Rating: 2.0 / 5.0
]]>Rating: 2.0 / 5.0
]]>1) You are driving on a three lane road and you are on the left lane. You realize that you need to take a right turn at the very last moment. What do you do?
a) Miss the exit and try to switch lanes by the time you come to the next intersection.
b) Come to a complete halt and wave your hand crazily, hoping to scare the drivers in the adjacent lanes allowing you move in to the right hand lane.
c) At the intersection start heading right, honking the horn madly, hoping that no car will hit you. If you are driving a truck or a big car, you should have enough credibility to get people to stop for you while you take your right turn.
d) Take 15 minutes while you slowly crawl through the traffic and shift to the right lane and finally take your right turn.
2) You are entering a road which allows traffic to move in one direction only. However, the next divider is miles away and you need to get to an intersection which is just a meters away. What do you do?
a) Move in the direction of the traffic and take a U turn (if allowed) at the divider.
b) Move quickly in the direction of opposing traffic, keeping to the extreme side of the road (exception - trucks can go anywhere) and head for the intersection.
c) Move quickly in the direction of opposing traffic, switch on the high beamers as a defensive measure to make sure oncoming traffic is blinded.
d) Initially join the direction of traffic to pose as if you are not violating the law, then move into reverse gear and head towards the destination.
3) You see a pedestrian on the road and you are driving at a high speed. What should you do?
a) Bring the car to a complete halt and let the pedestrian proceed.
b) Start honking the horn to get the pedestrian to give a run for his life.
c) Calculate the exact trajectory of the pedestrian and figure out the optimal route that will just skirt past him/her and let you go past without reducing speed.
d) Kill the pedestrian because they irritate you at traffic signals by not walking through the zebra crossing.
4) You are waiting for the signal at a traffic intersection. You are given the green signal but you notice that the traffic has not cleared and if you proceed you will cause a deadlock. What should you do?
a) Wait for the traffic to clear before proceeding, even if that means that you will miss the green signal.
b) Proceed and cause the deadlock.
c) Try to act smart and move to take a U turn to avoid the traffic, even if the U turn is not allowed at that location.
d) Proceed because it is a dog eat dog world, even if you don't it, the autorickshaw is going to do it anyway.
5) Extra points: A road requires repair and you need to inform the public that the road will be closed and a secondary route needs to be used. What will you do?
a) Construct a well illuminated signboard that indicates that the traffic should enter the opposing traffic road. Also attempt to construct indications for the opposing traffic lane to proceed with caution.
b) Put a bunch of tiny stones and hope that people will figure out the hard way that this is a diversion because they have heard stories of how people who didn't notice the stones were killed.
c) Dig a big hole, so that no one can physically proceed further in that road. The diversion route will need to be figured out by the driver.
d) Park some cars and hope that acts as a sufficient deterrent for using the road.
If you have driven on indian roads (or more specifically on hyde roads), you should be able to ace the test :-)
]]>First off, she asked us, 'Why do you like to stay in India?' ...
Second ... 'Would I be happy in India?' ... *okay, what are you thinking?*
The third one was a real kicker ... 'Is India less polluted that Oregon?'. *Ahem, can someone point out the polluted parts of Oregon, so that I can make a sound judgement and answer that question*
Ignorance is bliss? :)
Here are my top 5 strategies that I find quite useful,
* Placing a number in a block where the adjacent blocks already have this number. This is the easiest approach, but requires that you can narrow down to a single cell by eliminating rows and columns that have the desired number already.
* Filling up a cell by eliminating numbers based on columnar, row and block constraints.
* When you have two cells in a row/column that needs to be filled, figure out those missing numbers and most likely there will be a columnar/row constraint on these numbers which will help you fix up the position.
* When there are three cells that need to be filled, you can still apply constraint rules to fix up position. For example, let there be two missing cells in block 1 and one missing cell in block 2. Figure out the 3 missing numbers and you might be able to fix the number in block 2, as two of the numbers may fail the block constraint. Alternatively, two numbers may fail a columnar/row constraint in block 1.
* Try to keep the momentum, and complete it in single session. If you are stuck try reverse solving - i.e. ask yourself, to solve cell X what do I need to fill out?
