Dilip Simha's blog world
An interesting blog on trips, technical articles and reviews
Paragliding
0Since my childhood, I always dreamt of flying like an eagle. Always wondered what it feels to fly so high above in the sky! I finally got an opportunity to go for Para gliding in Taiwan.
A group of 7 colleagues from CCMA at ITRI started our Para-gliding trip on Saturday: Aug 20 at 7:30 AM. Para gliding in Taiwan is quite popular and the nearest spot for people living in Hsinchu is at a place called Wan Li, which is at a 1 hr driving distance from Taipei.
https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=120523915902
We reached at 11 AM at Wan Li and were shocked to see a long queue of people waiting for their turn. The landscape view from the mountain at Wan Li was breathtaking.
In front lies the Pacific Ocean and to the sides are the beautiful gigantic mountains making the paragliding experience really memorable.
I never imagined I could fly above the ocean, mountains like a bird with my huge personality, but thanks to well-trained paragliding experts at Wan Li, I managed to do it!
It was a short ride lasting around 5 minutes and we all landed on the beach smoothly at the end. We then went to North Coast Scenic area in east coast of Taiwan to do snorkeling.
More photos at: http://dilip.nijagal.com/PhotoGallery/gallery3/index.php/Friends/Taiwan-Trip/2011-summer-trip/Paragliding
Syakaro Hiking
4Taiwan’s bio diversity is vast and its landscapes amaze me every time I visit Taiwan.
In my first visit I was taken aback by the view of gigantic mountains of Taroko Gorge in Hualien. I very much wanted to hike there, but couldn’t find a suitable group.
When I got another opportunity to visit Taiwan, I so desperately wanted to hike there, but in the nth moment I was informed that Hualien forest department requires a hiking permit 1 month in advance. Unfortunately, as an intern I do not have the luxury to plan in advance by a period of 1 month.
My quest to hike in Taiwan got a major boost when one of my colleagues Vis assured me that he would take me for a hike at least to some other good place in Taiwan. Since Taiwan has no dearth of dense forests, finding a hiking spot is no rocket science. Vis introduced me to another colleague at CCMA, Simon who is an avid outdoor activity enthusiast. It took him just a few minutes to come up with atleast 2-3 different hiking sports. Finally we settled with Syakaro, which is a supposed to be a difficult trail, and hence it won’t be crowded even on a weekend. It’s located to east of Hsinchu.
Coming from India, I have seen how a crowded place can put off my mood. Even in India, I always used to plan for toughest hiking spots to make sure I get away from crowd.
We managed to pull in 9 of our colleagues from CCMA to get going on the hiking adventure. So our trip members were: left to right: Simon, Alexey, Yi-Ling, Dilip, Vis, Oksana, Yi-Yang(Sam), Bonnie and Fanchy.
Simon had a car and Vis rented another 7 seater car(Wish).
We started the trip from ITRI at 7:30 AM on Saturday, Aug 13th 2011.
It took an hour of scenic drive to Neiwan and then another 2 hr journey to Syaroko trail entry point.
This trail has 2 end points. One can start from either end. But unfortunately it’s remotely located, so private transport is the only means. The road to entry points are also in very bad condition so be prepared for lots of muddy bumps.
We decided to start from Yaro entry point and go till Baishi suspension bridge and return to Yaro point again. The total length of the trip is 20 kms up and down.
There is a police check post around 10 mins drive before Yaro entry point where you need to get entry permit by providing some photo ID and there is no entry cost.
So we started to hike by 10:30 AM on a lovely cloudy Saturday morning with temperature around 26 degrees Celsius. It was a very pleasant weather.
After walking for 30 mins, we found a warning board which said trail is closed because of landslides.
But luckily we knew it beforehand because some helpful foreigner had blogged about this trail: http://hikingtaiwan.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/syaroko-historic-trail-%E9%9C%9E%E5%96%80%E7%BE%85%E5%8F%A4%E9%81%93/
So we took a deviation into the forest where a small trail can be found leading to uphill. It looked tough in beginning, but found regular trail marks ahead. We found several water falls, small suspension bridges, bamboo trees on the way. We had to take another similar deviation later, probably after 1 hour.
