Microsoft Experience

Heya!
So am all sitting in Microsoft IDC, Hyerabad and just Loving It....The place is awesome and the ambiance is pretty great. I still can't actually believe that I got through Microsoft remembering the placement day! As I have already written that after 7 rejects Cisco was a breather and I left every prep thing for a month until the fateful evening I suddenly got a mail stating that against all odds I am Eligible to sit for Microsoft...Whoa!!! Until 1 Am I was fully prepared to forfeit the Microsoft Test as I had practically zero hope in getting through MICROSOFT, but papa made me go just for going sake and trying. The day went luckily all according to my wishes and was asked no programming question and was grilled on my favourite topic Game design and C++ :) Unbielievably I got passed and so......am sitting in Microsoft as an FTE Intern (Full-time Employee) and writing this post!

I am in RFID team of Biztalk server and currently am like no work and all play :) Pretty Nice Luck I would say, seeing some friends doing strenuously continuous work from morning till night!! Maybe I would get some work some day :) till then I can play TT, Pool, Carrom, Lawn Tennis, Foosball etc. whole day or even start Gymming :P The food here is pretty good too, saying all possible cuisines are there (Hmmm....Barring Thai) and have tried mostly all of them. We get evening snacks here free of costs which are really Cooool and rocking!


The Hyderabad area is pretty Rocky which is quite a terrain change from Delhi and the temperature is pretty nice too :) Currently I have got a whole room to myself in a hotel suite like guesthouse which is pretty fantastic and I am spending nights watching movies and reading "The Bourne Identity"!

Well I think am forgetting something....Yeah!! We went out yesterday doing masti on Christmas and went to a pretty nicely decorated Mall, which was quite fun :)




Well, that is enough for now, am off to Gym, थोड़ा होदा पतला होना है यहाँ :) Adios!!!

EPIC Fantasy

High fantasy or Epic fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy that is set in invented or parallel worlds. And I must say its my most favorite form of entertainment and relaxation; have been reading fantasy novels from 7 years now :)


When you say of Epic Fantasy what comes to your mind first is a real sense of adventure and the ubiquitous fight between good and evil...What it really is capable of is infact transferring your whole self to an altogether different world, you get relieved of all your tensions and feel yourself just breezing past the parallel world with your heroes and heroines and feel yourself taking part in the story. Just reading Epic Fantasy novels or even watching the fantasy films acts like stimulant which forces your mind out of static and pushes it into the realms of incredibility. It not only helps in getting out of the pressures of the daily lives but also helps bolster your absolute imagination and comprehension of the intricacies :)

Any fantasy writer who delves into epic fantasy thus has a great responsibility to keep the reader hooked on by creating ever complicated but yet so amusing worlds and their intricately delicate laws. And when these parallel worlds in any sense touch even a figment of memory of some knowledge about the modern world in the mind of the reader, it creates a beautiful tingling which is so refreshing and incredible!

Some of my most favorite High Fantasy series, would I would really recommend you to get your hands on are:

• The Inheritance Cycle: Christopher Paolini (Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr....)
• The Lord of the Rings: J.R.R. Tolkien (Movies as well as the classic novel)
• Harry Potter: J.K.Rowling (My Most favorite :D)
• His Dark Materials Trilogy: Phillip Pullman (Northern Lights, Subtle Knife & Amber Spyglass, another of my most favorite)
• Artemis Fowl Series: Eoin Colfer (Good Enough for starters)
  
• The Bartimaeus Trilogy: Jonathan Stroud (Just started it, and seems nice)
• The Wheel of Time Series: Robert Jordan (Am overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of it, will start soon :))

The real test of a fantasy novel is whether it makes you think about it and contemplate the story and the fate of characters much after you finished the novel and whether it lets you detach yourself easily from the story after it finishes or proudly makes it extremely difficult for you to even imagine the story being finished and you spending hours at least just thinking about the end ;) And I can say safely, all the above ones at the least do all this :)

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Well, all this discourse on fantasy novels, just because am free from exams after a lot of time (CAT, Mid Sems, End Sems etc. etc.) and just spending my days pursuing my ever expanding thirst of awsome fantasy novels and films alike :) Will be going to Microsoft for internship starting from 22nd December for 2 months and thought its a great time to finish 2-3 great texts :)

