Life is beautiful + an official apology to microcontrollers

Every year, near this time of summers, my sight undergoes a magical transformation. All at once, I discover(or rediscover) that Life Is Beautiful. I become a super optimist and start seeing hope along with beauty everywhere. After spending some time contemplating, I succeed in convincing myself that every thing happens for a reason, and that the basic purpose of this life is to be happy. Generally, I feel very content to be me. I practically become incapable of malice towards any person, thing, place. I cherish everything and dislike nothing.
 This is very much a universal phenomenon.Yes, summer vacation can do that to you.
So, the new thing is that I intend to do a few new things this time. They shall be written down one of these days. Maybe they shall get posted here.
In a previous post, I loudly stated that I loathe hardware. It is only fair that I should apologize just as loudly. Well, thing is, I do not count micro controllers as hardware any longer. All right, they are hardware, who am I kidding? I just do not loathe them. As a matter of fact, I rather like them. They are nice. One of these days, I shall write a detailed post about the project I worked on with a couple of friends.

Just a Story

Allow me to narrate a story today.

Once upon a time there existed a place known as the Me-Me land. Most of it was inhabited by two very distinct species. To be exact, there were more of them, but our story concerns only two of them, the most important ones.

The first specie was called the Mankind. They were THE human beings. With their towering heights, raucous laughter and their way of looking down upon everything, they were the dead center of the Me-Me land. They were, in fact the axis around which the whole place revolved.

The other specie had quite a small population, but they always made mischief and brewed trouble for the humanity. This species, known as Woe-Men, was so named because they were always the origin of mankind's woes.. Most people thought that they were mankind’s punishment for the Original Sin. The more philosophical ones said with a shrug that what cannot be cured must be endured.

They looked like underdeveloped human beings, but the mankind was convinced that they were utterly false. They knew that Woe-Men were just a bad copy of the human race. A mere shadow, they had failed to evolve with time and were  devoid of the faculty of thought. ‘Who needs brain for making sandwiches, unless it is brain sandwiches they are making?’ the mankind often said.

Another thing that needs to be introduced here is the Tail-Ban school of thought. The Tail-Ban philosophy was quite popular in some sections of the society. It was very simple, and stated:

“Woe-Men are the ungainly tails of our society. Ungainly tails MUST be hidden away as best as possible, preferably under lock and key.”

It needs not be mentioned that  the Tail-Bans believed in the transitive property of equality.

Most of the elder human beings, those who ran the Me-Me place, can not be accused of belonging to the Tail-Ban school of thought in any way. They even publicly supported the idea that a Woe-Man can operate a plane, provided that it is plain enough. But in their heart of hearts, they religiously believed in the Tail-Ban philosophy.

Due to a number of reasons, most of them political, the ruling people had to tolerate Woe-Men. So, they did what every sensible human being would do: they made a special set of special rules and devoted themselves soul and heart to see that these rules were obeyed to the last radian. Some of them are given below for the enlightenment off the reader, along with the reason due to which they were enforced.

1. The Woe-Men had long, thin strands of hair growing out of their heads. These cables could send powerful signals that had the potential to jam and flabbergast every single system and signal in the Me-Me land. To prevent this from happening, these strands had to be covered all the time with the best insulator known: thick fabric. All the time.
2. Woe-Men were crafty creatures. The authorities believed that wherever there was a Woe-Man, there must be some thing fishy. They knew a trick: they could make food invisible just by looking at it and move it to their bags. So they were forbidden from setting foot in any restaurant or eatery. A small slit was installed for them in the back wall of each café , so the café owners would not lose their bucks. Special care was taken that nothing edible should be visible to them through these ‘windows’. They were just large enough for a plate, a bowl or a glass to be passed through them.
3. Another very important rule was that Woe-Men could not wear shoes with laces. Otherwise they would start thinking that they were human beings, too. Whoever ever heard of such a thing in the Me-Me land?
   To be exact, there were a few tiny problems in the place that were not due to Woe-Men. There were people who managed to speak for hours on end without letting a single intelligible word escape their lips. There were water coolers which had heaters installed inside them. Inexperienced people came and paid loads of money to play with seriously out-of-order machines. But all of these were honest, unintentional mistakes and could be easily forgiven: Woe-Men, on the other hand, could not be.

At this point, the storyteller stopped.

P.S. It is, as the title says, just a story.

The Lord Of the Flies-And How much I loathe hardware

I loathe working on hardware, even in a simulator.
Debugging it is, like, finding a needle in a bundle of hay.
Thats enough for now.I have to hand it over in a day or two, so I should not think about its virtues or lack thereof.
As I mentioned before, The Lord of the Flies turned out to be exceptionally well. It narrates the life of a group of boys, stuck on an island.
The basic idea the writer conveys is that human beings are, basically, the same as the were a couple of million of years ago. Their instincts have failed to evolve, and it is so very natural for them to revert to savage life. All the civilization could not do much to them. Unchecked by law, they do exactly as they please.
There is just one thing, stuck at the back of my mind. I just can not help thinking that had there been some of the XX gender on the island, there would have been some compassion.