Wooden ladders
Bamboo trees
The deviations made the trip very adventurous because they were slippery (probably because of rain some days ago).
The gorgeous views of the mountain are available all through the trail. The forest is so dense with thick green cover and lots of insects. Am not sure about any wild animals, at least we didn’t find one on our trip!
Slippery trail
The magnificent view of clouds kissing the green cover is something very special.
The trail path is not an easy morning walk!. There were slippery rocks; thorny trees, small pebbles and roots of trees, which make one, topple over and then there were wooden logs supported on ropes. The ropes were tied to some tree and those logs formed a ladder and were the only hope to climb down some stretch of trail.
It was fun but a lot scary too! A slip will only lead you to hell!
After around 2 hrs of hike, we took a break to feast on some snakes and biscuits that we packed! 
View from Baishi bridge
Lunch break
Finally after 4-hour hike, we reached the Baishi suspension bridge. It’s a 145m long suspension bridge built by the Japanese across a very deep river valley. The view from the bridge was fantastic, no words to describe it. It’s easily the best scenic, suspension bridge I have every come across. The metallic ropes holding the bridge were rusted and I could only hope it doesn’t give up on me. We kept on admiring the natural beauty for around 30 mins and then started on our return journey.
The return journey took around 3 hours and we were so damn waiting to relax in the car. Wo-men chanda hen lei! (we all were really very tired). Yes I can remember and repeat Chinese!
Killer punch
Some people were so damn tired that their body parts were like dangling pointers. Any attempt to fix it were greeted with killer punches.
To summarize, it was an awesome hiking expedition and am glad I found a very friendly, enthusiastic group of colleagues to join me in the hiking adventure.
Java Hash Table
1Of late, Java has become a nightmare to me!
Just recently realized that Java hash Tables cannot have more than MAX_INTEGER_SIZE buckets.
That’s because hashCode() methods in any class return only int.
Max integer size is 2 pow 32 = 4G. U might say that’s huge, but huge is only WRT normal java applications.
these days with BIG Data handling, 4G array size limitation is a bottleneck.
Why does Java have such a restriction? I am still not sure!
So what do u do if u have a huge number of objects to store in hash table?
well answer is.. don’t use Java or else live with slower Java!
another interesting fact is that hash table size is always some power of 2 and not a prime number.
There is some explanation by the author: http://www.javaspecialists.eu/archive/Issue054.html
All these makes me go back to my old dear C. miss u C….
Cards!
0223 days
by Dilip
in Uncategorized
Cards is my favorite time pass game!
I get to make new friends, get into argument with close friends, get to relax….
Some of the card games that I like:
200, Poker, Bridge, Rummy, 500, Teen patti, sattar, donkey, memory Game, lucky draw, Bluff
I have a very short lived memory. So I want to put out the rules for all the games I know.
Here are the rules:
200: http://www.pagat.com/kt5/200.html
Bridge: http://www.pagat.com/boston/bridge.html
Rummy: http://www.pagat.com/rummy/500rum.html
my version of 500 which is also called rummy in some places: http://www.pagat.com/rummy/rummy.html
Teen patti(Flush): http://www.pagat.com/vying/teen_pathi.html
Sattar: http://www.pagat.com/domino/sevens.html
donkey: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donkey_(Card_Game)
Bluff: http://www.pagat.com/beating/cheat.html
Memory game: put all cards face down in a matrix layout. Then each player gets to pick 2 cards one by one.
Objective is to draw 2 cards of same number. If a player succeeds, he gets another turn to play or else next player plays.
Cards should be kept back in same place after memorizing.
Lucky draw: Very interesting when lot of people are there.
Distribute cards evenly among whoever is present.
Start playing in clockwise manner.
First player throws the card face up. Next player shud throw his card face up and so on.
Whenever the card matches, the one who threw the matching card(matching with the card just previously thrown) should block the card on table by his hand, so that next player doesn;t get to throw his card.
If he fails, he looses his chance to win.
winner is one who gets more cards.
it’s fun: If u make a rule to play/react within a millisecond. No reaction time basically. So many ppl miss their chance and rue!
Rule is to lift hands after throwing the card. Hands should only block the card when there is a match. False blocking will remove the player out of the game.
