How ambitious is too ambitious?

I realize it has been over a year since my last post. I think of writing every week right when I need to start on the work for the week's meeting with my adviser (this post just happens to be the first successful attempt). Now comes the hard part.

Lemme see..(stop if > 3 pauses)
India Trip (too cliche)
Love life (I'm not the lovey kind)
Friends? (too.. I'm not sure actually. Oh. Right. One word. They Rock. Friends )
pause..
Men (hell, I'm a feminist)
Women (hmm..)
longer pause.....
Career (Rock bottom)
Family (its complicated)
Grad Life (see phdcomics.com)
pause...
Books (haven't finished any worth reading in a while)
Life life (what Life?)
pau. oh I already did 3.

Women it is. Poor you.

Women. Fascinating creatures us :). Anyhow, I've had this piece I have wanted to write for a while now. How ambitious is too ambitious especially when you are a woman and all the usual constraints that come with being an Indian one at that. Add in the eccentricities of being me. And that I'm going through some kind of existential crisis about now.

So, I've been wrestling with my priorities these past few years.

a) Is it right to put the rest of your life on hold till you get to the peak of your career success (if there is one in sight)? And then hope to find Mr.Perfect. You know, let a process run to termination and schedule the next. Setting career as a Hard Real time process and bumping its priority. Average process wait time is baaaad. But you get what you want. Maybe.

b) Or is it just better to live a so called "balanced" life where you get married at a normal age, get a regular job, a regular house with a white picket fence with a dog and a cat and a ferret and whatever. Multiprocessing. Decent overall parameters. But fails as a Real Time system. Hah.

If a is your answer, consider these.

What if you take too long to get where you want to get professionally ?

I think of this when my code doesn't compile and I am fighting a deadline. A friend suggested an easy way out. Marry a millionaire and shop forever :D. Sounds super sometimes. I've even thought of a farmer who will never ever have to write a program in his life. I should be able to manage raising crops and cattle with him I think.

Is it sensible to waste the best years of your youth slogging and then you realize that you have missed out on life?

It is supposedly common thinking that my success is gonna scare off potential suitors. I've heard it said and I quote "Most men like their wives pretty, young and not more smarter than them."

If b is your choice, then

What of some of us who are fundamentally incapable of uttering the c word without shuddering. Or are afraid of a married life. Really, Marriages fail for the stupidest of reasons.

My answer has firmly been a for as long as I can remember. But is that the right choice is a whole different thing altogether.

In the grand scheme of things, is glory all that important? Or is there a compromise I cant think of ?

Any heuristics to optimize my life's throughput ?

Sigh. I need therapy.

Chamolie Tea extended

Chamomile Tea

ACTUAL COLLEGE THEME PAPER - HEY I COULDN'T MAKE THIS UP
Remember the book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus"?
Well, here's a prime example offered by an English professor
at an American University.

"Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story.
The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person
sitting to his or her immediate right. One of you will then write
the first paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the
first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story. The
first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and
forth. Remember to reread what has been written each time in order
to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking
and anything you wish to say must be written on the paper. The
story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."

The following was actually turned in by two of my English students:

Rebecca -last name deleted, and Jim - last name deleted.

------------------------------------------------------------
STORY:
(First paragraph by Rebecca)
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The
chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home,
now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times,
that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs,
keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if
she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again.
So chamomile was out of the question.
-----------------------------------------------------
(Second paragraph by Jim)
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack
squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to
think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named
Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S.
Harris to Geostation 17, he said into his trans- galactic communicator.
"Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so
far..." But before he could sign off, a bluish particle beam flashed
out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The
jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across
the cockpit.
----------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca)
He bumped his head and died almost immediately but not before he
felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one
woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth
stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers
of Skylon 4. Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and
Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news
simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window,
dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed hurriedly and
carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to distract
her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things
around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?"
she pondered wistfully.
--------------------------------------------------------
(Jim)
Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live.
Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership
launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted
wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament
Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target
for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the
human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty
the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough
firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop
them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium
fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President,
in his top-secret Mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor
off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion,
which vaporized poor, stupid Laurie and 85 million other Americans.
The President slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can't
allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow 'em out of
the sky!"
---------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca)
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature.
My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate
adolescent.
----------------------------------------------------------
(Jim)
Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts
at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. "Oh shall I have
chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of F*CKING TEA??? Oh
no, I'm such an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele
novels."
----------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca)
Asshole.
----------------------------------------------------------
(Jim)
Bitch.
----------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca)
Wanker.
----------------------------------------------------------
(Jim)
slut.
---------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca)
Get f*cked.
----------------------------------------------------------
(Jim)
Eat shit.
--------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca)
F*CK YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!!!
----------------------------------------------------------
(Jim)
Go drink some tea - whore.
--------------------------------------------------------
(Teacher)
A+ I really liked this one.



This was a forward I got from one of my friends at UCLA. You must know that both of us just finished our First Sem of M.S here and were generally looking for ways to unwind. So we thought maybe it was a good idea to give the same exercise a shot. This was the result.

