Musings within my grey cells...Pavan Chitumalla

my flickr

2009-03-02T23:13:00.001-08:00

National Anthem..Jan 26th

2009-01-26T19:16:00.001-08:00

The mist!!

2009-01-15T22:24:00.001-08:00

The mist!!
Originally uploaded by pavanch007

I saw..I captured while returning from work.

Ratatouille

2008-02-06T12:05:00.001-08:00

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and themselves to our judgement. We thrive on negative criticism which is fun to write and to read but the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece junk is probably more meaningful than our critism designating itself but there are times when the critic truly risks something that is in the discovery and defence of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations... the new needs friends. Last night I experienced something new. An extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto "Anyone can cook" but I realize only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteaus'who is, in this critic's opinion nothing less than the finest chef in France. I'll be returning to Gusteau's soon, hungry for more" -Food critic Anton Ego on Remy's cooking

? ? ?

2007-08-12T10:40:00.001-07:00

Three questions:

1. Newtons's law of gravity defines how to measure the gravitational force between two objects of mass m1, m2 but it doesnt answer the question "what makes the two objects attract towards each other?"

2. "How does a human brain work?" how does it process,store and retrieve visual information so quickly? and some gifted ppl can even process numbers faster than computers. what is that underlying mysterious thing for this trait?
Sometimes, I think its funny coz, the human brain which solved so many things couldn't solve its own structure !!

The advantages in solving this problem are numerous..we can develop super duper computers that are small, consume ultralow power and last for years. Memory units would take a quantum leap in retrieval times and size.

we can "induct" "good nature" into the brains of millions of prisoners around the world,wiping off the evil-cells and release them. And, the list is endless. Almost every field has direct or indirect advantages if this problem is solved.

And the third, which almost everybody must have thought about it is, "what is life?" Can it be scientifically explained without the philosophical bull shit?

pheww...now that I unloaded all my questions that bug me whenever I sit idle..I feel much relieved. I only hope these questions will be answered in my lifetime.
It's time to grab my breakfast ;)

first skydive

2007-08-08T22:14:00.001-07:00

Would you kill this cute little rescued polar bear cub?

2007-03-20T16:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17703212/

after reading the above article. I'm wondering why the hell, animal activists are fighting whether to kill this bear or not. Some argue its wrong to rescue an abandoned cub and the zoo officers shouldn't have intervened. What difference does it make to this planet by letting this cute little cub to live? If thats the case, then that particular activist shouldn't be allowed to visit a hospital when he is ill and let to die - Amen.

The arrival of my dream gadget -- PSP!!

2007-03-05T09:11:00.000-08:00

Fact: Almost 80% of the gals in US have iPods. So why would "Pavan" buy a girlie thing?? :D hehehe. Nowaysss, he wanted something way beyond iPod. Something, which is rarely seen in gal's possessions. Unanimously, the target locks on Sony PSP. What a cooool device is it!! lemme flaunt abt my PSP for a while.. :)

The evil Sony Corp. locks the full potential of a PSP by its proprietary firmware. But, thanks to Dark_Alex and others who decrypted the firmware and released custom firmwares aka Open Editions, which push the PSP far beyond what it was originally designed!!

Now, I can play games from ISO's, run Homebrew applications, take backups of my UMD's, play Flash games, run emulators and much more.

Custom Firmwares are better than Originial Firmware but there's a catch. Flashing the ROM inside the PSP has a potential risk of bricking ( turns the PSP into a $200 paperweight!! :) ). A little googling took me to http://www.pspiso.com/index.php?topic=31177.0 where "The__Android" meticulously explains the process to downgrade and then upgrade to a custom firmware even on a "downgrade protected TA -082" motherboard.
Now, I'm no more stuck at the 2.6 firmware :)

heres my psp's lifecycle: 2.6>2.71>1.5>3.10 OE-A (happy ever after??!! ;))

I can read pdf ebooks, browse internet on 802.11 b networks, watch movies, of course play mp3's and wma's and the most important "play coooool games".

Right now, i'm in "PSP heaven" downloading games for free and enjoying ;) I cannot be more happier with a handheld gadget than this!!

PSP is simply awesomeee!!! The carefully thought and super smart XMB (cross media bar) itself impresses any User Interface Designer.

I wish it had a touch screen :( but thats ok..i can live with it.

PS: ACCESSORIES REQUIRED TO ENHANCE THE FEEL.

