Soliloquy

Feel So Low

Karthik Sankar — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:19:22 +0000

So see how long I can last
You can pretend that I don’t exist for you
And I can laugh about it now
But I hated every minute
I was waiting for your email
And each day that you forgot to call
Just made me feel so low
So low

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Filed under: life Tagged: low, porcupine tree

Cloud 20/20 Paper Presentation Contest – Third Place !!

Karthik Sankar — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:47:01 +0000

It was a fantastic day at Bangalore. The Grand Finale of UNISYS Cloud 20/20 Technical Paper Presentation Contest was held at ITC Hotel yesterday. I was one of the finalists and I presented my paper on cloud computing to an audience of 400, which comprised of eminent personalities and stalwarts from the industry. I won the Third Place and was awarded a Nokia N97 mobile phone !!

I was not new to Cloud Computing since I had already conducted workshop on that topic in college. I got into action and learnt more about the topic and the challenges faced by this new computing paradigm. I decided to work on application development on the cloud. I came up with a topic: “Realizing Parallelism and Transparency in Applications Through Idempotence”. Wrote an abstract, submitted it, and waited for the results.

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Filed under: technology Tagged: cloud computing, unisys

Engineer vs. Mathematician

Karthik Sankar — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:29:37 +0000

A thought-provoking short story narrated by my professor in class:

An engineer and a mathematician were asked a question:
“Given a stove, lighter, water and an empty vessel, how would you make hot water?”

Both, the engineer and the mathematician gave the same answer:

Fill the vessel with water
Light the stove
Place the vessel on the stove and allow it to heat.

Now the question was slightly twisted:
“The stove is already lighted and the vessel already contains water. Now, how would you make hot water?“

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Filed under: trivialties Tagged: engineer, mathematician

Configure NS-2 with Eclipse in Linux

Karthik Sankar — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:21:01 +0000

For most users of NS2, it would be easier if they can use a popular IDE to work with the files.
Here are the step by step instructions I followed to set up NS-2.34 with Eclipse 3.5 in Ubuntu Linux.

In older versions of Eclipse, the settings might be slightly different.

I have compiled the following steps after running into various problems and errors with the setup, and solving them all. So I hope the setup will be smooth for you.

Setting up Eclipse

Installing NS-2

Adding NS-2 as a Project in Eclipse

Setting Debug Configuration

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Posted in linux, technology Tagged: eclipse, ns2

Unnai Pol Oruvan – not exactly

Karthik Sankar — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:14:29 +0000

Having read quite a few reviews and after watching the movie twice, I feel the movie is a very good one, but a little below perfection. I am mentioning the points which I noticed in this movie, and not the ones I noticed in the original movie, ‘A Wednesday’.

When a movie of such importance is made, with great actors and a greater story, perfection is expected. The better the quality of the movie is, the more the trivial mistakes matter…

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Posted in movies Tagged: a wednesday, kamal, upo

SFD @ NIT Trichy – Cloud Computing Workshop

Karthik Sankar — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:54:21 +0000

It was Software Freedom Day Celebrations at NIT Trichy. And how better could the day have been!! For the first time, Sun Club of NIT Trichy and GLUG-T, The Linux User Group joined hands to conduct the event. We had organized a workshop on cloud computing and Linux/Opensolaris Install Festival.

Photos and Slides:
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Posted in linux, opensource, technology, workshops Tagged: cloud computing, kenai, linux, opensource, sfd, sfd2009

my first b’day cake

Karthik Sankar — Tue, 26 May 2009 17:48:37 +0000

My first ever Birthday Cake !!!

And what a nice way to celebrate !! In Bangalore, terrace of Goldman Sachs office building, after sunset. How better could it have been !

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Posted in trivialties Tagged: birthday

In One Ear and Out The Other

Karthik Sankar — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 13:41:17 +0000

I recently read an interesting article in The New York Times. The article provides answers to many intriguing questions emerging in our brain…

IN ONE EAR AND OUT THE OTHER
Article by Natalie Angier, Published: March 16, 2009, NY Times

Welcome to the human brain, your three-pound throne of wisdom with the whoopee cushion on the seat.

