Potpourri

I will try to start a Friday for movies session. I am not sure how much it will run, given that in this city hardly any new movies are released 2-3 months after the world releases. Anyhow, I will keep to old as well as new movies for this session to run a bit longer than my enthusiam. So let me start with a movie called "The saddest music in the world". The movie released in 2003. The original screenplay is by the Japanese author Kuzao Ishiguro. (Author of Remains of the day.) It is set in Canada, at the time of the American Great Depression. A leg-less business woman, having business of beer, arranges a international contest of saddest music. Many countries are encouraged to participate in the contest and to perform a music piece. This is a great business move for her, because in middle of depression, when everybody is suffering, the saddest song contest wins her a great business. Many people come to watch the contest and ofcourse buy her beer. She announces at the beginnin...

I had started writing about Arvind's class that I am attending this semester. Well, I hardly said anything about it. But let me reopen the topic. We are almost 3 months down the course and arvind covered a good number of topics. In error correcting codes he discussed about Varshamov's bound, Reed-solomon codes, concatenated codes, Justesen codes and decodings of these. As he kept reminding, the theory of error correcting codes has proved very useful for complexity theory. He proved the Impagliazzo-Wigderson '97, theorem as a corollary to the theory built here. He introduced list-decoding of Reed-Solomon codes and proved Madhusudan '97 theorem (if it can be called that) using this technique. With these two applications of error correcting codes to complexity theory, he moved on to the extractors. To motivate extractors: Think of a random algorithm A. Say on input x, of length n, it makes r random coin tosses. Say A gives a correct value with probability greater than two-...

Web draft of new book on complexity by Sanjeev Arora and Boaz Barak is available here .

I saw recently a silent movie. It is called, "Film". And its about a man who is trying to get away from all the eyes. Eyes of everybody and then he realises that how much ever he tries he can not escape his own eyes. Reminds me of Cypher as a counter example. A man who has understood something about oneself and the world. But the unbearable reality doesn't suit him. He doesn't mind hiding away from one's own eye and live, go on living. I wonder how Cypher (in the movie matrix) would have evolved if he went back to Matrix. Knowing all along that its a lie. Reminds me of another phenomenal movie called "Fight Club". Where the main character goes into a dream and he keeps getting reminded that "its a lie". The more he realises this, more he wants to fabricate lies around himself. Takes me to the point of undoing, rather a convenient undoing, of knowledge. The knowledge about self or the world almost always is unbearable. To realise one has failed ...

Things falling at place, really reminds me of one line V says in the movie V for Vendetta: "There are no coincidences, only an illusion of coincidences." I stumbled upon a fantastic music blog called everybodycares.blogspot.com. Do visit it and check out the great music posted every day here. That was around January '06. At that point, I discovered the whole world of music blogs, however, this was the only one which I kept visiting the most. And I still do. At that point, the "About me" part of the blog read as follows: " After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." Aldous Huxley , Music at Night and Other Essays. I felt it suited his blog. Recently the About me section changed to a quote from a movie called Joe Vs. The Volcano. I got curious about the movie and read about it on imdb . Today I watched the movie and realised the picture on the blog is also a scene from ...

This semester, Prof. Arvind is offering a lecture series on the issues related to randomness and hardness, extractors, expanders and error correcting codes. Last 5 lectures he has been talking about randomness and hardness. For the first time I have had such a great introduction to the topic. I shall now write a small summary of few issues discussed during these lectures. But only techinical issues are infact from the lecture. All the other junk is self cooked, so please excuse Arvind if any errors below. First of all why should one try to relate randomness and hardness? Lets eavesdrop on the following conversation. A: You are always doing something unexpected B: Why what happened...? A: I mean, "knowing you so long" I felt you would have said 'yes' to join for picnic...but you are "truly random" B: truly random?? A: yes, very very "hard" for me to predict.. As is evident, 'random' and 'hard to predict' are almost synonymous phrases...

Wachowski brothers never say anything for the heck of it. They say something only when they have some concrete thoughts. Its amazing how they can bring in entertainment and philosophy together. In this god forsaken city-Chennai- the movie never showed in the theatre. But I got my hand on it, and that was it. I loved the movie. The movie gives us another way to look at terror, and the government. Few days back there was terrifying incident of blasts in Mumbai. Two days back, there was news about explosives found in the air planes at london. The war in Isarael is being covered by the media. What you and I hear are the reports from the media. The 'truth' they say is covered. However, we all know what we hear is not simply the truth but the interpretation of truths. If today's government wants us to know that blasts happened and certain community was involved in it, we will definitely get to hear that from the media. Where as, if government didn't wish to tell us, media wil...

Following are some really important things my friends have told me. Some of them I agree (a) with some I disagree(d) with and some I fail to grasp(?). Thoughts follow a train ..one links the other.(d) Tomorrow is a dillusion one lives today with.(a) Though our current knowledge may be insufficient to understand the reasons behind our actions, there is always a reason. (d) Most of the people are dead. (?) There is no global meaning to things. There is supposed to be no meaning.(a) There has to be orientation to achieve anything in life. (d) Trying to say that- inspite of complete knowledge one can't deduce everything- is like not believing in science. (D) There are greater causes, one just finds them. If you haven't yet, you may. (d) Being hopeful is delaying torment. (?) Many great artists were schizophrenic. (?) My blog sucks. (?)

