Internship Hunt - Act II Scene I [ITC : Cigarettes]

Previously : Act I Scene II [HUL : Restraint]

"Yaar, Its already six. Hurry Up!" - Amit shouted.
"Coming, just a second."
After tying my shoe laces, I sprayed some deo, looked inside my folder. Everything was there - a pen , few torn sheets of paper, a hardcopy of my resume. Amit was waiting for me on his bicycle. I locked my room and rushed to mount on his carrier.
On our way to the Lecture Hall Complex we were cursing HUL which had come to our campus before and hoped this time we would make it through, afterall it was the next best industrial internship open for our department.
There was a huge rush in L-17. It was a internship-cum-placement talk. The entire lecture hall was packed to the last seat. I was holding a bookmarked Revolution 2020. Took the corner-most seat and continued reading my book. Back in my mind I was sure I wouldn't make it through the GD again.
The PPT started. HR officials introduced few IITK passouts currently working in the company laying emphasis on the fact that they are leading a 'happy' life . To cut it short the PPT wasn't about soap or food manufacturing, but all about "cigarettes". They took pride in making those sticks and why shouldn't they? After all they are providing benefits to so many farmers. With their programs such as e-Choupal I surely started respecting this company.
Who knows whether it is just for publicity?
Is it that well implemented ?
But surely it is a step forward.
What's the point of profit worth billions if you don't give something back to the society.

Up Next    : Act II Scene II [ITC : Fire]

GeekHead #1

Well I was quite inspired by Bob Biswas and started my own series of GeekHeads.
This one is for a junior who is REALLY interested in hacking!

Hope you liked it !!

Website Live Again \m/

Well after taking down my website for 2 months finally its time to be live again :)
With lesser content and greater emphasis on the aesthetics it looks cool ( isn't it :P ? )
Check it out :

http://home.iitk.ac.in/~amahato/

Geek Tale #1 : Was It a Dream ??

#Written on 16-12-2009.


One fine Sunday ... ( I verified the day from my mom .. she told today is tuesday. This is what happens when you get a month off after a hectic sem ends in IIT - You don't bother whether it is sunday, monday or any other day as you are so busy relaxing and eating that you wish this time to freeze ) ... bored you enough huh... now back again ...


One fine Tuesday ... I got up at 6 o'clock to surf internet and download a movie ('Paa'). Download started .... 0% ... 1 % .. 2 hrs remaining . In the meantime I was checking my mail which had about 81 unread messages (41 facebook , 29 orkut , 8 newsletters and 3 personally addressed). Facebook & orkut messages went to trash ... read those newsletters which were actually advertisements ... thrash :x ... now the 3 messages...One was sent by someone whose email id read as unowho007kumar@gmail.com and the content of the message was as usual - ' Identify me if u can ! ' .... I recognized this kind of email-id can be possessed by only one guy - Monoj Kumar ... a friend from my school days who used to torture our ears ! ... School Days ... I wish to relive those days ... phew .. but time has flowed ... I moved on ..The next message was sent by Osama (not the one whose image came in your mind :P). It was to inquire whether I was in kanpur or jamshedpur. I wanted to pay him a surprise visit so I replied i'm in kanpur.
Then came the message for which you have waited for so long... It was sent by someone who claimed that he was in std. 11 and was studying in my school and wanted some help regarding a programming question .. hmmm.. I quickly browsed thro' the question ... it was familiar to my eyes .. 
I had already come across that question in 12th std. while I was preparing for a programming competition... M*I**L(currently in 12) had given me the question as a challenge stating that it was asked in an International Olympiad. At that time I just looked it for 5 minutes .. calculated in my mind that I could not solve it ... pocketed that question saying i'll try it at home ... but I never tried to solve it ... saying that I have no time .. gotta prepare for JEE
but reality was something different ... I feared .. u heard it right ... I did not want to loose this challenge and my confidence ... so made a very good excuse and escaped.


But see the fate ... the same thing the same fear ... it came back again ... but itz just an email .. delete it .. who cares .... nope solve it this time ... otherwise it will remain as a burden in your mind ... and many such random thoughts were flashing in my mind.


