Diwali celebration with Crackers
PUC (Pollution Under Control) certificates issued in the interest of environment have actually become means of Pure Unrestrained Corruption. This certificate was supposed to be used to contain the pollution levels of the vehicles but the authority seems to have forgotten its original meaning. Just choose any moderately busy signal where a RTO officer is also present and you can easily observe many vehicles especially the heavy vehicles stopping at the signal and blowing excessively dark smoke in the face of bystanders, forcing them to choke themselves in order to avoid inhaling the hideous smoke. I myself get caught in this situation almost everyday.
This must be discouraged and can easily be done if the RTO officers observe their duty of spotting these vehicles, check for the PUC certificate and fine them if required. However this doesn't seem to be a concern for them as they prefer to look for easy and frequent catches which mostly are 2 wheeler riders, most of them youngsters, which will fetch them a quick income (read bribe) because generally they are not vigilant enough to renew their PUC certificates.
May be what is required is to educate our officers about the real usage and meaning of PUC certificates.
objdump is a useful tool for statically resolving symbols for core-dumps for a given
binary. It's equivalent xscale utility is known as xscale-elf-objdump.
you can ref. the man page for objdump to know how to use it, but here is the gist of
it ...
if for a given core-dump the PC points to address 61b34.
just type the following.
xscale-elf-objdump -S proSUN.elf --start-address=0x61b34 --stop-addres=0x61c00 -l
>listing3.txt
in listing3.txt you will find the following.
00061b34
mptscsih_detect(): /ecos-c/redhat/proSUN_new_auto/drivers/lsi/mptscsih.c:1414
Q_INIT(&hd->pendingQ, MPT_DONE_Q);
mem = hd->memQ;
for (ii=0; ii <>can_queue; ii ) {
freedoneQ = (MPT_DONE_Q *) mem;
61b34: e51bc040 ldr ip, [fp, -#64]
61b38: e50bc028 str ip, [fp, -#40]
/ecos-c/redhat/proSUN_new_auto/drivers/lsi/mptscsih.c:1415
Q_ADD_TAIL(&hd->freeQ.head, freedoneQ, MPT_DONE_Q);
61b3c: e51bc020 ldr ip, [fp, -#32]
which might make more sense to you.
Another innovation from Google, a search engine to find the search trends across the globe. You can also compare search trends of many topics. So, I thought it would be interesting to find out the search trends of some hot topics in India.
Here are the results and I found them really interesting, these display a comparison of search trends for some of the most popular topics.
Note: The results are sorted according to the first(primary) key and for them the trends of second topic is given. This is why I had to use Sex as a secondary key otherwise it overshadows all other search keys.
1) Technology vs Sex:
Vellore tops the list of cities searching about technology and interestingly our top IT cities are no where to be found among them. Also, technology seems to be catching up as the hottest thing for people to search.
2) Music vs Sex:
Anand & Goa are top the list for Music search.
3) Technology vs Music:
4) Music vs Technology:
Last two trends are most interesting, notice that where Technology is the hot topic to search, people are hardly looking for music (supposedly in the city of geeks), but the cities where Music is hot, Technology also holds the similar importance for them.
Vodafone has come up with a hybrid technology to allow Skype calls through mobile through the ubiquitous GSM network. For obvious reasons, it can now change the face of mobile industry in recent future. At the moment Vodafone is uncertain about selling it, but one thing is sure that this is going to create a huge dent in the ISD calling segment of mobile telephony. With this technology in their kitty they will definitely have an edge in the cut throat competition of Indian telecom market, which they have just entered by the acquisition of Hutch.
Read more...Today is the second anniversary of my beloved Bike. Interestingly, I touched the 22222 Km mark on it today. In the evening I am going to celebrate it, with a nice speedy drive on the highway and some French chocolates. Tempting, isn't it? You can join in too :)
Cheers!!
Today's newspaper was crammed with budget analysis and impacts but the thing which caught my attention was the stock market and its dramatic rise and fall on the budget day. For a long time I wanted to invest in the stock market but never had enough motivation, determination and most important confidence to play around with it. But today I somehow didn't need any of these as I was determined enough to invest, that also as the first thing today, as the market was down. I consulted a friend who plays in to this market and sure enough, locked my first lot of Stocks. Sealing my investment with a "good job" note, market recovered 220 points before closing and gave me a profit of Rs. 3.50 per share one the first day itself.
Now we need to wait and watch if I can complete the journey from a tyro to a consummate investor :)
Ever wondered why do we feel drowsy or yawn frequently after lunch or a heavy meal? Well I just did and as once could expect as the most obvious reaction, I googled for the answer. After wandering over many sites I found that "Drowsiness & yawning after meals is caused by a phenomenon called Alkaline Tide."
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
For scenario #1 & #2 there is not much to answer as it is very straight forward. So, I will directly provide you with the answer for the most tricky scenario #3.
The solution posted on the blog of Aaron Ballman -
"It turns out that the way you accomplish it is with an array of 256 function pointers. Every time you get a character, it's ASCII value is an index into the array of function pointers where the entries for '0' through '9' are calculating the value (with the help of a global position value). The entry for the null byte terminates the process and returns the proper value. All of the other entries point to an error function." - Ballman
The solution which I devised, uses a recursive function to achieve the looping functionality and '&&' (Logical And) operator to achieve the flow control functionality. Very simple and straight forward logic to solve a simple problem. Here goes the function StringVal...
int StringVal (const char *buf)
{
int value = 0;
static int index = 1;
const char *tbuf = buf;
(*tbuf != '\0') && (value = StringVal(++buf), value += (*tbuf - 48) * index, index*= 10);
(*tbuf == '\0') && (value = 0);
return value;
}
Here is an interesting programming problem which is quite commonly asked in job interviews nowadays. You will ask me if its so common why am I posting it here. Because, this time It comes with a twist :)
There are various constraints put on the problem to make it tricky and interesting. This is a three part problem which goes like this.