1) Usb cable Just $1.95 at pcmicrostore.com includes free shipping (Best price you can ever get)
2) 2 GB pro duo card ( go for Ultra II from sandisk..Its better than sony Hi-speed pro duo)
3) screen protector
4) Extra battery and 4 in 1 charger from intec ( if you travel a lot )
5) Imtoo dvd to PSP converter ( software to convert ur dvd's into PSP format)

Essential Softwares for your PSP:

i) Bookr for reading PDF's and novels.
ii) Custom Firmware 3.10 OE -A
iii) USBSSS for dumping UMD games.

If you have any questions regarding PSP, I'll be glad to help you join my world , just drop in a comment or email.

My love...

2006-11-30T08:04:00.000-08:00

She was my childhood fantasy: I had an oppurtunity to meet her when i was in school, but I was preoccupied with an idiotic mission of securing the so called covetous "First Rank" so, I couldnt take my time specially for her.Years passed and I forgot abt her untill she resurfaced recently.

She touched my hands and then crawled into the depths of my heart: I never paid much attention initially, but then I started spending time with her once a week.The more i spent my time with her, the more she began to impress me,slow n steadily she casted a mysterious spell on me. Sometimes it was tough since it was my first time: my fingers used to ache, but the pain was sweet.

I woke up religiously every saturday morning no matter to which club i went or partied till wee hours the previous nite, and spent the whole morning with her in my arms. It turned into a cardinal weekend ritual without which,i would feel a deep restlessness and incompleteness within me.

relax guyssss.....that "her", is just my classical guitar and i love it :) give a break to ur corrupt thoughtss...!! :P

Microsoft Interview..

2006-10-11T12:45:00.000-07:00

Sept 26th '06 9.30 am... Thats the timeslot I chose, to be interviewed with MSoft. damnnn.. i got so manyy topics to brush up OS, Algos, DS, My previous projects, OOPS, Programming what not?
Then the onus of splitting my 24 hrs bestowed on me immediately. Added, to this i had an ACN homework to be submitted on the same day as my interview.
A variety of feelings gushed inside my head...will i make it? what if i dont? how exactly wud it be to get interviewed by an american, face to face? what if he had a fast accent? And top of this, Msoft is famous for its so called "white-board" on the spot coding during interviews... I just didnt know how to tackle this..coz, this is my first interview after coming to US. All i knew was i will be having 3 one hour rounds of technical interviews.
Alrite, i wont bore u much with what i did the day before the interview lets get into the grooove :)

sept 26th - 5.30 AM: My friend Apurva, gives me a wake up call and then the clock starts ticking..every moment i told myself to stay composed and focused. Quickly done with the daily ablutions, I got ready in formals.. I was so much involved thinking abt the interview that i didnt even feel like having my breakfast. I felt, my preparation was not adequate and began to loose confidence. Just then, I would crack jokes ( bj's or gud ones i dunno, but i'm gud at these) with my friend and then we wud laugh like crazy. I could feel even he is breaking down inside. But, he always kept a smiling face. we wished gud luck and started to the hotel regency with music set at the max. volume. I know, in the end it was just a job interview and I wont loose anything if i dont make it, but given the opportunity to work for my dream company i wanted to grab it rather than slip it.

7.30 AM: we finally arrived two hours before the scheduled time for interview. I thought, I would give a quick glance through the "CLRS" but when I entered the hotel, I was embarrassed to open a book like a kid in front of so many people :) so i gave it to my frnd and asked him to hide in his bag. There we are, with nothing to do but loads of nervousness inside. So to calm down, we set on an exploration camp inside the hotel. we went through every isle, every exit and every lobby. Still we had more than an hour left.Then we, decided to go to the interview rooms which were on 31st flr ( reverse of 13!! is that a bad omen in disguise? i wondered for a second and left it).

8.00 AM:
Tension kept on mounting, I could feel the heart beat rising...then i wud say...damn its just an interview! fcuk it! we were guided into a conference room where we met the HR frm microsoft. we made ourselves comfortable by having some juice and then i thought of playing a game :)
i started interviewing apurva !! mannn it was real fun...i made him draw diagrams on white board, explain his ideas and even talked about the optimizations!! In fact, i made it as difficult as the original interview :) ! he told me that i can be a gud interviewer ,which, even i felt. prolly i shud think abt this. ;)

9.30 AM:
i was called for a technical interview with a project manager. we shook hands and the moment i stepped into the room, dunno all of a sudden, i was not at all tensed...everything got vanished..i was very confident, outspoken and very normal. he gave me 2 mins to talk abt my thesis, which i did effortlessly. then he moved onto designing the backend data structures for a jigsaw puzzle game. First, i came up with the classes, methods and tried to use all my ooad skills where he interrupted and said, "i'm more interested in data structures not the design" ...well i paused for a moment and came up with really simple data structures, which really worked and convinced him that they work. all this drama went on for arnd 45 mins..we were left with 15 more mins and then he went on asking small technical questions like "given a sorted array with duplicates , how wud u move all the duplicates to the end of the array?" i gave two solutions one with time complexity O(n) and memory space of N and the other with O(n^2) and just O(1) memory space. though he wasn't impressed very much with my solutions he was impressed by the concrete analysis i did for computing the time complexities. so overall, it went ok and i was back to the conference room with my fellow pals who came to face interviews.