My finest discovery on the web: Hype Machine You all are welcome!

there is a very dark room.. with a small hole in the door really thick walls and with a wooden floor i didn't know about this room for a long long time ingorant of its existance i lived a 'quiet' life... but one day i did see the room... put the ear too close to the walls i hear voices some really funny calls peep into the hole i see a small figure i wonder who that is but just can't see her she must be calling me trying to tell me... but what did she just say 'you ain't what you think you are'! may be she is crazy... let me ignore... she is the one who's trapped... i am free to go anywhere coming in contact with her is very agitating... she seems to talk to herself.. but she knows all about me... trapped inside a small dark room she claims to make me free i try to ignore her.... revert my route how i fail, in the 'quiet' life's pursuit... she tells me i could go back... ignoring her forever... i am free to "choose", however..... sh...

room said to a vent good you are there vent said, you give me reason... room always wanted things to flow in vent knew that its good at absorbing incompatible together incomplete without each other

There was a movie called Office Space. Quiet a nice movie where there is a funny character. He has an idea for making million dollars. He says he would sell a mat which will have various "conclusions" written on it and when spread out on the ground people could jump to conclusions! Though literal jump like this to conclusions may not be too harmful, in true sense a jump to conclusions (even well-thought conclusions) might really shake the grounds. What I wish to say is the following: Today whatever I stand by, I find it wrong tomorrow. This transition may seem extremely absurd. To reason it out may be impossible. The more I feel strongly today, the more I am likely to suffer a disillusion as nothing really is a absolute truth or otherwise, nothing really is absolutely right or wrong. When today I beleive that I stand by something it just means that I assert certain things to be true/right/justified/appropriate. But what if nothing is really true/right/justified/appropriate? ...

I -a(the) big(gest) fan of Aamir Khan - watch each of the Aamir movie in the theatre since I have started getting pocket money/ some form of income. I remember the time when I was going to see Sarfarosh in the theatre and everybody had warned me against it being bad. And I was so thrilled to see Aamir in wonderfully made movie. Then I got bold, and decided to see even Mela on the big screen. Went for first day first show!!! And it was a great disaster. I can recollect clearly where, with whom all, when, how many times I went to see each of his movie on the big screen. Ok before I get carried away, lets cut the scene there and cut to right now. Fine. When Fanaa released I was traveling from Bombay to Chennai. Oh ok, lets cut it even shorter. Great! I said here I come Aamir and went to Sathyam theatre to watch Fanaa. Snow Fall. Well, thats how the titles start coming on screen. Aamir Khan's name on screen. I started whistling. Not loud enough for Aamir to hear, but anyways. Well well...

Hi, I take pleasure in introducing my friend Swagata and thank her for contributing to my blog. As you would see, she writes amazingly well. So enjoy! Though I am not a diehard Amir Khan fan like my friend, Nutan, I had liked most of his movies that I had watched till recently (maybe, I had just been lucky enough to have missed the more horrible ones). However, the last two movies of his have been a sad disappointment to me. These movies are: "Rang de Basanti" and "Fanaa". Of these two, "Fanaa" is infinitely more boring to watch. But it can be regarded as a forgettable romantic tragedy and forgotten as soon as one walks out of the theatre. However, "Rang de Basanti" is not so easily ignored. It is a movie which started out with a lot of good intentions - but sadly failed in their execution. The story is about a band of hedonistic urban youths forced by circumstances to become (so-called) revolutionaries. The story-telling involves a comparision w...

Enjoy two really good songs. These songs are already available on the net. Those who have access to independent music in stores please buy cds of this artist and help good music. One of the most promising artists according to me. Sparrow House: When I am gone Sparrow House: The Reflction. To know more about the artist, please check the Myspace entry for sparrow house.

Sitting on a comfortable couch and legs spread out all over the place, some food to munch on and complete power of remote control in your hands, is heaven anything other than this? Watching TV mindlessly, is the most passive activity one can ever indulge himself into and hence it is so addictive. Even to watch a movie in a cinema hall, one needs to do some work, but watching TV in the given most favorable conditions, nothing can beat the passiveness of this activity. I do a lot of this when I go home. It struck me the most this time that the news channels have increased so drastically on the TV. There are channels like, NDTV, Aaj Tak, Channel 7 and I don't know how many more! They work 24 cross 7 (as they proudly claim). The site is pretty funny. The bottom 1 inch of your screen would be covered with the share market values, continuously wrapping around. The right or the left corner would flash the name of the channel (its the most important one, because without that it would be r...

Hey, see this picture. I found it simply amazing. Irony.

why do i write a blog? if it is to just put down thoughts a journal is enough it must be that i wish people read my blog and it must be that they hear my thoughts giving speeches is tough journals are not enough why do i write a blog? is it self love? is it even honest or it is just things in showcase? bunch of filtered nonsense never trying to cross a fence keeping readers in mind expecting replies nice and kind as i write these lines i feel the contradictions within should i publish it but i will contradictions continue and so does the life....

Today I am going to learn how to put image files on the weblog. So let me put up some pictures.

Sitting in a air conditioned office maintained at 20 degrees commenting on the summers in Chennai sounds a bit hipocritic. But I don't stay in these offices for long and I have to get back to the room where there isn't a a/c. And even otherwise, one has to go on the raods. Coincidentally, I had to even venture out during morning for 3 days in last week and its unbelievable how hot it can get. What used to be wonderful in Bombay was, a summer assured best quality mangoes. But here even that consolation isn't there. I wish I could go to some place else. But being myself my enthusiasm to actually pack bags and go out on weekends starts and ends before the weekend begins and here I am on a dull saturday morning (almost noon), whinning about summers in Chennai. The only thing I am looking forward to is a huge glass of iced tea in the lunch today. It is very thoughtful of the current mess managers to plan a iced tea in the lunch menu on Saturdays. (People say it is immodest to sa...