In the meantime ... Download Complete ! .. yippee ... and a voice said - relax dude ... your sem has just ended ... take a break .. leave the question aside and enjoy the movie ... But i was feeling leaden. I went back to my bed and ... i don't know what happened ...


My next vision ... It was a room full of ........ air .. you got it right - it was empty. I turned to my right and saw a computer occupying the damp and dark corner. Sensing no way out, I went near the ordinary PC. Something was already running on the screen .... Before I could see the name of the application (my wild guess - BlueJ as its interface was familiar to the application running on screen) characters started floating out of the screen and enlarged .... soon a river of characters started appearing .. enlarging .. arranging ... disappearing in front of my eyes ... trying to convey what hadn't struck me in the past 1 year .... yeah ... it was in front of me... unbelievable ... the entire algorithm to solve the problem program ..... my eyes ... popping out ... out of sheer excitement and .....I saw my mom's face. Her hands were on my shoulder .. shaking me ... a signal to get out of the bed .. it was 11 o' clock ... my mom told me that today I showed a very peculiar behavior .. my eyes were open and she thought that I was awake but in reality I was not ... I did not bother to listen to her. Quickly switched on my computer. I still had a faint memory of that algorithm .. quickly wrote the corresponding code ... no compiler error .. no runtime error .. program successfully running in front of my eyes ... but some deep thoughts were still traveling in my mind -
was it really a dream ... a deja vu .. or a creation of my mind which over the year had reached a solution without my knowing it .... i have no answer .. a mere lucky coincidence perhaps .. whatever it was it relieved me of a burden today ... the fear had vanished .... but the wait continues .... wait for more such dreams which come true ..

Fractals - Vicsek

Vicsek fractal is also known as Vicsek snowflake or box fractal.
The basic square is decomposed into nine smaller squares in the 3-by-3 grid. The four squares at the corners and the middle square are left, the other squares being removed. The process is repeated recursively for each of the five remaining subsquares.
An alternative construction (shown below in the left image) is to remove the four corner squares and leave the middle square and the squares above, below, left and right of it. The two constructions produce identical limiting curves, but one is rotated by 45 degrees with respect to the other.
The Vicsek fractal is the set obtained at the limit of this procedure. The Hausdorff dimension of this fractal is log 5/log 3 ≈ 1.46497. (Source : Wikipedia)

Moving ahead ...
I created Viscek fractal using python module tkinter and its inbuilt canvas. A simple python 2.x code to visualize it is given below ...

She fell in love .. Just because he was an IITian!

PNR NO. 

650-2912923

26-12-2011  Purushottam Super Fast Express/12801   3AC

Status : Train Cancelled

My journey back to the campus began with a disappointment. I quickly got a RAC ticket the next day and boarded a sluggish train.

After 19 hours Mirzapur Road station 

A girl entered. She sat on the opposite seat. 

Clear skin. Curly hair. All she had in the name of luggage was a puma backpack. I am not sherlock but within five minutes it was easy to deduce she was heading for Kanpur.

She opened her backpack and took out a lab report. I could see circuit diagrams comprising diodes, transformers, capacitors , resistors, etc.
She took out a piece of paper and started scribbling a PCB circuit. She drew it at least five times, struggling to memorize it. I don't know about her but in this process I did.

Suddenly she took out her mobile and dialed.
"Hi! I have a question for you. How do you convert AC current to DC ?"
"You are in mechanical so what you might be knowing this."
I was surprised. How on earth there exists an engineering student who doesn't know how to convert AC to DC. I started giggling.  
"Ohkey .. So you forgot. Chalo, tell me the applications of both."
She must have got an unsatisfactory answer.
"Hmm.. Diode kya hota hai ?"
Sudden network failure and the conversation was over. I was still giggling, but she hardly bothered.

