Tayzwi

I have fallen into the abyss that is lethargy; bored, listless, un-energetic, lethargic, sleepy, lacking-motivation, purpose-less etc etc.......some chavanprash should do the trick, I will be able to do some cooL swordplay like Sourav Ganguly.....

Went through the NPS-PESIT folks' blogs. Now I know that these guys do have thoughts :)))

Have tons of academic load to catch up with, am writing this cuz I bunked class now, 2 hours of incredible crap. 2 out of the 3 courses I have taken are very good; the 3rd one is good, but the instructor sucks.

Ok, enough academia......I watched Die Hard 1, 2, 3 backtoback.....crazy shit. Hollywood masala at its pinnacle. Was watching some old hindi stuff. Gurudutt's Pyaasa, and one intermediate file was missing. GROAN.

Will get back to something non-blogging related.

If it weren't for your brother, it could've been you papanna......it could've been you. And you are a damn good writer. Wasted as a software engineer of course. And I am missing your scripts. People have changed, some of us in the US, some of us in India and !Bangalore (had to rub this bit of tech. notation), some of us are in different companies, some of us have seen relationships take different hues, and some of us, have done nothing.....maybe they have learnt some more Perl. But the point is, people have changed and that calls for a script. Do write one, please.

Richie, the whole idea behind this problem was to prove that the the blackbox algorithm is NP-Complete. And I was trying to prove that if you could solve the blackbox in polynomial time, you could solve the K-blackbox in polynomial time (my puzzle was to find this specific transformation), and the K-blackbox polynomial time eventually helps in solving Vertex Cover in polynomial time. And VC is known to be NP-complete. And so, the blackbox problem is NP-complete.

Don't know what to make of this one. I liked it, I didn't like it. I could relate to some of it from my life, I could relate to some of it from other stuff that I have read.

Its worth one watch.

Marvel at Richard Karp's creativity.....

The black box algorithm finds one set of subsets among the given set of subsets so that their union gives the main set and they are pairwise disjoint. Now, somehow we need to make sure that it returns a set of subsets whose size is K.

The solution is to add K new distinct elements to the main set (change the main set). Say the new elements are X1, X2, X3.....Xk. Add X1 to all the given M subsets and get new subsets. Add X2 to all the subsets and get another set of new subsets, and so on.....to get M*K new subsets. Now feed the changed main set and the new set of M*K subsets to the blackbox algorithm (just once).

You can verify this solution quite easily.

I had tried the same approach, and it fails because your backup_vector might end up containing a lot of subsets, and replacing the blackbox parameters with a few of these sets from the backup_vector might degenerate into a combinatorial search problem; which is prohibitively expensive.

A main set S and a good number of its subsets A1, A2......Am (m subsets) are given (the total number of subsets is exponential; not all of them are given, but a lot of them (m) are given).

There exists a blackbox algorithm that can take the main set S and the given 'm' subsets and return one combination of disjoint subsets (all pair-wise intersections are null), and whose union gives the main set S.

Say the main set is {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9} and the 9 subsets given are
{1, 2, 3}{4, 5, 6}{7, 8, 9}
{1, 2, 3, 4, 5} {6, 7, 8, 9}
{1, 2, 3, 4}{5, 6, 7} {8}{9}

Now we see that the black-box algorithm could return the first row of subsets ({1, 2, 3}{4, 5, 6}{7, 8, 9}) as the answer, the second row as the answer, or the third row as the answer. This is because all these three solutions satisfy the constraint: The returned answer should contain a combination so that they are pairwise disjoint and whose union gives the main set S.

Now, the problem is to somehow use this blackbox algorithm to return the combination of size K. From the above example, if K = 3, the first row should be returned, if K = 4, the last row should be returned.

So, the input to the problem is a set S, a few of its subsets, and a constant K. The output should be K of these subsets so that they are all mutually disjoint and whose union gives S. This problem can use the blackbox algorithm that gives any such solution (the black box doesnt have a clue of K). No combinatorial exhaustive searches allowed.

From my algorithms and complexity course.

Sudeep resorts to cliches....

