Here I am

Here I am, at Columbia!

Butler Library after drizzle

Picture taken on Feb 4 2020 by Goutham Sharma
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Another Nice Quote

Here is a beautiful saying that I came across while reading an article online few months ago. It captures the very essence a transistor used in our daily electronics;

"MOSFET is a simple device having complex behaviour"

This can be corroborated by the fact that there are multiple models for MOSFETs, each for the different signals, channel lengths and levels of accuracy. And no model is perfect as shown by the simulators themselves.

All the above happens with a semiconductor device with structure that's simple in geometry and construction.

Goutham

Wise Sayings

Kritin and I were texting about a couple of wise sayings yesterday, which we distilled from our experiences in life till now and I felt I should share these here.

Look at the world through your own eyes, participate and learn from it. This way you'll know the truth.

-Goutham

You need to sacrifice something in your life to achieve. What you choose to sacrifice is up to you.

-Kritin

I am published!

At last!
Finally!

The wait was over when I logged into my email today afternoon.

My team's undergrad final year project work is now published in IEEE Xplore as a part of the proceedings of IACC 2018 held at Bennett University, Noida on December 14-15.

Here's the link: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8692119

Goutham

New quote and new meme

Quote:

Embedded systems design is all about using chips

VLSI design is all about making chips

- an old adage

Meme:

Goutham

GRE: Issue and Argument essays

I write here whenever I feel like, unlike the GRE where I have to (else my AWA score will be zero). Since I took a mock test last week to assess where I stand, I feel I should share my essays here. These are two essays written as part of Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) in the very first hour of the GRE.

Issue Essay
Statement: Men and women have different body structures and attributes, hence are not suitable for all jobs equally.

My response:
I agree that men and women have different physical and biological attributes, albeit not to a large extent. We stumble upon bit-sized trivias in notebooks and adverts quoting a thing or two about these 'differences'. For example, "Men have larger brain size, whereas women on the other hand have greater nerve cell density", "Men have higher muscle mass and women surpass when it comes to bone density", etc.

However it is time-tested that with proper training and regular practice, many occupations previously assumed to be suitable only for men have seen the participation of women too. For instance, Indian Air Force inducted the first ever women pilots into the fighter squadron a couple of years back. Similarly, Indian Army is now considering inducting women into the border frontline areas guarded by BSF. These examples, though accept the inherent physical differences between the genders, refute the unsuitability of a gender for many tasks.

In contrast to the above discussion, there are some occupations that are gender specific, given the kind of implicit personalities of a gender which are involved in carrying out the task. A nurse working in hospital is almost always a young women. Women are generally seen as compassionate and caring, which draws parallels with a mother tending to her child. Patients ailing on beds are always mollified by nurses no matter how deadly their disease is or how badly they are injured. On the other side, a hunter in stone age is always pictured as a man with spear or bow and arrow. In this scenario men gather and hunt for food. They need to be aggresive and tactical. Women here are seen as caretakers of their offsprings, waiting till dusk for the men to arrive with the bounty.  

There are always exceptions which break stereotypes associated with a certain occupations, be it racing, guarding borders, etc. The occupational requirments here do not largely depend on their respective physical attributes of the genders but rather mental temparament associated with each gender. Hence, men and women are generally suited for all tasks and occupations, provided neccesary training and pre-requisites are met which overshadow the previously held notions. 

Score: 3 (0-6)

Argument Essay
Statement: A lot was discovered and learned about other planets by sending robotic spacecraft at a fraction of cost of what it takes for manned space exploration. Hence, it is safer spend resources to send unmanned missions only.

My response:
The opinion stated in the latter sounds pragmatic and if folllowed, can be absolutely safe for humans. We can gather all the needed information from unmanned space probes to study what it is like on the other planets and regions in our solar system and beyond. But one needs to ask: Why are we doing this in the first place? Why do we spend billions of dollars just to study what it's like on mars when there are millions on our own planet suffering from drought, energy and food crisis?

The success rate of unmanned space probe missions kept increasing in recent decades. This can be attributed to the lessons hard-learned from mistakes we have done earlier. Every mission has tons of data to scour through and a lot of valuable lessons to learn from regarding stages from mission planning, resource allocation, plan execution, probe design and testing, launch, target approach and of course, the destination (planet or asteroid). This development has been key in sending not just robots, but humans too into outer space. We on the Earth never shied away from adventure. Exploration led us to discovering America, scaling everest and completing expeditions to both the poles.

