Elvesbane

girL: So you’re saying that they can do whatever they want?!

guY: No… you’re thinking about it the wrong way. You don’t define boundaries for others! Boundaries exist only for you.

L: I don’t understand.

Y: What I’d like to do is to sit next to you and snuggle up, because you look cuddly and I’m cold!

L: What?! Heck! No!

Y: Exactly! I’ve set a boundary for myself that I can’t do that. I’m not setting a boundary or a rule for you, but only for me.

L: … That still doesn’t make any sense.

Y: Yeah, that usually happens. Just give it some time.

I don’t know what got me into this line of thought, but I can’t help thinking that it doesn’t make sense that we should be saying: “Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen…”, etc., instead of “Ten, Ten-One, Ten-Two, Ten-Three…”. I mean, for every number except those in the range of Ten - Nineteen (10 - 19), we follow the standard of concatenating the following number’s name to the (suitably modified) higher order number’s name.

44 = Forty + Four = Forty-Four
523 = Five + Twenty + Three = Five Twenty Three

But 14 is NOT Ten + Four = Ten-Four (which has a totally different conventional meaning), but it’s Fourteen!

Even within the 10 - 19 range, standards aren’t maintained. 14, 16, 17, 18, 19 are the names of the numbers followed by ‘teen’. 13 and 15 are similar in that the letters are modified in both to make them sound similar. 3 (Three) is modified to make it Thir-teen, and 5 (Five) to Fif-teen. 12 (Twelve) shares the first two letters with Two and 11 (Eleven) doesn’t have any obvious relation to 1 or 10!

Sigh… It would have been so straight-forward if I could just say ‘Ten-Seven’ during roll-call instead of a ‘Seventeen’ (which sounds so much like ‘Seventy’). I hate having to say it again, all because some idiot who came up with numbers didn’t bother doing his work properly.

The water green or dappled blue,
flows and plays around my toes.
The stones that lend its mystic tune,
weathered to be both round and smooth.

Green blades soft, unlike their namesake,
from brown earth do they spring.
They reach up, joyous to the extreme,
an affirmation of new life, it seems.

Trees sway in the warm white wind
and feel the onset of a new day.
They rustle and fall, do the leaves.
The path they trace, like children playing.

The mountains, tall and strong and true.
Old and ageless men unmoving,
like watchers from the olden days,
like caretakers of the milky way.

The birds doth sing, their voices ring,
a joyful peal, of mirth and feel.
Their wings are wide, they own the sky,
they swoop the spring right into their being.

***

Remember, I wrote this in one hour, as a submission to the this year’s poetry (in english, duh) competition for the college’s cultural and arts festival. So it was never meant to be all that good. So spare me the rod. ^_^

It’s so easy to forget!

The only reason I remember the names of the guys I studied with back in school is because we have these once-in-a-while get-together-s. Really. I might recognize their faces, but I wouldn’t remember them.

Unlike most people, I seem to lack any compulsion to keep contacts alive. It’s natural for me to ignore the fact that others used to exist in the past, to forget that they ever meant anything to me. Don’t think that I willfully do this or anything… I don’t. I’m a lover of information (knowledge, experiences, wateva), and loss of memories just seems like an awful waste!

The other day, mum reminded me about (^_^) something that’d happened a  very long time ago. There was this day, when me, mum, dad, n’ bro went for a movie and there was this guy sitting behind us, who mum noticed and pointed out to me. I suppose she’d imagined that I’d be surprised and glad to see my bestest buddy from Sarvodaya (1st through 4th standard) but all I could manage was a ‘Hi’ and a prolonged and painfully idiotic face, and all the while he was looking as though he expected to me recognize him at any moment! I didn’t bother talking to him (the movie was gonna start, after all) and I didn’t see him afterwards. Mum later enlightened me that the two of us had been practically inseperable while I was at Sarvodaya. Just as well, I suppose, he prolly imagined that I’d lost much of my mental acuity since 4th standard.

She’d also told me his name. I don’t remember it anymore.

As I said, it’s pretty easy to forget, but it sure as hell makes for some awfully awkward and embarrasing moments.

My mum is one of those people who’s got vivid memories of the things they did as a child. I’ve always been amazed when she remembers what people said or did when she was was a kid. She can even remember stuff from when she was less than 2 years old! Heck, I feel amazed when anyone remembers what they did or felt when they were little. Mostly because I don’t remember much of anything! All I have a snapshots that have faded to the point of uselessness.

I only have one memory from when I was in KG: When my mum forgot to pick me up from the nursery after class ended, and I had to be escorted home by a teacher. I must have been really upset by this break from normal routine! Funny thing about it is that the nursery in question is right next door (and still is).

Then there’s this memory from very very long time ago when I woke up from a dream laughing so hard I couldn’t stop for (what seemed like) ages! In my dream, my bro had been rolling me around the ground in front of the house, tickling me non-stop. Weird that I should remember that…

Then there are a few other scattered memories, some very weird dreams, but no coherant story anywhere. It’s like my memory just decays and dissapears super-quick.