Atra du evarínya ono varda

The Anupras

Hi!
Well I promised long back to post my other poem, and here it is :)

THE ANUPRAS

Variant violet vas

had the

Gruesome green grass

in which the

Beauteous burly boy

put the

Soggy sauce soy

which turned the

Gruesome gallant grass

in to the

Bruised beaten brass

so then

Jived jubilant joy

with the

Beefy bulky boy

so he

Cut cute cake

and dipped in

Lovely large lake

and then the

Grimy galling goon

became a

Lovely little loon …………

The Imminent World

Hi, Well I thought to post a couple of my favourite poems (which I have composed ofcourse), which have already been published in the famous children's magazine "Children's World" or CW. I had written these during my school days and very amusingly during Monday Tests as we had it :) after I happily finished the test 1/2 hour before :D

THE IMMINENT WORLD

The world is sitting on a mount,

That may not be safe and sound.

It’s the atom bomb that lay,

Makes the world grieve and gray.

 

People do not have feelings,

Never ever in their dealings.

Everybody of this kind,

Serves the Mammon in his mind.

 

People love to kill and slay,

Thinking no God will come to play.

But when their end comes near,

They swear to God and swear.

 

Greed is so much in the man,

He will destroy his social LAN.

And when need arouse in him,

He will go from kin to kin.

 

The world is starry night sky,

The stars are spiritual guys.

And the Moon is God of all,

Who may give deserved to all.

 

At last when end is gonna come,

The world light is gonna shun.

It’s the God, who will prevail,

Leaving his mighty trail………………

Nica naa!!!! Well, I'll post the second one in my next post.....

Why are US Banks Failing??

Well, Hi Friends!
You all must be pretty acquainted with how the Wall Street fell down this week! Three out of the four pillars of Wall Street are no more.....Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanly, Merrill Lynch all have been doomed and the still standing tall Goldman Sachs is in no good shape either. But what has triggered all this crisis and why is it specifically aiming American Banks???

I have one reasonable proposition which explains the root cause. You see that US has a rule which says that If a Bank is investing in your business and supporting you with a loan regarding your property, business, capital etc., It owns the full responsibility for it. That means, lets say, You as an individual, wants to start a company and go to a US Bank and give your proposal and ask for a loan. The bank studies your idea and the market situation and the property rates and stuff like that and finally decides to accept your request. Suppose you take an approved loan of $10 Million.

Now, After running your business successful for say 2 years, you see that the property rates have fallen drastically and you are facing grave loss in your business due to global economic crisis. You calculate that your assets now stand at total of just say $2 Million. Now, You obviously can't run the business and are doomed. You go to the Bank with your keys and have grant them the responsibility saying, "I don't want to continue the business and am forfeiting any control, now its your responsibility!!". Now the bank is in a fix.

The customer, gets free from any responsibility after facing the loss as is and getting no more hassles. But the bank, according to law, must have given the loan with proper consideration and responsibility but now it cannot recover its loan value as the net value of the business (including property rates, assets etc.) itself have reduced.... So, the banks actually are facing this crisis, popularly called Sub-Prime Crisis and have substantially, eroded their capital and assets and are thus getting Bankrupt due to an over burgeoning effect vicious cycle of Global Economic Crisis!

Its nice of US to bail them out by giving whopping amounts of Money, but till when???? Well, as a matter of fact, you may be having a question, that why are Indian Banks immune to this! It actually has two reasons:-
1. Indian PSU Banks have no whatsoever relationship with any of the US Banks and thus are completely autonomous.
2. The other reason is the non-existence of any such, "Bank's Responsibility" rule in India :)
Indian Banks as a matter of fact, will keep asking you for the remaining $8 Million for your entire life and you would have to sell/mortgage your other properties against it, thereby securing the banks. But here, you don't have any security for yourself; This is just a dichotomy of the Coin which we need to handle!

So, Enough Economics, Bye for now :)

Up and Running

Am back after a sabbatical! Just wasn't feeling like writing anything these 5 months. A lot of things have happened. I have got a job in CISCO and another backup one in Aricent and hopefully C-DOT also. The one thing left for me now is probably Google where I may apply Off-Campus next year!

