Sudipta's Life

When I came to the university about 3-4 months ago, I was all charged up about doing research projects, publishing papers, etc. I always imagined myself to be this hidden wizard of computer science who will just race through the tons of research papers and practically become an authority on research in my field within a span of a year. Pretty soon, I signed up for some reading groups where they discussed papers, I took courses that dived straight into the core of my research interest, and was suddenly beginning to feel good about myself. More importantly, professors and other senior researchers here are more than happy if you go up to them after having read an extra paper or two and ask questions about them. So I tried to bury myself in the research papers and journals and stuff like that. But it was then that the realisation struck that I know practically nothing of the field and the subject! So while I would plough on and on through 15 or 20 pages of a research paper, I'd hardly ...

About a couple of years ago, on a cold wintry evening, I was busy at home lounging about and generally evaluating the relative merits and demerits of hot samosas and fresh rasgullas. My sister had woke up just a minute ago and was close to an emotional breakdown because she had her exams and tuition class in 10 minutes and she thought she was never going to make it in time. The chivalrious (since there was a damsel in distress) and doting (do I need to explain this?) brother therefore offered to take her to the class in time, and she hurriedly went to pack her bags with some sceptic hope on her face. We were off on a scooter with exactly 8 minutes remaining to the zero-hour, and it usually takes about 15-18 minutes to reach there from our home. It was evening time, and therefore the usual office rush hour traffic added spice to the flavour. But smooth seas don't make good sailors, and yours truly specialises in sailing out of whirlpools. So amidst the hit-or-miss traffic, wailing c...

When I signed up with blogger about two years ago, I never knew what to expect. I was just trying to get a little more net-savvy then, and therefore getting a blog was the next cool thing to do. I guess my initial posts were all therefore quite disjoint and frankly of 'yuck' standard. Don't bother going through the archives of 2004 or even early 2005: I know they form the classical definion of crap. But then my writing began to mature, and I perhaps began to use this blog more as a medium of expressing myself and penning down thoughts that would otherwise be lost after some introspection into the recesses of the brain. And I felt happy about that: since the joy of blogging is in the unwinding, in the open declaration of your ideas. And more importantly, perhaps, is the fact that there cannot be a better way of having a one-way conversation where you can ramble on and on uninterrupted with your train of thoughts. But then as I visited other blogs, I noticed the phenomenon of...

I have always been confused about how the system of the age of a person works with respect to his or her birthday. So lets say if you were born on 1st March 1980; what would you say your age is right now: 26 or 27? After several bouts of finding myself suddenly ineligible for Air Force exams or NDA admissions, or at times suddenly discovering that after romantic incidents I could be disqualified for being overage by just six months, I decided to settle for the higher of the two values whenever I had to tell my age to somebody. Advantage of being a guy: you don't need to fudge figures to prove that you still are in the 'desirable' age range ;) So I had always stuck to this convention of using the ceiling value whenever someone asked. Yet it also entailed a feeling of the biological clock ticking more rapidly than I would like it to -- one fine morning when I was going over something I suddenly realised that by my convention I am 26 already!! So when surveys came out that a...

Originally posted here on edulix I keep receiving queries from people (especially CS/ ECE) and there are common queries regarding UT Austin. I am not an expert here, but I'll try to put together answers to the most frequent questions. This I'll also copy-paste in my blog and in the testimonial for the Unisearch feature, so that even if this thread gets drowned, someone can locate it. 0. Should I apply? Yes, this is a ground rule question-answer that you must read before the rest of the stuff. It is generally difficult to say if you'll be admitted, and in all cases this is an Ambitious bet for anyone. However, just a 1480 on the GRE or 300 on the TOEFL will not do: you need to show something extra, something stellar that makes you stand out among the pool of applicants to reasonably expect a call from this place. The above numbers are just indicators, and not absolute values. See the AGRE question below for some more decision making help about your applciation. 1. Fu...

The hit counter on my blog reached 20074 today. Why you may ask, is that news, and why hadn't I cheered myself up when it was at 20,000 for example? Well, it is news because 20074 has been a very special number for me during my entire college life: it was my admission number, and my system-wide unique identity. It is strange, and surprising, how these numbers become a part of our identity. The social security number, the passport number, the id number in the college, or even your roll number somehow becomes an almost innate part of the day-to-day life. As soon as I see the same number somewhere else: maybe on a telephone, on a hitcounter, maybe somewhere else... a thousand memories are triggered. As my eyes struck the hitcounter showing 20074 right now, I was thrown back to memories of filling up exam answer sheets, hostel admission forms, library recall requests, and so much more! I believe that number was present on almost every official form which I filled in college: even when ...