[8:21:54 PM] sindhu.purdue says:

Tristan Carroway came home late one night to realize his spot on the couch was occupied. And quite fully at that. Sprawled on it at full length was a ...person..wait, Female! at that sleeping oh so peacefully. Well, nobody takes HIS spot. So he did the only thing he could think of. He simply emptied the couch.

[8:48:45 PM] Karthik Ravi Shankar says:

Being the strong man he was, he just took the lady out of the couch and put her on the carpet nearby without even seeing closely who the lady was or how she looked.Elated at his achievement, he was going towards his couch, when he suddenly hears a familiar voice.. it was Mary.
He hadn't seen her for 6 yrs..

[9:08:20 PM] sindhu.purdue says:

MARY ?? The same Mary who dunked him into the pool the first day they met because he called her sweaty and iky after her morning run with his sister ? The same Mary who set his pants on fire for saying he was fuming for what she had done . The same Mary who had turned his nice and orderly life upside down from the moment she set foot at Carroway House . Had the entire house and servants twirled around her little finger. Even his stiff and proper father who always gave a stern dressing down at any frivolous mischief he ever got into was laughing at him! He was supposed to be the notorious one in the house. How dare this.. this slip of a girl gain everyone's favour in no time ??

[9:23:41 PM] Karthik Ravi Shankar says:

Like a man possessed, he set out to undo what had been done.. to regain his lost position of notoriety. But he had to plan his every move, for the quality of opponent he facing was much better than in the recent past. His only hope was his sister.. who was Mary's close friend since long. Little did Mary know that a bar of swiss chocolate could entice her best friend to give her away. After the morning run, when Mary was in her bath, happily enjoying the cold water and silence around her, suddenly the water stops from the shower. Mary wondered and went closer to the shower, the water started coming out again. Relieved, she continued, and suddenly after a while realizes that water is turned blood red... she screams and runs out of the bath in her robe to find whole of Carroway family waiting for her !!! Mary knew who it was and went off storming from the Carroway House..

[9:56:05 PM] sindhu.purdue says:

She headed towards the lake to wash herself up after the debacle. She was furious with Tristan. She was beyond furious. If only she could get him to drink a cup of hemlock. Oh wouldn't that be sweet revenge ? Or maybe she could paint that Blond bitch's hair green in her sleep. Venessa . She was the reason she was here. Tristan's girlfriend was picking on her best friend Emma,his sister! And he was being just plain blind to her viles just because she could flaunt her assets well enough to have Tristan's attention. She has no right to call Emma puny, or that she wasn't woman enough to find her guy so her brother had to fix her dates for dates with his friends. Some girls grow faster than the others. That didn't mean they could hurt the less fortunate ones. What kind of an inconsiderate , downright stupid moron of a brother was hie to not see his girlfriend was hurting his sister. Mary was gonna set that right. She was gonna set that right if it killed her.

[10:16:32 PM] Karthik Ravi Shankar says:

Furiously enough, Mary was coming back from the lake when she didn't see an overspeeding lorry by the side of the road, met with an accident and lost her memory. Since then she was reported missing by the Corroway's, but to no avail. Meanwhile, the well endowed Venessa had broken up with Tristan saying that the simmering flame in their relationship was gone, only to find the flame in someone else's bed. Emma, went on to become a super successful doctor, fiercely independent and single. Tristan himself had come a long way, and Mary had almost slipped out of his mind. Never did he think that he would meet Mary here on this night, on his couch!
[10:18:44 PM] sindhu.purdue says:

what crappy bullshit!! i'm not writing this story !!!

[10:18:59 PM] Karthik Ravi Shankar says:

wat the hell!! I wanted to end it decently

[10:19:17 PM] sindhu.purdue says:

lost her memory ? Are you kidding me ??
[10:19:20 PM] Karthik Ravi Shankar says:

ofcourse

[10:19:26 PM] sindhu.purdue says:

how did a lorry enter private property ?
are u fr****ing nuts ??

[10:19:40 PM] Karthik Ravi Shankar says:

she happened to come on to a freeway! property need not be so huge.
and she was upset !
its better than suddenly there coming a gf who has sinister plans!!

[10:20:53 PM] sindhu.purdue says:

u cud have let it off gracefully!!

[10:21:02 PM] Karthik Ravi Shankar says:
i made it nice . c'mon!

okk.. the forward is correct
it doesnt ever work


[10:22:09 PM] sindhu.purdue says:

of course it won't work if u write such drastic endings
LOST HER MEMORY!! are u KIDDING me ??

[10:22:43 PM] Karthik Ravi Shankar says:

it can happen only in movies or wat?
why not stories also! amnesia !!

u can get her memory back like magically

[10:23:09 PM] sindhu.purdue says:

that makes the story sound like a monkey swinging !!

I hate dramatic!

[10:23:43 PM] Karthik Ravi Shankar says:

oh.. i like dramatic stuff

those which cant happen in real life

[10:27:40 PM] sindhu.purdue says:

Tristan takes advantage of Mary's memory loss and sleep's with her. She comes back with a baby. files a paternity suit and snatches away all his property. Tristan ends up penny-less. So he becomes Venessa's sex slave for life and Mary and her child live happily ever after. End of story !!