I need some help. I have this good-for-nothing software lab that is supposed to help us master the tricks of the trade. So far, I have mastered apache, linux shells, perl, make, php, latex, lex/yacc and xml. And now, to top it all, I need to implement something cooL (read project) in 4-6 weeeks with a partner.

Now, I am looking to maxmize grades, make no mistake. It would be a good icing on the cake if I could do something that would add some value to my resume. Even better, if it would really improve my technical skills to some extent.

I have come up with the following ideas....

- Blog platform
- Orkut like engine
- Real-world-event scheduler
- Flat file join tool in perl (Richie, dont laugh)
- Web crawler, scraper etc
- Online mall hosting platform.
- Apache log analyzer.

And thats the end of my ideas......people, please come up with a few ideas of your own and post it here, just post any idea.....my TAs will get to decide if we can work on it or not....and the more ideas I come up with, the better are my chances of doing something that I like.....and I hate architecture/engineering kinda stuff, but I guess, I will have to go with all of it to get this one done....

Hurry!!!

why? why? why? why is photography becoming the security blanket.

I already know around 10 of my friends who have either purchased good digital cameras, or SLRs, or in one case, a digital SLR. And everyone is busy getting some photography going. And do you know what else is common between all of them? They are all bored software engineers. And they are all shooting away pictures.

If you want to get into art, get into writing, or reading, or theatre, or music, or anything else, why turn into an expensive hobby like photography.....maybe every YASE has a lot of money to spend. If you don't know what a YASE is, you aren't yet another software engineer.

Click away my friends......have fun.......and if possible, get into fashion photography. At least that way, you know.....

http://oxblog.blogspot.com

This is maintained by three Rhodes scholars; all somewhat interested in political science. Its done pretty well. We are five of us. All interested in computer science, money, rationality, beautiful women, and share some other intangible attitude thing, and we blog together....

anyways....

Ganapathi festival in Mumbai is a phenomenon, I visited a few of the low-profile ones in a very low-profile area here, and they were absolutely mindblowing......huge, I mean, really huge, and done with so much care and finesse, and grandeur, that one has to see it to believe why Mumbai stands still on Ganesha day.

Academically, things are screwed up as usual. More quizzes, project proposals coming up, and I have become lazier than I ever was in my life, and now defaulting on default stuff as well......which should never happen......

was Utsav that good? I had some good food at my cousin's place yesterday, and filter coffee, mmmmmm, filter coffee is THE coffee......

On saturday, had been over to one of the page 3 sorts lounge bars in Lower Parel. It was absolutely page-3....very similar to what Paaps watches on FTV..... and most of the women I saw going in to the bar (did I forget to tell you folks that we weren't allowed inside cuz we were.....er.....stags, with horns) could've fit into any of the FTV "parties".

Had some great local "golas", chaat, the usual Bombay stuff and got back by foot-board full-rush local train at half past midnight.......Mumbai never sleeps......

the scene from bangalore to vasco (sept 2001) repeats.......this time in vikhroli (a suburb in bombay close to powai).....and it was fantastic......hic.......

got screwed in the probability mid-sem......and have the verifications one in three days time.....have to see where i am then......

makla......leave all debates.......lets talk about some fun.......whos doing what? or am i just wasting my time asking that question on this blog......someone.......anyone......

om shanti.....om.......am listening to kishore kumar.......and music makes me float.......well, music too.....

self respect, swaabhimana, chala, ego.....ivella yelli?? where did they all disappear? I agree on correct mails, politically correct that is, and mis-communication, communication etc....but lick-ass ???

you gotta kick-ass maga......don't you feel that the whole communication based management theories that people with a little bit of power shell out to folks under them is all based on lack of talentz....or maybe lack of great talentz......to be precise.......or maybe money, I am not sure.....

would anyone question Richie? (DMR, I mean, not Jag :)) .... maybe if he said "screw yourself" to some head honcho in some Fortune 10 company, it might matter......but would they get offended about his using pronouns? or would they rather look for some meaning in what he is trying to say before branding him "lacks communication skills".......

point is....its all about talentz.....and skillz....and about developing yourself so that what you can do, not many can do.......if there are many who can do what I can......what good am I???...... I would have to resort to communication skills to stay afloat......

have probablity and statistics mid-sem exams in 30 minutes.....have to do some last minute random preperations......if what I prepare now comes by chance...... :))))

Saw the movie till Vincent and Mia come back to Mia's apartment and he is in the loo....and she is dancing.....and I am f*ckin bored......this movie sucks.....How did it ever make it to IMDB top 20....and more so, Sudeep's top 5 ?!?!?!??!

