To do that ... I happen to write!

Friday 31 July 2009

Technocracy For Freshers

This article was published in IITD's Special Publication for Freshers - IITD ke Funde by BSP

Dear Dreamers,

Welcome to IIT Delhi.

Are questions like -What is IIT, what does being an IITian mean, buzzing in your head?

Well, that’s ok. It was same for me. I remember my first day at IIT as vividly as I remember my first crush; both were times full of wild thoughts, apprehensions, excitement and fear.

Soon your classes would begin. You would run all around the Insti; from morning 8 to evening 5. Tired, you would come back to your room, gossip a little with your new friends, study a bit, and sleep. Soon Minors would come, and you would be like cat on hot bricks. Rendezvous would follow and your to-be-girlfriends (or boyfriends) would come to IIT. And in no time your 1st semester would be over. Trust me, my 3 years got over in the same fashion.

During this time, I would not be surprised to hear you lament about being stuck in a dull and gruelling Engineering Design (ED) workshop, when romantic rains are dancing outside, or being irritated trying to understand the rational behind an irrational subject like Group Theory (MAL124)…

Well, after 3 years, I can jolly well say that all courses have several applications in real life, but that would not convince you – you want to know their application NOW! And in this context lies the essence of Technocracy. Technocracy is an initiative by a team of students of IITD, to improve the levels of indigenous research by providing sufficient opportunities and creating enthusiasm among people.

There are several aspects on which Technocracy works, but let’s just talk about – What’s in for you? To put down simply – there would be several basic level workshops, seminars, video presentation to explain you - say, how to use your ED knowledge to design a bike or how Group Theory applies to RUBIKS Cube and so on.

Our Website, BSP publications, posters and events will give more information about different projects, useful inventions, innovative ideas, award, honours and upcoming technical activities at IIT Delhi. Follow our activities and they are sure to fire your dreams to ‘think differently’. And my dear Dreamers, soon you would know – to think differently is the essence of being an IITian!



Monday 27 July 2009

How I Stopped Sleeping in IIT Lectures

After 3 laborious semesters - I found a simple Answer.

After those countless times when I woke up, with a stiff neck and saliva filled copy, I found it was so simple to stay up.

After long discussions with self, cursing the heart filled with smoke of remorse for missing a lecture held in the best institution of this country - I found it was rather simple...

After finding that my sleep pangs are so strong - that I sleep even in front of those professors who would humiliate you to death if found sleeping, I thought of a simple plan: to ask questions.

Er, Difficult to digest at first but...
...It works!

PS: The only flip side is that other people swear under breath, that they will kill you if you asked a single more question in that class. I have failed to understand why would they want to do that!


Saturday 11 July 2009

The Story of Stuff

It was just another day and just another site - The Story of Stuff

Well, I liked the story Annie Leonard has presented. I learned 2 things:
  1. Production Cycle - The Big Picture + Several Facts about each Stage - Extraction, Production, Distribution, Consumption and Disposal.
  2. New Ways to address the problems associated with the current Production Cycle.
It is a 20 minute video. The presentation of video, Annie's ability to deliver across the Message, and the facts - all are excellent.

To sum up in a line 'Production Systems on Earth are Linear Production System. Such systems cannot last forever because they use Finite Resources. Hence these systems are systems in
crisis'

I just did not agree to one thing - she blatantly said that we need to throw our computers and bring a new one after every 5 year or so - 'just because a chip in our Mother Board Changes and the new one does not fit at the old one, because its shape is different.'

She was trying to highlight that some things are knowingly built to become obsolete in some years so that people have to buy new one.

But I don't think that it is possible at all to replace a chip in mother board - for that to happen Graphics Card, Sound Card etc. should all be different entities connected together through some dangling wires..

Well, they used to be such earlier. But with reducing size of these chips - we were able to put them all on one Mother Board - this in turn saved a lot of space.

I am trying to find more on this, but otherwise I think 'Story of Stuff' is too good a video to be missed.

Cheers,
Nishant


Saturday 4 July 2009

Welcome to IIT


Welcome to IIT
IIT Delhi? - Welcome even more.

Even though its a 'passe' to say so - still, the fact is that you are the 'best of the best'.
 
So what are your plans for next 4/5 years you are going to be here?
No Plans! - Ah, Too bad! Never Gave it a Thought - Barn, Too bad!

Waste no more of your time and get started thinking. NOW.