An unexpected treat

When a book turns out to be better then your expectations, it is just like a feast.

Or an oasis. When you reach it in stark sunlight. Amid scorching sand.

I somehow had the notion that The Lord of The Flies was a light book.

So far, it has turned out to be just the type of literature that deserves to be called true literature. I have not completed it yet. Once I have, I may consider writing some sort of review.

Personality test

Most of these personality tests say things with which you are bound to agree in one way or the other.
This one, however, placed me along with Emmy Noether, so the least I can do for it is to post a link here.
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

A reflection from heaven

There are a hundred things in my mind, Ideally, I'd like to blog about all of them.
It is strange how hard work makes you admire normal life. Reminds me, I was blogging this time last year too. I take a moment to think. Then I feel glad at the fact that there is no change, none at all. I am still as silly as ever! That is enough cause for celebration.
As if I need more these days.
Some times, I get the feeling that I am living on an isolated island. Man, is it isolated! Life changes so drastically when you enter the home after flunking the last paper. Forget the college. Forget the papers. Forget the endless torture. The grueling schedule, the getting up in the mornings. The last night cramming. Having a bad memory has its upsides, too.
Some people dislike the idea of closing the eyes when danger is near. What I think is, it is bad enough flunking the papers themselves. I mean, during the papers, you have to sit there, for three whole hours, and think that you do not know this,and this, and this. The whole paper, to be succinct.
The whole subject, to be exact.
(On a wise note, I am not a fan of exact things, and I just ignore them)
So, it is bad enough, thinking about it during that fateful time.Really, there is no need to spoil your holidays with these useless thoughts.
Enough about the papers.
I have a thought: all people who are not happy with their lives should be enrolled in undergrad and made to survive there. When they come out, they *will* be cured of the habit of ever-complaining.
I, for one, never knew that just being able to sleep as I please, get up as I please and generally do as I please could be not a right, not a privilege but -blessing.Just blessing.
I have learnt my lesson now.
Is this what they call growing up, and about the world teaching you what you have not learned yourself? If it is so, then this is indeed a bitter world.
Not right now, no. At the moment, it is heaven.
Save for the weather. No rain, no sunshine. This winter has been too dry for my taste.

Of snips and snails

A day of revelations it certainly is.
It so happens at times that your mind just refuses to work.Refuses.To.Work.
With me, it particularly happens when I am sitting in the dreaded examination hall.
(Now, some people may argue here that it does not work , given any orientation of the sun and any orientation of the moon.But people will always be saying disagreeable things.)
On with it now.
Since I have to sit there to take my exams, it is some thing in the nature of a problem for me.
You see, I need these flashes of imagination for-everything.People get them at times, mostly as intuition. For me, they are necessary. They are the only way my mind works.
Once I wrote about how, at times, you seriously, badly, really need to kill someone. At times, you badly need to kill yourself, too. Like they say in our country "If you remember it after the quarrel, slap your own face". Likewise, the flash of mind that comes when you have left the examination hall should be made to carry a very high voltage and then descended upon your own self.
After wondering so much about the way it happens, I should come around to what actually happened.
What actually happened was this: I sat brainstorming for some half hour, contemplating the problem of excess three addition.
Nothing came.
A blank mind.
Excess 3?What the hell? WHAT THE HELL?
That part was ok. I know quite well that logic is Not the thing for me. I would have done well in a subject called , say, Imaginative Fantasy design.Digital logic just gives me the horrors. Shudders and creeps! It is a nightmare, and I have learned to live with it.
No, the bad, or worst, part came the next day. I had not been thinking about it at all. the flash of  imagination, or the flash of logic, came the next day. the next day, as I stood brushing my teeth, I suddenly saw that excess 3 decimals fall in a modulo 9 scheme, and so, like BCD, can be corrected simply by adding 6 to the sum whenever it exceeds 12.
I could not have been thinking about it at all, as I had just got up.If anything, I was thinking of getting some more sleep, and whether I should go to sleep again right then.
Definitely not excess 3 code.
Now, I am seriously thinking how these flashes can be made to carry high voltages and them descended upon my own humble self.
Maybe I should carry my tooth brush to the next logic paper.It may know some.
I certainly do not.
About the title-yes. It is a nursery rhyme I first read in an Enid Blyton book. I have modified it so that it says:

What is digital logic made of?
Snips and snails, and puppy dogs tails
That's what digital logic is made of !"
What is programming made of?
"Sugar and spice and all things nice
That's what programming is made of!"