Listen to Prime Numbers Here!
Prime numbers are supposed to be most fascinating things. So much has been written about them, and yet I understand them less and less. for example, I cannot get my program to work, no matter what, and yet, I discovered this site where one can listen to prime numbers, or prime number modulo 7 or, ahem, a lot more….
Filed by Carthik at 11:36 pm under Livejournal No Comments
Its been a long time since I talked to my father, or so it seems to me. I actually talked to him a couple of weeks ago. He sounded like he had a respiratory tract infection. I got a call from my uncle who is in New York yesterday. He was disappointed with the fact that I hadn’t called him up in a long time.
The reason why I am not good at calling people is that, when I talk, I can do nothing else. There is always something to do. Also, I am free to call people after about 10 pm, and then some folks are already in bed, so I hesitate to call them. I also get mightily turned off when I call someone and get the engaged tone.
Calling India can be a pain too, and with my Father, I never get it right. Sometimes the card doesn’t work, and sometimes I get through and the phone keeps ringing and no one picks it up. I will start calling more often, where there’s a will, there’s a way. I miss him too, lately.
I would rather not write the part about how I feel awful at not being able to help him live his retired life in comfort. My sister mails me these days, and it hurts to know that her life is not on a roll either. Hmm, well, I had counted on having to feel all this, and more, once I came here. So here it is, all mine to feel about.
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I have an Assignment due this Thursday for the Cryptography class.
There are 7 questions. I must read up the basics first, the the Mathematics regarding Carmichael numbers, Pseudo Primes, the Miller-Rabin test, and the Java bigInteger class. Assuming each question will take me around 4 hours, I have 28 hours of work at hand , after I am through with preparing the foundation by reading up and understanding the essentials. So I figure it will take me around 40 hours to this, over four days. Welcome back to the world of a Ph.D. student, Carthik.
Yesterday I saw “Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon” , a recently released trashy hindi movie. Five of us went to Orange Blossom Trail to see this at a theatre. A theatre full of Indians. Reminded me of watching movies in India. My friend Aashish remarked, as I held the door open for a stream of people in a hurry to get into the hall after the break in the middle of the movie (very Indian) that its no use being courteous, ’cause its an Indian show. Does’nt mean I cant be courteous to Indians, does it?
And day before yesterday I saw this movie “Chalte Chalte” at home. An unusual movie, discusses the post-marital problems faced by lovers, like the wife being picky about where the husband puts the shoes, and the husband getting pissed off about his wife borrowing money (to help his business) from a friend. Hmm, better than the usual hindi movie.
And if I got you thinking that all I have been doing is watching movies, you are right. I watched “The Hulk” the day before the day before yesterday. Kinda Boring, and the director’s attempts to make a normal, human movie out of a cartoon character has failed. It just make the part with the hulk’s father’s acquired powers look totally ridiculous. The attempt to make it comic book like by having frames inside the main frame of the movie is interesting though. “Just like a comic book” is what came to my mind when I saw the technique being used for the first time. It is also sad where they show the time he and his girl friend, if I may call her that, spend time at UC, Berkeley. Life in research is nothing like that. A lot of the reserachers, why , almost all, live poor, have bad labs and have to deal with a lot more people. No researcher is truly independent and not every one gets all the money they need for their projects. The takeover attempt is cheesy, I mean who asks researchers for their permission before taking over the labs, eh?
Well, whatever. See you in Javaland.
Filed by Carthik at 4:38 pm under Livejournal No Comments
After painfully translating Russian, I now have the keys to Heaven
For today, I took Jonathan Livingston Seagull. The entire book , in txt format, also available gzipped and in html!!!
Thank you,
There’s lots more where this came from, and if you know russian, consider yourself rich.
Filed by Carthik at 11:49 am under Livejournal No Comments
A year to the day I last saw her, I am perfectly fine, if just a tad sentimental.
Long Distance Love is not easy on one’s life. There is all of the wanting and yearning, and little of rewards of having someone to share your life with. I feel like I’ve fallen in love all over again with a voice over the phone over the last one year.
Touch - tactile feeling is so important to human beings. When I first saw the poster of the movie “Never been kissed” I thought that “Never been touched” could describe the lives of so many of my friends. A vast majority of the people who read this wont understand, by virtue of not being Indian. Well, chuck it, its not too important, and its a thought not worth the memory its stored away in.
I feel sick when I think of the fact that I have become like that chap Subodh in that movie Dil Chahta Hai, counting the minutes, hours and whatnot. Yuck! But yet, the first thing I can think of every morning is that the counter just got decremented by one. 29 days to go now.
You can hear and see over long distance, but you can smell or touch or taste yet. Touch,
smell, and taste define relationships, almost in that order. Is it a wonder then I am blue, and sleepless? What use is technology if I can’t be with her for a moment, and immerse my self in her presence, let her invade each one of my senses and dominate my perception of the world, just for that one moment?
Filed by Carthik at 2:42 am under Livejournal No Comments
So which one do you like most?
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
Filed by Carthik at 11:39 pm under Livejournal No Comments
Check out this advertisement for a Peuguot car. This is the ad as shown in Australia. I dont think this car is even available in India, then again, I might be wrong.
Be warned its a large .mpeg file…
USE THE LEFT MOUSE BUTTON HERE!!
Isn’t it good??
Filed by Carthik at 2:17 pm under Livejournal No Comments
I can sleep peacefully now. She got the VISA today and I got a call from her at 4:24:34 AM.