First, make room in your super intelligent head and read the next 3 things seriously
  1. This is the beginning, and not the end (of all the struggle and hard work)
  2. There are NO DPPs and NO Mock Tests. No Spoonfeeding. You are on your own.
  3. This is the best place you can be, at this time of your life. You cannot afford to let this chance go.
Don't be too paranoid of me. This is the truth.

With these things in mind, sit down, or take a walk or go in a park or whatever - but think. Think what you want to do when you are here. IIT is a place where you can practically do anything. Anything. And since you can do anything - let your drems fly. Just think what you want. Write it down and keep it safe.

Let me end by telling you WHY YOU NEED TO THINK? From day 1 you would be overwhelmed by the number of different things you would find here. And if you don't know what you want, you would be literally 'swept off your feet'.

So, my dear IITian - you are starting a life on your own - decide how it should be!

PS: I would be glad to answer your questions - just leave a comment!

Also, See this MIT Blog - 50 things to do in your MIT life
And a blog I wrote on my graduation: 42 things to do in IIT Delhi


Creativity

People go haywire over this word. It is the buzz word of our generation. 'You can't be successful in this age, unless you are creative', is not an uncommon phrase.

It scares the hell out of me to think if I am creative enough. How do I know? I hope it must be same for a lot of people. So let's try to figure out something...

What is Creativity?

Some People say creativity is simplicity.
Some People say creativity is thinking out of box.
Some People say creativity is a hoax.

Let's see an example - Common Crafts
- I think this is creative.

And we would keep stumbling upon such things which are 'creative'. But at any rate, our aim is to figure out - how can we be creative?

There can be a few things which I think helps in being creative:
1. Meditate
2. Solve Puzzles
3. Breathe Fresh Air
4. Spend Some time alone, Thinking
5. Talk to some Creative people
6. Get inspired by other creative stuff - start from Stumble Upon
But let's not forget the place where Creativity originates - your Brain!


Thursday 2 July 2009

Some things in IT

Have you used Java?

Have you heard of Spring?

No!

Well, than hear it Now!

Spring is the 'new guy on the block'. This new guy is open source as well.

What do you do in Java to create a new object of Class Nishant?
Write something like - Nishant nishant = new Nishant();
Well, with Spring, gone are those days.

Now you don't need to hardcode things. They are picked up, and linked to your code at runtime. Because of that, you don't need to rebuild (recompile) your code for every change you make.

Now you define these objects outside your java code, in an xml file. It is called configuration file. I am not getting into the details of it all, because there is enough of it on net.

My intention is to just make you aware that there is something called Spring.

For small course projects, you may not feel its importance but you must try to seek it out if your project is more than 1000 lines and/or have database calls as a part of it.

Knowing how to write Hello World in Java is sufficient to start with Spring, but you will like Spring more, if you have worked a lot in Java.

The best book on it is 'Spring in Action'. You will understand the whole of Spring, if you read this book. The next best place to learn more about it would be videos on You Tube. The articles on net; I am sure; will always get you confused.

To quote from the book, 'Spring makes it possible to use plain-vanilla JavaBeans to achieve things that were previously only possible with EJBs. However, Spring’s usefulness isn’t limited to server-side development. Any Java application can benefit from Spring in terms of simplicity, testability, and loose coupling.'

I will talk in details about 'Removing Try Catch blocks using Spring AOP' in separate blog. There I will give all the code level details.

Anyways, was knowing about this Spring guy fun?

I hope it was.

As always,
Nishant

PS:
Take my advice, if you code in Java, go and look about it.


Introduction

Hello

Life is simple. It has been a topic of fascination from several years and will continue to be so, as long as we continue to live.

But then, why people find it so complex? Well, it is meant to be so, otherwise where would the sense of achievement come from?

So, is the purpose of this blog to help you make your life simple? Sorry, but the answer is no! The purpose of this blog is to make your complex life interesting.

How?

By knowing interesting things, and understanding them simply.

Ha ha - are you confused now? You shouldn't be.

Because I will tell you things, various things, which you will enjoy knowing. I will try to tell them simply, so that you don't get confused. And I will try not to reinvent the wheel - i.e. if I find a good site or blog which explains the thing I am talking about in a perfect way - I will direct you to that.

Vanity might sometimes get better of me, and I might write a post dedicated to my life. I hope you will bear with me in such posts.

So understood?

Keep Tuned

Yours
Nishant