githin

Number of pages in the latest edition of the TIME Magazine - 115
Number of pages in the latest edition of the TIME Magazine containing ads about medicines - 23

That is - 20% of the pages of the TIME Magazine talks about medicines. The pharmaceutical companies must be spending a lot of money to get these ads out.

I have not had any medicine for the past 25 months. I had antibiotics in Sept 2007 because I had the Chikungunya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chikungunya). I do not take flu shots (Even the swine flu shots). I do not take medicines unless it is absolutely necessary.

Oral History of Dr. Lathrop, Professor Emeritus at Clemson's ECE department.

http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Oral-History:Jay_Lathrop

http://softwarefreedomday.org/gallery/2006/india/kerala/college_of_engg_chengannur

This is something that happened 3 years ago. It was fun!

http://www.nokiausa.com/find-products/phones/nokiae71x#/main/landing

I got this phone 4 months back. AT&T sells this phone in USA. Cost $0 - $350 (Depending on offers from AT&T or wirefly, letstalk etc)

Solid metal case, slim and sturdy mechanical design. Good keyboard, wifi works great. Looks great.


Problems I know -

Some software designed for Nokia E71 does not work on the E71x.

The audio jack is a 2.5mm one. I did not like that. Plus, with standard 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapters, only one channel works. The normal 2.5mm to 3.5mm stereo adapters will not work! I will post the one that works if I find it!

EDIT: I found it at Radio Shack #2740004, priced at $10. (See a pic http://picasaweb.google.com/githin/DropBox?authkey=Gv1sRgCOa2pu_DqLbZmgE&pli=1#5409662756939014306)

This adapter works - I hear sound on both L and R channels with a 3.5mm earphone. However, the mic will not work on the iTouch headset. I guess the connector is only for STEREO, not for the mic.


If you use this phone's WIFI connection with an AT&T internet connection (a hotspot or even at your own home), AT&T might charge you on the pay per KB for internet usage. This applies to people without the data plan. I have two friends who have this issue.

Keeping a wifi connection alive or just running any application that uses the WIFI will drain the battery in 5-8 hours.

AT&T also has limitations regarding ring tones etc. (I don't care about this!)


Overall: Good phone. Sturdy, reliable. Good for busy people!

Electrical Engineering answers an important question.

http://www.ieee.org/portal/site/ieeetv/index.jsp?pageID=ieee.tv.viewer&path=membport/ieee_tv&file=RADER.xml&vid=118947&play=true

Places I have visited - incomplete list!


In India - (Outside my home state Kerala)

North India - Delhi, Agra, Manali, Shimla, Kullu, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Wagah Border

South India - Goa, Chennai, Bangalore, Mysore, Pune, Velankanni, Ooty, Sivakasi, Pondicherry, Hokkanakkal, Kodaikanal, Kanyakumari


In Kerala, India - God's own country
Munnar, Palakkad - Silent Valley , Thekkady - Periyar National Park, Boothathankettu, Ponmudi, Kodanad, Alappuzha - Beaches, Bolghatty, Wayanad, Idduki, Thiruvanathapuram, Kochi, Thrissur, Guruvayoor, Kottayam, Thiruvalla, Kumarakom, Edappal, Palaruvi


In USA
Illinois - Chicago, West Lafayette
Florida - Orlando, Daytona
North Carolina - Charlotte
South Carolina - Anderson, Seneca, Clemson
Georgia - Helen, Atlanta


In Sri Lanka
Negombo

The science we know today is very limited. We do lot of quantitative stuff, lot of equations, graphs, blah blah... But we don't find truth! In my opinion, education should be directed towards truth. And the ultimate truth is God Himself. So, have a look at what you are studying and see if there is anyway to reach the ultimate truth.

Sciences are getting too specialized and most people study some bit of thing from here and there and pass exams and get a degree. Today's education is "job oriented" while the education which was practiced centuries ago was "knowledge oriented".

In India there were Ashrams where parents sent their children. They would grow under a "sage" - who is a highly learned person. He would teach them about life in general. I don't think they would have things like "recite all the alphabets" or "derive the escape velocity for a body on earth" etc. They used to learn - how to live, how to be a good person in life. They had excellent examples to learn from.