Sure, you’d say that lots of people forget stuff from when they were kids. My problem is a lot worse. I don’t remember anything from school. Forget the fifth to eigth standards, I don’t remember much from my 12th all that clearly! That was only… 3 years ago! I don’t remember anything that happened in school. I only know that some things used to be some way, and that I did certain things at certain times… factual information, like: I used to play basketball after lunch everyday (but I don’t remember any of the playing). I remember me n’ Asif used to go to the canteen (or to Joseph Uncle) to have ‘post-lunch’ snacks everyday (because I never got to eat anything from my lunch box; everybody else did). Well… wait a second, I actually remember that part quite clearly now. Having lunch at school, that is. I even remember my lunch box - a small blue snap shut sorta thingy. I usually had bread with chocolate syrup inside, and I used to make sure that I got to eat at least one piece from the eight or so that mum packed (I didn’t really like the bread, but it seemed wrong to not eat at least a little from what mum’d packed ^_^).

Interesting. I don’t remember anything from either of the La Fest-s that I participated in (and those were supposed to be big events in a student’s life at Loyola!). But I remember other little things, stupid things even, like the tree whose root I sat on (it stuck out of the ground like a ledge) to study during the lunch break at term exams. I don’t remember what it felt like to be in class at school. I don’t remember anyone teaching me. I do, however remember the first time I was able to jump and touch the rim of the basketball basket. Hmm… I don’t think I can do that anymore…

Well, it seems I haven’t forgotten everything yet. I wonder how much longer it will stay, though.

Looks like I did complete those god-awful-time-consuming programs. Here they are, for future reference or whatever…

Mind you, they’re not perfect, nowhere close to it, in fact. The instruction set isn’t complete (bleh) and I’ve used short cuts where it just didn’t make sense to waste time on some feature. There are a few obvious mistakes in the output too, but the damned thing works. So there!

All three programs are written in C Language and are based on the algorithms for the same, provided in “System Software: An Introduction to Systems Programming“, by Leland L. Beck. They’re only sparsely documented, so you’ll probably have trouble reading. Do I look like I care? Oh, and it’s been written for Turbo C++ 3.0

One Pass Assembler

Two Pass Assembler

Absolute Loader

You may also need these files, especially the assemble.txt, which is the source file both the assemblers use (and are equipped to handle).

assemble.txt - Source SIC program

objcode.txt - Output of Two-Pass Assembler

objcod1p.txt - Output of One-Pass Assembler

machcode.txt - Output of Absolute Loader

And no, I don’t mind if you use it partly or in its entirety for whatever purpose you can think of. ^_^

Have fun, people!

Question: Design a two pass assembler for an SIC machine in C language.

Time: 3 hrs.

I spent around 5 hours today working on the above mentioned program. A program that I had been working on, at college, for the past few weeks, totalling perhaps 7 hrs out of 9 in three lab periods. That’s 12 hours.

And I haven’t finished.

Now, I really don’t think I’m stupid or anything (or even lacking in the field of coding)… but this reminds me heavily of something Sriram chetan told me about my mini-project a few weeks ago when I told him what it was:

“Hmm… Graphical Representation of Non-Recursive Sorting Methods… hmm… kozhappamilla…

Pakshe… ithu moonu manikkoorinte karyam-e ollu.”

What is interesting is that nobody ever really questions the logic behind our examinations.

Exam (Definition): Tests designed to measure progress against the objectives of a lesson, course or field of study.

It’s a difficult concept, at best, so I’m gonna leave it at that definition. Let’s talk about our 3hr assembler for starts.

The algorithm for the 2 pass assembler is two pages long. One page each for each of the passes. It describes in a very general manner how the first pass scans the whole assembler code, finds of the locations of symbols and stores it. The seconds pass is similarly described as how the results of the first pass are used to put together the final object code.

The whole  thing really isn’t that hard to understand. A layman can understand the nitty-gritties of the whole damned thing in maybe 1 or 2 hours of reading. I began much the same way because I didn’t really pay all that much attention to the algorithm last semester. It was way too big for me to have finished studying the the last few hours before the exam, you see.

Constructing the actual program is, as always, an entirely different matter. The assembler is expected to read the contents of a file, and do a hellu-va lot of things (to say the least) before anything resembling an object code comes out of it. After my 12 hrs on this thing, I’ve completed the first pass, and maybe one-third of the 2nd pass.

As far as I know, no one in my class has completed this program yet. And I know that 90% of the girls and at least 70% of the boys (well rounded figures, don’t pay too much attention) are incapable of completing a program of  this scale. And this isn’t even that big. I’ve gotten to around 300 lines and think there’s another 100 to go. Not much, no.

But 3 hrs?? I mean, seriously?! I think I’ll barely be able to finish typing 400 lines of code in that time period, let alone make a program that size from scratch.

I also remember that my bro had suggested something like an assembler (macro processor, maybe) as an ‘easy’ candidate for a mini-project. True, it would have been an easy option.

