Final Year of the Poll…

If any of you ‘readers’ has noticed the poll on this blog, good for you and those who have actually voted on it: Thanks & Happy New Year.

There has been some glitch on Blogger’s server and 7 voters’ data disappeared sometime this year; only 2 remained as seen below:

The poll is a few years (3?) old and won’t be renewed for 2018 so here I publish the results as they should have been:

As can be clearly inferred, “Readers” want us to write more about Sher-o-Shayari! Followed by Travelogues, Photography and Humour. My personal favourites Manga/Anime and Programming are the least-favoured it seems. Though, they are not going anywhere, let me tell you… going nowhere.

Anyway, let me end this post by giving a detailed breakdown of the votes:

	Humour	Manga/Anime	Photography	Programming	Sher-o-Shayari	Travelogues
Us	√	√	√	√	√	√
3(N)	√	√	√	√	√	√
4(S)	×	×	×	×	√	×
5(R)	×	×	√	×	√	√
6	×	×	×	×	√	×
7(P)	×	×	×	×	×	√
8	√	×	√	×	√	√
9	×	×	×	×	√	×

That's all for this year.

See you next year!

Travelogue: Bhubaneswar

I would like to share a news with whoever reads our blog. Me and my Superpartner will be parents (hopefully) by the end of next March or early April, so I’m warning you readers that there might be some baby pictures here and there from now on 😀. 2018 hence is a year I’m looking forward to, maybe slightly overwhelmed. At the beginning of every year, just like everyone else, I do think of resolutions. Sometimes I’m not able to keep up to what is planned for a few months or even weeks and precisely the reason I stopped making resolutions last couple of years. But this year, I want to be back in the game and would like to regularly exercise and do yoga. Let’s see how it goes.

In the first week of this month, we travelled to a city named Bhubaneswar [BBS] which is the capital of an Indian state called Odisha. People travel to this part of the country to witness temples, monuments, beaches and country-sides. It was a short trip of 2 days. He was already there attending a conference at NISER and staying at the newly built IIT-BBS campus. We joined Him over the weekend.

We travelled by a day train on a Friday and reached BBS around 9PM. After a good night’s sleep and a nice breakfast, we started our road trip to twin hills named Khandagiri and Udayagiri. These hills are full of caves. These caves go back as early as 1st century AD and several Jain monks seemed to have meditated and lived in these caves. The caves are named after animals and royals – snake cave, elephant cave(s), queen cave, etc. to name a few. The highlights of these peaks were the white monkeys with black mouths [a species of langurs]. They stayed close to humans and asked for peanuts & bananas – two of the items sold around these peaks, esp. for them. These monkeys understood human gestures of yes / no / please wait a while. It was a delight to watch them cracking open peanuts and relishing the nuts.

Khandagiri has a beautiful Jain temple, the path to which consists of a flight of uneven stairs first and then a bunch of rocks. After feeding the monkeys and taking photographs, we moved to our next destination – Dhauligiri. This place is popular for its white peace pagoda where the main attraction is an idol of Buddha surrounded by several avatars of Buddha in a circle. Dhauligiri too is a tall peak and is abundant with greenery. This is also the place where the famous Kalinga war was fought and there is an edict of Ashoka. The pagoda apparently was built by the Japan Buddha Sangha in 1970 and we could locate at least a few boards with Chinese characters on them.

After a climb at Dhauligiri, we shopped for some local handicrafts and spices. In the late afternoon, we travelled to Siddheswara and Rajarani temples. Unlike a typical Indian temple, Rajarani temple has no idol at present but the architecture is worth a visit. We were reminded of Hampi while visiting these temples and strangely we were meeting the same tourist couple in all these places that we visited since the morning. They definitely followed the same itinerary as us and at the last temple, we couldn’t stop laughing.

We went to Nandankanan Zoological Park on Day 2. The Safari was disappointing as we couldn’t spot any white tigers, which the place is actually famous for but instead spotted a lioness. The good part perhaps was that these animals were not being sedated like we felt in Bannerghatta National Park in Bangalore. They were ready to be spotted in their designated areas which is a shame because in a safari, we are supposed to see animals in their natural habitat. After the jungle safari where we could locate a lioness, a bunch of dears, a couple of bears, Neelgais, etc., we roamed around the sections of the park spending significant amount of time in the reptiles section. The second day was pretty warm when compared to the first and we were pretty exhausted by 3PM.