Today's education system is more like a "product". And students end up getting a wrong idea of "education". After a few generations, most people will stop understanding what real education is. Home schooling should be more popularized and the parents can show the child the wonderful nature around them. There are so many things one can learn from nature.

I was lucky enough to have discussions about these kind of issues with many people. Most recently, I got to know Dr. Murray S. Daw who is a Professor at Clemson University. We talked about various issues like this. He recommended a wonderful book to me - The Science Before Science: A Guide to Thinking in the 21st Century - "http://www.iapweb.org/science_before_science.html" Its a pretty complex book. I have spent hours reading a few pages!

This is my first summer in America. I like the American summer, its not very hot and sweaty. It makes me feel energetic and makes me feel like doing lots of outdoor activities. I have started to follow a good schedule for exercising and being at lab. I don't sit after 5 pm in the lab and I end up jogging or going to the gym everyday. That is pretty great.

And I am eating good breakfast, lunch and dinner. I actually take about an hour to pack/eat everyday. So that should be a pretty good diet.

I went on a few cycling trips on my ATB. Plan to do a few more before the fall semester starts. I did a camping trip at Jocassee lake with some of my friends and a boating and tubing (thats a new thing I found here)!

I have got an office finally - its at Riggs 11 in the basement. I am at the Micro Electronics Characterization Lab. Got some cool equipments in here. I am taking Bowling classes and a Six Sigma Quality course.

Don't know how long I will be able to follow a good time table. Once the fall semester starts, I will be running for classes and assignments and what not! Hope I can follow my schedule in a mini-way!

Finally my first SPring semester at Clemson ended today. All my exams, assignments, projects are over today. It was a pretty interesting time. It was fun adjusting to the things here - the life style, climate, customs, food, places... Lots of things. Virtually everything except that I am using the same laptop with the same OS and my wrist watch is the same and my shoes are the same.

I still have to think before navigating to a menu on my Motorazr Vm3. On my Nokia phones back home, I knew most things so well, I can do things blindfolded or using the shortcut codes. But, I don't use my phone much - I take it out of my bag to charge the battery more than I take it out to call.

And, everything is going pretty nice. I miss home made food a lot. Most things here are kind of sweet or tastes like "barbeque". I eat to live - I don't find anything very very tasty etc. So, my food intake has kind of reduced. Back home, I cannot resist lots of things. That effect is not there in USA.

Then another big difference is that I am drinking beer out of the 355 ml bottles or mugs rather than the 750 ml ones!

This semester was a decent one, I had 4 courses, all were pretty interesting. Nothing too boring or demotivating. I don't like when its cold - I hate wearing all those jackets and stuffs. Now, its summer - the climate is perfect. Warm afternoons and cool mornings. After a few days its going to get really hot here - I keep hearing this a lot!

In summer, I will be working as a Research Assistant. I will be working with semiconductor based capacitors. My research will be mostly on Dielectric Leakage Mechanisms. That should keep me occupied the rest of the time I am at Clemson.

I just got the old Richard Feynman's Lectures on Physics Vol III. It starts from quantum physics. The first time I found these books were when my mummy got one of these from her College Library. Then when I reached college, I found it in my College Library. When I was working as a Lecturer, again I found it in the college library. And now here too. That book is really a Classic.I guess everyone who wants to be a scientist in physics/engineering must read it.

So my summer break starts today - just technically a break. But I will be working -at least sometime. Rest of the time, I will be reading physics and philosophy and then exploring new places and probably fishing.

Its nice to feel the "I don't have to wake up tomorrow and go to class" thing. Not for too long anyway...

I was determined to find out the shortest distance to the Electrical and Computer Engineering department which is in Riggs hall. There are two starting points - the Downtown and the Sikes Hall. I counted the number of steps we need to reach Riggs Hall's North facing door.

This is how I counted: For every step on a relatively flat surface, I would increment the number of steps by one and if the surface is kind of an uphill slope or if I am climbing stairs - I increment the number of steps by two. For downward slopes, I increment the steps only by 1/2. And, since I am counting both the ways and I don't have to establish any "standard" for the experiment, (because the research is individual and not funded by any agency), I can do things pretty much conveniently and in a less cumbersome fashion.