MBA preps are going on in full force and the Mocks have been going grrrr8 till recently. Screwed up my last two Mocks :( Just imagine, couldn't even clear English and DI.....Overall, I think the next few months will require humongous effort on my part and hopefully am ready for it :) The two weeks of strenuous placement preps had sucked life out of me, didnt even sleep more than 3 hours daily on average. But all's well that ends well. Best of Luck to friends who are still to be placed!

Finished the 'His Dark Materials' Trilogy by Phillip Pullman recently and I must say it was completely fantabulous. The fantasy just kept me absorbed the whole time and even made me ponder for a few days. I must recommend this to anyone who loves Fantasies; The Vocab is great too...

Hmm, I visited Melting Pot this week with my best friend Ketan, he wanted placement party! Musst say, the place is awsome, great rates and fantastic cuisines, loved the Basil & Pesto sauce Pasta (Had never made and tasted any Pesto sauce before). Planning to visit GOLA in Metro Walk soon for Mouth Watering Sizzlers.....

One more thing before I leave today, I have been writing this poem intermittently for few months now and am not getting any continuation (It still is miniscule), Please help me continue this -

The Tingle in the sky,
The Jingle in the ear,
I wanna eat a pie
but don't let it smear.

The jest lo'behold
Has filled my life,
The pie is so cold,
It makes me strife!

Thou art my love,
In the words of Shakespeare.
..............

Well, FYI, I had been rejected after the second round of Google Phone Interview and after that didn't feel like writing. I had a great streak of 7 Rejects before getting Cisco :)

Adios, Amigos!

Google Phone Interview

I had my first Phone Interview for Internship with Google yesterday. I was shortlisted for the Interview by Google, based on my CV and aggregate percentage. I was pleasantly surprised 4 days back when I received a call from Google Bangalore Office informing me of the Interview. So I started preparing for the Technical Phone Interview by revising the fundas of Data Structures, Algorithms and Language subtleties.

I came across a very good resource for coding and programming practice: TopCoder which helped me a lot in getting the fundas right practically.

Finally yesterday evening the phone came, and I was a hell lot nervous. The interviewer was checking my Resume and exclaimed about my Internship Project at NEC HCL (last summer). He asked me about the details of the project, like what enhancements I did and how it helped, which I could very happily explain.....

Then to programming stuff, I was given a problem where I had a large Integer Array and a given sum 'k'. I had to determine whether any two numbers from the Array would add up to k. He gave me various scenarios like the Array is sorted, unsorted and lot of extra storage space or not etc. I used Hash Table for the extra storage space case. I tried using Binary Search method for the In-Place case but could not optimize it for sorted Array, so I asked a teeny weeny bit of Hint and then the "Two Pointers Method" struck. He seemed satisfied with the responses.

I had to write all the above stuff in terms of code and read it out to him, which was pretty exciting :)

Next came another Question, I had a Binary Search Tree, given two nodes, I had to find the Nearest Common Ancestor. It seemed easy and I came up with the solution in just a Minute. He then Twisted the question a bit and generalized the Tree to a General Binary Tree. I asked for availability of parent pointer and he gave me choice. I came up with a recursive O((lg N)^2) algorithm if parent pointer was available. (Just after the Interview, when I was discussing with my Friend, I just got a better optimum O(lg N) algo (See Comments); I better hope these divine thought come during Interviews).
Then as it was obvious, he asked for the general case of no parent pointer. Just few minutes of thinking and a recursive solution was there. (Which I again had to code and read out to him :) ) After his call for optimization, I just applied some Dynamic Programming ideas and Voila!!

So, this was my 1 Hour 13 mins. long Interview which I enjoyed every bit of. Hoping for Selection into Round 2!!!
Now my Mid Sems are just 2 days away and I have not even read a word....So, I better go and start with some DataBases......

Á la procháine, Au Revoir!

Curious Happenings!

Well a curious week just passed away boosting my Mood Swings to the limit....

