Friday, March 22, 2013

The perks of parallel processing

Yesterday was a dukkhi day. Dukhi because sad simply falls short of the expressing our grief  and dismay require.
I might have mentioned it earlier, but let me emphasize this  again : The writer has an extraordinary talent for destruction, be it biryani or a beagle board that has the misfortune to fall in her hands. 
Technically speaking, this is the middle of the end, since we are halfway through fyp. Sometimes I realize that I am going to miss my college enormously. The holidays, to be exact. How I am going to play truant in the future is a source of constant worry to me. I also picked up some like-minded and almost-as-dim-witted-as-me people there, who have always dissuaded me from suicidal plans, albeit half-heartedly.
On the day before yesterday, I was a happy elf. A free elf, almost. Working with a beagle board xm has been a very interesting and rewarding experience, and it has rekindled an old dream, of being an embedded system designer. I might even write a couple of posts about the general outlines for working with it, as well as the problems we encountered and are still encountering, provided that I can summon the energy.
This time, we decided to divide the work among our three selves. Being the person who finds the most faults with literally everything, I have been appointed as the official choota (sans the public dealing, thankfully). While the others watch and record videos and do interesting stuff, I try to impress people with the fact that a complete os can run on 5 V on a 3x3 inch board. 
To the point now.
Thing is, parallel processing might be the thing for actual processors, but it certainly isn't for us. What doing 3 different things in parallel has brought us is the chance to get stuck at three different points simultaneously.
When working as a group, we usually have one problem at a time, so this is a new achievement for us. In a way.
Rants aside, I should document my problems.
As the icing on the cake, I received a new and strange 'kernel panic' error yesterday. Since then, my work is officially on standstill. Maybe I need to change my focus for a couple of days. Middlemarch might be a choice, for I am a fan of George Eliot and Dorothea's story can not be more tragic than mine.