Ravit's Blog

 The fear of being wrong and of exposing one's faults is a petrifyingly intimidating impediment to greatness. Greatness, as in classic novels read countless number of times by millions of people. As in the stroke of genius that sparks revolutionary ideas and innovations of engineering and science that changed humanity's world view. And, of course, the beautiful proofs and ideas that serve as stepping stones in mathematics in the centuries that follow. But, I am so acutely aware of my own shortcomings and faults that the ideas that inspire me often lose their greatness before I even begin working on them. Ideas that I think to be revolutionary or profound crumble under scrutiny and reveal themselves to be loosely compacted paper tigers that have been thought centuries before my birth. In junior year of high school, I worked on a project in which I built a tool that uses DNA sequences to build a phylogenetic tree. I thought my solution was brilliant, but I realize now that there ...

I have a midterm on Operating Systems tomorrow, which is a tough exam. I prepared twelve pages of notes today, thinking that would give me enough preparation to take the exam. After taking the practice exam, however, I think I need to study the concepts in much more detail than I have already. Free list search algorithms, IPC mechanisms, scheduling algorithms, types of libraries, concurrency mechanisms, coalescing/relocation, base-bounds segmentation and paging and MMU/page tables. I also have to prepare for an interview I have on Friday morning regarding a potential internship for machine learning applied to prediction for Integrated Circuits. Over the weekend I have to prepare notes for the lectures and readings of next week and those of this week that I have missed. Hence, the work I have upcoming is fun but frustrating and also difficult. I ask for all the strength I need to complete my duties well.

I read the Feynman  comic book today, which I found roughly about as entertaining as the comic book  The Imitation Game . I watched the movie The Imitation Game  yesterday and also found that entertaining. The last statement conveys very little about my movie-watching experience, but I can't think of anything else to say. Feynman seems to be an interesting person. Exceptional in public speaking and at answering questions, he wrote books and delivered lectures that influenced physicists of all levels across the world. I dislike Feynman for some reason. I also dislike or disliked at some point in the past Grant Sanderson and Lex Fridman. I can't point out any flaws or something disenchanting about their personalities or lives, but I still dislike(d) them for some reason. Maybe I am jealous, I don't know. One thing I noticed about Feynman that I disliked was that he seemed to be dismissive of the importance of writing and art. There is a section of the comic book which descr...

Today was my parents' marriage anniversary. This morning, I visited a lake near our home with my neighborhood friend and we fed bread to the ducks and pigeons and seagulls. I spent the whole day passing time procrastinating rather than working, as I had planned; that felt bad. In the evening, we went out to eat at a restaurant, and I developed a bad stomach ache, for which I recently took medicine. I have to write an essay and study for my stats test, which I'm not looking forward to. I also have lost about 10 pounds since I arrived at university, which my parents would not like. Unfortunately, I think I might have to gain back the weight I lost against my wishes. I also suspect I may be falling sick. I've been shivering, experiencing a headache, and feeling down for the past several hours. On Friday, I found out my roommate had contracted COVID, which makes it plausible I may also have the disease.       The emergence of these new events I'm in for a miserable lot t...

Computers function more stochastically than I thought. In my operating systems class, I've learned about topics such as schedulers, virtual memory management, and device I/O. The decisions made by the OS, such as when and for how long to schedule a process, whether or not to swap a process's page to disk, depend highly on the existing load on the computer as well as quirks of the OS algorithms. This explains the fact that research on OSs is statistical rather than deterministic--an exponential number of configurations exist with respect to the number of processes supported. Furthermore, many parameters are chosen arbitrarily or based on "OS voodoo," as my professor put it; the existence of a concept like "OS wisdom" indicates how much like black boxes OSs are. Additionally, the idea that OSs at some point needed to be configured to support running processes indicates the imprecise nature of computers.

It feels bad to go to class unprepared. I went to history lecture and discussion today without having read this week's readings due to poor time management. I completely forgot that we were going to be discussing the readings during the discussion section, so I could contribute very little to the discussion. Fortunately, I've been making nice friends in some of my classes. I bump into people I know more frequently than I would have anticipated in such a large school. And yet, there are others who attend the same university whom I have hardly seen. Yesterday before bed I was reading Steinbeck's "Cannery Row". The novel (novella?) feels easy to read and simple. There are some common features of Steinbeck novels that I have observed from the few I have read. He opens the novel through a detailed depiction of the novel's setting, usually in nature, often with someone walking into the scene as it were. He has one or two characters who are or become disheartened, de...

DoS made a video about a map of computer science. The narrator of the video, Dominic Walliman, broke the field of computer science into "Theoretical computer science", "Computer engineering", and "Applications" and presented concepts within each topic. This idea of creating a map of a particular field interested me because it brought together various disparate concepts into one cohesive representation. I enjoy it when computer science is taught as a story. Trends in processor speed, number of transistors, and memory latency over time. The conventions and theoretical computing machines that led to the conception of modern computer architecture, such as the Turing machine and finite automata. The development and miniaturization of the transistor and the reception of that technology. The mathematical study of classifying, measuring, and optimizing algorithms. The story of RISC and CISC and the evolution of ISAs over time. Development and evolution of programm...