The long wait now seems a lot shorter, suddenly. 
Now I can go ahead with my planning…and maybe I should get the $500 car, after all.
Filed by Carthik at 4:45 am under Livejournal No Comments
Wanted - one room mate.
Applicants are expected to suffer prolonged exposure to masala (curry) fumes, a wide variety of music, the occasional attempt at playing the violin and piles of paper.
The chosen one will have the advantage of having a jazzy computer hooked to the internet through a broadband cable connection, but it is doubtful whether he/she will ever get to use the computer.
Applicants are expected to tolerate roommates who check in at 3 am, and to disown rap/hip-hop before moving in.
Interested? Leave a comment.
Filed by Carthik at 5:00 pm under Livejournal No Comments
I was watching Ram Gopal Verma’s “Bhoot” on dvd in sumants house. Its not too good. Watchable, once.
The dvd “skipped” twice and we missed a few scenes, and then Sumant was all worked up. He said, “Just wait , a few years later, technology will be so advanced that you will be helpless. Earlier, with the Video tapes, you know its stuck, and stuck at a particular point. Now we dont even know why the DVD skipped, we wont even know it skipped, a few years later.”
Translation from the vernacular may be responsible for loss of flavour(yeh, it IS flavoUr, not flavor, flavor is american, flavour is english, the language I used for the rest of this post.
Filed by Carthik at 4:14 pm under Livejournal No Comments
I find anime movies amazing.
I have seen
1) Laputa - Castle in the sky.
2) Blood - the last vampire
3) Battle Angel Alita
to name a few. The above were pointed out to me by
Now, If you would take the time to tell me where to find good resources on Anime, or a place with reviews of the Anime movies, or just tell me which ones are your favourites, I would be grateful
Many of them run in episodes and I dont like that.
Filed by Carthik at 10:28 pm under Livejournal No Comments
Me, Sumant, Rajiv and Vivek went rock climbing at the gym today. We followed that up with a couple of games of Badminton, a game of table tennis, and a cool hour at the pool. I was at the shallow end, watching the others swim. I am ashamed to say that I dont know how to swim!!
Climbing the rock was fun, My arms and shoulders got tired so soon, and then the palms get all sweaty, and you dont trust your grip. I will do this again, by all means.
Filed by Carthik at 8:29 pm under Livejournal No Comments
Bret Battey, a Fulbright scholar who visited India in the course of his Ph.D. studies in Computer Music, has been kind enough to note his experiences on the web. Complete with beautiful , evocative pictures, and even mp3 files of sounds that are common in India, its a find which made my day. I spent over 3 hours at his site today, and I miss India with an increased intensity. Oh man! the sounds of the monsoon, and the sound of the Muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. The sight of a postman, and that of a cycle-wallah!! No links for you. Go, and please visit the site.
Highly recommended. see every picture, read every line, listen to every mp3. I thought of including something he said on the page, or linking to some picture or sound, but then I cannot pick a suitable candidate….so enjoy!!!
Thanks Bret!
Filed by Carthik at 11:03 pm under Livejournal No Comments
I haven’t updated my livejournal in what seems like ages since there is
nothing I would rather write in there. I click the “update journal…” link
and then after 5 minutes of staring blankly at the screen, nothing comes
out, and so I close the window.
Many a time, I get the feeling that the life I have been living so far has
been fake, based on things that are really not as precious as I once thought
they were, and so the rest of my life is going to be inconsequential - a
life lived out to its end which is not an “end” in itself, just the
place in the road where I decide to walk no more. I like sitting on the
fence and looking at other peoples’ crops grow green, and I like to know
what people think, then think about it and then think about how
incosequential it is, anyways. Actions should lead to consequences, and
they do, but the consequences are often inconsequential and so the
actions seem to have been pretty much in vain.
For one, I miss the active, adolescent, rebelling, imaginative teen mind
that I remember having. I am sure that if I try lying in a field under the
stars today, with a good friend by my side, as I once have, I wont get
the wonderful feeling of being lost in amazingly beautiful thoughts or
hallucinations, call them what you may.
I wonder what its like to be working in a corporation, does that feel
worse than this? That must be true death, thinking someone else thoughts
for them, and writing them programs to sell. I am sure that is a very
wicked and cruelly twisted way of seeing it, but my mind doesn’t see
straight anymore.
I dont want to read anymore books with interesting insights or watch
anymore action-thriller movies. I would love to see “Onegin” again. Or
perhaps not. I have a good memory associated with that movie I would
like to preserve.
Its raining in Orlando, and the day is so beautifully cloaked in a
filter of gray. there is water in everything I see, and on everything I
see, outside. I like walking , or biking home in the rain, walking being
the more preferred of the two. Rain reminds me of days I used to spend
inside the house when I was in school , looking out the window drawing
mental pictures of how different places would look like when it rains.
Rain makes me happy within, and yet sad, rainy days are strange, I love
them. At least, on rainy days I feel differently from how I do on usual
days.
I am late for my meeting. it was supposed to start at five thirty, and
its five thirty five already…
The mail was longer, but I dislike posting personal mails on the journal.
Whats above though is what I can tell the world at large, and my future
self.
Filed by Carthik at 2:59 am under Livejournal No Comments
The person who created my icon is being honored by Google today.
The image, so that we all have a copy tomorrow too!
Thanks,
Filed by Carthik at 1:03 pm under Livejournal No Comments