New High Score

Surprise was when whole browser screen turns dark blue with crescent moon at top while you realize it's night setting for the same ongoing game.

Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao

Goutham

GATE meme #2

My name is going to Mars

This is the boarding pass

 And this is the mission patch

New answer on Quora: What is the need for speech signal processing?

Signal is information and speech is very much so.

A sentence spoken (speech) tells you much more than what you can infer from just reading the same (text).

Attributes of speech are:

1. Core information: What the speaker intends to convey (message).
2. Gender: Female voice has higher frequencies compared to male’s.
3. Age: Voice deepens and crackles as age progresses.
4. Timbre: Everyone has a unique voice. It is almost as unique as his/her fingerprint.
5. Emotion: Angst, laughter, weeping, crying, etc.
6. intensity: Whisper, talk, shout, scream.

The above mentioned can now be extracted and exploited by a computing device using signal processing methods. Few interesting applications are:

• Speech recognition (speech to text): To identify what the speaker has said by essentially converting it into text for further processing/storage. Examples are Siri and Google Assistant.
• Speaker recognition (voice biometric): To establish identity of the speaker and maybe use it to unlock phone or start a car. This is different from recognition and can be combined with it to unlock by saying a ‘pass phrase’.
• speech coding: To effectively store as well as transmit speech in digital form over a channel (internet calls, mobile network, telephone cables, satellite link) using least bandwidth and in error free way.
• speech synthesis (Text to speech): To artificially produce speech using systems which mimic the entire mechanism from human vocal cord vibration, air flow out of trachea to filtering effects caused by oral and nasal cavities. Examples are Google assistant and Microsoft Sam.
• voice analysis: To medically diagnose the human vocal system from voice samples of patient.
• speech enhancement: To improve quality of speech affected by noise in applications like teleconference, VoIP, mobile call, hearing aids.
• voice morphing: To impersonate another individual’s voice using words spoken by you. Voice mimicry is one form done by humans. Now we are training computers to do the same. We may one day reach the perfection of regenerating Micheal Jackson’s voice and songs while lyrics are written and sung by someone else. Example from fiction is the voice ‘sticker’ used by Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible movie series.

Signal processing of speech has come a long way from the invention of telephone to voice calls on WhatsApp (which are surprisingly clearer than calls over mobile network).

GATE meme #1

Hi!

As a part of preparation, I have decided to post memes that are tuned to the minds of GATE aspirants. These can also be related to folks taking similar competitive exams(largely applicable to India). You can share the blog's link if you want to share these memes.

Apply for the exam (GATE 2018) on or before 5th October here.

Here is the first meme.

Goutham

I texted God... and he replied

Many times since start of my exam preparation, I felt this way:

Oh my God!

Goutham

The Breakup

I got a call today in the afternoon.

An unfamiliar female voice asked "Am I speaking to Goutham Sharma?".

I replied "Yes".

She said "Hello Goutham, this is HR department of Cognizant".

It took me a second to comprehend what was going on. Then my reply was "Oh!... Hi!".

"Hi Mr. Goutham! So... are your declining your job offer?" I was asked.

"Yes" was my reply without any second thought (She must be heartbroken hearing that).

 She continued "Are you sure?".

"Yes. I am sure"

"Thank you Goutham. What can I write as the reason for you declining?"

"Opted for higher studies"

"Thank you very much", she said in dispassionate tone.

"Thank you."

THE END

A new quote

"When you find me smiling, that is because I am really happy at the moment or I am hopeful that I will be happy later"

- Goutham Sharma

I understood...

Today I understood why people indulge in vices. Today I understood why they smoke, drink and have fun in ways deemed morally wrong. I also understood how it feels to be trapped in fabric of time, entangled in confusion and guilt.

To dare to come out of this and move on with your passion and goals makes you stand out. Makes you stronger. Makes you happy.

It makes you Healthy.

- Goutham Sharma

Taxi service: great service and GPS glitch

Hello!

I am pleased to say UBER has responded to my complaint well by acting appropriately. The following screenshots explain you the story.

Actual fare

My response after their acknowledgement 

Mail from UBER

All this happened within span of 24 hours.

I am pleased to also say that on the same day I took another trip by OLA cabs and something weird happened with the app's GPS input. After boarding the cab my location was not visible on OLA app through the journey and I had to use Google maps to help navigate (Driver seemed to be a novice in GPS navigation). On reaching the destination which must be at least 6km from start, I was billed just 38 rupees (That was with 50 rupees off, hence 88 totally). Auto rickshaw in Chennai asks 200 for a route this long.

I thought what could be the reason for a fare such nominal. Then came my bill by email from OLA cabs (below).

Bill split details and travel map

Notice the rounded figures

Did you notice the rounded figures?

How could it had been 0 km traveled for 34 minutes?

Time as well as distance count towards the final bill and in this case, distance was neglected (good for me)!

Goutham

Another nice quote

• The world is what we perceive it as
• You exist... hence the world does

Another nice quote

Work hard till your surname becomes unit of a measurable quantity

Nice quotes by me

I respect a person not for who he/she is but for what he/she does

Log Taarif bhi karte aur gaali bhi dete. Tum bas apna kaam karo.