Labels: movies, pulp fiction

Saw volume 1 and 2 back to back and you ain't kidding baby, that movie and I had unfinished business alright. Tarantino makes movies for those who have watched tens of thousands of movies - or so someone said. I agree paaps....my first QT movie confirms that memorable quote of yours.....

Next on my list.....already on my hard-disk....

- One flew over the cuckoo's nest
- Pulp Fiction
- Seven Samurai
- Dead Man Walking
- Rear Window
- North by Nothwest

can't find Usual Suspects, Amelie and Leon here on the network....very surprising....Btw, I am done with

- Indiana Jones trilogy
- Kill Bill Volumes

and quite a few more.....

Moviefest continues at IIT bombay.......and mid-sem exams are going on in-between.....and coming to that, got screwed in Algorithms, and will surely get screwed in probability.....am not working on any of my seminar or other stuff......haven't paid my mess bill.....have two library books with me that are already a week overdue.....haven't submitted my bank details to the TA office.....have no clean clothes to wear.....

on the good side, I have been going to Hiranandani every day for the last three days....bought Lolita.....havent eaten in the mess for the last 3 days......feeling totally good about myself.....whistling the Indiana Jones theme......a la Akshai RS.

Jabio
- Dadiya

Labels: movies

How can make be difficult... or irritating......with its quirky tab rules, with its really really almost cryptically short syntax, with its awesome error messages, its the best thing to use in this world.....and somewhere, people keep claiming that it makes your life easy.......what say you Papanna? are you doing good with make?

Btw, its not that hard to work with make, you just need to get used to it....as with everything else in the UNIX world....can you guys believe that I have been working on a LINUX desktop for more than a month now, and I dont loathe it as much as I used to at Yahoo!.

Speaking of Yahoo!, S & S are getting married this Sunday, in Ganjam Mantapa of all the places.....Am feeling quite sad and nostalgic about it all......Of all the people, I got to know both of them, worked at Yahoo!, got deeply deeply involved with you-know-who etc etc.....feelings galore.......anyways, samsara andmele....ond nenapu baratte, ond nenapu hogatte....... It seems incredibly strange that lives have indeed changed, of all of us.......since dec-2001....and we all have grown a little more, explored a little more and done a little more in life......for better or for worse.....it feels good......it feels bad....... I wonder what might have happened if things hadn't changed so drastically back then.....

barla
-Dadiya

Got the Kurt Cobain face t-shirt Papanna, remember the days when you were looking for this one in National Market....well, if not anything else, it gets people to stare at me.....and wonder who the guy on/in the t-shirt is...

bowled some ten-pin, got a few bedsheets, bunked probability, submitted a gnu-make assignment, finally have made NP-completeness official reading material (hehe, Richie and Kummi, lopers)........watched finding nemo, philadelphia, bowling for columbine, forrest gump, a few more misc. episodes of FRIENDS, have started cracking really poor PJs here, have let down the GD-Teju diet..... (and you, lkb? you still going low-carbo?).......

aste.....things are going on......mid-sem exams next week.....

Paapanna, I am sure Richie will also tell you; I can vouch for it, think a couple of hundred times about it.........puliyogare is not that good for health......you don't see the Richie connection??? :-)))

lkb GD.....yenla, communication skills unkodide.... yen kathe? you are developing all the right managerial skills......good for you.......next one should be: how to comb your hair into two points....... :-))).....saili bidu moms......dont let small things make you go into introspective moods......aint worth it......ask Sudeep, he knows (about) this theory......

-dadiya