In understanding human memory and its tics, Scott A. Small, a neurologist and memory researcher at Columbia, suggests the familiar analogy with computer memory.

We have our version of a buffer, he said, a short-term working memory of limited scope and fast turnover rate. We have our equivalent of a save button: the hippocampus, deep in the forebrain is essential for translating short-term memories into a more permanent form.

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Posted in articles Tagged: brain, memory

JavaFX workshop @ Vortex ’09

Karthik Sankar — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 14:21:00 +0000

It was a great day at college. 58 students eagerly waiting in the lab to learn a new technology – JavaFX. Vortex ’09, the technical symposium of the Department of CSE, NITT, was in full swing. As a part of the symposium, a JavaFX workshop was organized by me.

The workshop was at 2:00 pm. And the sight of such a good turnout for the workshop made me happy. Every participant initially registered at the Open Source University Meetup (OSUM) site, the online community for open source technologies. It was a hands-on workshop, where students could try out programs on Netbeans platform.

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Posted in opensource, workshops

Peace and Prosperity with Ragas – Part V

Karthik Sankar — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 04:11:18 +0000

[ This series of six posts are excerpts from my Guru, violin maestro (late) Dr. Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan's interview with 'The Hindu'. The therapeutic effect of music has been elucidated ]

ANANDHA BHAIRAVI

DESH

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« Part 4

Posted in music Tagged: anandha bhairavi, desh, music, raga

Thyagaraja Aradhana ’09 @ NIT Trichy

Karthik Sankar — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 19:25:21 +0000

The Thyagaraja Aradhana is celebrated every year at saint – composer Thyagaraja’s samadhi at Thiruvaiyaru. Hundreds of Carnatic musicians pay their homage to the saint composer by rendering his `pancharathna kritis’ (five jewels of his renderings) in chorus on the banks of the Cauvery at Thiruvaiyaru.

In NITT, the Thyagaraja Aradhana is organized by Amruthavarshini, the Carnatic Music Club of NITT. Various professional musicians from Trichy and SriRangam participate in the Aradhana, along with students and faculty of the college. The Pancharatna kritis are sung in the same style as is done at Tiruvaiyaru, followed by rendering of Thyagaraja kritis by the artistes and students.

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Posted in music Tagged: amruthavarshini, aradhana, nitt, thyagaraja

slumdog millionaire – should we celebrate the oscars??

Karthik Sankar — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 07:06:27 +0000

Slumdog Millionaire has won the Oscars. And the country is celebrating. But do we have reasons to celebrate ???

The movie claims to depict passion and love and the courage to succeed in life despite all odds. But for a viewer, the more lasting impression out of the movie will be a disturbingly bad image of India. The movie shows the slums, unjust police, unethical reality show hosts, poverty, cruelty and miserable living conditions. Is that all India is all about?People believe what they see, even though it might be just a movie. What would a tourist, who has never visited India, think of this great country?

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Posted in movies Tagged: india, movies, slumdog millionaire

Shifting to a new domain

Karthik Sankar — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 05:17:46 +0000

The time has come to shift, to choose better options. I am shifting my blog from wordpress.com to my personal domain,

http://blog.karthiksankar.com

The new domain gives me immense opportunities to try out various themes, tweak wordpress and make changes so that the blog reflects my character.

For the time being, I will post new articles in both sites.

Also visit my Personal Website at http://www.karthiksankar.com which will be ready soon…

Posted in Uncategorized

naan kadavul – the effect on me

Karthik Sankar — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 21:28:06 +0000

After I came out of the theatre, it took some time for me to get back to the real world…or the reel one ?? We are sitting in front of our computers, probably in an air conditioned room, typing swiftly on our keyboards. This virtual world is what we christen ourselves as reality. And we require movies like “Naan Kadavul” to show us what is real, what the world is facing and how humans suffer. And when the movie thrusts so much truth into our eyes in a short span of time, we just are not able to accept it.