It should be noted that with passing time and with the events mentioned above, we perfected ourselves in making these processes safe for humans as well. I agree that manned space flight is expensive. But it has become less dangerous than before and it still keeps doing so. As we know more about our neighbouring planets viz. the atmosphere, surface, magnetism, compositions, etc., it becomes imperative that the next step is nothing but stepping forward and reaching out to that planet. Apollo missions exemplify this idea. We learned a great deal about moon by bringing back surface samples and studying them at a larger scale than just doing it in situ. Unmanned probes can only do so much. 

Developing technologies needed for manned space flight helped in making pathbreaking discoveries and gave us several spinoff tech, esp. drastic improvement in solar cell efficiency, improved velcro straps. water recycling systems, etc. The opinion stated above ignores the technological leaps we made in processes associated with handling life systems as we built unmanned probes. These are now as reliable as the previous tech we used and it can be concluded that manned space flight now is safer than ever before.

Score: 1 (0-6)

Overall AWA score: 2 (0-6)

Which is not good. I need to improve.

I Will be posting new essays and their scores after every GRE mock I take. Each of my essays deserve to be posted here :). After all, that's what a blog is for!

Goutham

IACC 2018: Object position estimation using stereo vision

This was an email I sent yesterday as a update to my B.tech final year project guide at SRMIST. This sums up my trip to Delhi from 13-16 December, 2018 for a IEEE conference. I landed at Delhi airport on 13th afternoon (my first flight and first visit to Delhi) and proceeded to Akshardham via metro to meet my project-mate Kritin (now studying M.tech at IIITM Gwalior). Arvind too was a project member and is currently pursuing his masters at Cornell University.

I'll post the link to my paper here later.
-----------------------------Email begins-------------------------------------------------
Sir

Please excuse me for the late email update. Our time in Noida and Delhi did not permit us to give you a follow up on IACC 2018. Both of us have reached our homes now and I will send your participation certificate by post soon.

When asked, one of the organisers of the conference said that our paper would get published on IEEE Xplore library in a 1-2 weeks period from now. They shall email a link to all the authors to notify the same.

Kritin and I reached Delhi on the afternoon of 13th. Our trip was done as shown below:

13th evening - Visited Akshardham.

13th night - Reached Bennett University in Greater Noida region (~50km from Noida) by bus and cab.

14th morning - Inaugural session and keynote speeches by eminent faculty of colleges in the US and Australia. They largely talked about computational methods and machine learning/neural networks which was quite interesting to listen. Lunch followed.

14th afternoon - Paper presentation started. There were three locations with each having one set of panel members and 4 papers each to review. Here we got to see how the presentation was made and prepared ourselves for the next day accordingly.

14th evening - We returned to our room accomodation in their newly constructed hostel block and after an hour rest, started preparing for our upcoming presentation. We imagined all scenarios where we get questioned and noted all numerical data on a paper to produce in case they ask.

15th morning - Our presentation was scheduled in 9:00 - 9:12 slot, i.e. 10 mins of presentation followed by 2 mins of Q&A from panel. Kritin explained the first half and I did the next half. The presentation went a little more than 12 mins since there was much detail in 'experimental design' slide. The panel gave us a patient hearing and one member there asked us that usually a minimum three cameras would be needed to track a tennis/cricket ball in stadium (Hawkeye technology) and how our project did it with just two. We answered that our stereo vision model eliminates the need for a third camera by establishing linear relation b/w the two cameras used and we mathematically proved the same (finding 3D coordinates in absolute units). The person was satisfied with our answer and then the audience of 15-20 people clapped. Later when all the sessions got over, we collected our certificates. Arvind's parents were kind enough to provide accommodation for the night at their home in Noida region.

15th evening - We packed our luggage and proceeded to Arvind's home by auto and cab. Reached there by 5pm and refreshed ourselves. Later, Arvind's father drove us through and around key places in Delhi (India Gate, Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House, Supreme court, RBI, AIR, Purana Qila, Old Delhi region). Along the way, we all had local cuisine dinner at a popular stall in the city.

16th morning - Had breakfast at Arvind's home and left from there for visiting Red fort and Chandni Chowk region. Covered both the places by 3 pm. Then we rushed to our respective Railway stations and boarded our trains.

All along, the role of Delhi metro was indispensable. We purchased a smart card each for faster travel in the city.

Concluding, we had a productive and informative time in Delhi (we managed the cold) although our trip was of short duration.

We thank you for your guidance and support throughout this process. The work which we did is truly publication-worthy.

Pictures of our trip are attached.

Thanking You

T Goutham Sharma
--------------------------------Email ends------------------------------------------

Our trip ended with us munching Paranthas at the famous Paranthe wali Gali in Chandni Chowk, opposite to Redfort. I reached home after a 21.5 hr journey to Hyderabad by Rajdhani Express.