So, the results are as follows:

Sikes hall to Riggs hall: 556 steps = A
Downtown CAT bus stop to Riggs hall: 867 steps = B*

* I had seen a bird lying on the ground and I took ten or fifteen steps to have a look at it. But, it really does not matter because there is a good difference between A and B.

Other factors you have to consider is that, it takes for the CAT bus about two mintues to reach fro the downtown to the Sikes hall - there are two traffic lights between the two starting points. And, while walking from Sikes hall, you have an option to quickly print some class notes if it is urgent. This facility is not available when we walk from Downtown. [Don't argue about the printers in Riggs, they are slow and computers are OFF]. And, if you get down at Sikes hall, you don't have to cross any city roads.

So, I conclude that getting down at Sikes hall is better - unless you want to avoid walking with someone who gets down at Sikes or if you want to walk quietly or peacefully.


Easier methods of doing this experiment:

1. Look up an online satellite map and find the distances on some scale.
2. Consult people who have been coming to Riggs hall since long from the downtown.
3. Hi - Tech methods include using SONAR, GPS systems etc.

By the way, this is location of Riggs Hall - +34° 40' 37.33", -82° 50' 16.13"

:-)

So, I am again at the IC Design Lab in the Riggs hall trying to complete my assignment which is due in two days. Hope I make some serious progress today.

This is actually a sort of continuation to the previous post. I just want to describe things here. I just finished one question of my assignment and I thought I will do something else before going on the next question. Its a saturday and its seven in the evening. Still, these poor grad students are doing their assignments and things. Its kind of not possible to manage everything - like academics, sports, social life, health, general awareness etc... Somethings really suffer when somethings are boosted up. Most scientists have a poor social life - social life as in going around meeting lots of people, fooling around with them etc. Whether the scientist feels happy sitting alone - or with his research mate is a different issue. I don't feel any significant decrease in my happiness if I don't run in to a pub every friday. I am not used to it like most people around here. So, thats about things like that.

And, I am in the Library working on my assignment which involves Matlab simulations of semiconductor devices and drawing conclusions from them and things like that. For an undergrad, if an assignment is "Plot V-I curves for a MOSFET and various gate voltages", for a grad student, it will be "Plot V-I curves for a MOSFET and various gate voltages and draw conclusions. Do you really get what you see? Why? Why not? How can you account for the differences? What causes the differences? Can you predict a new model? :-) "

This is how things go. Anyway, I am happy I could do one question. it was pretty silly, but for a whole day, I was getting mistakes because I didn't use a parenthesis in the equation and I was not in a very academic mood this week end. So, each time I will run Matlab and find that the output is not what I wanted and I would just wander around in the Library or would eat something, or would play some online games or solve puzzles... And it went on till today when I decided that I should end this thing today. And thats over.

I gave my first exam which was pretty easy, since you don't have to remember any formulas, its a pretty easy business. And, before the exam, the professor distributed candies to all students - because it was Valentine's day.

And, for the ending part... "I will keep my Journal more updated from now :-) "

Thats what I am doing right now at Clemson University, South Carolina. Its a beautiful and calm place. But, I have too much of work to go around the place. I am just getting used to this. So, sometime later, I will plan trips with my friends.

I am doing four courses this semester. They are Advanced Physics of Semiconductors with Dr. Rod Harrell, IC Design with Dr. Poole Kelvin, Experimental Statistics with Dr. Rieck and a Special Problems paper with Dr. Rajendra Singh. We deal mainly with solar energy systems in the special problems and we are prototyping new smart - efficient systems (this is vague because we are working on it!, I might want to take a patent for this)

Compared to the Indian education system, this is really hectic because you can't just do everything in the study holidays because the assignments are really demanding and you have to do them induvidually. So, there is no option other than brushing up atleast once in a week.

We are allowed to take an "information sheet" which will be an A4 sheet with all the contents we need to remember for the exam. Since, I have not had an exam till now, I don't want to talk about it. Today, I have my first exam.

The library is great, I got a locker there where I keep my books and my recreation centre clothes. I study mostly in the library as of now, I don't feel like studying in my apartment. I still have not studied the layout of the library properly and I have to go rounds and rounds to find my locker or the place where I like to study etc. The services are also nice. The only time they close is from Sunday 22:00 to Monday 5:00.