I was talking to my high school friend yesterday, whom I have been staying in touch with often. There came a point in our discussion when I asked him how he liked his life/lifestyle. He told me that he worked on his classes and dedicated time to his hobbies, and thus enjoyed his lifestyle. When I tried to answer the same question myself, I thought of the difference between being happy with my life and being satisfied with my life. Perhaps "happy" and "satisfied" aren't the best descriptors for each category, so allow me to explain. Obviously, there are some actions that people take just to feel instant happiness. Browsing YouTube or social media are some of these examples. Most people who engage in these activities, I imagine, would agree that such pleasure-generating actions have little or no contribution to the sense of meaning that they derive from life. Unlike working hard to study for a test or waking up early every day, hedonistic acts provide little long-...

One of the relieving things about reading is that it removes some of the responsibility from the reader's back for the ideas being read. A reader need not take responsibility for or actively critique the ideas he or she reads. The ideas presented in writing need not even be actively developed in the reader's mind, but sometimes they begin to develop of their own accord. For example, a reader may ponder how a certain character would act if presented in a certain situation or the reader may relate a character in the novel to themselves or a person the reader knows in his or her own life. If ideas develop of their own accord within the reader's head, they need not be committed or refined or exposed to other readers.

I arrived this evening at my college dorm, where I am writing from. On the bus ride to university, I read the comic book "The Imitation Game," based, of course, on the British mathematician Alan Turing.  The book was readable and easy to follow. I appreciated the integration of basic mathematical theory and history in addition to the storyline into the comic; I felt that this provoked thought in the reader. At the same time, not understanding the mathematical theory presented didn't seem to preclude understanding the plot. The story was presented in a lighthearted and straightforward manner, as comics often are. There was plenty of situational humor and entertaining narrative detail. However, the book seemed devoid of much drama or conflict, unlike most novels I read. Overall, I'd say the book does a good job of chronicling the life events of Alan Turing, as it claims to do.

आज शाम को मैंने कुछ गाने गए- तुम ही हो, ओ मेरे दिल के चैन, कभी कभी मेरे दिल में। कल की तरह मैं आज जल्दी उठा और पढाई हो गयी ठीक ठाक।  सुबह मुझे फिरसे अपना दोस्त मेहुल मिला इस बार नाश्ता करते समय और हमारी पांच दस मिनट बात हुई। सुबह मैंने OS के नोटस लिए और उसके बाद सो गया एक दो घंटे।  शाम को मैंने अपने ऑटोमेटा क्लास के नोटस लिए NFA और regular expression के बारे में। मुझको एक अच्छा शौक बना लेना चाहिए शाम को करने के लिए पढाई के बाद। मेरे पास किताब है पढ़ने को ("The Selfish Gene ") पर मैं आज कल उसको पढ़ नहीं रहा हु क्योकि मैं थोड़ा बोर हो गया उसको पढ़के। आज कल मुझे खेद इस बात का है के मैं पियानो उतना प्रैक्टिस नहीं क्र रहा हु। आज के लिए बस इतना ही और कल फिर लिखूंगा। शब्बा खैर। खोदाफिज़। शुभरात्रि।

The sun has set once more upon a sunny day. Fortunately, I was able to meet my schoolwork goals today. I am satiated, relaxed, and ready to sleep. पिछले कुछ दिनों से मैं जल्दी उठ रहा हु सुबह के पांच बजे। जल्दी उठने से मेरा एक दिन में ज्यादा काम हो जाता है। मैं अपनी  बचपन की  पुराणी  यादें याद कर रहा था आज। ऐसा लगता है की वो दिन ज्यादा सीधे-साधे दिन थे। खैर तो मैं जानता हूँ की ये तो सिर्फ कल्पना है और हकीकत कुछ और है मगर मेरा दिमाग फिर भी सोचता है ऐसा। आज दिन के बारे बजे मुझे खाना खाते  समय अपना दोस्त मेहुल मिला हम दोनों अपने इस क्वार्टर के क्लास के बारे में बात कर रहे थे और उससे बात करके अच्छा लगा। मैं शाम को सोच रहा था एक क्लब के इवेंट पर जाने का पर मैंने अंत में फैसला किया ना जाने का क्यों की मैं थका हुआ था और मुझे अकेले रहने का मन हो रहा था। दिन मैं सोया दो बार और उससे मन थोड़ा ताजा हो गया।  शाम को मैंने थोड़े-बहुत शायरी पढ़े ऑनलाइन। अब भी मेरा मन कह रहा है ना सोने का पर रात हो गयी और कल जल्दी उठने के लिए जल्दी स...

आज मैंने सोचा इस ब्लॉग को हिंदी में लिखने का। फिलाल मैं औपचारिक रूप से नहीं लिख पाउँगा लेकिन फिर भी एक छोटी कोशिश तो बनती है इस तरह से लिखने का।  आज मैं घर से वापस आया अपने कॉलेज दोर्म में। रस्ते में मैंने थोड़ा काम करने की कोशिश की पर मेरा सिर्फ तीन सरे तीन घंटे हो पाया।  इसका एक कारन ये है के मैं आज सुबह देर से उठा तो जब तक मैं काम करने को तैयार था जाने का समय आ गया था। फिर भी आज के सफर में काफी अच्छी और खूबसूरत जगा देखने को मिले। पहाड़ी, खेत, खुला सा और नीला सा आसमान। अब मैं सोने जा रहा हु। और मैं आशा करता हु की मैं कल सुबह जल्दी उठकर काम पे लग जाऊंगा।