]]>Everytime I go to Kolkata, my grandparents urge me to move back to Kolkata so that I'll be with them. Unfortunately they don't want to move out of Kolkata, so that makes the situation bad. Worse is that my dad is in Chennai and he too doesn't want to move out and I'm stuck in Hyderabad. Everyone has stuck their pole on the map of India and none can move.
It's fascinating that we have not tried to solve the fundamental problem of locational proximity. I'm not talking about communication or transportation abilities (to some extent), but rather the seamless perception of virtually living in a defined region while actually being physically distant. I know there is VR, but have other kind of approaches for this attempted?
]]>Heard Jai got a big scholarship.. after I looked at the scholarship site, it totally blew my socks off. Kudos!
Been wasting too many hours fraggin office friends in Halo on our XBox. Reportedly lot of folks have willingly extended their working hours... *ahem* to do some non serious office work in the XBox room.
Cosmin is off to a Google interview in CA. Good luck to him!
Some more people I know are off to land of $$$ this month.
Still working out the kinks in my plan to become rich, powerful and famous...
]]>On Saturday, I took up a shared auto to return to my residence and they provide an excellent source for practicing 'voyeurism on wheels'. When I boarded the auto, a love lorn couple were already seated and engaging in small talk. The girl was holding a rose and looking excitedly happy about all things in the world. The auto took off and while we were trundling down Hyde's divine roads, I was audience to the couple's conversation which went something like this,
[please forgive my hindi transcriptions!]
..... Lot of lovey dovey stuff .....
THEN
----
She: "Arre yaar.. itne dino baad hamne eksat bahar ghomne ke liye gaye" (We went out after long time)
He: "Ab kya ghar jana hai? Kahin ja kar chai ya coffee peene ja sakte hain" (Should we go home? We could go drink coffee or tea at some place)
She: "Thik hain" (Okay)
She: "Maine socha tha pehle tankhwya milne ke bad kya kya kar loonga!" (I thought I would do so many things after I got my first salary)
He: "Apna company kharid dal ne ke soche the kya?" (You thought you would buy your company?)
----
And then something totally GROSS happened....
----
She: "Arre chod yaar... pehle mujhe yeh sab technologies ko janna padega, ASP.NET, VB, C#." (Forget it, I first have to learn all these technologies like ASP.NET, VB, SQL"
He: "Tum kya office main SQL be use kar te ho?" (Do you use SQL in office also?)
She: "SQL main to bada panga hain. Ek command may thoda be mistake ho to, woh chillata hain" (There are big problems with SQL. If there are even small mistakes in the SQL statement, it screams!)
----
I was flabbergasted. How the heck did that conversation turn into a talk about .NET and SQL ????????? Hyderabad's techno culture has infested even the love nests. Perhaps I should muster up some courage and try out a pickup line like, "Babe, Can I be administrator on your box?" .....
]]>Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
]]>Ahh... let's see if that machine has come back online.
]]>The movie started off rather abruptly and in a short span of thirty minutes, we were forced to listen to three film songs. Of course, the movie plot had not progressed any further beyond what I had gathered from the first few minutes. NOT GOOD!
There are some segments of the movie that are well executed but the overall impression is disappointing. The acting is mostly below par. Fortunately, Sanjay Dutt's acting shines in comparison to the rest of the rubbish. I felt the acting lacked the touch of naturalism that makes a good movie. The female characters appear to have been attacked by a dose of the laughing gas. Sure, the lead actress has a pretty smile, but it gets to a point of irritation if you have to watch it every scene. Please keep all the smiling for a Colgate or Close Up ad! I think the story is far too short to make an effective movie. Although the sets were well designed, the direction lacks effectiveness and the acting is not memorable either. The songs also become an exercise in tedium after they pop up with incredulous regularity.
I know the buzz has been positive and people might consider this as a classic arty/commercial flick fusion, but I feel sorry for those people as they have certainly not realized the joy of watching a well knit and impactful movie, which this isn't.
]]>Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
]]>Rating: 3.5 / 5.0
]]>Rating: 2.0 / 5.0