We stayed at Prangan by Mango Hotels, a place close to the Railway station and it turned out to be a pretty good experience with us also participating in a Sangeet function (one out of the many musical events organized during Indian weddings) happening in the ground floor of the hotel with loud bangs and thumps & cheery crowds. After that high decibel experience at the hotel, we left for our train trip back to Kolkata by an overnight train from BBS.

More & More…

In an effort to fulfill this year’s post quota, we publish this post on Waseem Barelvi’s shayari… which has been hurriedly translated as is the usual format on this blog. (Read the relevant TAB above as always.)

बीते हुए दिन खुद को जब दोहराते हैं
एक से हम जाने कितने हो जाते हैं!

Beete hue din khud ko jab dohraate hain
Ek se ham jaane kitne ho jaate hain!

Translating this Sher is quite hard
As I am not a good enough bard!

हम भी दिल की बात कहाँ कह पाते हैं
आप भी कुछ कहते कहते रह जाते हैं!

Ham bhi dil ki baat kahan kah paate hain
Aap bhi kuch kahte kahte rah jaate hain!

When can I say all that’s in my heart
You tend to stop mid-sentences too!

खुशबू अपने रास्ते खुद तय करती है
फूल तो डाली के हो कर रह जाते हैं!

Khushboo apne raaste khud tay karti hai
Phool to daali ke ho kar rah jaate hain!

Fragrance chooses its own path
Flowers tend to stick to branches!

रोज़ नया एक किस्सा कहने वाले लोग
कहते कहते खुद किस्सा हो जाते हैं!

Roz naya ek kissa kahne waale log
Kahte kahte khud kissa ho jaate hain!

Those who come up with new stories everyday
Are the ones who themselves become stories!

कौन बचाएगा फिर तोड़ने वालों से
फूल अगर शाखों से धोका खाते हैं!

Kaun bachaega phir todne waalon se
Phool agar shaakhon se dhoka khaate hain!

Who will save from those who want to pluck
If flowers get no support from the branches!

–वसीम बरेलवी (Waseem Barelvi)

The Source...

Adventure…

As the year is nearing its end, we have to meet the quota of posts and that leads to this simple post. I have transcribed the ‘funniest’ monologue about chee… er… Adventure by legendary English comic James Acaster.

I’m not a very adventurous person. I have only ever used one side of a cheese grater. Got no idea what the other three sides even do. I’m not the only one either. Everyone knows what side I'm talking about, right? Big holes! Got no time for small holes & tiny holes. Don’t know if you’ve ever seen… it’s the roughest side of anything I've ever seen in my life! Small holes: It’s rows of tiny little spikes so I'm going to use that side in self-defense. Then you got to wash it. Don’t know how you negotiate that? How you wash something that is rougher than your own scouring pad? Interestingly, the only thing rough enough to wash a cheese grater is a second cheese grater.

I refuse to believe that anyone has ever used the side with the three curvy slits in it. Don’t need ’em. Get rid of ’em, replace ’em with something that I'd actually use in my day-to-day cheese needs. Like, for me, it’d be a device that, in one smooth downward motion, completely unwraps a Babybel. Someone told me the other day that the three curvy slits are used for slicing cheese… apparently. It’s the word on the street. Now, if I'm gonna slice cheese, my first port of call is seldom the grater. Call me old-fashioned, I'm a knifeman. Might as well be fuddy n’ duddy but I like it, it’s unpredictable. You always start out…(with one hand moving vertically through air) You’re thinking, well, this cheese cutting is going excellently, oh yes… You just pass the halfway mark and the cheese takes over…(the path of hand curves now to become horizontal) Can’t reverse it, it’s made its mind up now… And yeah, now you’ve got a slice of cheese half the size you wanted in the first place, but at least you got some stories.

–James Acaster

Source

It’s Back!!!

Rurouni Kenshin is back!

With the fore-shadowed Hokkaido Arc!

And the first chapter didn’t disappoint…

Sadly it’s a monthly affair this time but something to cling to till death comes to us all.

The Scanlators

River Flows in You…

What would be life without music?! As I was listening to some Korean lyrics a few months ago, I came across this brilliant piece of music.

People have attempted to sing along with it. After listening to a few such tries, I happen to like the original one sung by Yiruma. 🙂

Below goes the translation, try to sing along with the lyrics if you happen to like it as much as I do.

