can easily make out my argument, logically. You don’t really need group theory, you just need a bit of logical arguments to prove that. Try that, you will like it. I did the proof in a second, but my father could not understand that I did that in my mind, and I did not had to test print.

And that is why now I think it’s time that I show off something so that the people who matters most to me really know that I am not as DULL as they think I am (and I am sure that they think I am a real DULL guy).

P.S. Showing off now: According to my observation, a bit advanced logic sometimes appears meaningless…

Being Geek

Being a Technology Geek, and a serious physics-mathematics buff is really hard especially when you are in 18 yrs. of age, with your board exams very near. But as Geekdom is full of fun, you cannot ignore that, and thus you will fall in your career. This was my truth, until recently.

When I think I should talk about quantum mechanics with my friends, they literally scold me, as they don’t like it. Whenever I say, “Python is awesome, you should really try it out”, to my friends, they say, “I will think about that when I get time”. Whenever I talk about the OSS superstars, no one cares. When I talk about the GTK+ library, no one seem to try to know what I am talking about. When I try to think about tensors quietly, no one cares about my thoughts, they just come along and seduce me to play bridge, thus distracting me. When I try out apparently ridiculos things, no one supports me, even when I give them perfect logic, they just don’t care! But still I did those things, and screwed my exams, but still I am proud of my Geekdom.

Now, I know, that it is all about channelizing your geekiness through a proper channel. It is not that hard, I tried it out in some cases. I think everybody should be proud of their Geek status; Geek status is unique, and good as long as you don’t disturb others around you. A funny but very logical quote a friend of mine made, “A busy person finds time for everything.”. So you can be a geek a man, and a great student with great academics (I am definitely not a good academic).

I should share some of my cool geeky projects, all you geeks out there, try these out:->

1. Master Python, all by yourself, with the help of tutorials, books, and online references (Not so difficult, and very fun).
2. Find out the radius of a circular road or a curve, with the distortion of the oscillation of a hand made pendulum to one side while riding at the back of a bike, or a car (assuming the speedometer is fairly accurate)(Planning to do this).
3. Find long lengths in average by walking, and calculating the average length of every step (This wouldn’t be very accurate)(Done this many times).
4. Configure GRUB correctly, with Ubuntu, Fedora, and Windows installed, so that every one of them work correctly (Trying to do it).
5. Find the centre of gravity of any shapes that comes to mind, with the help of calculus and paper, or calculus and computer, and also Euclidian Geometry, trigonometry, symmetry arguments, and physics.
6. Get a fair grip on linear algebra (Only for 18 yrs. like me).
7. Configure a cellphone, so that you can access the internet connection of your PC from the cellphone using the bluetooth or USB (Needs a bit of programming I think, I will try it out, when I get my hands on a decent cellphone)(Found in DIGIT June 2008 issue).
8. Convince a female friend to listen to all your fantastic “Beauty of Science” lectures (Trying…).
9. Go to the carpenter to build a big cog wheel to find the velocity of light, how? You think/google it out (Planning to do).
10. If you use linux, forget GEdit, KEdit, Kate etc., go back to Vi, Emacs or Nano (Found in DIGIT June 2008 issue).
11. Build a model of Bucky Ball(C60) or a Dodecahedron from anything (Very bad one)!
12. Hack Ubuntu to enable the root account in GUI (Trying hard!).

Tensor Addiction

Ya, I am addicted to Tensors. Before I try to describe that addiction, I would like to say what Tensors are.

An nth-rank tensor in m-dimensional space is a mathematical object that has n indices m^n components and obeys certain transformation rules. You get it? Well, you may not, or you may, but you are free to try to feel the tensors, you may try to think of this abstract mathematical object, you may try to touch it with your mind.

I try to do those, and there is my addiction. When I start to to think about Tensors, I go completely drugged. It feels good to think about those abstract relations. Linear algebra is one of those mathematical topics which requires real human mind. I believe everybody has a mind, this post is an invitation for that kind of thinking, you don’t need to be mathematically trained to get addicted, just Google up some tensor articles, read them and get addicted (unlike any addiction, tensor addiction is safe, but a bit time consuming, it will have you sitting quietly on your chair).

To me higher mathematics is just learning the notations, and learning how to use the and where to use them, because it is the instinct of our mind to do mathematics. We need notations to express them, just like poetry. But you don’t really have to write down notations after notation on pages to do mathematics, that is just an aid to memory and a processing ground.

I pointed out tensors because I think it is a good place to start the addiction, and I think there are other topics at the heart of mathematics which are addictive i.e. category theory, complexity classes, symmetries etc. I didn’t move to Category Theory yet, when I do, I will inform my beloved readers.

And, lastly, get addicted to science!

I didn’t really describe that addiction of tensors I told I will. Well, the truth is; I cannot describe that, feel it yourself, and don’t try to make a complete meaning out of this post, because this post itself is abstract.