Aghoris … Have never heard of them before. The whole sight of them, their voice and demeanor gives me a shudder, even though I am just watching them on a huge screen, in a cinema.

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Posted in movies Tagged: aghori, god, movie, naan kadavul

JavaFX workshop @ Pragyan ’09

Karthik Sankar — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 05:05:11 +0000

The JavaFX workshop was organized successfully as a part of Pragyan ’09, The International Techno-management Festival of NIT Trichy. . It was a day long workshop organized by Sun Microsystems. The workshop was aimed at teaching how to use JavaFX software for developing rich Internet applications. The engineers explained how to use the technology to create animations and effects, add multimedia to applications, and incorporate Java software into JavaFX applications.

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Posted in opensource, workshops Tagged: javafx, opensource, pragyan, workshops

slowdown

Karthik Sankar — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 10:33:10 +0000

Pragyan ’09 – design, posters, pamphlets, brochures, invites, cards, banners, backdrops … Workshops, JavaFX, website management, registration, osum, software installation, hall arrangement, projector, screen, transport for guests, publicity, cd distribution, certificates, reports … Sun Club – formation, induction, question paper setting, evaluation, team, meetings, projects, Netbeans, Opensolaris, Java, website development, cms, svn, member certificates, workshops, Java ME, permission letters, posters, reports … Vortex – design, workshop, flash programming, logo … Music Troupe – Saarang, new songs, compose, notes, practice sessions … Academics – class notes, photocopies, CPCs, cycle tests, class tests, CAT classes, seminars, assignments … Entertainment - Movies, Serials, Boston Legal, Heroes, NFS, slumber, novels, newspapers, BusinessLine, blogging …

Oh God … I really need to slow down …

Posted in thoughts Tagged: busy, slowdown, time management, work

Sun Club of NITT

Karthik Sankar — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 02:23:35 +0000

And finally, the Sun Club of NITT is formed with 20 enthusiastic students interested in learning and developing open source technologies. The club has been formed with the support of Sun Microsystems. I am presiding over the club as President with Aswin assisting me as Vice President. Prof. N. Ramasubramanian, HOD, Dept. Of CSE is the Faculty Advisor.

“Human knowledge belongs to the world”

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Posted in opensource Tagged: nitt, opensource, sun club

Peace and Prosperity with Ragas – Part IV

Karthik Sankar — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 10:46:05 +0000

[ This series of six posts are excerpts from my Guru, violin maestro (late) Dr. Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan's interview with 'The Hindu'. The therapeutic effect of music has been elucidated ]

AABERI

CHARUKESI

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« Part 3

Posted in music Tagged: aaberi, carnatic, charukesi, music, ragas

Peace and Prosperity with Ragas – Part III

Karthik Sankar — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 17:14:15 +0000

[ This series of six posts are excerpts from my Guru, violin maestro (late) Dr. Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan's interview with 'The Hindu'. The therapeutic effect of music has been elucidated ]

KALYANI

KARAHARAPRIYA

[Read More] »

« Part II

Posted in music Tagged: carnatic, kalyani, karaharapriya, music, ragas

what’s in a name ??

Karthik Sankar — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:25:31 +0000

Karthik being my name, I have often wondered what is in my name? It is a name that is very common and is also the name of Lord Muruga. But were they the reasons why my parents christened me Karthik? Or was there any other significance to my name? I asked my dad.

SANKAR – my dad’s name.
SHANTHI – my mom’s name.

The last three letters from both names, when concatenated, gives KARTHI. And thus my name was formed…a part of both my parents’ name!!! I own the last ‘K’ though, and hence own the name KARTHIK.

Nice concept na ?? Probably I must pass on the legacy too…

Posted in trivialties Tagged: karthik, name