If there's one for you, It's in you right now,
So if you can tolerate more,
Take a look at your place and leave everything,
Holding you, Holding you. It's in you, river flows in you.
Slowly, slowly, the rivers flowing in my mind,
Holding you, Holding you. It's in you, river flows in you.
At the end, I wait and wonder,
I want to throw my heart toward you,
Every time I can feel you,
So if you can tolerate more, take a look at your place and leave everything,
Holding you, holding you. It's in you, river flows in you.
Slowly, slowly, the rivers flowing in my mind,
Holding you, holding you. It's in you, river flows in you.
At the end I wait and wonder,
Holding you, holding you. It's in you, river flows in you.
Slowly, slowly, the rivers flowing in my mind,
Holding you, holding you. It's in you, river flows in you.
At the end, I wait and wonder. River flows in you.

My Superpartner brings me back to Kolkata and we hope to be more active on the blog in the remaining months of the year. Happy Sunday!

Waseem Barelvi Once More…

After a long time, I recently tried to translate some 'latest' Shers of Dr. Waseem Barelvi. I chose some of the most difficult ones to do that so the translation has not quite met expectations but nonetheless, the post quota on this blog trundles along well. As usual, read the disclaimer from the relevant tab above and we start with the first Sher:

कैसी तौहीन-ए-बज़्म-ए-हस्ती है! रहने वालों ये कैसी बस्ती है?
मौत को लोग देते हैं कांधा; ज़िन्दगी रहम को तरसती है!

Kaisi tauheen-e-bazm-e-hasti hai! Rahne waalon yeh kaisi basti hai?
Maut ko log dete hain kaandha; zindagi raham ko tarasti hai!

What an insult on its character! What’s with this place, folks?
People shoulder death; life just craves for sympathy!

Here’s the video of the full Ghazal for your joy:

वसीम बरेलवी (Waseem Barelvi)

One more try (and last for this post):

वो मेरे घर नहीं आता, मैं उसके घर नहीं जाता
मगर इन अहतियातों से ताल्लुक मर नहीं जाता!

Who mere ghar nahin aata, main uske ghar nahin jaata
Magar in ahtiyaaton se taalluk mar nahin jaata!

They don’t come to my house, I don’t go to their house
But these abstinences never lost the acquaintances!

Again the video of the full Ghazal follows:

वसीम बरेलवी (Waseem Barelvi)

If that's too much poetry for your taste, then you might want to get back to

Technology

Spot the Egrets

Life comes in circles, or whatever…

Let’s get right to business. I show you a few photos and you have to spot egret(s) in them. If you don’t know what an egret is, then here are a few sample photos:

     

Ready now? Let’s start with the easiest (you can click on the photos to see a larger version):

Now, 3 more photos with successively increasing level of difficulty:

As usual, will post answers if there is any interest shown by the readers. Till then, learn about

Egrets

ACBOOK 7.5

Continuing the trend from last year:

First, the Bad news: ‘Update…’ menu item on AB v7.0 won’t work because Dropbox dropped the box on public folder! So, I had to re-imagine the update process to make it future-proof. That is, starting with AB v7.5, it is no longer necessary for me to stick to Dropbox (though, I have stuck to it for now) and if next year I have to use OneDrive, no one needs to worry and v7.5 will update to v7.5.1 or v9.0 or whatever via in-app(lication) menu item.

Second, the ExChanger: Many things to say here, so let me start a bullet list.

• It gains a new button ↹ to set the ‘default’ currencies shown at startup.
• The data is updated (almost) hourly now!
• User can enter one’s own API key obtainable from currencylayer.com (for free; requires signing up but it wastes less time than YouFace or InstaTwits or whatever will grab your attention in a while!).
• This is no longer a stand-alone ingredient and has been fully baked-in to the main course program. That leads us to the following.

Third, the Categories can be associated to a particular currency in addition to the existing option of specifying a currency symbol. This helps in transfer of money between categories as the exchange rate is automatically filled-in, adding up the balances of all categories (whoever thought this was not needed!), etc. [For old files (who has them frankly?), associating one category to a currency will automatically update other categories with the same symbol.]

Fourth, the Menu items under ‘Category’ & ‘Groups’ menus have been streamlined (new icons too for the two related buttons in the toolbar) owing to the introduction of new custom-made input dialog box as seen below [In fact, all usage of MATLAB’s built-in inputdlg()’s have been replaced and also the ‘Reorder…’ dialog has been updated slightly to conform to this style.]:

Fifth, the Date field now gets a Date Selector button beside it, which opens up the following GUI (a dream that has been finally realized, via ‘undocumented’ Java usage from within MATLAB, though it may be removed in future updates depending on user feedback 🤣):

Sixth, the ‘Modify’ data button has a slight change of behaviour. When the Groups drop-down menu changes due to this button, the Data display also updates now. This change of behaviour can be a bit jarring / confusing but is consistent with the fact that this is how the Group menu & Data display are supposed to be ‘connected’.