Which means:
People around praise as well as criticise you. Keep working.

Word suggestion story

Hi!

Now I'll post a story here. This was written by me on phone not by using the keyboard but by just word suggestions. These kind of stories tell a lot about what you type in phone everyday.

I am having problems with my phone number. The person who has asked me if I can get the link below to verify that the cadbury silk road is not mentioned in your proofs. The question whose name is a choice regarding uploading the artificial sweeteners to kritin is not der in the middle of the question. Hi and welcome to the automated email which Biswadip Barua is not safe and also how true. 

I will be joining cognizant technology solutions to help us with vijaykumar to go to US Treasury department. The options are available for your reference books from the COE office to go to US.

Hi and thanks again for your time till now. I have no clue what is the equivalent percentage of marks on campus accommodation. I am interested in attending the meeting on Monday morning and then we'll see how you feel like. 

The question of whether she was given to the telugu version of this message was sent to you and your family in the same building. 

Hi baite to kritin biswa and also how true this is Goutham? I am having a great day ahead of me and I hate the same from all over here before choosing the batch to go to US Treasury department.

Steps to follow:

1. U give the initial word.                        
2. Mine are hi, I, the .                       
3. Then u choose the next word.                        
4. Then so on making sure the sentence makes sense.

Thanks for reading

Goutham

I have walked past the GATE

Yes

Today I attempted Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE). In spite being in my college for project work, I came to Hyderabad by train on 3rd February and revised a bit of communications, analog and digital electronics. Being with my mother during crucial times makes me feel secure. Feelings before and after the exam are contrasting. Let me elaborate:

Pre-exam:

• Nervousness and inability to fall asleep
• Higher heart rate 
• Preoccupied with books

Post-exam:

• Sudden feeling of emptiness and responsibility
• Normal heart rate
• Preoccupied with PC

I did not forget not to get tense this time as getting so in these type of exams has costed me. I did deep breathing 20 minutes ahead of the start and it helped me stay calm for the next 3 hours. I read about a 4X4 method in a fitness website. It says you continuously inhale for 4 seconds and then exhale for 4 seconds when faced with a stressful situation.

Thanks for reading.

Goutham

A good quote by me

"Time is the ultimate independent variable. Everything we see, including ourselves are just functions of it"

- Goutham Sharma

Information deluge

Hello!

Happy new year!(If you didn't think it's too late to wish now). I have lot of hopes from this year. I posted just five times last year and it may be worse this time. Reason being this year is crucial for me (B.tech final year = final project + placements + higher studies) and I will not have time to think about stuff to be written here. You can conclude that sporadic postings here will be a result of deep thought or frustration.

I recently came across this strange case in newspaper where a person got addicted to Wikipedia and spent weeks just reading while ignoring basic needs. He was diagnosed with serious compulsion disorder. It was reported that he didn't step out of his home for a long time and had social anxiety issues.

I had issues similar to the above with online forum Quora, which was meant to be a great Q/A resource but disturbing and frivolous stuff started getting into the feed like these:

• What are some great random facts?
• What are some amazing pictures?
• What are some awesome movie facts and details?
• What are some interesting campus recruitment stories?
• What are the most amazing facts about "xxxxxxxx"?
• What is it that we Indians do wrong collectively?
• What is sad about yourself?

All these were entered here as I see my feed in tab next to the blog editor. Answers for these questions have 10k-20k upvotes. Worst thing is the feed in this forum does not end as you scroll downwards (Just like any social networking site). You keep reading all the nonsense till your mind gets jammed. I prefer a clean mind to a cluttered one. I am starting to doubt if it is necessary to read newspaper every morning. All extra information that gets poured into the mind everyday is simply not worth it. I wonder how people could keep scrolling down their Facebook feed endlessly to 'keep up' with what's happening. Survival is the most basic instinct of man and he need not waste time in knowing stuff which does not serve this.

Back when I was in my secondary school, Facebook entered Indian cyberspace and we adolescents were excited to be always connected. It felt great chatting with a cousin staying abroad. It felt good when my posted picture got 10 likes. Things aren't the same now. This 'keeping up' turned into an obsession when people took 'Facebook friends' seriously. Real relations are just one thing: 'friend' or 'not a friend'. A guy is considered friend of another when his request for 'friendship' got accepted. This is not a marriage proposal! This is about feeling there's something common in between.

Gone are the days when we played, sang and danced. Compulsion to check and reply to a WhatsApp text message now predominates curiosity to converse with a stranger. This was well explained in The Hindu open page article well: The 'death' of conversation. We are living in age of information. Big data and data science are today's buzzwords. News got more disturbing as 2016 passed. Unrest and chaos were two words which can describe my state of mind after I bought my first smartphone (somewhere in July). I was not used to high inflow of data ever before and it made me feel that this world is much more complex than I assumed. Being intimidated is the worst feeling, believe me.

Information is power. But our control and perception about it is what that shapes us. I prefer texting only vital info over WhatsApp. It helps me save the thrill of meeting someone again after long time.

Goutham