Pics:

On my way to Delhi 

This is where Kritin(R) and I presented 

About to leave the campus 

At India Gate. PC: Kritin 

At Rashtrapati Bhavan. PC: Kritin 

Rashtrapati Bhavan with north and south blocks on Raisina Hill 

Kritin(R) and I at Arvind's home in Delhi with Arvind's brother Suhas(L) 

Red Fort!

That's me(L)! 

Tricolour flies high! 

Inside Redfort ramparts with Kritin(L) 

Confused! 

Redfort's Quadri-Bagh 

A street inside Paranthe Wali Gali, Chandni Chowk 

My new mobile phone

NOKIA 105

Notifications and pop-ups on your smartphone pull your fingers to unlock and check it once every five to ten minutes. If you are constantly engaged by it from dawn to dusk and feel like you need to stay away from your smartphone for a day or two, shifting your SIM to a basic phone is one of the best options you have (apart from locking your phone away, which seems impossible). By basic phone, I mean something with which you can only call and text. Nothing more, nothing less.

I made this shift last month to the phone shown on the right and promised myself that I'd not use a smartphone for quite sometime. It costed me ₹999 on Nokia website and brought me the nostalgia of using Nokia 1101 back when I was in high school. These are some changes I noted in more than a month of its use:

Positives:

• The phone is lightweight and of robust build (not as good as older Nokia phones), so I don't bother much about it.
• The feeling of carrying a phone that's easy to fit, easy to hold and easy to carry eludes almost everyone else.
• All week battery charge under nominal use.
• I don't even feel that there is a phone in my pocket, which made me feel less anxious about dropping/losing it.
• Simple and quick access interface makes dialing faster than present day phones. I use speed dial to call my mom.
• My screen time reduced drastically and I feel good about it. Now I look at people more than my phone (and even smile at them :)
• There was so much visual info on my smartphone screen which bothered me like adverts, infinite YouTube scroll, app and news/site suggestions (click-baits). Now that issue is gone.
• I talk to friends by calling (texting sometimes) them rather than incessantly chat on WhatsApp. Things got conveyed quicker this way (and it's always good to talk).

Negatives:

• No camera, no internet, only FM radio (you now know what this means).
• No Uber/Ola.
• No Paytm/BHIM/Online money transfer.
• Texting using T9 needs patience and practice. It takes close to half a minute to say something simple.

I like using my new phone but I wonder how long would I be using it. Any lifestyle change can force me to take my smartphone out of the locker (Geesh! I need it for GPS). Let's see!

Goutham

My Anguish!

Why are the nicest things there only in Bangalore?!!!

new post (no offence intended)

This meme refers to a telugu movie.
Goutham

#ThursdayThrowback

Video Description: Kritin (red shirt) and I with 'mechanized eye', a prop which we assembled by making an eyelid slide over the big eyeball. We made it move by attaching the copper wire frame to a servo motor which was in turn controlled by ATMEGA328 microcontroller. This was done for an event in the annual tech fest at college back in 2016. The memory still feels fresh. Our contractor for this task was Arvind.

Goutham

Opinion on Linux

Kritin, my friend has been using linux for 3 years now and here's what he has concluded:

#PROS

1. It is free, 'free' as in 'free speech'.
2. It can be customized.
3. It gives greater control of your hardware (e.g. I can use my wifi card to hack other's wifi with linux but no software can do that on Windows or Mac).
4. Uses less resources (300-400 MB RAM when idle compared to 1.1 GB in windows).
5. It's file system is made to be used with multiple hard drives (hence it does not designate drive letters like c:/ or D:/
6. Since it is not a popular desktop OS, Linux malware is uncommon.
7. IT JUST WORKS out of the box: no need to hunt for device specific drivers: drivers come in-built (more on this in the cons section).
8. It has a software manager (like Android Playstore). Usually a software uses many libraries (aka dependencies). Sometimes there exist common dependencies. In windows, every software you download will contain required libraries with it in the .exe file. So there is redundancy and thus larger .exe files. In contrast, a software manager on linux keeps track of these libraries and will install only required missing libraries thus smaller download size. Ex: VLC uses 'ffmpeg' library to decode audio and video. Audacity also uses ffmpeg. If I have VLC player installed in linux then if i install audacity, ffmpeg will not be downloaded again because it's already present with VLC. In contrast to this, in windows, .exe of vlc and audacity both will contain ffmpeg, thus the redundancy and larger size downloads.
9. No forced upgrades.
10. No active spying (we know Microsoft began spying us since windows 8). In Linux, you can view and compile the source code yourself if you are that skeptical.
11. Frequent updates and upgrades which are optional, never forced: Ubuntu and Linux mint release one upgrade every 6 months. Compare this with Microsoft's upgrade cycles. XP is of 2002 and win 10 is 2015. They released only 4 OS in between.
12. More innovation: things that were implemented in linux since many years (like multiple workspaces) were implemented in windows, finally in win10.
13. Linux has a very active and dedicated online community that will help you.
14. Linux is good when you want to use a computer as an embedded system (like we did in our B.tech final year project*).
15. Security: A user is not given administrative privileges. So installation of viruses is difficult.
16. OS of choice for servers.