Background:
Write a function which takes a string version of a number and converts it into an integer value. For instance, "100" will become 100. There are constraints placed on the function. You must use only legal C code (no assembly) and cannot use any helper libraries (such as ANSI C functions like strlen, etc) except for the pow function. Assume all inputs are positive and valid for the sake of keeping things brief.
Question 1:
Write the aforementioned function given that the declaration is: int StringVal (const char *buf)
Question 2:
Given the same declaration, write the same function without using any looping mechanisms (for, while, goto etc).
Question 3:
Given the same declaration, write the same function without using any looping mechanisms or flow control mechanisms (for, while, if, switch, goto etc).
Bud Light: Hitchhiker
Bud Light: What would carlos do?
Budweiser: Beer-Stealing Crabs
Budweiser: Fake Dalmatian
Motivated by the fate of a fellow developer, I delved into the issue of "Online security & privacy". Driving factor was the fact that your employer can, and generally does, track your browsing history, IM sessions and emails. In short, it spies on your each move in the online world. This manifestation was kind of creepy and thenceforth I set out to find out, if something can be done about it.
Later on I discovered that, this is a well known loop hole in the online world and there are thousands of "Peeping Tom" out there looking for a chance to invade your privacy. As one might imagine, there are also many tools and solutions readily available online to address this issue. But most of them provide you nothing but specious claims.
I googled on some of the solutions and landed on an article which actually enriched my networking knowledge and also suggested me a tool namely Tor. The article provides good insight in how Tor works and explains an interesting concept of Onion Routing. I found the article very informative, convincing and useful. In fact, Tor is by far the best tool to address this issue, which I could find. I haven't used it yet because I want to investigate further to see if it has some security implications. For that reason, I sought help from the online security experts and you.
For details on Onion routing please read the complete article on Onion Routing or visit the official website of Tor. You can also visit its wiki page.
I was delirious to accidentally find the well maintained official website of Bihar. I spent close to an hour browsing through it, mostly reading about the state and I was delighted by the prospect. I got lost somewhere in the reminiscence of my school days; the urge to memorize as much as I can for the History exams and still being panic stricken at the very thought of forgetting even a single date and loose the complete chronological order of events. But this time it was different. A sense of satisfaction surged through my mind after reading about the history I vaguely remembered and the facts I always feel proud of. You can read the epitome here and you can visit the official website here.
Read more..."Out of compassion I destroy the darkness of their ignorance. From within them I light the lamp of wisdom and dispel all darkness from their lives." - Bhagavad Gita
"The dew of compassion is a tear." - Lord Byron
"I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance." - Pablo Casals
"The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter." - Norman Cousins
Reading these great thoughts instilled this very thought in mind. This made me ponder about "what it takes to be human?". Answer was candidly simple - "Compassion".
Today I completed 20,000 Kms on my bike. It's a Silver color Bajaj Pulsar DTSi 150 cc and it's 21 months old. It has been a very smooth ride so far and the performance of the bike has been really great.
Some Performance data:
1) Achieved top speed of 120 KMPH on Solapur highway.
2) Have got peak mileage of 63 KMPL in first few months (around 6 months).
3) On an average I get 52-55 KMPL
4) Went 0-60 in around 5.5 seconds on Pune-Mumbai highway few months back (not bad after 1.5 yrs)
I love riding my bike and now I want to get some modifications done on my bike to enhance its looks and performance.... But I don't know anyone who has done it or who does it... So guyz please help me out here and give me some suggestion and/or pointers on this.
“Two trucks loaded with thousands of copies of Roget's Thesaurus collided as they left a
Witnesses were aghast, amazed, astonished, astounded, bemused, benumbed, bewildered, confounded, confused, dazed, dazzled, disconcerted, disoriented, dumbstruck, electrified, flabbergasted, horrified, immobilized, incredulous, nonplussed, overwhelmed, paralyzed, perplexed, scared, shocked, startled, stunned, stupefied, surprised, taken aback, traumatized, upset. . . .
— Joke circulated on the Internet
December 2003”
Isn’t it thesaurous-ly funny, amusing, comic, comical, droll, humorous, laughable, risible, zany, witty??
Inspired by Geoff I also took the Super Hero Quiz :)
Results:
You are Green Lantern
| Hot-headed. You have strong will power and a good imagination.  |
On the celebration night of 24th December, a friend of my colleague went to Rajwada (A nice restaurant on Baner Road, Pune) to have some good time and dinner. He pays for the dinner by his Credit card, waiter gets the card back and he goes home happily. Next day he gets a call in the morning........... Aah Its the same old bugging promotional call from his credit card company offering him an easy loan of the overdue amount and easy repayment using EMI's BECAUSE "he has done so many transactions since morning". Now apna dude is surprised and says he has done only one transaction last night and that is also not so huge, but the caller is certain about the transactions. So now its time to check the card..... and to confirm the caller's confidence, apna dude has some other guy's credit card in his pocket (which was possibly interchanged by mistake at the restaurant). So, assuming it a genuine mistake, he blocks his card to stop further transactions on his card and inquires about the card he has with him. And to complete the masterpiece the card is found to be stolen 6 months back...... So, he ends up having Rs. 15000 dinner.
He talks to Rajwada management and they cannot help him because they hire "temporary staff " for the days when the Restaurant is really crowded. He goes to police to file an FIR but they refuse to do so, saying "logon ke lakhon jaate hain aur kuch nahi hota tum toh saste chhoot gaye".
Moral of the Story:- Never leave your card unattended and if you did, make sure you got your OWN card back.
Have a safe Credit History guyz... Enjoy :)
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