So dear reader.. what do u think ?

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.

-William Ernest Henley.

just stop and stare

*sigh*

this post is a just an attempt to make the truck number of this blog a non- zero value...

Constant Output Theorem (CO Theorem)

First of all… gracias for the co-authorship of the blog… muchas gracias…

:D

{

Aside:

Why blog here?

1. This is as good a place to start as any

2. A pre-existing blog is a better motivator compared to a blank notepad file/ new post page

3. The required parameters/ terms for this post have already been defined, and they mostly continue to mean the same

4. Total number of hits to this post is assured to be a non – zero positive number

5. The “about me:”, the naming of a new blog etc. can be skipped to a later time

}

Disclaimers:

0. This is my first ever post. I am blindly following what Forrester said: “the first key to writing is to write, not to think." :-P

(And that, you will come to see, actually serves as a good corollary for the CO theorem)

1. This theorem is a realistic generalization of MIMO theorem

2. Appreciating the theorem requires knowledge of basic math and logarithms

3. It is said that there are two kinds of people on earth

i. Type 1: people with IQ > 100

ii. Type 2: people with IQ = log (Type 1)

This theorem is applicable only to those Є (Type 1).

Technical Terms reviewed:

Success = "all that u want" (unchanged, refer previous post)

Investment = “time and effort” (unchanged) – quantized as a number >= 1.

New terms:

1. Essential Background (EB): this is a more or less constant value, and is the minimum investment that is required for any competence.
2. log(x) is logarithm of x
3. | x | is the modulus of x

Constant Output Theorem (CO theorem) states that:

Success = K + EB + | log (Investment) |

where K is a constant that depends on the individual. It is the success he/she would attain when investment = 0 (EB /= 0). K is directly proportional to intelligence, cranial capacity, etc. It assumes a value that can be determined by examining the results obtained by the individual, in the past, in a similar situation/ problem. The range of K is from a very small ε to an arbitrarily large value.

Proof of the theorem:

1. All god-level-dudes that you see around you… a god-level-dude is a person who smashes a paper without even searching for the damn book, excels at sports without as much as a hint of practice, paints brilliantly in half a day what others can’t dream of painting in a year… you get the picture.

Here, even for values of Investment → 1 (the lowest value), the CO theorem guarantees high rate of Success, as the value of K, is large.

Also, it is to this group of people, the CO theorem can be linked with the MIMO theorem (explained in the previous post), wherever Investment assumes a value greater than 1. Success, now, increases exponentially as input investment

2. The hopelessly constant or monotonically decreasing grade curves… (monotonically decreasing because of the oft negative values of EB :-P )

You’ve seen this for yourself... the religiously proved – ‘toppers keep topping’ theorem

In these cases,

Success = K + EB + | log (Investment) |

=> Success ~ = K

No wonder the grade curve ever turns the right way :-)

Quod Erat Demonstrandum

The Minimum Input,Maximum Output Theorem

So much for the unnecessary language (i'd call "borrowed" english ) i've used in the previous entry,i feel like a fool now.I should have been myself.

And yet another disclaimer before i start this entry...
Henceforth my blog shall contain endless fart on "ME" and "MY" philosophy (my blog so i preach ;) )... often contradictory...........so u decide if u wish to break your head on worthless nonsense or better catch up with the last book you left half-read.
For those who really have time for me..my most humble 'Thank You'...read on..

I'm sure most of you would have guessed what i'm going to talk about now.But anyway here's the abstract idea of the celebrated ( cuz i propounded it ;)) Minimum Input,Maximum Output Theorem
"I want to publish a "great" paper , top my class , excel at sports , make my best paintings , get my favourite clothes , buy all that i want , look good , be the coolest kid on the block , (add whatever you want here) with the global minimum of time AND effort invested on this"

Introducing some technical terms..
I'll call "all that u want"=Success
and "time AND effort"=Investment

Technically stating the theorem again
"Success=e^e^e^e.....(infinite series)..(Investment)"
that'z the Idealistic or General Theory of MIMO..



& the Realistic or Special Theory of MIMO is
"Success=e^Investment"

I have seen a few cases of Special Theory of MIMO.

But there always seem to exist some uneven parameters that make it possible....to name a few.. Intelligence , Smartness , Management Skills , Luck ( i believe this is the parameter that summerizes the rest of them).
These are parameters I do not have control on.Well...,some argue that Praying to God, Getting in tune with 'Nature'(plzz tell me what this means), Relaxing yourself and some endless blah.. blahs...help you set your "Luck" right.Anyway,as of now I have no proofs that these will work,but if find them,i'll revise my argument.
Essentially these parameters are somethings you get by birth,some from your environment,some from your upbringing( again blah blahs).....and again things out of my control.

Given the constraint (worst case scenario) that I do not posses any of these "favouring" parameters....I still want to realise The MIMO Theorem.

It is said that "Nothing is Impossible".
So,is there a way out? If yes,give algo/views.............or is the Above quote (and hence My theorem) *sob* Impossible?
( & for some of the pranksters tempted to comment....I know that Maximum Input Minimum Output (misinterpreted MIMO) is always possible..)