Some nice interview collections…
0574 days
by Dilip
in Uncategorized
The C Family of Languages: Interview with Dennis Ritchie, Bjarne Stroustrup, and James Gosling
STIFF ASKS, GREAT PROGRAMMERS ANSWER
Linus vs. Tanenbaum
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs Interview – Full (VIDEO)
I have impeached myself
No room for the alien, no use for the wastrel
You’re getting a totally false impression of me
Before the year ended, he said, he would be a hero or a martyr
Vegetarian food in Taiwan
0Life of a intern is very tough in ITRI. Most of us can’t afford a vehicle for just 2-3 months of stay. You google ITRI restaurant and all your hits will be on research, LCD, nano technology, etc.
Of course we have come here for the same purpose but we need not learn it from google.
We can hardly find any information on restaurants nearby.
Especially for vegan people like me, ITRI is a very tough place.
There is a very nice cafeteria inside the campus but it’s closed on weekends.
It’s open for only a few stalls and they are all non-veg and not of good taste too it seems!.
There’s a town nearby, but again they are all non-veg food.
I have only few options:
1: Go to 7-11 store which are found in abundance and pickup a cheese bagel or some junk stuff.
2: There’s a pastry shop near the east gate.. around 1 kms.
3: There’s a small restaurant in the YO-HO club(That’s the sport complex next to building 89 where our dormitory is located). Again there’s hardly 1 or 2 veg options and they are all junk food.
Luckily they have fruit juices!
So the best think to do on weekend is to escape to HSinchu or Taipei or go on a trip!
There is a nice restaurant in Hsinchu downtown. That’s around 8 kms from ITRI.
Taxi would charge 300TWD and there’s a bus but it’s a pain again to communicate in Chinese with the driver.
Taipei has 5-6 Indian restaurants and they all serve nice veg food.(of course non-veg food is also served).
Most of the restaurants have menu in Chinese and so it’s very difficult to know if it’s veg or not. It’s no use asking in English as they say yes for everything you ask.
So I hate weekends.
Rather, I should go for a trip every weekend from now.
Interestingly the trip costs are very affordable.
Taiwan is a very small country.
It just takes around 4K-5K TWD to have a luxurious 2 day/1 night trip.
This is if I want to travel to either east coast or south coast.
If you want to travel to somewhere in the mid of Taiwan, then it would be much lesser.
Since the distance b/w places are very short, travel time is also very less.
Coming back to food….
Veg food in Taiwan is surprisingly tasty and interesting.
It’s very healthy.
You get to eat around 8-10 different vegetables daily.
And I love vegetables…
Daily for lunch, we get either noodles or steamed rice.
And then some 4-5 different types of vegetable salad.
Some salads will have 2-3 vegetables mixed… some of them raw.
But still food is tasty.
They do omlets too.
But I prefer to eat it only if I am really hungry and there are no other options.
Indian Restaurants that I have been so far in Taiwan:
1: The spice shop in Hsinchu downtown.
It’s located on Shengli road(Pronounced in chinese as “sunny du”).
It’s right in front of railway station, near post office.
2: A small shop in shilin night market.
It’s near a mall called City jungle.
It’s right next to Jian tan MRT.. exit no 1.
Life of an intern is very tough in ITRI. Most of us can’t afford a vehicle for just 2-3 months of stay. So it’s very hard to even find out what options are available around ITRI. If you google ITRI restaurant then all your hits will be on research, LCD, nano technology, etc.
Of course we have come here for the same purpose but we need not learn it from google. We can hardly find any information on restaurants nearby. Especially for vegan people like me, ITRI is a very tough place. There is a very nice cafeteria inside the campus but it’s closed on weekends. It’s open for only a few stalls and they are all non-veg and not of good taste too it seems!.
There’s a town nearby, but again they are all non-veg food.
I have only few options:
1: Go to 7-11 store which are found in abundance and pickup a cheese bagel or some junk stuff.
2: There’s a pastry shop near the east gate.. around 1 kms.
3: There’s a small restaurant in the YO-HO club(That’s the sport complex next to building 89 where our dormitory is located). Again there’s hardly 1 or 2 veg options and they are all junk food. Luckily they have fruit juices!
