An ode to my professor

Algorithms was definitely not my favourite subject. I was not good at it. I know this because in the Spring of 2011 i took the course , and found myself speech-struck everytime there was a question popping up in class. Algorithms was for the geeks and the nerds and the math-y ones i thought. No,  i had to stay away.

A semester later , i decided to change my mind. I thought , "oh what the heck ,lets try this. Might help me get a job atleast" (I was all smart ass about my job. I thought that computer graphics was something completely unrelated in terms of implementation with respect to algorithms). And then i took it under a very famous professor at our university .. famous for giving out bad grades ie :-). 

It was a dare. Ah, double dare . First - survive the crap that is algorithms. Second - pass the course (not sure if this is happening yet. results are yet to be announced).

The first class was pretty scary. Lots and lots of tough assignments promised , and plus absolutely zero tolerance on late submissions (thats what i had been hearing) , and no grace days ! Totally unlike my other courses i tell ya.

Things got better as classes went on . I actually realized that this was a pretty fun course. Most importantly , the teacher was just brilliant . Probably the first time i have ever seen someone who is so well versed with the topic , with absolutely no air of a researcher . He knew how to teach .He would treat every single stupid doubt posed by the students ( a lot of people blame me for the stupid part , i promise) like me.  There was never a class where (unless i lost attention after 50 mins..i have a very short attention span) i did not ask him a single question if it was rolling around inside my head. It was a charmer of a class. The grades did suck and i did not like solving problems theoretically. I usually gave up after i figured out the idea behind the problem. I lost patience with some. But i heck as made sure that i got the concepts right before i gave my finals. The teacher had done it for me . The class was great . I loved it . Grad school was worth it for this course.

Thank you professor.

hypocritical

Disclaimer : There is no justification for what was done. The attackers must be punished no doubt. But as a society , do we stop at just punishing the attackers ? This is just an opinion and should not be used as a personal insult.


There are good men , and then there are good women. In India,  there are a lot of kinds of women , and usually a fewer kind of men. Strange.

In india , there is
- a working , responsible , good housewife - which can be translated as " does most of the work ,earns money, cooks, cleans and is faithful to her husband , no matter what he does. That includes him sexually assaulting her , physically hurting her etc"..
- the quiet type girlfriend - " gets abused by boyfriend , and doesnt complain ..And even if she does, there are not a lot of people who take her seriously , and hence she decides to live with it".
- the obedient daughter - "the ones that watch the ones mentioned above , and decides that this is how the world works"
- the rebel college girl - " doesnt want to stick to the conventions set by the society , and hence gets thrown out as an outcast"
- the good college girl - "obedient and good natured, doesnt lash out against the society, but still is sensible enough to distinguish between male dominance and culture"
- the stupid college girl - "the ones that get pampered by mummy , and just dont care about whats going on out there"
- miscellaneous - "these are again women..and well , what they think probably is still a subset of all the above"

When it comes to men , there are

- the sensible man - "knows that girls are just an opposite gender. You need them to keep life going , and you respect them the same way as u respect any human being.( I would like to believe that if naari is a devta , naran is also some kind of deva .I love both my dad an mom equally , and this is more personal than anything else)"
- the frustrated man - "was sensible once , but then there was just too many sexual innuendos in life , and no sex"
- the chauvinistic pig - "thinks he can dominate anyone ,esp girls.. they need to be controlled. a trait normally acquired by watching parents/friends/siblings/society".


The sad part is that all these people have been influenced by some generation of society or the other. They are not one criminal / one naive person. They are a group. They dont come out and commit crimes. They sit back and judge. The violent ones like man 3 , the chauvinistic pig gets to do the crime part, but a majority of the rest are just egging them on at various proportions.

The solution :

I do not know. I do know a few things that would make it better

1. Legalize prostitution - i think this is better than girls being trafficked illegally. This is never a respectable profession in india. Some might spit at me for saying this.But i am pretty sure that rape cases WILL go down if this is implemented.
2. Men,stop using women as objects - both in TV serials, commercials , and the conversations you have with your best friends. Dont talk about fucking a girl in class unless you really can with her consent. Sorry this was probably too direct, but sometimes your thoughts try to enact your words. I am not saying that every guy who does this in a pub is a criminal. But the widespread nature of these conversations are alarming . I have heard a lot of people talk about it, no matter how innocent or futile the intentions may be. Why talk about it if you are not going to do it.


Finally.

This one is to the women - Yes, you have your rights. Sadly , india is a pretty fucked up place. I know that the govt sucks ,and they make irresponsible statements. But please please take care of yourselves. Sadly thats all we have at the moment. Things will probably get better. So the next time you go out in the middle of the night, catch a friend who has a car/a private vehicle .Better than trusting the public.

Programmers problems

The cover image of  "Physically Based
Rendering" by Matt Pharr/Greg
Humphrey.

Most of the time , me as a programmer/ a lot of other programmers i know are stuck between implementing a program completely ,discarding it , then moving on to another , maintaining stuff someone else wrote etc... There has never been a time where i have been in charge of implementing a project from scratch. After spending around 1.5 years at the University of Minnesota as a "Computer Science Masters Student" , i have dawned upon this realization that its never a bad time to write very good maintainable code.More importantly, the realization that reading some well designed code is a good place to start did not occur to me until just recently ( I had my lunch at the Bun Mi cafe here  while reading my favourite PBRT text book by Matt Pharr and Greg Humphrey and probably the wrap i was eating made it all click).

It should have been bloody obvious.. I was lazy. My instructor made me write code for assignments. I never looked forward since then. I know kids who sit and code for hours. I underestimated that planning that needs to go behind being able to code for hours. You cant just write code for hours.. You need a design. A design that can be extended.Something that makes sense and sticks to the behaviour of the system even when you want the system to do something completely crazy. Good code should be reassuring,ike a mother holding her child close to her bosom. Good code should make you want to code more. Good code should take care of you like you took care of it .

I dont care if i am going to copy the PBRT text cover to cover or NOT. I am going to learn to write good code. So i place my trust in you Matt/Greg. Here i come !