DilipSimha's blog world
An interesting blog on trips, technical articles and reviews
Some nice interview collections…
Jul 13th
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
Jun 6th
Life 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
Oct 10th
Whenever 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
Aug 15th
What 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
Aug 15th
What 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
Aug 15th
Sony 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.
Sony DSC H5
Aug 15th
Sony DSC H5 is one of the best digital cameras I’ve seen. I am proud to be the owner of it. It’s large LCD screen is the biggest attraction.
It offers a spectacular array of advantages for creative expression, including 7.2 megapixel performance for editing, cropping and making big prints, top-quality Carl Zeiss® 12X Optical zoom lens and Super SteadyShot® stabilization system for rock-steady long-distance photos.
Honda Unicorn
Aug 15th
This is the perfect bike for Indian Roads. Honda engines are one of the best in industry.
I like the way the engine runs. It runs very silently, smoothly and has the perfect maneuvering capability.
I however never compare these bikes to Bullet bikes. They are a class apart.
In the 150 CC segment, Unicorn Rules.
Now comes the million dollar question:
Is pulsar better than Unicorn? Well…I have my own reservations on this.
Filter – Sony DSC H5 camera
Aug 15th
I own a Sony DSC H5 camera since 2 years. It’s very tempting to capture sunrise and sunset pictures. But the harmful UV rays pose threat to the lens and more damage to our eyes!
UV rays consists of 2 parts: UVA and UVB rays.
UVA rays are present from sunrise to sunset, irrespective of clouds, glasses or any other transparent/translucent medium.
UVB rays are present only when we are directly exposed to sun. Of course there is ozone layer protecting us from it, but some amount of light still reaches earth and that’s enough to cause us long lasting damage.
So while capturing sunrise or sunset photos, be careful not to over expose the camera lens after sunrise or before sunset.
You can avoid much damage by putting a UV filter in front of the lens.
UV filters reflect the UV rays and hence avoids burning of camera lens and and other sensitive materials close to the lens.
Cost of UV filters depend on the size of the lens.
My Sony DSC H5 camera has a 58 mm lens and hence I need a 58 mm filter.
It cost me 250Rs. (FOTO circle, Chikpete, Bangalore).
There are other varieties too. (100, 250, 400Rs).
But for a average camera like mine, I feel 250Rs is fine.
Most of the lens available in the market are of this size itself.
Even lens for some of the DSLR cameras like: Nikon, Canon are 58 mm in size.
Polarize filters do not protect any UV rays. They only avoid perpendicular rays without seeing color, caste or religion of the rays!
Anyway they cost 750Rs for my camera. (58mm).
Maintaining polarize filter is a huge pain.
It should not be exposed for a long time, because dust particales can cause small scratches to the filter and that will fail to filter perpendicular rays, thus rendering the filter useless.
So loading and unloading the filter every now and then is lot of discomfort and hence I didn’t buy it.
North India Uttaranchal
Aug 15th
Uttaranchal is the abode of god. It’s a magnificent place to tour around.
I went in with my family and relatives.
We covered lots of places and it was a very well planned trip.
We went to: Delhi, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Mussorie, Jim Corbett National Park, Nainital, Mukteshwar, Mathura and Agra.
It was a complete trip with lots of activities and fun.
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