The rest will come in the next part as I have a class at 9 today.

The wait is finally over. I got my F1 visa and I am leaving India for a short while. The interview for the visa took about 3 hours out of which I had to talk only for 2 minutes. The other 2 hours and 58 minutes I was just sitting on a chair or standing in a queue. I guess it should be more streamlined. Except this long wait, everything for the visa interview was fine.

All this visa consultancy and crap is just useless. If you have some sense, you can do all the stuff yourself. There is no use visiting any consultancy service. Its up to you.

My high cholestrol levels makes me get up at 5 every morning and jog. I can't eat so many things i loved to. Its so sad i got this thing. I have to get rid of it soon. In a month it will happen. It must happen :-(((

Its so hard to resist good food. I have not learnt that trick.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Valley_National_Park

Memories of a trip to Silent Valley National Park.

People invloved: Anurag, JK, VC and me.
Duration: 2 days

We left Kochi by Kerala Express and halted at Palakkad for the night. In the morning, we left for Mannarkad. Buses are plenty between Mannarkad and Pallakad. From Mannarkad, we took another bus to Mukali. The ride was a very enjoyable one. The route was very circuitous. The place was very beautiful. It was much cooler than kochi.

We reached Mukali by 9 and then from there we met the Forest officers and made sure our booking was there. We were also alloted a room and then we just walked around the place till 11. Its a very silent place, you can hear the river flowing nearby and the sound of the birds. By 12, we took a jeep and reached Silent valley. Its about 20 kms from Mukali. On the way, we saw deers and the monkeys (there are many varieties of them, check the wikipedia for details). We also saw a green flying snake lying on the road. We stopped and took photos also. There were also a place where butterflies would almost fly around you making it hard to see. I guess they are called Blue Tiger.

We climed up the tower like everyone, visited the museum and then took a bath in the Kunthipuzha. It was very cold. People were shivering, but it was very enjoyable. From there, we walked back to our jeep. We were really tired by the time we got back. We reached Mukali back by 6 and then again roamed around the place, went to small hotels on the roadside etc. By 9 we got back to our rooms and then sat on the terrace watching the river and clouds till 11.

Next day morning, I woke up at 6.30 (This is the time I usually get up so that I don't miss my college bus) and woke up everyone else. By 7, we were all trying to cross Bhavani puzha, I guess the water was at around 15 degrees Celcius. The current was also high, its hard to stand if the water is deeper than one's wasit. You will feel such a large force on your body and the river bed is so un-flat, its very easy to fall. But, the cold water is what I hated the most.

After a few attempts on different routes, we finally put ourselves and Anurag's camera on the other side. We then took a short walk on the other side (short, because, we were afraid, there were spiders and bees and we were wearing only shorts and we heard about some plants which can burn your skin etc). By 9, we were in the water holding on to some rock. You can actually feel like flying if you try to hold a rock and let yourself free.

Then, we got permission to visit a place called Keeripaara. Its pretty risky. We walked on the way and found a wild elephant. We quickly took some snaps and ran back. We reached about 100 m near that big beast. This is the first time I am seeing a wild elephant so close. Its huge and dangerous.

After that, we could not continue on that way. So, we had to turn back and got back in to our rooms by 1. We quickly got out and took the next bus back home.

Next time, I would like to go more inside the forest. It needs permission from the DFO I guess.

We had a good time anyway. Looking forward for more trips like this and more dangerous ones.

I have got an admit to Clemson University's ECE Dept. for Microelectronics. I plan to start by Jan 2008. Other than that, I am just reading some books on Solid State Devices and VLSI. Living happily with the little salary I am offered.

And, I am planning a trip with friends to Silent Valley, about 200 kms from home. Looking forward for it.

I had been down with fever and then I got joint pains and it has seriously interrupted my joggig culture. I can only walk to the beach now and I have to take a bus while coming back. My WBC count is low says the doc, it wil be repaired by nature soon.

Finally I am getting some time these days to prepare for the Amateur Radio Exam. Its called ASOC Exam in India. I hear it will be conducted soon. If anyone is interested do contact me.