So the best think to do on weekend is to escape to HSinchu or Taipei or go on a trip! There is a nice restaurant in Hsinchu downtown. That’s around 8 kms from ITRI. Taxi would charge 300TWD and there’s a bus but it’s a pain again to communicate in Chinese with the driver.
Taipei has 5-6 Indian restaurants and they all serve nice veg food.(of course non-veg food is also served).
Most of the restaurants have menu in Chinese and so it’s very difficult to know if it’s veg or not. It’s no use asking in English as they say yes for everything you ask.
So I hate weekends. Rather, I should go for a trip every weekend from now. Interestingly the trip costs are very affordable. Taiwan is a very small country. It just takes around 4K-5K TWD to have a luxurious 2 day/1 night trip. This is if I want to travel to either east coast or south coast. If you want to travel to somewhere in the mid of Taiwan, then it would be much lesser. Since the distance b/w places are very short, travel time is also very less.
Coming back to food…. Veg food in Taiwan is surprisingly tasty and interesting. It’s very healthy. You get to eat around 8-10 different vegetables daily. And I love vegetables… Daily for lunch, we get either noodles or steamed rice. And then some 4-5 different types of vegetable salad. Some salads will have 2-3 vegetables mixed… some of them raw. But still food is tasty. They do serve omlets too. But I prefer to eat it only if I am really hungry and there are no other options. The veg food contains soya and it looks very much like non-veg. Do you call this veg?
veg food in ITRI
Indian Restaurants that I have been so far in Taiwan:
1: The spice shop in Hsinchu downtown. It’s located on Shengli road(Pronounced in chinese as “sunny du”). It’s right in front of railway station, near post office.
Spice Shop Indian restaurant
2: A small shop in Shilin night market. It’s near a mall called City jungle. It’s right next to Jian tan MRT.. exit no 1.
Mini Indian dhaba in Taipei
Random numbers
0Whenever I need a random number, I always use srand or some other simpe random number generator function.
I didn’t give a damn on how is it generated or how random the number is. That’s because, I just wanted a few random numbers(a few 100′s) and almost any decent algorithm can give me a random number within this range.
Now, I want to find a really good random number and I have a real need for it. The requirement is so strict that if the random number is not distributed fairly, I can easily notice that.
The challenge increases with the output range the user needs. There are pseudo random number generators(PRNG) which has a HUGE random number range, but it’s not distributed randomly.
Even I can give a dummy algorithm which will guarantee that I will not give out a number which I have already given out since past n requests.
I can write a simple program to answer your needs for fairly large n.
i=0; i+=1000 && i<n ; i++
This will 100% run until n, then start from i=1 and so on until 999.
But is it random? Depends on the need of the user.
This is 100% not random because it has an algorithm which predicts how to generate the next number and hence it’s not random.
I define random as something that’s unpredictable. I am in search for such a random number.
Truly random number generators should be definition should not be based on mathematics but shud be as a result of some natural events.
kernel random number generator picks such events and fills in it’s entropy tool to get various unrealted events and generates a random number based on that. But it’s too slow.
I want in the range of millions of numbers per second.
After days of searching on internet, i could find just 1 good random number genrator.
Thanks to the god of random number generator: “Dr. Marsaglia”. He has generated around 600 MB of almost true random numbers which he has given out in the website: http://stat.fsu.edu/pub/diehard/
This is failrly distributed and covers the entire range. Every bit in this file is random.
Hence any combination of bits you take should be random. So I am free to get any number size and my number is almost random.
User – kernel thread
0What are Users threads and kernel threads?
Are they 2 different entities or are they part of a single entity?
Why do we need user threads and kernel threads?
what do they do?
Concurrency in OS
0What are the different types of concurrency mechanisms in Operating system?
When should we use mutex, simple lock, MCS lock, complex lock, semaphore?
Sony P990i mobile
0Sony Ericsson P990i is one beauty with a beast body.
The perfect choice for a budget conscious person and who still wants to have a phone with all options.
You can find hazaar options in this phone.
It took me almost 1 month to get a hold on this phone. I am still masked off from some applications. It’s that huge!!!!!
The only disadvantage of this phone is it’s size. There were initial hiccups in the firmware, but from 2006-2007, it’s rectified. You can also update this phone with the latest software from sony ericsson website.