10.30 am:
its time for me to relax....so what conjures up in a normal guy? ofcourse the obvious, "GALS" ;).. i looked arnd the table if theres any nice chick..damn there was only one gal out of 15 ppl and she's not at all attractive! then I thought talking to my frnd wud be a better choice than staring at her!
we discussed abt how our 1st rnd of interviews went and he told that he screwed the first one. There's this guy called marqus...this guy wud never keep his mouth shut...give him a trash-can and he wud even talk abt the technical , non-technical ,design aspects of it for an hour!! but he was fun.. he tried to keep everybody's thoughts occupied with his bullshit conversation which had no meaning...!! atleast thats better than sitting idle and feel nervous abt the second round.

11.30 am:
time for the second round...man i really screwed up this one..the whole hour i was trying to figure out coding for a puzzle which involved a monkey..!! In the end i thought, the bloody monkey made a monkey out of me..! i was so disappointed that, i didnt even want to sit in that conference room. i decided to go on for walk with my frnd in the hotel. this time again we spoke abt the interviews and he said he did ok..he tried to boost my morale and motivated me enuff that i tried to forget abt the second round and looked forward for the third round with confidence.

12.30 pm:

errr ... it was supposed to be my time for 3rd round but they were running a bit late on schedule and they decided to interview after the lunch.. i didnt even feel like eating anything..i just stared at the muffins and various fruits lying on the table "wishing of a giant TOGO bag so tht my frnds can have a gala time" somehow I passed the time..and then comes my third round

2.30 pm:
The third project manager again asked to talk abt my thesis for two mins and immediately started shooting questions based on linked lists. He asked me to code a function that swaps the adjacent nodes in the list. at first, it seems simple but there are many cases to consider like if the list is of even length /odd length.. i wrote some code and he asked me to work with an example...it worked fine for the lists of odd length but had some problem with even length..after a little thought, i fixed it partly and tried to talk and convince that its working fine with an example ;)..mannn he is soo keen that he wudnt get confused no matter what gimmicks i did there at the whiteboard..finally, he made me walk through each and every line of the code i had written and then he got convinced that its working. He then asked me to come up with testcases that wud crash my code. Almost instantly it flashed to me that a linked list with loops wud crash my code..i told him ..i guess he was impressed with this and then he asked how wud i fix it. I knew the solution for loop detection in linked lists which i explained glibly(Think i scored some extra points again :) ).. After all this, i was left with ten mins..then he asked me how gud i was at debugging. to which i replied "To be honest, if i had written the code out of interest and enthusiasm, i wud debug it with equal enthu..but,if i had written for class assignments or projects, which i am not interested then i wud force myself to debug" to which, he smiled and asked "how abt debugging code written by fellow developers" and i replied, " i dont have a problem," and, talked abt my previous job at verizon.. he made some remarks and asked me to wait in the conference room.

3.30pm:

Finally, its all done..i think i had given my best shot. (except for that monkey round!! which made me go crazy) .There I was, sitting quitely with nothing else to talk and nothing else to think. Then the HR guy pops in and announces that he wants to talk to me in person.Well I thought, ok here comes the time for sendoff; but i was mistaken,he asked me to fillout some paperwork and congratulated me for making into microsoft and asked, if i accepted the offer!!!! oh my goshhhh... wowwwwwww.... i jumped frm the chair and screamed "YESSSSS!! ofcourse i accept".. At that moment, happiness knew no bounds. it was 100% pure excitement..coz, i strongly believed that i had bad luck getting a job. He went thru the compensation and terms which just went straight off my head!
Then I drove back to my campus at speeds > 100 mph :).. cudnt control my adrenaline..!! ofcourse, it was my lucky day...i didnt get a ticket.

thats all folks..
gud luck for ur interviews..

PS:what i learnt frm my interview..human brain works very effectively under stress (when u stand up and try to code on the whiteboard)... I got so many creative ideas instantly. But, if u break down and get choked up, like my second round..thats it...even a simple O(N) problem appears to be NP-hard!!

--pavan.