#CONS (spoiler: the cons outweigh the pros)

1. Because of it's low market share, Linux (usually) does not have device specific drivers. We get general purpose open source drivers that 'just work' (i.e. they somehow make your device work, but not at 100% efficiency). Although in Linux, we have no need to hunt for device specific drivers, the open source drivers do not use the hardware completely. This affects the gaming community. Although this is slowly improving.
2. Power management on desktop Linux OS (like Ubuntu or Linux mint) is poor out of the box (this is just a consequence of point 1). So, laptop's battery drains in 1.5 hours even when watching Youtube at 50% brightness.
3. Small things like formatting USB is a 'process' because there is no 'right click and format' option available. In Ubuntu, I had to use command line instruction to do the work and once made a good USB non functional. Linux mint (which is a flavour of Linux, just like Ubuntu but better) now has a separate GUI software for the purpose. But here's the thing: you can't simply right click and format. there are many other similar examples .
4. Lack of adobe flash: Adobe ended it's support of flash for Linux (i.e. no new versions are available but security updates are still available). This means there is no DRM viewing in Linux. The workaround to this problem is to use Google Chrome for Linux because it has its own flashplayer in-built as a plug-in.
5. Workarounds: You will find yourself stuck on simple tasks and finding help online frequently. You will find yourself troubleshooting, changing configuration files manually because there is no GUI for certain applications, using command line and typing "sudo --some --unknown command | found_online" just to get something trivial get done.
6. LACK OF PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE: I agree that softwares available for linux are free and hence very primitive but even if I am willing to pay 20,000 rs, there are no vendors making productivity software for Linux. Example: there does not exist Photoshop, Adobe Reader, Lightroom, Adobe Premier, etc on Linux.
7. (Extension of above point) Video editing on linux sucks. Until recently, The OS was unable to make use of multi cores for a long time (but now the OS can use multi core). Due to lack of dedicated drivers, even video cards are not used at 100% while editing videos. There are only free video editing software available and no professional grade ones. 
8. LINUX IS NOT FREE AS IN 'FREE TIME'  whereas Windows and Macs are: Configuring systems in linux is hectic task. Things may not be compatible. Support for linux may not be available from the original equipment manufacturer(OEM) (although someone may have an equivalent software workaround that may, he is not OEM). You may spend hours to setup something (like connecting 4 cameras to a video capture card which then connects to your PC which streams the capture to Youtube will take hours to just get it working. In contrast, a Windows user can setup all this in 10 min because of all the support available from OEMs involved).
9. Windows and macs, though not free as in 'free beer' and 'free speech', are certainly free as in 'free time'.
10. NO VIRUS ON LINUX IS A MYTH: In theory, viruses for Linux do exist. Of course, no hacker will write any virus for Linux because of its low popularity. This is like no terrorist will try to hijack auto on Chennai street but will aim higher and may want to hijack some Airbus A380 going to USA, because of the impact. This doesn't mean that autos are immune to terror attacks. The day Linux will become popular as a desktop OS, viruses for Linux will come into existence. Yet there have been virus attacks on Linux in the past (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_malware#Threats). Even if I want to install anti virus, there are none available. 
11. Network installation for office environment is way easy to install and manage on windows.

*************side note**************

Since IoT devices use Linux and are poorly configured, they are tempting targets and encouragement for hackers to develop Linux based malware.

##########CONCLUSION##########

Linux as a desktop OS is good enough for people who just want to surf web and type simple documents but in professional and semi professional setting, Linux bites the dust. Even for gamers, Linux still lacks behind.

In servers, of course, linux is the best.

Linux will improve as more and more people will start using it and software companies and OEMs start getting profits by supporting Linux as desktop OS.

+++++++++WHY AM I STILL USING LINUX ON MY LAPTOP?+++++++++

My mouse pointer freezes frequently on windows. This is super irritating. So, I use Linux. In this particular case, the general purpose open source driver included in linux kernel turned out to be better than the driver provided by OEM for windows.

"WOW, I wanted to write this since a long time. Finally got a chance. Include it in your blog or somewhere" Kritin mailed me attaching this piece of his wise mind. 

* = Our B.tech final year project will be posted here soon