For a mini-project! Not an effin 3 hr exam!

Gotta ask the teach about this one… just to see how she’ll squirm out of it. ^_^

P.S. I’ve updated the blogroll to include Sriram chetan’s new blog.

Edit: I’ve completed those programs and talked about them here.

HD-DVD is dead. Yaaay! Finally, someone has decided to give up in the mad race to be the next next-gen recording media. Finally, I can look forward to backing up the hundreds of gigs of data I’d rather not keep on my hard disk. Well… at the very least, I can finally anticipate a near future where I can back up all those HD movies to some brilliant multiple layer discs.

I played Witcher the other day, and realized that graphics in computing has moved beyond my 7900GS for good. It seemed like the sort of game I’d really appreciate, but the frame rates were too inconsistent, even at medium settings… and that’s a total no-no. Ah well, this is in a way, good news, since it just points to the improvements being made in the general gaming industry… unlike some once-in-a-while rarities that are more graphics than gameplay (cough! crysis! cough!). I most certainly look forward to the story-telling possibilities created by the new graphics powerhouses that are the updated nVidia 8-series. I suppose I could say the same about the 9, higher ends of which should be out late this year.

The Macbook Air was a delightful surprise! Un-buyably costly as it is, it’s perhaps the best example of the thinning that’s going on among gadgets in general. And thinner is almost always better! The one device I have which follows the same trend is, of course, the nano… which is ridiculously thin! In fact, the nano, as a mp3 player with a 3.5mm jack has probably reached it’s minimum size since the device is just thick enough to accommodate the jack! You gotta put the hole somewhere!

I’ve also been wondering about just how important sound is in the field of computing. The thought of sound bring three things to my mind: music, movies and games. Of these, both movies and games demand surround sound reproduction as an obvious feature. Music on the other hand is still primarily stereo. I remember seeing the intro of DVD-A-s with AC3 / DTS audio and such, but those don’t seem to have caught on… and having listened to a lot of surround music, I can attest to how ruddy brilliant it is, and how much of an improvement it is over regular 2-channel music. Surround music is still a rarity though and I wonder when it’ll become mainstream. It should, eventually, since it seems like a natural progression.

Staying on the topic of sound and games, it comes to my mind that close to no one I know has ever experienced any game with surround sound. I haven’t either… not really anyway. Almost everybody owns just stereo speakers, even though decent 5.1-s can be had for dirt cheap these days. I wonder how many guys are even aware of the fact that sound could actually matter when playing a game (or how much it could matter). Think F.E.A.R. or Doom 3 with perfect directional sound reproduction. It’s one of my dreams to play such horror thriller titles on a properly working surround setup.

That’s enough thinking for one night, I think. I need to sleep!

Wickedly long one this time around. I haven’t had a dream this vivid or long in ages!

It started out, predictably, in a situation I’d rather not mention. Eventually it wound its way over to a Cinema (at around 4 in the morning, inside the dream) where I, unfortunately, lost the person I’d been with, and therefore, had to go about searching the whole place. I met all sorts of people in there including my dad, who wanted to explain something related to foundry by drawing on the theater’s screen, an uncle who lives near my house who just wanted to enquire how I was and I even managed to accidentally call up Ashwin on my dream mobile phone at after 5 (I specifically remember checking the time on my dream watch, which looked hazily like my adidas which, I suppose, to be expected).

Of course, as all of my dreams do, they took a crazy turn soon enough. After leaving the cinema, I was plunged into a mythical world of beasts and demons which just wanted to kill people. The city was a mess, and the roads were destroyed, and I specifically mention the roads because I remember a dream mini-battle with some of these demons and a group of us (don’t know where they came from) where we defeat the baddies by blowing up something like a busted petrol tanker near them. Of course, this resulted in all of us having to climb up a near vertical section of road trying to escape a burning death.

The place I climbed up to appeared to be a village of sorts. The people there were very suspicious of us (I’m one of a group, remember) at first but I suppose they eventually accepted that we weren’t dangerous because I remember seeing a bunch of kids (some of them from my group) literally plucking a little tree out of the ground, together, and dragging it away (presumably to be burned) because it was infested with little beasties.

And somewhere around that point, I woke up, and there were a bunch of guys sitting around my bed chatting. So I sat up saying: “Good lord, you’ll never  believe the dream I just had!”.

And then, again, I woke up. Only this time, for real.

I don’t think I’ve blogged about this amazing little gadget ‘ere. Bro bought one for me one my birthday (thank you!) and it’s bloody brilliant (the way Ron Weasley says it in the movie)!

I’m sorry about the obvious noise reduction artifacts in the first image. Couldn’t help it. ^_^ The second one was more interesting. See how it seems to levitate (I hope) above the macbook (yeah, that’s what it is). That’s cuz it’s sitting on top of a matchbox.

Phones will perhaps, one day, take over every function, but for the moment, things looks bright for the world of pmp-s and digital cameras. Cuz’ they’re bloody brilliant, that’s what!