• I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in continuous 16 hours (full night) and i can safely say that it is the most wonderful creation of J.K.Rawling. Previously my favorite was Goblet of Fire but it surpasses that without bounds and limits. It had the most unexpected and the wonderfully twisted end that none of the Fan Fiction could even guess...It intricated the whole series in an exemplary fashion and kept me in a good mood for atleast a couple of days. Just one thing i would like to mention is that, i didn't like the Epilouge at all, she could have given a much more broader outlook as she was ending an epical series. Anyways Mille fois Merci J K Rawling!

• I have finally decided on doing MBA and now am gearing up for CAT, thinking of joining Career Launcher, CP Centre in December (Any Comments??)

• I completed my 45 days long Summer Training in NEC-HCL and my final project code surpassed my humble expectations (As i never knew i could have done such stuff).

• I took an IQ test on Tickle (PhD Certified) and was wonderfully Amazed by being termed as a Complex Intellectual with IQ of 133 :)

Well, next week College is opening so i had complete fun this week, and enjoyed a lot with Friends....with some little bursts of Passivity and Pessimism coming in between which took a lot of time conquering.....

Au Revoir et Bonne Nuit!

Je parle un peu de Fraçais!

Bonjour et Salut!!

Well friends these days I am learning a teeny weeny bit of French for Time Pass....And believe me, its real FUN and engaging to incorporate some kewl French words in daily speaking. I discovered some interesting facts too, viz. one third of English words come directly from French :) So you know English and thus you know One Third French (Nice feeling naa..).

I discovered a nice site which gives wonderful French Tutorials for beginners entering from English. Well I liked is that it gives you e-mail tutorials also, like it sends you daily email for 1 week describing basic info about French Language and let you grasp Basic French within a week...

For the uninitiated the title means "I speak a little French"!!

So Á la procháine, Au Revoir (Until next time, Good Bye) !!

Mussoorie Trip

I had been to Mussoorie this Summer, after settling my Internship, and it was a pleasant experience going there second time (First time I went with School Trip in 11th :) ) with parents...

We also went to Haridwar in between and saw cool-splashing Ganga River, and stayed for one night at Rishikesh. In Rishikesh, I saw Ganga Aarti, which was a nice sight, and also had a holy bath in Ganga. This time Ganga was not so clean though, as due to recent rains, the water had been muddified, but anyways, it was still GANGA.....

After that we straighted out to Mussoorie, where I had booked a hotel suite from Delhi only. It was very hot in days but got to nice breezy evenings and nights. We visited Kempty Falls (where amazingly they have installed a new trolley, which relieved us of a plight of approx. 1000 stairs :) ). After departing from the falls we caught hold of a beautiful Traffic Jam which scorched me for arnd 1 hour. Our Hotel was on the Mall Road only, so we spent most of our times roaming about aimlessly on it, and enjoying the scenic beauty.....

I also discovered a famous Omellette Shop there, which India Today has reviewed to be the best in India. It simply had the most delicious Omellettes I have ever had...We departed Mussoorie after 3 days, and visited Company Bagh in the way, which was a very superb and awesome garden.

This trip certainly relieved me of all the tensions and boringness of the 4th sem final exams and filled me with new vigor to start some kewl new Project...Hehe

Summer Internship

Finally after months of hard labour I managed to achieve a good Internship at a big IT technology company for 1.5 months. Now I am working as a trainee in NEC-HCL System Technologies, a collaboration between the technology giants of Japan(NEC) and India(HCL) both, located near the Taj Express Way in Noida.

I will be working in an Image Processing Project which inputs 2 slightly displaced aerial images of a region and produces a good 3-D plot of the place. Awesome isn't it!!!

My job is to improve the algorithm to upload the heavy Images (worth around 500 MBs) on Internet Web Server of the software called "RealScape". I will have to learn ASP.NET, C#.NET, AJAX and Web Services (Whoa!!) to get some knowledge about the field.

So Best of Luck to Me!!

Free Tickets at Fun Cinemas!

Hey friends I again won at Fun Cinemas - "Two free Silver Class movie tickets". This is the 5th time I won the free tickets. It is the prize of a quiz contest which takes place at the Fun Cinemas Site. Now I can watch any movie of my choice with a friend but only on Monday-Thursday.....

It really feels very exciting when you get to watch free movies which actually cost something about Rs. 130 per ticket. Chalo bye for now as I get down to think which movie to watch this time.....