Now, every time I travel via rail I meet a character Uncleji. This is one person who takes great interest in your  life. He was sitting beside me when he started -
"Beta, kahan ja rahe ho?"
"Kanpur"
"Kya karte ho?"
"I'm a Student"
"Kya padh rahe ho ?"
"Engineering"
And then he darts a question which I wanted to avoid all this time.
"Beta, kaun se college mein padh rahe ho ?"
I paused for a few seconds ... "IIT Kanpur"
She looked at me and smiled.

Before Uncleji could ask me about my branch, placement statistics and tell me about his relatives also studying in IIT, the girl started a conversation
"You are in which year?"
"Third"
"Abhi main jisse baat kar rahi thi woh aapka junior hai."
[Oh so he was a guy. I started mentally cursing him for not answering her questions. What a shame in the name of my institute.]
"Accha .. He's in which year?"
"Second."
[Oh, a sophomore. I started cursing him even more. How can he forget ESC102:Introduction to Electronics and ESO210:Introduction to Electrical Engineering so easily]
"Accha .. Aap bataiye how to convert AC to DC?"
"Rectifier" - I quickly replied.
"Hmm .. What is Forward and Reverse Bias ?"
I started answering her and she was convinced within five minutes.
"Hmm .. Aapka junior mechanical mein hai shayad isi liye usko nahi pata hoga."
"I am also a mechanical engineer."

Meanwhile, Uncleji was enjoying this conversation.

She redialed.
"Hi! Guess what ? Tumhare sir(senior) yahan baithe hain."
He said something.
"Oh.. I should not talk to him .. Why?"
"You will get in trouble. Okey. Bye"
She avoided looking at me for sometime.

I was puzzled. This junior is behaving rather strangely. I enquired.
"What happened ?"
"He told me not to talk to you or else he will get into trouble."
Well, it was none of my business. I went into my thinking mode. But, a girl is a girl and she was a talkative one.
"Actually he got involved in a fight with his seniors recently. The day after Christmas he forgot to wish some seniors when they passed by his side. So they shouted at him and that is why he told me that he does not want to get into more trouble." 
"Not possible. We are not animals. And by the way our winter break is going on and hardly there is anyone in the campus."
"He has an exam tomorrow." 
"But, our exams got over in November. Our grades were finalised in the first week of December and we do not have any provision for supplementary papers for failing in a subject. You have to do that course all over again."
Her face turned pale. I could see the arrival of madness. So I thought not to delve any further in this matter. 
Who knows he might be playing some kind of prank with her. But, then what bothered me was that he was using the name of my institute and I still couldn't forgive him for not knowing how to convert AC to DC ?!!

She continued..
"Once I asked him the resistance of an open circuit... he couldn't answer."
"He couldn't ?" [WTF WHAT THE FUHUGALAHHAMIYAH]
"Yes, even I was surprised. I told him IIT mein ho tab bhi nahi pata. He replied that he has other important business."
"What is his name ?" 
"I cannot tell you. He may get into trouble."
"Fine. Did he invite you in Antaragni ?" [Antaragni is the cult fest of IITK]  
"Nope."
"Techkriti ?" [Tech Fest]  
"Woh kya hai ?"
"Leave it !" - I sighed.


"Have you ever visited our campus?" - I continued.
"Nahi .. He says ki log galat samjhenge." 
"Kyun galat samjhenge. Humlog toh jaise insaan nahi hai. Has he ever visited your college?"
"Yes. He came to attend our cult fest."   [Strange]


"He might have told you about the various clubs in our college."
"He told me that he studies and just plays volleyball at night." 

"Is there anything he told you which is unique to our college  : Airstrip, Swimming Pool, Indoor stadium, anything."
"No, He thinks that I will feel bad because I study in an ordinary college and he studies in an IIT."  
"College isn't important, knowledge is!"
She paused for a bit. I could see innocence, fear, anger and many other emotions simultaneously building up on her face.
"Aap sahi keh rahe hai."

Next : She fell in love .. Just because he was an IITian ! [Part II]

IITK TROLL

So I've been bitten by the troll bug. And I decided to troll on the buy-sell sites which spring up in my campus at the start of every semester. Seldom they are maintained and soon disappear. Hope u'll enjoy it. :)
PS: No offence intended, just for pure humor!