Seventh, the ‘Show Raw Data’ and ‘Graphical Data Analysis’ (noticed the name change of the latter?) menu items from the ‘Tools’ menu have been introduced to the toolbar too. Not only that,

Eighth, the GDA has been completely revamped with 3 styles of plots and all sorts of filter options for the data (compare this to last year’s simple pie chart in a popup figure! What the hell was I thinking then?). Notice that 5 more buttons appear in the toolbar in this mode. Now, bask in this mode’s full (clickable) glory:

Ninth, other minor Bug fixes, Algorithm optimizations, and GUI tweaks are definitely sprinkled all over the program (along with a slightly updated Manual.pdf file).

Finally, it is highly likely that new bugs may have been introduced in spite of / despite / due to all that so I expect, like last year, your help in catching them all!

Thanks for reading this changelog, now go download the program and start accounting (for your shi*s).

AcBook 7.5

I Don’t Say Doesn’t Mean I Don’t Say…

My Superpartner came up with a grievance few weeks ago. He thinks that I don’t talk about him with people around me. The fact though is that I don’t tell him enough what I tell about him to others. For example, the other day I told my friend that ‘There are several reasons but the primary one is: Because Dharmesh is the least judgmental person I have met’. I’m not the kind of wife who makes the husband feel good all the time or bad all the time or good and bad at different times; I’m the kind who says nothing at all and just enjoys the ‘it is what it is’.

So I’m going to share some interesting trivia about him. Some of you might already know few of this. For others, I hope it is of some entertainment value.

My side of the family thinks he and I are a mute family. They always had the impression that I don’t speak much. I was the heights of speechlessness and no opinions. When they met him, they realized that there was one more. But if you have ever walked with him, you would say something else. When he is walking with me, he doesn’t let me speak. And he speaks very strange things. When I say strange, I mean that he is talking of higher dimensional Physics.

He is ready for breads all the time. When he is fully full, when it is time for bed, when it is the middle of the night, just anytime. To completely comprehend what I mean, watch Dylan Moran here.

He thinks that nobody likes him and nobody should like him; Why should anyone like anyone anyways? What a pity, he doesn’t know some things here.

He plays Disney games! Awful & Terrible, isn’t it?! There are times when I’m talking about worldly things when he says, ‘O let me open my game’.  And for the next half an hour or so, he is playing with Mickey Mouse, Goofy and feeling sad that he is not been able to introduce Cinderella to his amusement park yet.

While he is doing nothing [read anything] he is pulling his eyebrow hairs (like now, literally now!). I wonder why he has some hair left there even now.

If there was some Guinness record to award someone who has read the most Japanese Manga and watched British shows at the same time, he would be making and breaking his own records.

He has made some excellent programs which haven’t been marketed well (not marketed at all, in fact). There are days when he comes up with some enhancement ideas and you can guess what happens after that.

He has some strange hobbies. One of them for example is to read about the upcoming Windows 10 builds. Recently, this happened too

and I think such notifications just encourage him more to keep following those hobbies. O God!

That’s all for now, If I go any further than this, I might touch upon some cheeky, funny elements which we keep for later. And after all this, here is our favourite VCM who talks about DM once in a while.

Happy April Fools’ Day!

More on Sketchbook Vol. 12…

…as promised last year. Let’s get right to business with a capture from the first chapter:

Study of snails follows with Nagisa as one would expect.

Next Kokage turns into a guide in an Art Museum and Ao is not impressed!

For the first time, a double page spread! SuzuKaze combo at their best and Sora imagining the best possible scenario during a crane ‘malfunction’!

Hazuki visits Sora and Sora is trying to offer her some freshly cooked food but as usual, she gets distracted easily while in the kitchen!

Tsukiyo is indulging in some ‘Inception’ style of dreaming here! Way to go Ooba-Senpai!

Waiting for the next one this year! Till then, go have a

Monthly Visit Here

BenchMarking

Happy New Year of the Rooster 🐔.

As promised in the last post, here are the benchmark results from Mathematica 11.

Just a reminder, these are for my ‘new’ SP4. Just like MATLAB benchmarks, these also imply this machine is ‘fast’. In fact, let me give you some explicit numbers to back that up. In my ‘old’ SP3, for integrals that took anywhere between 80–125 seconds, SP4 spits out an answer much faster between 55 – 65 seconds! I mean even the integral that took the longest at ~2 minutes gets done in a minute… what the hell? How am I supposed to think linearly about that?

Think Non-Linearly Then